by Damon Suede
Silas shamelessly aimed his dimple on Jillian. “You know…. If you’d had a blood pack in your mouth and bit down as you—”
Her husband groaned. “Don’t give her ideas.”
“Nice to meet you, man.”
“Ben Stone.” His handshake was firm and dry.
“I’m Rina.” She looked Greek or Hispanic and snuck little happy glances at him holding Trip’s hand. I like her.
Silas took off his jacket and smoothed his hair, still damp from their foggy stroll.
Trip held up his watch and went around the circle. “Bathroom?”
“Lord, yes.” That was Rina.
Trip squeezed his hand but didn’t let go. “And the boys’ll go find seats. Max?”
The kid nodded solemnly, incredibly well behaved. Ben gave his wife a quick hand signal like a baseball pitcher.
Jillian and Rina tottered away on their heels, heads tipped together as though gossiping. About me, probably.
Ben seemed more fidgety and tongue-tied. Probably not super outgoing, so Silas made a point of walking with him toward the Evil Dead doors. ’S’hard to be the straight guy in such gatherings.
“Thanks for scoring the tickets. Max and I don’t see a lot of shows, but Jilly loves ’em.” Ben pulled off his jacket.
“Glad y’all could make it.”
They proffered their tickets, and the usher walked them down to their seats. Silas perused the ceiling and walls. Yep. They’d rigged the blood spray to come from most directions for those first three rows. Good thing he’d opted for the tenth.
Silas entered the aisle first so Trip could sit closer to the rest of the gang. “Trip said you’re an Evil Dead fan.” He sat and turned back to Ben.
Ben had just sat down. “Sam Raimi fan. Hardcore. Spider-Man too. Right?”
“Same. I loved Xena and Hercules, too, back when. Snarky barbarians.”
Max hung back to enter last. “Can Mom and Rina sit here?”
Ben eyeballed Silas a moment. “Bruce Campbell is the greatest actor who ever lived.” He laughed and seemed to relax. “Manly snark.” He pointed at the gory program art. “Death is not just for dead people. It can happen to anybody.” His voice sounded like Dudley Do-Right, idiotically rugged.
Good gravy!
“Are—” Silas stopped moving and let his mouth fall open, then beamed. “Did you just say…?”
Ben spun. An identical beaming grin appeared on his face, and he tucked his chin to announce. “I hate broccoli, and yet, in a certain sense—”
“I am broccoli!” Silas shouted along with Ben. They stood and embraced each other over Trip, thumped backs in a butch display that turned a few heads around them. Fanboy mind meld.
“Umm, guys.” Flattened into his seat, Trip looked at Max, who shrugged.
“Crazy.” Ben poked Silas in the tit.
They sat again, and Ben swiveled on Trip with incredulity. “The Tick is comic gold. The guy who played Bat Manuel ended up as the—”
“—mayor in Dark Knight!” Silas high-fived him, and robust cackling and snorting ensued.
“Dad. Stop.” Max glowered. Grown-ups were embarrassing.
“Did you just steal my boyfriend?” Trip jabbed Ben.
Silas blinked at the ceiling. “You’re talking to someone who believes that The Tick is the single greatest sitcom ever broadcast in the United States.”
“The Tick?” Trip frowned. “I didn’t know that. What about Conan?”
Silas waved the distracting thought away. “Sure, yeah. Barbarian movies are my comfort food. I have a shitty day, I come home and go through the Deathstalkers, Hercules, Amazon Queen flicks like bam-bam-bam. But The Tick is like the best of both worlds because he’s big and dumb like a barbarian but hilarious as all get-out.”
Trip eyed them doubtfully. “Maybe I didn’t give it a chance. I didn’t know anyone actually watched that.”
“Mostly they didn’t. Fox kinda railroaded them.” Ben shared some regret with Silas, who shrugged in kind.
“Fools!” Silas raised a defiant arm. “I recorded the episodes. I bought the DVDs. Living rooms of America, do you catch my drift? Do you dig?”
“It got canceled?” Trip looked at Ben.
“Too smart. Too mean.” Ben shrugged and pointed at the ceiling. “I will spread my buttery justice over their every nook and cranny.”
“Egad!” Silas pitched his voice into a heroic rumble. “I started with the comic book.”
“Cartoon and sitcom.” Ben sighed with satisfaction. He gave Silas a jocky thwap on the back. “Really great to meet you, man.”
Silas grinned at Trip. “I still want to be Patrick Warburton when I grow up. Actually, if we both got blue suits, you could be Nightcrawler—”
“Shut up!” Trip laughed warmly. “Ben’s the best.”
“You kidding? He watches The Tick. That’s pretty obscure.”
Just as the aisles cleared, the ladies arrived and began to scuse-me-sorry their way into the row. Silas perused the audience; the theater had filled up, and for a matinee the audience seemed exceptionally young and funky. A lot of laughter. Hallelujah. Nothing was worse than bringing strangers to a limp performance.
After Jillian sat, she presented her guys with T-shirts that said “I Survived the Splatter Zone.” She pointed at the stage. “We can roll around in the gunk after the curtain call.”
“I opted to support the arts instead.” Rina had sprung for a copy of the CD. She flashed a shy smile at Silas. “Let the butchery commence.”
With the rest distracted, Trip leaned over to him and whispered, “You good?”
Silas muttered back, “I like them a lot.”
“I think it’s mutual. You were nervous.”
“No, you were nervous.” Silas tried not to grin.
Trip bumped their shoulders companionably. “See? Piece of cake.”
The lights dimmed, and a voice told them to kill their devices before the slaughter began. Trip took his hand, which made Silas’s heart do a baby chimpanzee somersault.
Cake.
“SHE’S prob’ly not trying to kill you.” Trip countered.
“Selene sucks. She watches cooking shows.” Max gagged at the thought of his regular sitter, a straight-A junior at Chelsea prep. “Ugh.”
They had stopped to drop Max off at kid jail back in Murray Hill. The ladies dragged Silas upstairs. Trip flopped down in Ben’s armchair in the living room. Ben jogged upstairs to rinse off some of the gore and change his shirt. Silas assured him nothing would stain, which seemed to disappoint the Stones greatly.
Trip still felt smiley and buzzy from the show. Evil Dead had kicked every kind of ass, and of course, Silas had charmed the hell out of everyone. “Good show, huh?”
“Yeah.” Max made no bones about his irritation at being abandoned.
Because he spent so much time with Ben and Jillian’s insane friends, Max got impatient with mere mortals. The downside of being a cool kid… they got tired of being kids. The idea of a babysitter must have seemed like the final insult. “I keep having to fix her phone.”
Trip checked his watch. He didn’t want Silas stuck up there for ages on goblin detail. They had dinner reservations at a tapas bar on Irving Place. “School night.” Trip didn’t try to explain the concept of drinks and NC-17 gossip. He felt guilty for leaving Max behind, but Ben and Jillian needed a little grown-up time.
Normally Trip drew while Max played, but he couldn’t exactly draw a sex demon with a nine-year-old underfoot. Hero High was kid-safe, at least. He could work on it in Starbucks, if need be. But Scratch had to stay secret.
“C’mon, buddy. We won’t be long. Whatcha gonna do?”
Max shrugged.
“Movie, then? You could have an Evil Dead marathon.”
“I guess.” Max scooped up a muscular black-and-white action figure: Venom, it looked like, Spider-Man’s slobbering shark-toothed twin with an exaggerated tongue and wads of sinew. A far cry from the kinds of goofy
Silver Age boogeymen Trip had grown up with. DC still took shit for creating the Condiment King, who fought heroes with relish. Yes, really.
“Can I see?”
Max handed Venom over to him somberly.
Slouching on the edge of the chair, Trip considered the little bad guy and tried to imagine the fortune he’d earned for his creators. The greater the evil, the greater the bill.
“Neat, huh?” Max knelt, watching his inspection of Venom.
The jealousy made him feel like an ass. What did it feel like to have your characters out in the world like this? Trip knew how lucky he was to work in the industry at all. And Hero High had been a gravy train. Still…
“Venom’s an epic character.” Trip stood Venom up on the coffee table between them.
“You ever wish you’d made him up? First.” Max put his chin on the glass.
Trip laughed. “Well, it took more than one person.”
Duh, said the invisible thought-bubble over Max. Little-boy logic. “Someone thought of him. I mean, he’s not real.”
“The idea, yeah, but he has a whole team. You got writers and artists and editors all working for Marvel comics, and they all stirred things into the pot. A fanboy called Schueller had the costume idea, and Michelinie wrote him as a character. And then this famous artist named Todd McFarlane drew him in a way fans loved. So Venom ended up in toys and video games and trading cards. Twenty years and he got famous enough that Topher what’s-his-name could play him in a big tacky blockbuster.”
“Which sucked.” Max nodded solemnly.
“Given.” Trip spread his hands wide, not sure how far to go. Was Max interested or only hoping to worm his way out to dinner?
“So… Venom’s more famous than the guy who thought him up.”
“Oh yeah. Easy. Venom is bigger than all of them together ’cause he got loose.” Trip nodded. “But alla those artists put Venom together-together over a long time. Like twenty-five years. And then, other people built things out of him that add to his story. Like games and lunch boxes and more books, and those stories become part of the character, so he stays alive and keeps changing out in the world. So he isn’t actually alive-alive, but he’s inside a whole bunch of heads, which only makes him stronger.”
“Like the flu.” Max walked the little doll a couple of steps, then weighed it. “’Cause they shared him.”
Trip snorted. “Yeah. Sorta. A really tough germ you can’t get rid of, except with being famous instead of fevers and snot.”
Max giggled. Snot was always funny in this house. “And that’s what you do.”
Trip grinned. “And that’s what I do.”
“Cool.”
Yeah. Not so much. How did parents know what to say at these moments? For all he knew, Max’s questions might change the course of his entire life. Then again, maybe he was just curious about a favorite toy. Trip ran his hand over Max’s messy head, his hair straight and glossy as Jillian’s but the same dull brown as Ben’s.
“Y’know, Silas has a friend who makes action figures.”
Max looked up at that. “Like in a factory?”
That image forced a laugh out of Trip. Logical. “No. No, I mean he designs the molds they use to make them. He sculpts the figure first and then works out how the pieces fit. Takes ’em apart. Puts ’em together. Y’know, where they bend and what they wear and the face… then he sends it to the factory.”
“Awesome.” Max hefted the molded resin in his hand. His eyebrows marked a stark line as he considered the possibilities. “So he coulda made this Venom?”
“Well, he didn’t, but someone did. Venom didn’t come out of thin air.” Silas was right, or Picasso. No artist is a bastard.
Max blinked, and in that blink Trip imagined his godson could see the connected dots that linked the little doll he held to a store and a factory and a mold and a sculptor and a drawing and a story that somebody wrote on a blank piece of paper after a couple of brain cells sparked inside their skull.
Trip still remembered the exact Wednesday he realized that Vampirella and Dr. Strange were just lines on paper that some shnook squeezed out of their dreams and fingers. Which was the day he decided he wanted to make his own lines on paper—not a bullshit “I’m gonna be an astronaut” wish, but an “art classes every Saturday morning” plan—even when his father scoffed.
“Your friend gets paid to play with action figures?” Max’s eyes shone wide and expectant. He looked like his mom when she sang.
Trip laughed. “Not hardly. I mean, you play, but it’s an awful lot of work.”
Like a match to a wick, the idea lit Max’s face. “You’d have to study a lot, I bet.”
“A whole lot.” Silently, Trip begged Ben and Jillian’s forgiveness. He felt guilty for making an infuriating profession seem glamorous. They wanted Max to be a drummer or a game show host, something outrageous and dazzling. “It’s probably not as cool as it sounds.”
Actually, it was even cooler for a hardcore nerd. Modeling for toy companies was one of the holy grails for sculptors in the industry. But Trip was trying to be an adult and keep the enthusiasm out of his voice.
Max stayed on the rug, percolating. “How’d he do it?”
“He took a whole lotta art classes and anatomy, and after a long time, a company came and asked him to design their toys.” Trip glanced at his watch. Surely Jillian had to be finished exploiting his boyfriend’s depilatory know-how.
After standing the figure back on the table, for a long moment, Max sat peering at Venom as if he could see something beneath the acrylic and resin. “I wanna do that.”
Trip grinned. “Your mom said you wanted to be a heart surgeon.”
“Mom says all kinds of stuff. But I’d be better at bad guys.”
“Like a surgeon for superheroes.”
“And supervillains. Trip?” Max sounded serious again. “Did you ever make up a character from scratch?”
Trip smiled at that. Scratch had this way of sneaking into every conversation. “Lots. But you probably never heard of them. I been drawing Hero High for a long time.”
Max looked down, old enough to hold his tongue. He thought Hero High sucked but loved Trip too much to say so. “I mean one famous character, like Venom. An epic one.”
Trip squinted. “I’ve made up lots of characters. Who knows?”
“You’d know. A really cool snotty one that needs a lotta stories.” Max knocked Venom onto his back. “That other people share and wanna catch.”
Yeah: Scratch.
“One. But nobody’s heard of him yet.”
Max gave him a weird look. “Why?”
“He’s….” Trip shrugged. “A secret.” My secret.
“That seems dumb.”
Ouch. Maybe it was dumb, but one day he’d have to let Scratch loose, and then a whole lot of other people would wade in with their own agendas and ideas. Trip’s ownership would evaporate the minute he brought anyone else on board.
Max wasn’t buying it. “How can he ever have stories if he just sits on his butt in his secret hideout forever?”
“Well, He’s needs to be a secret for now. He’s not for little people. So… probably not the flu after all. More like sniffles.” Trip felt guilty just imagining Scratch’s sexy everything while sitting on the Stones’ old couch. Max could never know about that comic and could never see any of his work on it. Eesh. The mix of shame and pride sucked.
“You don’t know. I mean, if you don’t share him, and keep him a secret, how can anyone catch him?”
Trip tried to imagine turning up in Chicago with a crate of naked demon toys. Signing Scratch’s dick for fans. Hard call.
Trip stood Venom back up on his two little feet. “Why are you thinking about jobs?”
“I’m almost in middle school.” Max looked at him.
Trip jabbed a finger at him. “Old man.”
“I like a girl. In my homeroom. Julie.” Max smiled, as if that explained everything. “She has curly
red hair.”
“Cool.” Trip didn’t know what he was supposed to say to a kid in these moments. Nine was closer to a teenager than he’d realized. Gah. He felt prehistoric.
“Does that seem weird?”
“Why?”
“’Cause you don’t like girls.” Max cocked his head and quirked his mouth. “Like-like, I mean.”
Trip chuckled. “Well, I don’t dislike ’em. I just like guys in a different way. Y’see?”
“I guess.” Max fetched the Evil Dead box set off the shelf and plonked it on the coffee table.
“I think the liking part is more important than the boy or girl part. There are lots of girls and lots of guys, but there are only a very few people you can really and for-truly like.”
“Oh brother.” Max crossed his arms. “Well, I don’t wanna kiss her or anything. I just like talking to her a lot. She’s funny.”
Trip nodded. “That’s key.”
“And she has the best laugh ever. Her eyes make little moons.” Max smiled to himself.
“Is she nice?”
Max shrugged.
“Nice is more important than people think, and harder to find than they say.”
Max popped out the first DVD. “I mean, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s a friend who’s a girl.”
“That seems like a good place to start.” Trip grinned. “Nobody has to like anyone they don’t. That’s one of the greatest things about love. You can’t make it do things even if you wanna. And if you can, it probably isn’t love.”
Max held up Venom with a grave expression. “Do you love Silas?”
Trip glanced at the stairs. “Sometimes.”
The little boy looked baffled.
“Listen, buddy: it’s not a car. Your heart doesn’t go in one direction at a time. I mean, sometimes you love your dad even though you’re annoyed with him. Or your Julie. She may have the best laugh, but sometimes she’s laughing at you.”
“I guess.” Max smiled at some memory and dipped his head. “That’s different.”
“Grown-up secret. You ready?” Trip muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Everything’s different. No two people are alike. No two feelings. You have to look close.” He prayed Silas didn’t overhear any of this.