No, I'm Going To Be Spider-Man!

I’m gonna try something different here because of the time constraints (I want to get this in before Halloween), so excuse how informal everything sounds. I was really on the fence about whether to make this a proper deviation or just a journal post. Since this story is entirely non-fiction and the narrator is 100% true-to-life me, I’m just not going to bother picking up my fancy purple quill.

So, I was browsing around my favorite literature group here on dA, Nurturing-Narratives, founded by (the very talented) WriteRelease, trying to give much needed attention to some submissions that had no comments, and I came across a little story called “Tales of a Daycare Teacher #1” written by (the just as talented) LunaNitor.

As the title suggests, LunaNitor was a daycare teacher for some time and she had some very interesting stories to tell. I commented on the cute little story, saying that I too had worked in the same field and had seen some very interesting things while working with children. She replied, saying she would like to hear some of my stories, and that’s what really lit the spark. I’d been bouncing around ideas for a Halloween themed short story all month, and nothing good had come up until this.

So without further ado, here’s the story of a cute little girl who showed me the true meaning of fandom.

/ / / / / / / / /

A few years ago, I had a job at a preschool. It was a very cool place to work, and I loved almost every minute of it. I like to tell people I got paid to play with Legos all day, which wasn’t a far stretch from the truth.

The preschool was part of my university’s Early Childhood Education program, so most of the people that worked there were tied to the university in some way. The children were usually the sons and daughters of the university’s instructors, professors, doctors, deans, and students. The administration was comprised of directors and top brass of the School of Education, and the teachers and faculty were all on the university payroll, technically professors to the countless student teachers working on their Masters’ degrees there. To round it all out, the teachers’ aides and assistants were all undergraduate students from the university looking for some part-time work-study experience. That’s what I was, low notch on the totem pole.

The preschool had a notorious reputation at my university among the work-study options. It paid the most out of all the work-study programs in the school, ten dollars an hour as opposed to the bare minimum of eight-fifty everywhere else, but there was a reason for that. Every new school year, the preschool would get almost fifty new applicants for the teacher’s aide positions (I once heard the highest was in the eighties), and they hired almost every single one. But by the end of the first month, most of the aides would quit, leaving as few as only ten people who stayed on.

Why? Simply because working with kids was really hard. You had to constantly deal with dirty diapers, shit, piss, drool, snot, vomit, and yes, even blood. Also spilled food, drinks, and paints. You were constantly cleaning up toys and even cleaning up the kids themselves. You had the stress of kids that cried all the time, kids that wouldn’t listen to your instructions, kids that punched, kicked and even bit you, kids that truly had appetites for destruction and chaos, and seemed like they were spawned in a hellish festering pit of discord, mayhem, and anarchy. Most twenty-somethings looking to party and coast their way through college didn’t have the patience to deal with all that, despite the extra pay.

They didn’t tell us that kids can smell fear. They can sense your distress. If they see that you are timid and soft-spoken, they will walk all over you and not listen to a word you say. So you gotta earn their respect. Show them who’s boss, but at the same time show them you’re their friend and it’s your job to protect and care for them. After that, they warm up to you and become your friend.

So underneath the hard and crusty exterior of that line of work, was a soft and sweet center that more than made up for all the hardship, a silver lining that not too many people stuck around to see. After you were tried in the crucible of snot and vomit, piss and shit, you graduated to what basically is (in my opinion) the most fun job ever.

I guess hard and crusty on the outside, and soft and sweet on the inside was the way you can describe me, so I was perfect for the job. I’m a big dark-skinned dude with a beard and a resting jerk-face. I’m a very quiet person, but by no means timid or shy. Yes, I’m a loner, but my introversion is out of preference, choice. I have social skills, but I don’t like to use them with just anyone. You gotta earn it with me. The kids saw that I wasn’t going to take their bullshit, and they listened to me and didn’t cause any trouble. Eventually, they saw that once you earn my respect, I’ll open up to you. Pretty soon they realized that I could be playful and funny when it was time to relax and play, which was most of the time.

The university’s preschool was also a daycare, so we had babies from as young as six weeks old to kids as old as five years, all divided by classrooms. Through some seniority, I was able to pick the classroom I wanted to work in. I picked the oldest and most advanced class in the preschool, which was mostly four and five year olds.

They were my favorite age group because they were really kids at that point, not toddlers. If you have something in common, you could hold a decent fifteen minute conversation with a four year old, something that just wasn’t possible with a younger kid. Most three year olds could speak well, but they didn’t have the communication skills or the attention span to hold a decent conversation.

You can talk to a four year old about their lives, what they like to do for fun, their favorite book, their favorite food, their favorite TV show. I found that being able to talk to and relate to these kids really helped establish a relationship and made my job all the more fun and only that much easier.

And that lays the groundwork for my story. Now the comes the good part.

/ / / / / / / / /

The preschool was a harem. Most of the time, I was the only guy in the classroom. Sometimes, (I’m not even kidding) I’d be the only male on the clock in the entire campus. The women I worked with were all early twenty-somethings in the height of their college years, so when things were slow in the classroom, they would routinely chat with each other about whatever exciting thing was going on in their lives. They would always try to include me in the conversation, thinking that my quietness was a sign of being timid and awkward around women.

That wasn’t the case. I just had nothing in common with them. I’m a guy that lives a very... alternative lifestyle. I don’t like pop or club music, I don’t go out clubbing or bar hopping every weekend, and I don’t really pay attention to mainstream popular culture and current trends. I don’t want to use the term derogatorily, but I worked with some very “basic” chicks. Most of the girls at my college are.

I listen to death metal, I use my weekends to go to LAN parties and concerts with mosh-pits rather than dancefloors, and the only subcultures I really subscribe to are metal, PC gaming, and (you shall see soon) comics. I was/am a true nerd. And proud.

So my coworkers were talking about the Electric Daisy Carnival that happened the previous weekend. It was basically a big outdoor festival of pop and electronic dance music held every year. Where I live, Electric Daisy is the highlight of the year for people in their twenties. My city (which shall not be named) has one of the biggest club and EDM scenes in the States, nearly everyone my age would attend that festival. It was the epitome of hedonism. Three days of nonstop alcohol, drugs (optional), sex, and EDM. Totally not my thing.

“So, Rhoder, did you go to Electric Daisy last weekend?” one of my coworkers said. Their conversation had come to a lull, and I guess the girl wanted to keep talking to pass the time.

At the moment I was fidgeting with some Legos, what I usually did when things were slow and I had no other work to do. “No,” I said, not looking up from the little castle I was helping one of the kids build, “It’s not really my thing.”

“So what’d you do last weekend?” she asked.

“Uh, not much,” I said. “Friday I went to a cyber-cafe with my friends (there was a LoL tourney), Saturday I had band practice, Sunday I did just did homework.”

“You’re in a band?” she said, interested.

I sighed. Not your kind of band, I thought to myself. “Yeah, I am. We’re not a big deal,” I said, hoping she’d forget I mentioned it.

“What kind of music do you play?”

“Deathcore,” I said.

“Is that metal?” she asked. Bless her naivete, she was really trying to fish a conversation out of me.

“Yeah, I like metal. Electric Daisy’s not really my thing, I don’t like pop or EDM.”

“So do you go to concerts and stuff?”

“Yeah, occasionally. Not a lot of metal bands come through here.” It was the truth, I could only go to worthwhile metal concerts at most twice a year because metal bands liked to skip my city on their tours.

And then my co-worker started asking me about moshing and circle-pits. I gave her a crash course and explained to her unspoken rules and etiquette of the pit. Eventually, it came to a point where I put up the “horns” sign.

Out of nowhere, I heard, “Spider-Man!”

“Huh?” I asked, looking around for the source of the voice. It was one I didn’t recognize.

“That’s what Spider-Man does to shoot webs.” A little girl stood up from the library section of the room. She made the handsign and pretended to shoot a web at me, even adding the little (and authentic, I might add) sound effect, “Thwip!”

I realized why I didn’t recognize her voice. This girl (we’ll call her May for obvious reasons; not her real name) was a very timid child. May hardly ever talked and always preferred to play on her own, usually in the library or at the art center. She was a very cute little girl: large doe eyes, brown hair with bangs that were always in her face. She would always be wearing a jumper dress of some color/pattern or another (she had tons of that type of dress) and liked to wear the same knee-high suede boots every single day. While she got along smoothly with the other children, her only real friend (and the only other kid she would really talk to) was another girl that only came on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So for more than half the week, May was basically invisible. Sadly, she was often bullied by this one boy, who we’ll call Bruce (you’ll find out why). He would constantly pull her hair and steal her toys, typical stuff.

“You like Spider-Man, May?” I asked her, ignoring the previous conversation I was having with my co-worker. I don’t know if she minded (don’t really care either), we were trained to prioritize conversations with the children rather than with each other.

“Yeah, he’s the best!” she said, weirdly enthusiastically, walking over to me. I say weirdly not because she was overenthusiastic, but because it was odd seeing any sort of enthusiasm from this little girl.

“Have you seen his new movie?” I asked her. This was around the time when the first Amazing Spider-Man was released in theaters.

“Yeah, even all the old ones,” she said.

“Which do you like better?”

“The new one.”

“You really like the new one?” I asked her, “And why is that?”

“Because it looks like the Spider-Man show on TV.”

“Ultimate Spider-Man?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I love that show,” I said. Not a lie. At the time I was 21, but I was still very immature. Still am, actually. I would watch cartoons all the time, mostly on Netflix. Pokemon, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Total Drama, Ben 10, Fairly Oddparents, Danny Phantom... even My Little Pony and Power Rangers. And I am a huge Pixar Studios fan. I watch the stuff mostly as background noise and visual distraction while I practice guitar (which can get very repetitive, so I highly recommend watching TV to anyone practicing an instrument to make the time go quicker). Watching those shows gave me more to talk to the kids about than the average assistant.

At this point, the head teacher noticed how much May was talking, and was really impressed. Some kids at the preschool had a thing called an Individualized Education Plan, which meant the head teacher would focus on something a certain child needed help in, be it letters and numbers, creativity, gross and fine motor skills, even social skills. May obviously had problems with communication, so the head teacher encouraged me to do what I could to keep her talking.

So over the next few months, lil’ May and I bonded. Mostly over our love of Spider-Man and Marvel, but I also got her to try other things, like playing with blocks and other toys, even getting her more active and participating during outdoor play (taught her how to throw a football, farthest of any kid in the school, twas awesome XD). But still the foundation that our friendship stood upon was Spider-Man.

I remember a few times I would lead circle time when the head teacher was away for some reason. To kill time and get all the kids participating, I would play a sort of Pictionary game. I would draw the face of a superhero on the marker board, and the kids would have to guess who it was. Of course, May would speak up every time Spider-Man or anyone in his rogues gallery would come up, which was really saying something because group time was when she was the quietest.

Part of my job at the preschool was to also go the extra mile and encourage the kids to read books and such. The preschool was given a grant by the American Reads Foundation every year, which is what gave us work-study aides that extra two dollars pay an hour. Every week, we had to read a certain amount of books to the kids, or do an activity that encouraged kids to read.

My frequent go-to project was reading comic books with May. I was a teenager in the ‘00s, which meant that most of the comics I read growing up were in the Ultimate Marvel imprint (but I also read Batman, Buffy: Season 8, Ghost Rider, Hellboy, Hellblazer, Locke and Key... and tons and tons of manga... but enough name-dropping from me, I shall continue...).

So, I loved Ultimate Marvel and everything they put out: Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates (nee Avengers), and of course Ultimate Spider-Man, which was a little different from the show it inspired. I wasn’t technically allowed to do it, because they weren’t kids’ books, but it got May reading so the head teacher let me read those comics with her as long as I glossed over the more mature and violent parts. Her mother was also one of my professors, so I sorta had some verbal approval. We primarily read Spider-Man, of course, but she also liked Fantastic Four quite a bit. Eventually, I introduced her to the awesomeness of Spider-Girl’s series, and whatever I could find of Spider-Woman.

/ / / / / / / / /

So fast-forward a few months, and Halloween was rolling around. At the preschool (for whatever reason I still don’t understand today), we called it the “Harvest Festival” for political correctness; and furthermore, the kids weren’t allowed to wear their costumes to school during the day (bullshit, right? Stupid rules). They had to save them for the after-school party because the head teachers thought they were too distracting to the learning process.

As usual, the topic of conversation during that time inevitably comes around to what costumes were gonna be. We started talking about this at large group time after reading our daily story.

So the kids go around the group, saying what they’re planning to be on Halloween, and we finally arrive at May.

“So, what are you going to be for the Harvest Festival, May?” I ask her.

May, who usually is very quiet during large group time, sits up and proudly says, “I’m going to be Spider-Man.”

“Sweet!” I said, not really surprised. I reached over and gave her a high-five. (By the way, I taught her how to high-five and to fist-bump, which I thought was an atrocity. What parent doesn’t teach their child how to high-five?!)

At this point, most of the kids and the other adults in the class knew of May’s and my love of Spider-Man. A few times she had come up to help me read a comic book in front of the class, and most of her show-n-tells were of her various Spider-Man toys (imagine a girly girl playing with action figures, the novelty of it, lol). On the several pajama days we had during the year, she would wear the cutest Spider-Man jammies, of which she owned more than one set. During art and other creative activities, she would also frequently draw Spider-Girl and Spider-Woman along with Spider-Man. So yeah, the kids and teachers knew of Spider-Girl and Spider-Woman at this point.

“Don’t you mean Spider-Girl?” asked one of her classmates.

“No, I’m going to be Spider-Man,” May said.

“What about Spider-Woman?” the head teacher asked.

“No. I’m going to be Spider-Man,” May insisted with emphasis.

“But you’re a girl,” said Bruce, the kid that would always pick on her.

And May said, “So?” Jesus F. Christ, the way she said it, you should have been there. I was so fucking proud.

So we moved on to asking the other kids what they were going to be for Halloween, and as usual, every girl in the class, except May, was going to be a Disney princess. (Not even kidding, wish I was actually. A bunch of generic princesses was bad enough, but branded ones? Ugh.)

/ / / / / / / / /

So fast-forward to the Harvest Festival (nee Halloween). Most of the kids and the parents ignore the embargo on costumes during the day, and honestly the faculty doesn’t do much to enforce it, especially if a kid doesn’t have spare clothes to change into.

May walks in dressed as, you guessed it, Spider-Man.

But not only that, it was the Spider-Man costume with the muscles on it. You know what I’m talking about, the ones with the top packed with stuffing or whatever to make the little kid appear like they’ve been breastfed by a gorilla and been pumping iron 24/7 at the gym since before they could even crawl. Yeah, that costume.

So you got this sweet, timid little girl, who normally wears the same stereotypically girly outfit every single fucking day (a jumper and knee-high boots, if you recall), coming in looking like a midget on steroids.

Jaws dropped. Children and adults alike laughed. But little May did not give a single fuck.

I couldn’t have been more proud. The first thing she did was run up to me and give me a high-five.

Now, the story’s not really over. Got a little extra for ya.

If you’ve seen or read Ultimate Spider-Man, then you know that the Green Goblin in that universe basically looks like the Incredible Hulk, but with horns and fireballs. Torn up pants, shirtless, and ripped like Dwayne Johnson.

So then comes in Bruce, the kid that used to pick on her, remember? Guess what he was for Halloween. Yep, the Incredible Hulk, with the same type of muscle-stuffed costume as May’s.

"Green Goblin!" May called out when she saw him, and the boy was like, "WTF?"

Now, I didn’t encourage this (cuz I would’ve been fired), but that day, May paid back that kid, with interest.

Okay, not really. She just basically chased him around the playground at recess, throwing nerf footballs at him (like I taught her!). Poor little dude couldn’t catch a break. Every sandcastle he built got bombed, he couldn’t use the swings in peace, and he was always looking over his shoulder. Thankfully, May let up once we got back inside, but he didn’t ever pick on her again.

Anyway, that’s my little Halloween story. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Shout out to LunaNitor for the inspiration. Happy Halloween!