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Superman’s Fall From Grace
The room is cold and dark. The bed is unmade, the brown soiled sheets bunched atop a battered mattress. A large cockroach ambles up a corner wall. Sitting across from me at what passes for a kitchen table is the man once called “The Man of Steel.” That was long ago. Today, he is an aluminum replica of the legend that stole America’s hearts. The stark chiseled features are sallow and swollen. The azure eyes are cloudy and gray. Even the Krypton torso is bloated from one too many beers. But he’s still Superman. At least to me he is.
When I learned I’d been chosen to interview America’s first superhero, I saw an opportunity to set the record straight. It was time to let Superman tell his side of the story. He’d been out of the spotlight for decades. I had hundreds of questions, all beginning with “Why?” As I sat across from my childhood idol, the questions vanished. I walked in expecting to see a god. The man I saw looked clearly mortal.
He stared out the window at the overcast sky. A light mist was falling. It was not a day for heroes. This man, who’d once saved a falling airplane in front of my eyes, now lived in a run-down skid-row apartment on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles. He wore a dirty undershirt and a pair of torn sweatpants. His face was unshaven and his hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. He held a cigarette in his right hand, an involuntary…
