Rita Maria Martinez

​The Migraineur Watches X-Men Apocalypse
 
My younger self was adept at sleight of hand. Sought promise of relief nestled in my pocket. Surreptitiously popped blue capsules in class when nobody looked, let meds assuage left hemisphere. Onset of throbbing always a descent from grace into that scorching climate Dante describes so well. I rarely left home without abortives, fearful of atomic migraines mushrooming at ill-timed moments—like dinner at La Carreta when a medianoche sandwich drooped from my hands. Todd escorted me out as I spouted gibberish. Appeared a mess to onlookers: a sloppy drunk like LiLo, a Kardashian on a bender, or a piteous teenaged Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) in X-Men Apocalypse. Scott—a sweaty, bleary-eyed high schooler on the verge of mutanthood—rubs the bridge of his nose as severe pain engulfs one then both temples. Panic forces the future X-Man to bolt without a pass, seek refuge in uneasy quiet of hallway or boy’s room. Summers prays mounting discomfort subsides as he unknowingly confronts genetic destiny, ambushed by intolerable brightness bursting past both pupils, uncontrollable beams shooting from eyes he cannot close. Cyclops’s vision forever altered as iconic visor becomes permanent fixture—its ruby-infused lenses both subduing an incendiary vision and fine-tuning its immense power in a reality always irradiated and glowing, one my older self comprehends in the last row of Cinemark while wearing sunglasses.    
 
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This was first published at Monstering.
 
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I Believe in Snuffleupagus*                                 
 
I phone Mami to say I can’t visit. It rained earlier. The barometric pressure dip sparked a migraine. Mami, who’s never had a migraine in her life, thinks I’ve conjured up a fake headache. Accuses me of avoiding her. Summers it rains almost daily in Tamiami, more than in my parents’ Westchester neighborhood. Tia N lives only three blocks away. Says it didn't rain today, Mami pronounces in the same clipped tone Judge Judy uses on lying defendants. Tia N slept through Hurricane Andrew, I remind Mami. During this weather inquisition my frustration escalates to anger—much like when I watched Sesame Street as a kid, when not a soul believed Big Bird's repeated claims Mr. Snuffleupagus was real. I hadn't thought about Big Bird and Snuffy in years. In real life and on classic TV sitcoms like Bewitched, Three’s Company, and Happy Days friends and relatives often lie about having headaches to weasel out of work, sex, dating, or visiting in-laws—so people in our orbit are incredulous when migraineurs cancel plans. Convincing neurotypicals drains. I calmly tell Mami she can believe whatever she wants and hang up.
 
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*I Believe in Snuffleupagus is a popular meme.                           
 
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The Migraineur Watches Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
 
The Boy Who Lived destroys the penultimate horcrux hidden in a Ravenclaw diadem. I cringe whenever Harry stabs a horcrux with a basilisk fang. The action prompts a pain so sharp Potter can barely stand, so acute I expect the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead will burst into flame as nerves shriek a desperate SOS, a frequency known to those—mainly men—slammed with cluster headaches. Clusters detonate in rapid succession. Clusters make some weep or seek relief by smashing their heads against walls like my grandpa-in-law, Sal, did. Clusters forced Sal to leave the army with an honorable discharge. Our Gryffindor proceeds without luxury of a stay at the infirmary, without kind ministrations of Madam Pomfrey because Death Eaters don’t take days off.  Hermione and Ron watch their friend writhe, fear the invisible pain monster—a beast or demon not exorcized by simple incantation—will launch more surprise attacks on Harry in woods or dark corridors. Remember, there’s always one more horcrux to destroy—so like many mothers, caretakers, and soldiers—The Boy Who Lived winces, deposits his pain in an imaginary box, forges ahead.
 
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Meeting Margot Kidder at the First Florida Supercon in 2007
 
The seminal Lois Lane brushes bangs aside and struts past me. Rocking a white three-piece suit and tortoise shell glasses, she owns the showroom, still embodies Metropolis’s indomitable ace reporter. Margot answers audience questions. Promotes the DVD release of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. Eight attend her panel. An adult Superman cosplayer asks, How do you feel about being spoofed on Family Guy? Though not a Trekkie, I imagine executing a Vulcan nerve pinch to render him unconscious. How should Kidder feel? Who enjoys being ridiculed on television after a public nervous breakdown? I’ve heard about the unflattering parody. Haven’t seen it. Don’t care to since I’m told it’s in poor taste, says Kidder in signature sandpaper voice. The star adjusts her glasses. Calls on someone else. 
 
The Margot I remember poses for a picture with me free of charge, calls me Wonder Woman because I sport a blue, graphic tee with a big yellow W. The Margo I remember covers tasteful boudoir shots when children approach her booth. Chats and poses with parents and their little boy decked like Supes down to the S-shaped spit curl. She adjusts piles of photos from Superman: The Movie and The Amityville Horror. I buy an autographed black-and-white Warner Brothers glossy for my writing desk: Kidder holds the latest edition of The Daily Planet. Criminals Can Be Changed the headline promises as she gazes into the distance beyond newsprint. 

The actress self-authored a Playboy article in 1975 where she revealed her teenage hang-ups: doorknob bellybutton, Brillo-pad pubic hair, pancake bottom. Divulged she’d worn a Hidden Fingers panty girdle. Applied Blush-On to muddy nipples. Electrocuted thighs with battery-operated rubber belts. A Playboy pictorial accompanies Kidder’s article but complies with her specifications—no spray tan—no airbrushing—no gauzy lingerie. Just a partially clad Kidder cartwheeling on a sandy beach. A pasty white chick with ruffled hair and freckled nose doing a high kick in her birthday suit.

The bipolar actress’s descent into the snake pit was precipitated by a computer crash erasing her memoir in 1996. Bizarre behavior begins: Margot goes missing. Chops her hair. Believes ex-husband and CIA plot to kill her. Loses some front teeth. Lives with a homeless man in a cardboard box. Recedes into fear for four days.Being pretty crazy while being chased by The National Enquirer is no good, says Kidder, post-recovery. I’m not bipolar. I’ve never tried to end my life as an adult or at 14 like Margot who swallowed a handful of codeine pills post break-up. But I share an on-again, off-again relationship with depression. I want Margot to make it. I want to see her at another con. I want to display solidarity and march with a bad-bitch posse that chants One of us! One of us! One of us! 
 
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The Greatest American Hero 
 
Life was a comedy of errors the year after surgery. Maintaining a charged neurostimulator implant a magic trick. It’s disc-shaped charger housed in a clumsy fanny pack my programmer instructed I slide over shoulder. That stubborn sling rarely stayed put. An inevitable beep-beep-beep occurred, disc an inconsolable robotic baby undergoing separation anxiety when contact with skin was severed. Adhesive pads securing the whole shebang didn’t exist yet. This pre-sticky pad phase reminded me of sanitary napkins from earlier days. I’d read about belt, latches, myriad maneuvers to secure maxi-pads in Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret? A cumbersome, inefficient process. Nights I positioned disc near shoulder sans sling and slept face up. Mornings that damn disc appeared on floor, under bed, or hidden in sheets like an Easter egg. Sometimes I’d fall asleep before hitting the magic button and wake with zero bars and a whopper of a headache. I’d laugh, curse, sigh. Tech failures reminded me of the Greatest American Hero. I always sorta hated that guy. Considered him a lower life-form among superheroes as he crashed into trees or cars. After several seasons, he still hadn’t mastered the art of flying and landing with a modicum of dignity. The suit’s instruction manual forever lost or missing like the problematic disc my husband often helped find—plus misplaced eye- and sunglasses. Sometimes I wonder why my spouse puts up with me, much like I wonder why the Greatest American Hero’s intelligent and attractive lawyer girlfriend, Pam Davidson, was into him. Would you trust the Greatest American Hero with a condom? If pickings are slim, I’d rather play pelvic pinochle with the Six Million Dollar Man.
 
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This was first published at Monstering.
 
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Firestar and Iceman
 
               -based on Marvel characters from the animated television series Spider-Man and His            Amazing Friends, which originally aired on NBC Saturday mornings beginning in 1981.
 
Firestar’s mask and gloves matched her glowing red hair. Yellow body suit and orange-cuffed boots exuded particles of atomic energy. Spider-Man and Iceman were her college chums, her crime-busting besties. The super trio shared quirky secrets others scarcely imagined: Iceman’s junior prom jitters triggered indoor snow, Web-Head walked on the wild side as a cage wrestler, Firestar rode thermal currents while microwaving popcorn in her palms. 
 
A threesome. A strictly platonic relationship. But I always wondered what would happen if Spidey made himself scarce—if pesky Peter Parker ceased to function as a third wheel, as buffer between two polar extremes. Angelica Jones and Robert Drake: Fire and Frost. Aries and Pisces. Desire to protect innocents their only bond. Could they forge a relationship despite inherent differences? Her average body temperature 212 degrees Fahrenheit versus his absolute zero. Iceman intimidated by Firestar’s explosive temper. What if she lost her cool and fired a heat blast his way? What if his chilly reserve snuffed her like a candle?  
 
Too many demands. Tough to squeeze romance into an already tight schedule. College kids by day, crime fighters by night. She crammed for exams. He scoured city streets for burning buildings. They fought an endless roster of villains: Shocker, Sandman, Scorpion, Chameleon, Kingpin, Loki, Electro, Doc Ock, Doctor Doom. They spent sleepless weeks trailing the Green Goblin who concocted a formula to convert New Yorkers into goblin groupies. But what if Firestar and Iceman could make it work? His chiseled cheeks ablaze, his cool hand like soothing aloe on her parched skin. Their energy efficient home a haven where neighbourhood children enjoy snow cones in summer, hot chocolate and smores in winter.
 
Yet, odds against a successful marriage would multiply like robot Sentinels. Annoying habits surface post-honeymoon: ice-crunching, chain-smoking, bickering over the thermostat. The power couple in therapy with Professor X because Bobby fantasized about fellow X-Men, because Angie buried a pair of web shooters in her lingerie drawer. The lovers about to quit the team until Peter delivers his spiel on great power and great responsibility. Until Peter initiates a huddle and the trio can’t help but high-five and cheer—Spider Friends, go for it! Firestar and Iceman would rekindle romance riding ice slides on moonlit nights. Firestar and Iceman would reconcile. They would recall how the pursuit of justice and liberty initially attracted them like moths to a light bulb, like sheer coalescence, like glacial combustion. 
 
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Davie, Florida: the Curse of Evergreen Place

My laptop, your pc, and the ac gave up the ghost in one week. Next, the bathroom window refused to open. The porch lock went on strike. Our Saturn was mangled by the corner car wash; it’s shredded paint adorn asphalt. Our neighbour Carol fell asleep with a lit cigarette and her porch caught fire. Fourth-floor tenant Ed decorated the building for Christmas and fractured his hip when he fell from the roof like a disgraced reindeer. When my father was airlifted to the hospital after falling off his roof in Miami, we worried about spreading bad karma around—the curse of Evergreen Place seeping into our lives like Slimer’s ectoplasm. Hurricanes, including Katrina, cropped up like an outbreak of zits.  Power outages reigned. Tenants lugged bucketfuls of pool water for toilet flushing. Our building elevator forever on the fritz. What had we done to incur The Almighty’s wrath? Like Old Testament Egyptians, we feared flooding and frog infestation. We doused our apartment with holy water, baptized each room several times—especially the bedroom before sleeping—because we had simultaneous nightmares once. But calamity was always close. Elderly tenant Ruth was fatally wounded at Publix and died the victim of a shopping cart homicide. Bunco-playing Susan got mugged outside our front door by a creep who kicked her stomach and snatched her purse. I considered buying garlic necklaces and gargoyles, purchasing a statue of St. Michael the Archangel with fiery sword upraised for slaughter. I contemplated wearing an azabache-encrusted necklace or brooch, hanging blessed rosaries in strategic spots. Instead, we ate like gluttonous Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We self-medicated with mocha shakes from Steak ’n Shake, Friday’s Brownie Obsession, Chocolate Suicide Sundaes from Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor. The obnoxious, including strangers, often asked if I was pregnant. I didn’t care. I pilgrimaged to Tasty Treats. Butter, my bestie. Cinnamon and nutmeg my beloved’s idols. He baked mounds of muffins. Saturdays we headed to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino—mint and tiramisu gelatos in martini glasses from Tuscany Grill irresistible. Coolness escaping freezers enticed us; rows of fudge bars benevolently anticipated our arrival. Midnight runs to 7-11 rewarded us with patient uncles Ben & Jerry, who consoled and provided a brief respite from the curse. 
 
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Rita Maria Martinez is the daughter of Cuban immigrants. She writes about triumphs and challenges navigating life with chronic migraine.  Rita’s Jane Eyre-inspired collection--The Jane and Bertha in Me (Kelsay Books)—was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. The poet’s work appears in The Best American Poetry Blog, Ploughshares, Pleiades, Tupelo Quarterly, Knee Brace Press, SWWIM, Wordgathering, Nine Mile Magazine, and elsewhere. Rita’s poetry is also featured in CLMP’s 2023 Disability Pride Month reading list. The poet earned an MFA from Florida International University. Follow Rita on Instagram @rita.maria.martinez.poet  or visit her website at https://comeonhome.org/ritamartinez.