The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

It always happens to ordinary guys like me

With maybe a secret sorrow

A missing father, a crippled arm

A fragile mother to support

A need for the services of a hero

And of course there is a woman I worship

Passionate and beautiful with wild wild hair

Who does not care about me at all.

Whether she would make me happy

Seems to be parenthetical.

So he comes out of nowhere, tall and dark

A fugitive from his own sad perilous past

He has been a gangster maybe or a jewel thief

Or a spy. He chooses me as a friend

Because I have all the innocence he has ever lost.

He is silent, handsome, he dresses in black

At first sight she falls hard in love with him

And he soft and wary and careful with her.

It is of course necessary that I should be blond

With blue eyes and a boyish grin.

When we fight over her he takes my blows

And won't hurt me even though I know

At least once he has killed a man.

Sooner or later he finds out about my father

Or I lose the farm or my mother dies

And I end up crying on his shoulder.

Or maybe he helps me save the home place

Or maybe I do it myself. I am after all

White hat to his black. He casts a long shadow,

By his side I catch the sun. Just knowing him

Has made me worthy to be a hero.

When his past tracks him down, when he goes away again

And we all know he can never come back,

Because he has made a man of me

He can hand the girl to me on a platter

But what does it matter. I don't want her anymore.

It's him I love.