Of Such Things Are Made Heroes
A hero is a person noted or admired for courage or outstanding achievements. It brings to mind someone of great physical strength. Cool. Calm. Quick of thought. Someone with a strong character. A person of iron will and determination.
In short, a magnificent specimen of the human race. Tall, open faced, good-looking, defiant and powerfully built. And such a hero can, of course, be either a man or a woman.
However, sometimes a hero may be none of all that.
He or she can be a very ordinary person in every way.
And this is the kind of hero that really intrigues me.
I have a friend. His name is Gus. He is short, rather skinny, and so unremarkable in appearance that he often gets shoved aside in a queue--- simply because it is difficult to notice he is there at all. In fact, to all appearances he is a born loser; lazy, can't hold down a job, unreliable, scared of his own shadow. Sometimes I wonder why I ever befriended him. Maybe it's because I can say just about anything I like in front of him. He just listens with a kind of weary half smile and forgets everything I have said an hour later. I like that. Don't get me wrong. I'm no loudmouth, but sometimes it feels good to let off steam in front of a friend.
But the bottom line is, heroes are heroes. Exceptional people. Highly motivated, passionate, and brave. They will lay down their lives without a second thought for what they believe in or care about.
I once read about a mother and child who were attacked by a cougar in the Brazilian rainforest. The woman placed her child behind herself, and squared up to the cougar. Time and time again the cougar attacked, fearsomely wounding the poor woman, but every time her determination to save her child was so great that she survived each onslaught. This went on for six hours before help arrived and the cougar was driven away. The woman died of her injuries, but her child was saved. Now that's what I call a real hero. An ordinary person. A mom. An unremarkable being in every way until the arrival of that fateful moment in her life. Newspaper archives are full of people like her. Look for one, and you will find many.
Now, Gus has a friend called Jerry, who lives alone on a farm because his wife left him when she tired of his drinking. Besides Gus the only other person who ever visited Jerry was Jerry’s grown-up daughter called Emma.
Now, when people are drunk, they often like to show off. It is also a fact that some people get a kick out of showing off in front of losers like Gus; they know that guys like him can only clap and admire, because never in a thousand years could people like Gus seek to emulate them.
One day Gus dropped in on Jerry, who had been drinking as usual. Jerry had just decided he needed a water-butt. To make one, he had pulled out an old metal drum from his barn. As he explained to Gus, it would only take him a few minutes to grab an angle-grinder and cut the top off the drum, and so have himself a perfectly good water-butt.
Jerry flexed his muscles and picked up the angle-grinder. Sparks flew when the saw-toothed blade bit into the drum. This scared Gus. He hastily took several steps way back to watch from a safe distance. It was just as well, because seconds later the drum exploded.
Unknown to Jerry, it had been half full of gasoline when the sparks from the angle-grinder had ignited it.
Jerry lay motionless on the ground, hideously injured. Gus approached his friend timidly, took one look, and promptly stumbled away to get violently sick.
When he had finished, he turned back towards Jerry, took a deep breath.........
and in that instant Gus was transformed into a hero.
Gus tore a strip off his own shirt to form a makeshift bandage. Gently he pushed Jerry's right eyeball back into its socket, and tied the bandage over to prevent it from dropping onto his cheek again.
Jerry was a big guy, but somehow Gus managed to lift him up into a position from where he could half carry and half drag him along. It was unfortunate that Jerry's cell-phone had been smashed in the blast, because he didn't have a landline back at the farmhouse. Gus? Oh, Gus never had much use for a cell-phone as no one would ever have called him.
Gus couldn't drive, but somehow he managed to drag/carry Jerry one-mile across a field to a hospital. On the way Gus slipped and fell into a ditch, breaking his left hand, but he kept going somehow, no doubt in excruciating pain.
It was all over the papers next day. Gus was a hero. Who would have believed it! Jerry lost his eye, but he kept his life, thanks to Gus.
When I met Gus he had an assurance that had not been there before.
"Come on, Gus. I'm your friend. You can tell me,' I coaxed. 'I never had you figured for a hero--- hey, where did all that come from?'
I was only kidding, but Gus didn't seem at all amused. To my surprise he looked slightly embarrassed. 'Look, it doesn't matter, Gus. You're a hero. That's all that matters, isn't it?' I tried to reassure him, already regretting my teasing.
'Erm.....' Gus cleared his throat and his face turned slightly pink. 'It's like this, John, see.......' I nodded encouragingly and waited. 'You know Emma--- Jerry's daughter who comes to see him?'
'Yes.' I nodded again.
'I asked her for a date, but she turned me down flat. When I told Jerry he laughed in my face. "She's too good for you, pal," is what he said. But now--- now I'm a hero, and everything has changed. I did it for her, not for Jerry." Gus suddenly grinned from ear to ear. 'I've twice been on a date with Emma already,' he finished triumphantly.
Now that's what I also call a real hero. Oh, did I forget to mention that Emma is a magnificent 6 foot tall lady? I reckon she's about twice the size of little Gus.
Way to go, Gus!
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