Spider-Man Is In the House!
There are five people that live in my house. There’s Jane, our daughter Lily, our son Linus, Spider-Man, and me. Now, don’t get me wrong—I love Spider-Man. Always have.
Guess what Linus is going to be for Halloween? Three guesses, first two don’t count. Not only is Linus going to be Spider-Man for Halloween, he’s also going to be Spider-Man every day between now and Halloween. Fortunately, it’s a very cool costume, with fake muscles in the chest, arms and shoulders. He’s totally pumped up in it.
Of course, you can’t just walk around with a Spider-Man costume on and act normal. You’ve got to be Spider-Man. So, he started copping Spider-Man poses he saw in a Marvel Comics book I have. He actually practiced them in the mirror. There’s the one of Spidey low to the ground, spraying his web into the air. There’s the one of Spidey and Venom locked in a mortal duel. Linus practiced this one on me unannounced one night. Unfortunately, in the drawing Linus was imitating Spider-Man is giving Venom a debilitating punch in the gut. Getting hit unawares in the gut by a five-year old, three-foot tall Spider-Man isn’t altogether pleasant. We had a little talk about that, and now he just shoots me (Venom) with his web while popping out from his various hiding places.
Yes, he’s at that age where he’s buying into the super hero fantasy full-bore. He doesn’t actually believe he’s Spider-Man, but I think he does believe that other people might think he’s Spider-Man. He kept telling me how he was going to put the costume on and scare Jane. I tried to tell him that probably wasn’t going to happen. “Why?” he asked, looking a little peeved. “Well, Spider-Man’s not a midget, for one thing. For another, everybody in this house was with you when you got the costume, and we’ve seen you put it on and take it off every day for the last week. We pretty much know it’s you.” Sensing that I had perhaps taken a little too much fun out of the experience, I brightened up. “But you look great. And you’ve got his moves down cold.” He appreciated that, and gave me the double web-shooter in the air pose. A classic.
He then asked, “Do you think the kids at school will think I’m really Spider-Man?”
There are times when being a parent is hard. Yeah, there are big moments that come to mind (discipline, prolonged toilet training, getting punched in the gut, etc.), but I find it’s the smaller moments that cause me to wonder what the right approach is. This was a great example. I mean, it didn’t seem right to blow smoke up his ass and get his hopes up by telling him that, “Yeah, everybody there is going to think you’re the real deal.” Because they aren’t going to think that at all. They just aren’t. And if Linus spends his whole costume day acting as if they do, it’s going to make him look like a doofus. It’s just not healthy to walk around thinking that other people think you are Spider-Man.
But it also didn’t seem right to completely burst the childhood fantasy bubble by saying, “No, it’s all just pretend, for you and the 60 other Spider-Men that will be at your school that day. It’s really only about the candy, and, when you’re older, the petty vandalism.”
So I copped out. I said, “Well, some of them might think you are the real Spider-Man, but only the ones who ride the short bus.” Just kidding, I didn’t say that. I would never make fun of the kids who ride the short bus, and besides, even they wouldn’t believe Linus was really Spider-Man. What I really said was, “Just have fun being Spider-Man. It’s a cool costume.”
That seemed to be enough for him.
He has Spider-Man on the brain in the worst way. Every night, Linus asks me or Jane to tell him a story when we lay down with him. Spider-Man is a favorite theme, but I must say that there are only so many Spider-Man stories one can tell, especially when he demands that Spider-Man must “fight a bad guy” in every story. Not just conquer them, or outsmart them. They have to fight.
Last night, I was inspired by the image of Linus arriving at his school’s Halloween day, only to find an army of other Spider-Man wannabes. I even imagine them in a group photo. This would be somewhat like my 1979 fourth grade Halloween experience, when there were 14 kids dressed up like Gene Simmons of KISS. (Stupid me, I showed up as Peter Criss.) So I told a story of the Green Goblin fleeing from Spider-Man on a Halloween night. The only way he can escape is by running into a costume party. And of course, being New York, the place is full of Spider-Man costumes, and even a few Green Goblin costumes. It’s madness!
Spider-Man runs in, chasing the Goblin, but is taken aback by dozens of Spider-Men and Goblins. How would he find the right Goblin?
Here’s how. One of the fake Spider-Men goes up to the real Goblin and puts a playful headlock on him, thinking he’s a faux Goblin. The real Goblin figures it’s the real Spider-Man, so he grabs him by the scruff of the neck, hurls him across the room and into a banquet table, then throws one of his pumpkin bombs on him for good measure. BAM! The other guests all break out into applause in appreciation of the realism of this display. Talk about going the extra mile! How did that guy in the Spidey suit manage to fake dismemberment like that? They even got the smell of burning flesh right. Yuck!
Of course, the real Spider-Man saw this happen, and knew that only the real Green Goblin could hurl a man across a room like that. Then, Spider-Man surprised the Green Goblin from behind by wrapping him up with his web, then spinning him around and around over his head before hurling him into the air of the vast ballroom where the Green Goblin ended up landing on and dangling from a chandelier. Then the police came, and the Green Goblin was brought to justice. And of course, the stupid and drunk partygoers thought it was all a Halloween ruse, even the “imitation” police brutality with the stun gun and the plunger.
It was a magnificent story. But after I was over, Linus was angry. “Why didn’t Green Goblin and Spider-Man FIGHT?”
“What are you talking about, man? Spider-Man wrapped him up and threw him into a chandelier. There’s a lot of ways to fight people without just hitting them. You have to be more creative.”
“Oh”, he said. And soon after that, he was snoring.
10:37:36 PM 
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