Chicago Wildlife - 1. Changing Into My Work Uniform

Chicago, 8:00PM. The museum will have been closed for a couple of hours by now and a changing of the security guards will be implemented in an hour. Security will be at its weakest, and I’ll be set to steal the Nano Wrimo Diamond. Simple, right? And if there’s anything else within arm’s reach while I’m there …why not? I’m feeling frisky tonight.

“Mrat.”

“Not now, Lokitty. Daddy’s gotta get you a new diamond encrusted litter box.”

“Mrat. Mrat? Mrat!”

Lokitty mashes his face into my left leg and rubs the right half of his body against it as well. He’s already been fed, so I’m taking it that he just wants undivided love and attention (and scratches) from me right now. He always knows the most inopportune times to do this. I bend down and scratch his right cheek.

“I know,” I say in my patented baby voice, “but some of us have to work for a living. Don’t you want fresh cod shipped straight from Alaska?”

Lokitty chooses not to say anything in return, opting instead to just purr loudly from his short victory. He probably knows that anything he says will just get turned around and used against him. I stand up again and gather my things.

“Now I’ll be gone for a few hours. No parties, m’kay? I don’t want to come home to find loose vixens and cocaine strewn everywhere.”

I grab my keys, open the apartment door, and turn back to him.

“Ciao!”

I close the door before he can escape and lock it. Okay, the hardest part is done and over with. Time for the fun part of work to begin.

First stop is the convenience store a couple blocks away from my apartment. I like to think of it as my own personal “phone booth.” The security cameras haven’t worked since 2002 and the cashier is always too stoned out of his mind to seem to notice that Robin Steele always walks in, but never walks out. The store was located just far enough away from my apartment to not look conspicuous, but close enough that I didn’t have to walk too far without my suit on. I also make sure to look everyone I meet on the sidewalk in the eye, smile and nod or say hello, and chat with any regulars I meet along the way. It always helps to have as many people see Robin in the flesh as possible. If they don’t think I’m some loner freak who’s always holed up in my room all the time and never comes out for anything, then it’s less likely that they’ll think that I’m Disappearance. The psychology of it all is that people are less likely to suspect a supervillain as being someone they know, so it benefits me to be acquainted with as many people in my neighborhood as possible. I’m due for another night of bridge with the crones one building over from mine. Lovely ladies. I think they’d help me conceal a diamond in a cherry pie if I asked them nicely.

I make my way to the store and enter. The cashier is, as usual, behind the counter, jamming out to some tunes on his iPad, head bopping and performing what I’m sure he considers an epic air guitar solo. I’m sure you’ll be heading Lollapalooza any day now. I try not to get too close to him. Not emotionally, I mean, but physically. He constantly reeks of weed and quite honestly? It gives me a major headache whenever I’m around him. He’s probably the only “regular” I see that I try to put some distance between us. I don’t even try to make eye contact or smile or say hi to him. Anyway, he doesn’t see me, nor does he see me make a beeline straight to the men’s bathroom.

In there, I unzip part of my backpack and take out my cosmetics. You would not believe how long it takes to put on your hair and makeup! I’ve thought about stealing from those companies that make it look like flawless skin just “snaps on” over your old skin before, but then I thought about it and realized that they don’t have anything worth stealing to begin with. Most of their money is purely imaginary anyway. So, I forgot about it.

Anyway, I’m shaving, putting some color on the important parts of my face (to make it seem like I’m much paler than I really am), some temporary teeth whitener on that I sure hopes isn’t permanently ruining my teeth, pulling my hair into place, stripping my clothes off, and dousing myself with a powerful and popular cologne. The suit itself with have an entirely different, strong smell, and the two smells shall hopefully cancel each other out in the areas where my skin touches the suit. Even if some superhero gets a whiff of the cologne, it’s the most popular one out there. Any of the thousands of Chicagoans wearing it tonight might be behind that suit. What, are you gonna bring them all in?

Just as a security precaution, I don’t don the mask until I’m out of the bathroom and slip through the maintenance door that leads up to the roof of the building. Don’t need any of the cameras to actually catch my going into the bathroom in my civilian identity and popping out full blown supervillain. Once I’m at the roof, then I put the mask on, adhere on the wig, gather all my necessary tools for tonight from the rest of my backpack, and get ready for work.