She says she was born on July 2, 1776. Not the Fourth of July, mind you. “The history people got a little confused about that,” she said. “And it's not like I was born at all once, anyway. Things took more time back in those days.”
I don't know what to think about that. She seems so earnest even as she spouts what is obvious nonsense. I ask her why she just recently showed up. “I've always been here. I just haven't always been a superhero. I've been a nurse, a teacher, a pioneer. I've worked in factories and I've worked on farms. But it just seemed to me that right now, America needs something a little more . . . I don't know . . . energetic.”
She is that, to be sure. It seems an effort for her to keep from bouncing out of her chair as we talk. She couldn't sit down for more than about a half-hour so our interview required three sessions. Every so often she stepped outside and flew off into the Portland sky. There were no supervillains to fight, but I learned that during those breaks she cleared up two accidents on I-5 - doing a tow-truck's job in a fraction of the time - and performed repairs for three different motorists stranded on the shoulder. After her third such outing I asked her whether she rescued any cats from trees. She just laughed. “I would, but that never seems to happen to me.”
I asked her how she felt about replacing the late Lady Paladin in the Rose City Five. “I'm just amazed. I was rooting for her for her entire career. And when I learned that she had been addicted to painkillers for all those years and went crazy from withdrawals - my heart just broke. She wasn't a perfect person, but in America you don't have to be perfect to be a hero. She'll always be a hero to me.”
Everything she owns fits in an old army-surplus knapsack. For our interview she wears her red, white and blue super-suit, which she says she made herself. She has a couple changes of street-clothes, which she got at a Goodwill store in Oklahoma. She returns from one of her breaks with a Dutch Bros coffee in her hand, bought with some bills that a grateful motorist had thrust in her hands. She doesn't have a credit card. “I think they're worried I'll be a deficit spender,” she jokes - the closest to a political statement she ever makes. In truth, it's the banking laws that keep her on a cash basis. The only ID she can provide is a Kroger Club card (which says “American Gal”) - she has no birth certificate, no passport, no social security number. She worries a little bit about the INS. “I might have to fly back across the border if they ever catch me.”
Donations aren't her only source of income. “I'm pretty good with tech. Mechanical, electronic, computer software . . . and I'm really good at the high-energy stuff. So I help heroes out with their costumes and vehicles and such. It's fun. But I do it for heroes only - no corporations, no military. I don't want to get tied down to anything like that.”
That attitude is a new one for the Rose City Five, and perhaps a change was needed. The reputation of the Rose City Five will forever be tainted by its connection to the now infamous Daniel Dunlap. Lady Paladin and Hex were sometimes criticized as tools of the so-called “military-industrial complex”, and many Portlanders will find it easier to support the group now that Hex has cut ties with Adaptec and Lady Paladin has passed on. I have little doubt that PDX will soon warm to its newest heroine and this new incarnation of the Rose City Five.
Amy scratches out a bare living by applying her skills for the benefit of her fellow heroes. With her abilities in electronics, mechanics, and alien technology, she can tinker with costumes, vehicles and weapons. She lives out of her knapsack and carries a toolbox. She's happy to sleep on a couch or to take a bunk in a flop-house hotel.
Lady Paladin's burns have been healed, but American Gal still remembers the trauma of the blast that made them. Fiery explosions freak her out, making her vulnerable to any attack that resembles that of the Black Bombardier.
With no ID and no bank account, American Gal can't fly commercial, travel abroad, or drive a car. She won't pass a background check to chaperone a school field trip or rent an apartment. She pays for everything with cash, uses a pre-paid cell phone, and relies on a gmail account that she accesses from the public library.
Amy has a soft spot for anyone who has served in America's armed forces and for all the “washed-up” heroes out there.
Don't burn a flag in front of her. She takes it personally.
American Gal has a bit of a problem with many police forces. INS wants to “process” her, but Amy isn't cooperating. She has every intention of remaining an anonymous force, refusing to be fingerprinted, retina-scanned, or biometrically analyzed in any way. She won't even use the fingerprint scanner on a cell phone. There are several constabularies that want to question her.
It doesn't take much to spur American Gal into action. Any threat to the weak or good is enough. Standing by is never an option.