by Damon Suede
“On his birthday? Who’s he bitching at?”
“Dun-no. Planning that zom-mombie run shit.” He shrugged. “He’s all-ways tryin’ to tell me about ’em. Fpphhtt.” Ziggy flipped Kurt off crookedly with a hand that wouldn’t quite obey him.
How embarrassing for Kurt. He had to know Ziggy had no interest in a running event.
Silas’d probably end up doing makeup for the next OutRun, scheduled around Pride in June, a little over a month away. They’d have wrapped Undercover Lovers by then.
Ziggy winced again, his eyes unfocused.
For a trickle of seconds, Silas considered inviting Ziggy to come hang out in the makeup tent, just to give him a place and a way to participate, but he worried it might seem patronizing or invasive, and he had no idea what Ziggy and Kurt had going on between them.
An awkward silence fell. Silas knew the programmer was in pain, and he seemed embarrassed by it. Kurt’s muffled blather floated around them, and the waiting did feel like detention.
Silas wondered, idly, if any of the guests tonight actually wanted to be here with Mr. Bogusz. Odds were good that everyone, other than him, was on one payroll or another. He wouldn’t trade places with Kurt for anything.
“Where’s-a man? Yours.” Ziggy flapped a hand at Silas impatiently. “I want’d to meet-im.”
His heart seized a little. “You mean Trip?”
Ziggy blinked. “Comic guy.”
“Yeah. Uh.” Silas bit his lip. “We split. Broke up.”
“M’sorry.” Ziggy bounced his leg jerkily. He looked embarrassed. “Tha’s not good.”
“Wasn’t my idea.” He shrugged. “Never had a serious boyfriend, not like… that.”
Ziggy studied him, long enough to prompt an explanation.
“He decided that I didn’t fit the life he’s pretending to live.” Silas frowned, not caring if he sounded as bitter as he was. No more masks. That was something at least.
Kurt’s voice rose in the office. “’Xactly my point.”
Ziggy nodded and scratched his tangled head. “Men are retarded.” He snorted, peered at something tucked behind his feet against the chair: his battered crutches. “They’re so fucking handi-cah-capped, I can’t believe they aren’t born with these bolted to their hands.” He kicked at them.
Silas hadn’t noticed them there. Why wasn’t Ziggy using them tonight, when it obviously hurt to sit?
“Nuh-thing’s perfect.” Ziggy’s chin jerked defiantly, and the clean planes of his matinee-idol profile angled hard toward the light. The tendons in his neck knotted and released. “No-body.”
In the other room, Kurt barked something negative into the phone.
Silas looked up into Ziggy’s hooded gaze. They didn’t nod at each other, but they might have. Ziggy grunted and wiped his chin with jerky imprecision. How long had he and Kurt circled each other? Silas had no idea.
“Trip kept wanting to change me.” Silas leaned the portfolio against his chair and wished he hadn’t brought it. “He kept asking advice and showing me shit and dragging me along while he dreamed up this whole crazy scheme that was bullshit anyways.”
Ziggy tucked his hair behind his ear.
“I shouldn’t have come here tonight.”
“You talk to h-him?” Ziggy spoke softly.
“No.”
“Came out wrong.” Ziggy shook his head and then asked deliberately, “I meant, can you stil-ll talk to him?”
“He wouldn’t. We didn’t have the same feelings for each other.”
“Ah.” Ziggy gripped the chair. “Sucks.”
In the other room, Kurt said something about lawyers and currency while he leaned and gazed out the window at his three-million-dollar view.
Ziggy watched him for a moment, face like marble. He blinked hard and jogged his head as if it stung.
Silas nodded at nothing. “Anyways, it doesn’t matter.”
“Ppff. You retarded? Everything matters.” With a wince, Ziggy scooted forward in his chair. “How did he feel?”
“I have no idea. He had other plans he wouldn’t share.”
Ziggy’s brow bunched. “Then how-ow do you know it’s dif’rent?”
“He set me up. We had gotten so wrapped up in this project of his that I helped too much. His comic book. I’m a grown-up. I didn’t think it was a job, but then he… fired me, is what it felt like.”
“So he try-ied to tell you.” Ziggy’s left arm flexed uncontrollably and they both ignored it. “Communic-ation.”
Silas examined Kurt’s blind back. “He didn’t, though. He didn’t need me or want me or… anything. No idea how to communicate. Possession. No one else allowed.”
“Y’mean.” Ziggy blinked. “The ff-fans or you?”
“It was fucking art. His. And he wouldn’t turn the thing loose, let it go. Or couldn’t.”
“Which is why he was allll-ways asking advice and showing you pages and try-ying to drag you into it even though the comic is his deal. Thaaah-at’s called sharing.” Ziggy’s wrist bent hard, folding his fist toward the rigid forearm. “Or as some stupid assss-holes put it…” He opened his mouth. His tongue struggled to shape the word. It came out as a gasp. “…love.”
Silas froze. Blinked. Swallowed.
Was that true? Maybe he’d forgotten what it was like to invent something from scratch. So quick to judge. Years of working for chump change on indie flicks had left Silas wary of working for nothing, except Trip’s project wasn’t work and was certainly not for nothing.
And then he remembered the night he’d unveiled the Judge, and Trip’s open, grateful face. Silas had paid attention to something that mattered to them both, and that had meant everything to Trip. Life had changed for them that night, but he’d never stopped to ask why.
Ziggy fiddled with the cuff of his shirt. The skin on his forearms was still pink, like he’d deliberately hidden the crutches when he arrived. He glanced back toward Kurt’s stern voice and then at his watch. His right foot twitched until he pressed it against the floor. He stuck out his chin.
No. Trip hadn’t shut him out at any point. For all his neuroses, he had shared Scratch. Sure, he’d been demanding and sullen, but that went both ways. Even jealous and petty at the end, but he’d always included Silas in the stuff that mattered. He’d showed up, been present. Until Silas and Cliff had pushed him at the con and he’d panicked.
Shit.
Silas had judged him when they both knew better. He’d swung a huge scary gavel and Trip had jumped back, toward the fake safety Cliff represented. The devil he knew.
“What….” Silas wiped his nose, not caring that he probably looked as ugly as he felt. “The fuck have I done?”
“Mmph.” Ziggy’s head wobbled, a gentle, painful palsy. “Been a deh-dick.” He mashed his lips together and smiled, but his eyes were wet. “Bee-een a guy.” Another hard blink that made him seem about fourteen. “Been ah-uff—” He scowled and shook his head in frustration as he strained to get a word out. “Fraid!” He punched his thigh hard in irritation. “Fraid.”
Frayed? Like fabric?
For a beat, Silas started to ask what “frayed” meant, and then he knew. Afraid. Yeah, fucking terrified… and frayed too: worn around the edges by mistakes and rough handling. Even if Ziggy had said the other word by accident, he was dead right twice over.
Silas’s mouth buckled, and he shook his head as Ziggy had, without the same excuse. A stupid tear slipped free. He ran the back of his knuckles over it to smear it into submission, but Ziggy hadn’t seen. He’d trained his cold wolf eyes on the handsome salt-and-pepper head across the apartment. He looked tender and angry as an orphan.
Frayed.
Right then, Silas finally knew what he should have said in Chicago. Wisdom of the staircase. If he hadn’t worked so hard on that goddamn incubus makeup and gotten his ass handed to him in front of a thousand crazy fans. If Trip hadn’t shocked and hurt him so casually.
Behind his desk, Kurt held up
four fingers and scowled at them, whatever that meant. Four minutes? Four grand? Four hustlers?
Ziggy exhaled painfully and his eyes shut. He blinked at the window and the sky with terrible patience, a wingless creature pondering flight.
He was frayed and afraid, too, and Kurt. Rina and Leigh Ann. His producers at Showtime. His parents in Alabama. Hell, every goofy ex he’d ever dated and discarded, every human being he’d ever met. Even that asshole Cliff. They all scrabbled around to hold threads together while their world unraveled.
The secret seed of all superheroes: falling apart. Everyone who had survived childhood ended up tattered and terrified. Locked in a kryptonite dungeon, bound with their own magic lassos, mutated and mutilated. Trip more than anyone else. And yet he’d walked away, because the sharing felt like theft. Sick.
Silas turned. A flash of his drawing of the Judge wielding his ugly gavel. “He’s my villain,” Trip had said.
No shit.
Maybe that’s what being a couple meant: not that you were brave for each other, but that you could let someone be scared or damaged without judging them. Sharing monsters. Knowing theirs, giving them yours.
With this thing, I thee wed.
Ziggy glanced toward the office again and scrutinized his nail-bitten hands, scarcely able to sit but too proud to stand with his crutches. Frayed.
In the office space, Kurt’s voice ebbed and flowed as he paced back and forth in the office, wheedling and crooning. The words seemed indistinct and chipper.
Silas thought he understood: Ziggy wished Kurt would see him clearly, but he hid everything that mattered. Kurt hosted his charity zombies because he forgot Ziggy could never run.
Kurt spent himself on hookers, and Ziggy kept him honest. Most likely, they’d never inch any closer because they knew all too well how frayed and afraid they were.
They love each other. Silas tried to laugh and frown at the same time. “You’re like his spirit animal.”
Ziggy snarled, “The fuck?” He shook his head slowly at the sight of Kurt on the phone not seeing them.
Silas grimaced awkwardly. For all Ziggy’s bitching, he knew Kurt’s monsters and kept track of them. The pissedness was protective.
“Nothing. Spirit animal. Inside joke.” He should have kept his mouth shut. “With… nobody, really. Never mind.”
Ziggy picked up his crutches and swung onto his legs without using them. “I think you have to have a fucking spirit for that.”
In the kitchen, clinks of silverware on china.
“Fuck thii-is.” Ziggy teetered, his pale eyes wide, perfect nostrils flared. “Fuck Captain Ass-tastic in there and fu-uhhk his checkbook of steel.” He put the unused crutches over his shoulders like a fishing pole. “I’m gonna go-oh to the gym. I need a blowjob. Go hoh-home, smoke a joint after.” Even in his button-down shirt, he resembled a Medici prince tasting vinegar, disappointed by the grubby, gruesome world he was forced to rule.
Before Silas got a chance to respond, Ziggy moved with startling, jerky speed as he stomped to the front door on his brand new shoes and yanked it open to exit.
Across the office, Kurt raised his voice and stepped in their direction, holding up fingers. “Two secs. Two secs, Zig.”
Silas sat uneasily in the slick leather. He’d trespassed on a private moment between them, even though they weren’t together and this wasn’t private.
Wham. The front door slammed shut, and the grouchy programmer was gone.
“No! It’s a go.” Kurt strode toward the shut door. “We did it. I gotta tell him. “Achievement unlocked!” He brandished a fist.
“Did what?”
Kurt tugged the door open. “Zig!”
“You’re such a schmuck.” Silas covered his mouth and blinked at his best friend.
“He knew what I was doing.” Kurt let the door drift shut.
Silas cocked his head, measuring his friend. “Lucky him.”
“I bought his controller.” Kurt looked hurt. “They agreed.”
“Kurt, he was waiting when I showed up. He sat out here waiting forty minutes. You can’t treat people like that. He’s not a hustler.”
“Nah! He doesn’t care. He bitches for effect.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because he’d say something. Tough as a boot. And Ziggy’s not exactly shy.”
Silas stood, slowly. “The only guy you give two shits about just sat out here waiting for you like a stray dog while you tried to drive him away. Because you’re fucking afraid.”
Frayed.
“Of what? Of what?”
Silas put his jacket on.
Kurt held up a hand. “You’re leaving?”
Silas pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. Why in hell had he agreed to come to this bullshit circus? Dinner with strangers. If Kurt wanted to rent a room full of fake friends, Silas certainly didn’t need to sit around and corrode the illusion.
“You need to meet this stud I got lined up. Spanish banker. Ten-inch dork.” Kurt craned his neck to see into the dining room. “Bitch, at least have a conversation. Men like him do not grow on trees.”
“No. Men don’t. We’re not fruits or nuts or anything else.” Silas sounded like his dad, and the thought made him proud. For a moment, he missed his dad so much he could hardly breathe, wished he could call home and ask for advice. He shook the thought away. “We barely grow at all.”
Kurt hissed. “You cannot walk out before she serves the soup.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the soup.” Silas hefted the portfolio he’d brought as an afterthought.
“C’mon, man. I can’t eat dinner with the caterer. I got a ton of guys coming.”
Silas knew full well that retcon was impossible… but maybe he could make amends from a distance. He walked back to the foyer with Kurt trailing. The portfolio handle almost scalded his hand. He had never asked Kurt for anything.
Kurt stepped closer and lowered his voice. “This is embarrassing. You’re embarrassing me.”
“Well, then, I’m a rotten person and I’ll never go to heaven.”
“Silas, I’m trying to be your friend.”
“Same here.” Silas pushed the heavy portfolio into his hands. “Happy birthday, dickhead.”
“You already gave me a present last week.”
“I know.” Silas had bought him a vintage Coleco game system he’d found at a stoop sale in Queens. Kurt loved retro gear, and none of the guests would know that or bother if they did. Kurt would never admit that shit to people he wanted to impress. Too frayed.
Kurt’s forehead wrinkled and he scowled at the black leatherette in his hands. “So… what the fuck?”
Silas heaved a ragged sigh, as if the world was a candle he could blow out. He looked at the portfolio and made a wish. “That’s for someone else.”
22
“I’M SORRY. Who are you supposed to be?”
Late on a Wednesday, Trip arrived at the Fox offices in midtown, not sure what to expect. At a minimum, he had expected to be expected.
“Speck?” A college-age receptionist wearing a vest and a beige tie examined him like a slug.
Trip faltered, scratching his forearms. “Uhh. Trip Spector. I’m here for the Hero High meeting.” Wrong building? He fished his phone out of his pocket and paddled through to the appointment to confirm: May 29. Had he gone to the wrong floor? Was he early? The clock said five p.m. Cliff had said they might head to drinks and dinner with their new producers.
The fuck?
Trip peered past reception into a vast cubicled cavern hemmed in by fishbowl offices. Privacy came at a premium in here. A lot of young professionals in hispter casual sat computing and muttering into telephones. No one smiled or even looked in his direction. Suit-itis. So much for showbiz.
“Trip Van Winkle!”
Cliff waved from a doorway about thirty feet down the line of enclosed offices.
The receptionist half smiled and waved him back without a word.
Trip dropped his jacket over his itchy arm and picked up his portfolio. He walked slowly toward his beaming editor. Cliff’s tie was askew, and he seemed a little tipsy. Good sign. Obviously some kind of sleazebag accord had been reached.
Cliff waved him into a curtained conference room and gave the thumbs-up to someone outside. The sour receptionist, maybe. The room had a cherry laminate table polished to a blinding glare. About forty-five Aeron chairs ringed it, all angled just-so by the corporate maintenance fairies. Sixty grand in furniture. Staplegun had dragged out two seats at the near end, and there were two bottles of water.
Where is everyone?
Trip hung his jacket on one chair as he entered. One wall was solid glass gazing over the east side of midtown to a bruised sky. Almost dark. “I thought we were going to get a tour of the facility.”
“Nah, fuck the tour. ’S’bullshit, bro. You can do it later.”
Trip slid the portfolio onto the table without opening it. He’d brought it in case one of the suits couldn’t visualize for shit. Silas had warned him repeatedly about the power of pictures as leverage with these drones.
Cliff seemed weirdly triumphant and definitely boozed up. “I wanna talk before they come back.”
“Back from where? Did you go out for drinks already?”
“Teleconference. Hollywood’s three hours behind. I told the guys we needed a few minutes.” Cliff took the chairman’s seat at the head. Dad’s seat. He spun a little as he threw himself into the chair like a triumphant brat.
“You already met with everyone?” Trip sat catty-corner and peered around them in confusion. “Do we need to sign?”
“I already signed for us.” Cliff flapped a hand. “For Big Dog, I mean. But we’re signed, sealed, deliberated.”
Trip let that sink in for a moment. “That so.”
Cliff stared at him as if waiting for Trip to give permission. “Really proud of us. I did good.”
“And what about meeting with Fox Features?” Trip turned the chair so he wasn’t facing his tipsy editor.
“Family. The all-new Fox Family wants our book, man!”