I have a new superhero. His name is Otto. As Otto makes clear in the eponymous movie starring Tom Hanks, he is more non-social, rather than anti-social. (He affirms that for me in the scene with the UPS driver, where Otto emphasizes his animosity to the “brown trucks” has nothing to do with race.) Most people will argue that is a distinction without a difference, but it’s a crucial one for my self-image and sense of well-being. I’m not a crank; I’m a cynic.

   But while Otto and I may be joined at the scowl, his superhero status for me is achieved by his willingness to confront humanity with a one-two punch of insult and threat that I’ve never seemed to have mastered. That, no doubt, helps keep Carol and me together, as her frequent and knowing elbows to my ribs throughout the movie might attest.

   Otto, Carol and I are all linked by spousal loss. Otto’s journey to redemption was a more self- driven uphill one than ours, but the lessons and epiphanies all three of us learned along the way were the same. Otto eventually learned them, Carol always understood them and I …well, happily one of Carol’s great strengths is her patience.

“Carol, no doubt admiring Carolyn’s two runs at it, grabbed the wolf by its ears, and has continued to hang on with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. ( I think the song might be “Sixteen Tons,” but whatever.)”

   Both Carolyn and Carol, I believe, saw something about me that I can only define as a “project.” They both felt that I was, at the heart of it, salvageable. Carolyn had the benefit of knowing me in my youth, and understandably took to the hills as fast as her feet could fly. Forty years later, she’d either got tired of running or decided to take one more crack at it to at least prove whether her original instincts were correct. When Carolyn passed, I knew it was with the serene knowledge she’d given it her best shot, and would wish any unsuspecting successor the best. Carol, no doubt admiring Carolyn’s two runs at it, grabbed the wolf by its ears, and has continued to hang on with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. ( I think the song might be “Sixteen Tons,” but whatever.)

   I think the biggest challenge both women have faced is that I honestly don’t see the lack of ambition, drive, vision, initiative, curiosity, diligence, discipline, attentiveness, fashion, along with occasional lapses in hygiene in my life as a problem that needs fixing. Carolyn and Carol evidently have both seen them all as a kind of rubik’s cube that can be solved. (I still routinely wear colors that clash, so there’s still work to be done, rubikly speaking.)

   Throughout A Man Called Otto, I could sense Carol taking mental notes, and when the movie reached Act Three, and Otto became transformed into a new, loving and lovable man in full, I could tell Carol was measuring just how far in Act Two of A Man Called Reid she was still mired. At least she doesn’t have to worry about ever calling the suicide hotline. At the same time, I bet I’ve shown her depths of perseverance and tolerance she had no idea she possessed.