[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-marvel-a-lazy-ass-superman":3,"chapter-marvel-a-lazy-ass-superman-marvel-a-lazy-ass-superman-chapter-9":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Marvel: A Lazy-Ass Superman",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1721559,2198,"Chapter 9: Old John's Way With Words","marvel-a-lazy-ass-superman-chapter-9",9,"\u003Cp>John's bar wasn't exactly a booming business.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not because it was bad—just because the town itself was dying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Most of the young people had left for the cities long ago. Those who remained were gray-haired, stiff-jointed, and one missed snowfall away from calling it quits.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Which meant the bar had a very specific clientele:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Locals. Regulars. Familiar faces.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everyone knew each other by name, by voice, and often by the sound of their boots coming up the porch steps.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>John didn't even bother bartending half the time. He'd be fixing something in the back or asleep in his chair, and the regulars would help themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Grab a glass. Pour a drink. Pop a beer. Drop a few bills in the tip jar. Business as usual.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was the kind of place this was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was why John could run the whole joint solo—and still have time to cook, smoke, and mutter obscenities about the weather.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, if someone got too comfortable behind the counter, John would toss a string of curses their way just to keep the hierarchy clear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meals? That was someone else's gig. There was a diner two blocks over. John didn't do entrees—just drinks and the kind of greasy finger food that paired well with alcohol and heart disease.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Most nights, the regulars showed up after sunset for a quiet drink, a smoke, and maybe a few halfhearted rounds of darts. No one got plastered. No one made a scene.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unless something big had happened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When someone drank alone—and drank hard—it usually meant bad news at home. A death, a divorce, something they didn't want to talk about.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When two or more old men started drinking like fish? That meant good news. A wedding, maybe. A baby. Or just a deer hunt that went unusually well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In either case, people gave space when space was needed. And if help was required, they pitched in. Quietly. Without asking for anything back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It wasn't about being polite. It was just how things were done.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No fuss. No drama. Just a kind of worn-down kindness that only comes with age, hardship, and the certainty that life doesn't owe you anything.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>---\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That said, there was one thing Henry had gotten very, very wrong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He used to think old folks didn't know how to cuss properly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was… deeply incorrect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These old redneck bastards could swear like poets.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Maybe the younger generation had gone soft—always pulling guns instead of pulling punches—but the elders? They'd grown up with roast battles before anyone knew what stand-up comedy was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And in this bar, roasting each other was practically a second language.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Henry had witnessed scenes like this more than once:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>> \"Well look what the cat dragged in. I thought you were dead, you slippery bastard. I was about to start charging rent for the stool you left empty.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"And yet here you are, still breathing. Must've been a clerical error at the morgue.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Give me a beer before your ugly mug makes me lose my appetite.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>> \"Ten bucks.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Ten?! Are you robbing me or paying off a bar mitzvah? You Jewish now, John?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Same price it's been for ten years, you tight-fisted Scottish son of a bitch.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You should be paying me to drink here. I'm what keeps this dump alive.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"I'll take your money and donate it to the church—to reserve you a grave plot.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That kind of banter happened daily. Sometimes hourly. It was less \"trash talk\" and more… ritual. A verbal handshake with a bit of spit in it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Racist jokes, sexist jabs, fat-shaming, age-shaming—you name it. Nothing was off-limits. This was 1990, after all. The world hadn't gone full political correctness yet, and these guys weren't about to start now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And somehow, it worked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Henry didn't understand half of it at first. Cultural context, timing, delivery—some jokes flew right over his head. But he learned.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Quickly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because not learning meant standing out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And standing out? That wasn't part of the plan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He wasn't trying to be some streetwise black kid with attitude. He wasn't trying to be the polite, deferential Asian guy either.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This place wasn't gonna respect a guy for being \"quiet and humble.\" They'd just call you soft. Or worse—effeminate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And that?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That Henry couldn't stomach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Being the lazy underachiever? Fine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Being mistaken for some delicate flower?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Absolutely not.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One of the town's old women had already started referring to him as \"that sweet, shy boy with the big shoulders but the soul of a little girl.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He almost choked on his fries when he heard that.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nope. No way. Not happening.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, he adapted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The jokes. The slang. The way people ribbed each other with a half-smile and a middle finger. He watched, learned, and practiced.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And when he wasn't soaking up insult etiquette, he watched the bar's one form of entertainment: the beat-up old CRT television behind the counter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There were no premium channels. No cable. Just whatever the rabbit ears could pick up—mostly public-access news and endless reruns of black-and-white war movies or 70s soap operas.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Didn't matter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Henry devoured it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not because he wanted to learn English (though it helped), but because… he was starved.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not for food. For noise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He'd been locked in that Russian bunker for nearly twenty years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No entertainment. No conversations. No books. No music.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nothing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even silence gets unbearable after long enough.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So now, even the corniest black-and-white film felt like gold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And no—there were no Cokes. No chips. No anime. But John fed him three meals a day without complaint. That was more than Henry had dared to hope for.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>---\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meanwhile, his body kept changing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn't go to the bathroom. Like… at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Nothing in. Nothing out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every calorie was being converted with 100% efficiency. No waste. No mess.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And with every meal, his body grew.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was filling out—fast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shoulders broader. Frame thicker. Muscles dense and hard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was like watching a balloon inflate in slow motion. Every day, he looked less like a gaunt lab experiment and more like someone cast from iron.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Anyone paying attention would've noticed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But John didn't ask questions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Henry could sense it—John knew something was off. But the old man had lived too long and seen too much to care about things that didn't matter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Young people were the future. He was just a man waiting out his final days behind a bar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Henry needed help?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He'd help.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No lectures. No judgment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just one grizzled hand resting on the shotgun, and the occasional reminder that he wasn't as senile as people thought.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Loving the story so far? Want more chapters? Drop a Power Stone to show your support! A quick review would mean the world too.Thanks, everyone! ❤️\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\u003C\u002Fp>",1125,"2026-06-06T15:31:22.263Z",1,"novelbin.me","b9389cb331504da3aa46ff9dcecbfb1e19d9b702cd32e010db22a4684386291d","marvel-a-lazy-ass-superman-chapter-10","marvel-a-lazy-ass-superman-chapter-8",556,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fmarvel-a-lazy-ass-superman-cover.jpg"]