The Colt 45 Chronicle #62

As Captain American: The Winter Soldier debuts this weekend, shattering the box-office record for the month of April, by luck of the draw the letter selected is my recitation of the Joe Simon and Jack Kirby origin of Captain America. (I clearly took it to heart.)

The Quinn referred to below is Arthur Quinn, our -- mine and my friend Mark's -- distinguished professor in the Rhetoric Department.

Previously, I said that I recall very little of these letters, written as they were more than a quarter-century ago. But I do remember one line -- at least a portion of it -- from this one: "Icarus drops twenty-two floors into Hudson blows right through concrete." -- My wife and I lived on the 22nd floor in a university high-rise apartment building next to the Henry Hudson Parkway and the Hudson River.

Autumn 1988

I thank you, Mark, for thinking of me and sending along letters for me to read. I always enjoy them. -- Looking that rat right in the eyes, and it turns out to be Quinn, and Quinn turns out to be us. Oh, shit. But I got the sun out here, after all. -- The sun is bright in the morning; it's mostly white, in the middle, and then a glaring gold, and then apple-red on the edges; it's a stadium-light sun, and it strings up the curved Harlem earth from my pre-work window. Icarus drops twenty-two floors into Hudson blows right through concrete. The subway awaits me with moist urine hands. And I try to get there fast because it's warm there. As I speed, I pass guys on their way to the site, guys who I used to be, guys with boots stained with gypsum dust. And I look at them, hitting 'em in the face with my eyes, and they don't even see me. They're thinking about the shit, all the shit, they have to deal with during the day. And I wish I were them . . . I lurch off unnoticed.

Steve Rogers was a potato-peeling frailty before being injected and electrified into Captain America. He sat in that movie house crucifying himself on the silver screen; 98 lbs. and a head of blond straw. He wanted to serve, to fight and die -- walk the stars. One day, the authorities behind Uncle Sam saw this, and they took skinny Steve aside, out the underwear line of Middletown, Kansas. They offered him his chance, risks and all, and he took it. He killed a Nazi within seconds. Shit -- and I mean this -- I think we're all ready to be Captain America. I'm ready for the transformation -- out of idolatry and into action, from milksop to worldbreaker. We get our chances every fucking day, and every day we let them tweet on by. Pretty soon I'm taking mine.