Sammy was a good guy, a quiet guy. That quiet demeanor intimidated a lot of people, it was in the way he carried himself, but he was just a little shy. Sammy was loyal to his friends, subtly honest and he had a sense of humor like Everclear - quick and deadly.
Sammy and Allen had been best friends since junior high. They were naturally thrown together being two of the few children of working class parents in a more affluent part of the world. Allen's earnestness fit well with Sammy's wry smiles and the two were nearly inseparable. The two even hung on strong together when Allen began dating Cathie.
Cathie was bright and funny. Cathie was just as loyal as Sammy was, but she was bipolar to a degree that most people will never encounter. The girl could stop, turn on you and start shrieking before you even realized she had heard the comment you had made.
Sammy was a constant guest in their apartment when Allen and Cathie got engaged. When Allen moved to Phoenix for awhile, attending a trade school to become a mechanic just like his father, Sammy would chaperone Cathie anywhere she requested. When Cathie would flip that switch and start attacking with barbed and razor lined words, Sammy would just smile it off and lay out a well timed quip. Even the trio's drinking buddy Ricky could tell that Sammy clutched a torch for Cathie that rivaled the one Lady Liberty held aloft; and Ricky went blind when he was three due to a terrible accident involving paint thinner.
It wasn't a big surprise to a lot of people that when Allen came back from Phoenix to marry Cathie, that Sammy would leave town and wind up in Phoenix himself. What did surprise a lot of people was when Sammy became a bank robber par excellence, and then eventually parlayed that into super villainy. Sammy became the much heralded Mirror Man.
The Mirror Man was known throughout the Southwest for daring robberies of museums, antique dealers and even high end restaurants. The one thing that launched him out of the ranks of criminal and into that of villain was the invention of a liquid, a clever hybrid of super charged crystals, silver and paint, that could immediately cover people in a mirrored casing. Many of Mirror Man's daring escapes were accomplished through encasing his foes in this mirror.
Most people love a villain, and as Mirror Man's infamy grew he came out a little more into the spotlight. He started driving around town in a mirrored 64 Mustang. He began playing in a rock band called So Much Silver, playing lead on a mirrored Les Paul. But all this flash and attention was bringing the authorities closer and closer to him and the media was eating up the chase.
On one fateful August night, the FBI apprehended Mirror Man. When they took him in for questioning, their first question was, "why mirrors?"
"I don't know, they seemed cool."
Sammy, the real Mirror Man would have given a far more interesting answer; one filled with innuendo, puns, the nature of a criminal reflecting society's true self. But Allen the mechanic just didn't know "why mirrors", he just wanted to help a friend in trouble.
Zeptember song of the day: What Is And What Should Never Be.
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