#LIKE NEVER BEFORE STEELHEART SKIN#

Sunglasses hung from his breast pocket, and he smiled as he put them on. Muscled and toned in a way that you could see even through the loose clothing. He was tall and lean, but solid, like a lot of Epics are. He wore a relaxed-fitting black business suit with a light tan shirt underneath, no tie. I’ve always been able to spot them.Įven as a kid I knew there was something different about that man. That sense of confidence, that subtle self- satisfaction. Most people say you can’t tell an Epic from an ordinary man unless he starts using his powers, but they’re wrong. I noticed him immediately, though nobody else seemed to pay him much heed. So I was actually watching when the Epic strolled into the bank. My father was too engrossed in the conversation to scold me. I let my eyes wander back toward the crowds, then turned around again, kneeling on the chair. They kept talking, but I stopped paying attention. “Unfortunately, our underwriters don’t agree with your assessment. “Well,” the mortgage man said, clasping his hands on the table right beside a picture frame displaying a stock photo of smiling ethnic children. Turning into Epics-almost like superheroes from the stories. One year since ordinary men started changing. It had only been two years since Calamity appeared in the sky. A lot of people thought like he did, back then. “Where there are villains, there will be heroes,” my father said. “Didn’t your previous home get destroyed by an Epic?” “Don’t you see?” my father said, leaning forward. The mortgage man’s smile finally broke, as if he was taken aback by my father’s tone. “But they aren’t dangerous,” my father said passionately.

The bank has decided against taking risks.” “The world is a much more dangerous place now, Mr. He tapped the stack of papers on his desk. The mortgage man just continued to smile. “The other man said it would be enough,” my father replied, his large hands clasped before him. “I just don’t think I can do anything about this,” the mortgage man said. He would still have to get the same number of haircuts, at least until all of his hair fell out. “Just means fewer haircuts, Dave,” he’d tell me, laughing as he ran his fingers through his wispy hair. He didn’t care about that as much as other men seemed to. My mother would have winced if she’d seen him go to a fancy appointment like this wearing his work jeans and an old T- shirt with a comic book character on it.Īt least he’d combed his hair, though it was starting to thin.

#LIKE NEVER BEFORE STEELHEART SKIN#

His hands were thick with calluses, his skin tan from days spent working in the sun. “Everything I own is on there,” my father said, indicating the paper on the desk in front of us. “If we had more collateral . . .” the mortgage man said, showing teeth. Much like the man in front of us wore an imitation of a smile. It was an imitation of a comfortable home. There were little wood- framed pictures of family members on the walls, a cup of cheap candy with a glass lid on the desk, and a vase with faded plastic flowers on the filing cabinet. Our cubicle had glass sides, which made it less confining, but it still felt fake. We were to the side of the main bank chamber in one of the cubicles where the mortgage men worked. Thinking of his agony on that day still makes me shiver. I’d never heard it raised, save for that one time at my mother’s funeral. “David, turn around, please,” my father said. Everyone showed so much variety back then.

The different shapes of faces, the hairstyles, the clothing, the expressions. I knelt backward on a chair that was too big for me, watching the flow of people. Men and women streamed in and out, as if the room were the heart of some enormous beast, pulsing with a lifeblood of people and cash. Two large revolving doors opened onto the street, with a set of conventional doors to the sides. A single open chamber with white pillars surrounding a tile mosaic floor, broad doors at the back that led deeper into the building. We used the old street names back then, before the Annexation. My father and I were at the First Union Bank on Adams Street.

Like never before steelheart