The Book of Lies

do with an address on a comic book, now you’re out of my biblical league.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about,” I say as we reach the middle of the block and pull up to the peeling blue two-story house with the even more peeling red trim. Unreal. The whole house, including the front steps: bright blue and red. Like Superman.

From my backpack, I pull out the old 1938 comic and its protective wax paper.

If found, please return to:

10622 Kimberly Ave. Cleveland

I scan the alleys on both sides of the house (dark but empty), then double-check the numbers on the front porch: 10622. This is it. The address from the coffin.

Before I can even stop, my father’s out of the car.

42

Ring it again,” my dad says impatiently. The words come out in plumes of vapor.

I press the buzzer and put my ear to the frozen metal screen door. I don’t hear anything from inside, including the doorbell. I shouldn’t be surprised. The way the front porch is slanted and the overhead light is cracked, this place has more problems than just some peeling blue paint.

“C’mon! Anyone there!?” My father raps the door with his fist, clearly freezing as he hops up and down. His coat is on Serena, who’s rubbing his back as he settles into calm. I keep checking the length of the block, searching for arriving cars. Ellis . . . Naomi . . . neither of them is stupid. Each minute we’re standing out here . . .

“Easy, easy—I’m coming,” a man’s voice calls from inside.

Serena steps back, almost as if she’s checking that we’re in the right place. There’s no doubt about that. To the left of the door, the front windows that face the porch are filled with sun-faded posters and cards of Superman. A handwritten sign on a sheet of loose-leaf paper says, “Superman’s House!!!”

Serena stares at the sign. My brain flashes to the gun that shot my dad. What the hell does this all have to do with Superman?

The door swings open and an older black man with a Mr. Rogers sweater pokes his head out, careful to keep the cold from seeping in.

“Who is it?” a female voice calls out from deeper inside the house.

“Dunno,” the man calls back, eyeing me and my dad. Then he spots Serena. “I know you?” he asks her.

Like a turtle, Serena shrinks into the shell of her winter coat. “I—I don’t think so.”

“Man, you look familiar,” he adds, and just as quickly shakes it off. Turning back to my dad, he asks, “Where’s your coat? What you want?”

“We . . . er . . . we wanted to see if you . . . y’know . . . we found your address . . . on a comic,” my dad blurts.

The man rolls his eyes. “Oh, man—white boys in the ghetto—you’re fans, ain’t ya?”

“Yeah. Huge fans,” I jump in, determined to get some info. “Why? You get a lot of us?”

“Naw, just here and there. Comes with the house,” he says. “So. Again. What you want?”

I wait for Serena to maybe jump in and charm, but she’s still a turtle in her coat.

“I know this sounds crazy,” I begin, “but y’ever go somewhere and feel like you were just meant to be there?”

“Hoooo, you’re those kinda fans, ain’t ya?”

“We came really far,” I plead.

“How far? Shaker Heights?”

“Florida,” my dad says, bouncing lightly and reminding our host just how cold it is with no coat. “I was tan when I got here.”

It’s just enough of a bad joke to make the man laugh. “Aw, you’re lucky I got a sister in Jacksonville,” he says as he opens the door, shuffling back and revealing the checkerboard pajamas he’s wearing under his sweater. “Shoes over there,” he adds, pointing to a pile of old boots in the corner. “Wife’s request; not mine.”

We nod thankfully, then add our shoes to the pile and hand him our jackets, which he layers on top of an old coatrack. “If ya want, I can hang the backpack, too,” he offers, taking a double take on me. “Man, all that white hair—I thought you were old at first. Like me,” he says. “You get that a lot?”

“Sometimes,” I tell him.

“You should get it more,” he insists. “White hair’s mysterious.”

“He’s very mysterious,” Serena blurts, meaning every word.

The man doesn’t care. “Anyhow, your backpack . . .”

“I’m fine holding it,” I say, sliding it onto my back and getting my first good look at the house, which is centered around a main hallway with three side-by-side sofas running along the right-hand wall and an old, thick, projection-style TV on the left, just next to the stairs.

“Introduce yourself, Johnsel!” a woman scolds from the kitchen.

“Sorry,” the older man says, extending a hand. “Heyden Johnsel.”

“And Vivian,” adds an overweight black woman in a Cleveland Browns apron, entering the hallway with a surprising elegance. She reaches into her shirt and from inside her bra pulls out a tissue and dabs her eyes. “Not real crying—just onion chopping,” she promises, as if having three strangers in her house is just part of her daily life. But as I look around, I realize it is.

The far wall is covered from floor to ceiling with pictures, drawings, needlepoint, shelves with candles, even a wall calendar with Jesus on it, and in nearly every one, Jesus is pictured as black. It’s the same in the administrative offices of the shelters and churches we work with. True believers are always the most likely to take in weary travelers.

“So apparently, back in the twenties, this’s the room where the whole family used to gather round the radio,” Johnsel says, pointing to where the TV is and heading toward the worn stairs. “Though I assume you’re really here to see the bedroom, huh? In the attic?”

We all three smile and nod. “Absolutely,” I say.

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?” Johnsel asks, stopping on the first step.

None of us move.

“D’ya even know where you are? This is the old Siegel house— sacred ground— where young Jerry Siegel created Superman.”

“No, that we know,” my dad says, though I can’t tell if it’s the truth. As always, he’s a half-step ahead. And it’s the kind of half-step that’s getting impossible to ignore. “We’d love to see the bedroom,” he says.

Johnsel grins and shrugs. “Hoooo. Fine by me.” He’s in his pajamas at four-thirty. He’s just thrilled to have an audience.

In a slow spiral, he leads us to the second floor, then around to a shaky set of stairs that lead up to the third. The higher we go, I swear, the narrower the stairway gets—and with each shoeless step, the uncarpeted wooden stairs creak and scream far more than I’m comfortable with.

“Don’t worry, it’ll hold our weight,” Johnsel promises.

I grab for the banister and realize there isn’t one.

“Okay, now, here’s what people make the fuss about,” Johnsel says as he reaches the third-floor landing and extends his hand palm up like a model on a game show.

I crane my neck to peek over Johnsel’s shoulder. I’m not from money. I live in a converted motel room. But even by my standards, the small finished bedroom is a wrecking ball of a room, filled with pile after pile of milk crates, plastic bins, and old furniture. The entire back wall is hidden by mini-skyscrapers of paperback books—all with titles like Elijah and King of Kings. Up top, huge hunks of the slanted plaster ceiling are cracked and missing, revealing the old wooden slats underneath.

“Hoooo—it’s definitely seen better days,” Johnsel admits. “But like they say, you gotta sorta imagine: This was it . . . the exact spot where a teenage kid was lying awake in bed one rainy summer night and came up with a hero who could fly above all the world’s problems. Can ya imagine: one sweaty night to change your whole