Underground at the "Daily Planet"

Metropolis

April 28

9:00: Got up ... got stoned ... got to work a half hour late (one of those really-into-my-cornflakes mornings). Perry White right away doing a number on my eardrums, "People dying ... obituaries to be written and you home sleeping ... get to work...." And I'm thinking, dreaming, you old bastard, not sleeping. Dreaming of the day I get my ass out of the Daily Planet, away from you and your creep staff. The day I'll be liberated along with all my working brothers, the day the power will belong to the people in Metropolis. Up the revolution!

Four years, man. Four in-fucking-credible years writing obits for this right-wing rag. Cook my brains out. I mean, I wasn't always a radical; I didn't always have to do my head before coming in here in the morning. I used to be a nice kid. When I came here all I wanted to be was a star: James Olsen--"star cub reporter." The whole middle-class ambition trip. But they beat you down, stand on your face--four years writing about corpses, four years rewriting Clark Kent's illiterate copy, watching that horny bitch Lois Lane paw at him. What a bummer! But, I ain't gonna be leadin' no revolution, 'cause I work with Clark Kent: Superman, baby--a very brutal cat. Like, the ultimate fascist. And if I let my hair wig out a little, or if he found out I was turning on, he'd flick my head off with his ring finger. So I am like definitely underground around here. Just waiting, a little paranoid, trying to cool it.

• • •

10:30: Kent swaggers in--hung-over (he's on a heavy booze trip).... Walks down the row of desks, winking at the girls (calls them tomatoes--how cool is that?), gets to my desk and says, "Morning, Jimmy boy." I ask him--for like the 500th time--would he please stop calling me Jimmy, because my name is James and I do have some expectations as a writer and, after I write my first novel, I don't want people going around saying something like did you read War and Peace, by Jimmy Olsen? And he comes on with the same old routine: bends over my desk, flexing his muscles through his Robert Halls, and says, so all the chicks can hear, "You want to Indian wrestle, Jimmy boy?" Man, am I tired of that shit. I mean, everybody around here knows he's Superman--you can see that shitty red S thing through his cheap white shirts--and still he's always laying out that machismo number. (Everybody knows he's Superman, that is, except Perry White--who thinks he's Superman's friend--and Lois Lane, who's like cosmic dumb.) Then, before he leaves my desk, he reaches over, grabs my stapler and squeezes it till it fuses into something that looks like a ball bearing, and I just smile and look impressed, 'cause it takes a real man to do that, right? (Someday I'm gonna slip him a little Kryptonite sandwich and kick his fat ass.)

• • •

10:40: White comes out of his office screaming like the capitalist pig he is that there's a fire at the Metropolis garment factory, that (concluded on page 230)Underground(continued from page 171) arson is suspected and if Kent doesn't get over there and cover it, the Planet will get scooped and lose circulation. "And for God's sake," he screams, "at least bring back some notes this time, so Olsen can write the story. Just make some little marks in the notebook I gave you--anything." Kent's all turned on (he digs fires), calls White "Chief" on the way out, gives the girls in the office a big OK sign, says, "This is a job for you-know-who," and then leaves by the tenth-floor window. Some cats are always on.

• • •

11:00: Sitting here humming Street Fighting Man, waiting for someone interesting to die so I'll have something to write and playing around with Kent's death notice, which is an up trip.

• • •

11:30: Lois Lane makes an entrance--outa sight: little pillbox hat, A-line skirt, Dr. Scholl pumps, snapping her Juicy Fruit--and says, "Is Clark here?" in that singsong fuck-me voice of hers.

"No. He's at a fire."

"Ooooh noooo. Where? I'd better get over there. He may need help."

And I'm thinking: Sure, you want to help him. Guy with a bod like that, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and you don't want to get a little, you want to help him. Sure. Uptight Virgo chick. Ugh!

"It's at the Metropolis garment factory. He said to meet him in the panties warehouse."

"Oh Jimmy, you're naughty. Did he really say that?" and her juices are like really going.

"Yeah, he said he wanted you to 'help' him."

She splits and White comes out of his office and screams, "Great Caesar's ghost, Olsen, will you write some obituaries, or you're fired!"

So I turn and start typing furiously, "Julius Caesar got himself ripped off in the forum today because he was a goddamn fascist pig; but his ghost walks!"

• • •

Noon: Into the janitor's closet. Got stoned. Dug the big mops.

• • •

2:30: Kent comes in doing his Charles Atlas thing, stops at Margie's desk, does his X-ray-vision number on her tits, mangles her desk lamp with two fingers, then leans down and makes the sound of a speeding bullet in her ear, and she says, "Oooooo, Mr. Kent ..." and he says, "Later for you, baby, and hubba-hubba." And I'm thinking how glad I am to be zonked.

He comes over to me and I ask, "Did L. L. find you?"

And he says, "That tomato's a crazy kid. And I don't like crazy people. I was standing there at the fire, watching those pretty flames, and I heard this screaming. I entered fearlessly and found her rooting around the warehouse amid a million flaming panties, yelling, 'I'm here, Clark, come and get me.' Of course, I saved her. I bashed down the walls, walked through fire, held up the burning roof and the whole time she's yelling, 'I want to help you. Oh, God, I want to help you.' And she's trying to pull me down onto the floor. It was a very nasty scene. There's a place for the sex stuff, but that tomato belongs in a hospital."

Perry White, out of his cubicle, excited as hell: "Was Superman at the fire?"

"You bet," says Kent.

"Well, what the hell happened?"

"He saved Lois Lane and caught the arsonists for God and country."

"What did he do to them?" and the s/m in White begins to show.

"What any man would do: He slapped them around a little and then made them apologize."

Little beads of perspiration are beginning to form on White's forehead now:

"Did he make them run around in front of the crowd in their underwear?"

"No. I know you like it, but that stuff is getting tiresome."

"Well, I hope to God you at least got a picture of Superman with the crooks in front of the American flag."

"Do you have to ask, Chief?" says Kent.

"All right, give your notes to Olsen so he can get the story written."

And Kent drops his grungy little notebook on my desk and says, "Make it sound like Hemingway and I'll do you a favor sometime, kid."

And then White yells: "And Olsen, make sure you get that line about 'Truth, Justice and the American Way of Life' in there this time."

And I'm thinking to myself, the American way of life, maybe, but Truth and Justice? Never. Up against the wall, Supermother!