IT’S A BLUSTERY DAY. Connie Don wears a forest green a-line skirt and snug hot pink tank top accentuating muscular arms. His long gray perm undulates in synchronous hula with the stylish textile swaying below his torso. He stumbles against a shopping cart and rails unintelligibly at cars driving through the busy intersection. Though his androgynous flaunt is hard to ignore, he is the invisible transient transvestite.

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“IMPROPER LANE usage” is handwritten on the warning citation. The officer offers a lengthy explanation, which doesn’t clarify the exact nature of the violation. Merton smiles and says “yes sir” as he signs and accepts the ticket. He’d played this scene often enough 40 years ago. Felonious unconventional hairstyle was grounds to be stopped just to see if you’d say or do anything stupid back then. It seems so long ago.

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“WHAT ARE YOU lookin’ at?” says the big man. He fixes an unflinching “wanna fight?” glare on Tomaso. Tomaso wants to say: “A six-foot-four dude in a full body pink bunny suit.” But, he knows it is a rhetorical inquiry. As he looks down, the sight of overstuffed rabbit feet breaks his sangfroid. Tomaso is laughing as a padded roundhouse punch contacts his left ear. “Great! Ass kicked by the Easter Bunny!” he chuckles.

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ACE HAS NEVER been knocked out cold before. He wakes drifting dreamlike. A guy dabbing tissue in his face says: “If you think you’re hurt, stay put.” The tissue comes away soaked red. But it’s Ace’s dream, just a nightmare or he’d feel pain. Right? Why not get out and check his smashed up ’66 Mustang? The EMT doesn’t give way. Ace’s clothes are pretty well blood splattered. “Damn! I really liked this shirt.” he says.

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STROKER FREAKS people out. It’s necessary to infiltrate a wall of menace to see he started out as a nice rural Oklahoma church kid. Being hyper aware of surroundings, suspicious that the mundane may conceal furtive assassins or maiming booby traps is second nature to him. He checks a room as if waving a hand near a burner to see if the stove is hot. After a run in with a trip wire long ago, he won’t get burned again.

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“SHIT! HERE COMES GRUFFY!” says Ilene. The patrons at the counter know the drill. Nobody looks around. Each man steels himself against the coming storm, heralded by a palpable barometric rise in the room. They fight the impulse to flee. Crossing paths with Billy Coates at the door is the surest way to become victim of the day. He awkwardly enters, pivoting an aluminum cane. In a coughing fit he scowls: “Hey fellers!”

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MILES’ EXTRAORDINARY abilities provided no exemption to the rule that everything dies. He’d lived a remarkably long life, being literally ten feet tall and bulletproof. Many people loved him as a super hero. Others cursed him as a super villain. Miles knew he was given a lot more to work with than most people, but in the end lacked super wisdom and super self control. He was merely a person who did the best he could.

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ANAROSA WAS STARTLED. She’d grown used to being invisible. For years it was always the same. She approached diners and cheerfully asked: “Are you finished? May I clear your plates?” They grunted or answered “thanks” without looking up. Some smirked in her general direction, as if her whereabouts were indiscernible. But tonight, the young man looked her directly in the face and smiled. For a moment she was in the room.

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