Bad Idea

by Damon Suede

  Trip stood on a little knoll and surveyed Kurt’s army of groggy volunteers: half in festering makeup and half in T-shirts with a hungry, angry Closet Monster on the back. He switched his portfolio from one sweaty palm to the other. The parade kicked off at noon, so the charity run would shamble ahead at eight.

  Inside that makeup tent, Silas and his crew had to be whipping all their baddies into fighting shape. Every time Trip heard his voice or his laugh, he felt simultaneously elated and more than a little ill.

  For two weeks Trip had weighed Kurt’s offer. On Tuesday, he’d schlepped out to Silvercup only to find the Undercover Lovers set demolished and Silas long gone. Never in all their months together had Trip paid real attention to the shoot or Silas’s work. Another bungle in what seemed a leopard of blind spots. The dark rectangle where the makeup trailer had sat told him nothing. Silas had left and the show was done. “TV shoot down near New Orleans,” they said. They wouldn’t even let him leave a note.

  In some strange way, seeing the empty studio made Trip feel like he had managed to catch a glimpse of Silas after all.

  He didn’t have much time, so he’d called Kurt in a panic. Yes, Silas was heading South. No, Kurt refused to get in the middle. “Your fucking fallout,” he’d said.

  Out of pity, or calculation, Kurt had put him on the Unbored volunteer list for Pride… and here he was in Central Park, here and queer and not even a little proud. Horrible longing and guilt kept him frozen in place under the lemon-chiffon sky, still waiting for the sun to paint the horizon.

  Better to catch Silas in private, but the crowd kept multiplying like maggots. Cheerful OutRun volunteers herded runners toward the starting line and their straggling monsters toward makeup. Trip peeked at his phone again. With the volunteer badge, all he had to do was walk in there. Tomorrow Silas would be shooting a thousand miles away with shitty reception and hot actors like low-hanging fruit.

  For the past hour, Trip stood in the dark as he worked up his nerve and watched a club being built. A good fifty yards or so from the makeup tent, a crew of burly carpenters had erected a temporary disco. Trip had never seen a dance floor being hammered into place with mallets, but he saw where the speakers and the bars would hang. Drills whined nearby, and he heard the dry squa-crack of a crowbar splitting wood. Someone’s iPod pumped Pink remixes.

  Between the tent and the emerging party space, chairs and tables had been set up, about which some forty zombies ate doughnuts, chatted, or texted while they hung around waiting for their cue. Surreal. Pallets of lumber and lights lined one path that stretched past them and the trees between the makeup tents and the disco.

  Weirdest thing, the unfinished party space looked a lot like the wrecked sex lounge from the climax of Scratch’s first issue: shattered bar, jagged stage, rubble crunching underfoot. The only thing missing was the Horn Gate, chewing the air around the heroes. Watching the construction, Trip felt like he was flipping through Scratch #1 backward.

  A hollow clang behind him drew Trip’s attention back to the lumber-lined path that bent toward the dance floor.

  Twenty feet away, a brawny man in a pair of overalls and a white tank top squatted, using his square hands to balance a three-foot box on one shoulder. As he strode past the building materials, the fur of his thick forearm shone dark gold in the gloaming, and the denim stretched over his round haunch. Raw maleness on the hoof.

  Jeepers.

  The easy confidence of that massive body took Trip’s breath away as it crunched across the construction like a… barbarian. The man paused briefly to answer some kind of inaudible question from someone hidden behind the lumber. Even before the square face turned, Trip anticipated the molasses drawl, felt it in his bones the way dogs smell an oncoming storm.

  Heart in his throat, feet disobedient, he found himself taking jerky steps into the undead mob breaking their fast. Trip’s head pounded, and he fought the impulse to duck out of sight and disappear among the trees and corpses.

  “I’ll be right….” Silas stopped when their eyes met. “Back.”

  Trip held up a hand in greeting. Relief swamped him and his legs wobbled. He grabbed the back of one of the folding chairs for a moment to steady himself.

  Silas didn’t smile or speak, just shifted his weight. He looked so wholesome and handsome in his overalls and soaked undershirt that Trip’s mouth went dry.

  “I didn’t wanna bug you working.” Trip pointed toward the stage. “You a carpenter now too?”

  Silas held up a hand. “Fuck off, Spector.” His hazel eyes were dead and cold.

  “I will.” Trip counted to three. Easier said than done. “If you want.”

  Silas shifted his weight. “Left some cowls curing in their lockup. I’m working.” His bicep flexed to keep the box balanced. “My team is executing. I did the designs.”

  “Looks great.” Trip gestured at the bar. He tried to laugh casually. “Actually, this looks like—”

  Silas nodded back, giving no ground. He glanced away and trudged past Trip toward the makeup tent. He said nothing, which said plenty. Just outside the entrance, he dropped the box with an ugly crash. Whatever was inside sounded heavy and broken now.

  “Everybody….” A woman Trip recognized from New Year’s poked her head out of the flaps. “Oh—?”

  Eyes on Trip, Silas muttered. “In a minute, Tiffany.”

  “Kurt needs you to check in for press, and we got thirteen no-shows.” She looked from Silas to Trip and back. “And we’re still waiting on that flocked compound.”

  “A minute.” A growl at the ground.

  She blanched and vanished.

  Where’s a Horn Gate when you need one?

  Trip approached the big man tentatively, wishing the crew across the way were building the club from his comic book and that Scratch would swoop in to help him before anyone walked away. “Silas.”

  Silas stopped. He wiped his hands on his chest.

  “You want a hand?”

  Silas huffed negatively and crossed the zombie holding area in the direction of the dance floor.

  Undaunted, Trip followed. Apparently, he was gonna have to earn every millimeter on this one.

  Who’s counting?

  Tension arced between them as they walked. A couple of volunteers and zombies waved or called to Silas and got no reply.

  Trip put his free hand in his pocket. “Silvercup said you were headed south.”

  “H’yuh. I got offered a job by a haunted house outfit from Texas. Creature design for a chain of houses all over the US in the fall.”

  “Congratulations.” Trip couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be pleased. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Well, it’s health insurance, at least. Six weeks of work, and I don’t have to fly down till we do castings. Feels very grown-up. But Kurt did this OutRun for Pride.”

  Trip exhaled. “Walkin’ Closet.”

  “Yup.” Silas stopped walking at the edge of the skeletal DJ platform.

  On the ground, a pair of battered ten-gallon buckets sat tucked against a pallet. Trip reached for one.

  Silas muttered, “Don’t help.” He squatted to lift a heavy drum in each hand. The damp swell of his shoulders bulged with the wobbly weight. The first feathery glimmers of sun traced his straining overalls and the bright fuzz on his chest.

  Trip ran his eye over the temporary club’s sheetrock and scaffolding like scattered panels from his comic. “How’d Kurt get permits for all this?”

  “Money.” Silas mock-sneered. “MTV is doing a special. Benefit for suicide hotline.”

  So Kurt hadn’t said anything about the Talon. “Good. That sounds really good. Are you gonna—”

  Silas bobbed his head cheerlessly and lugged the huge buckets across the patchwork dance floor and back toward the makeup tent. “No. I’m gonna go shoot a pilot with some friends of mine. Believe it or not, they’re even paying my quote.”

  “That’s great.” Trip squeezed the slippery portfolio han
dle. “You make it sound like I’m judging you.”

  Silas arched a skeptical eyebrow. “You aren’t? You didn’t?”

  Trip chewed on that. Had he?

  A hairy roadie in cutoffs stepped out of their way, coiling cable from palm to elbow. He mumbled a greeting.

  “I’m happy for you, Silas. I’m not jealous.” Trip drifted closer to Silas, didn’t touch, though close enough that he could.

  “Pfft. All packaging, anyways.”

  Trip put a hand to his forehead. “And you gotta tear the packaging off anything great. Mint-on-card toys must suck.”

  Silas cleared his throat. “I figured you’d be waist deep in Hero High-jinx by now. Cliff poking your coals t’keep the heat on.”

  “No! Big Dog is done. Bridge burned, no do-over. I quit. Like axes and poison quit. Seriously.” Trip held up a bitch-please hand. “I attacked Cliff in the middle of Fox. I did what you said. Everything you told me. You were right and I’m sorry.”

  “Great.” Silas looked as grim as the Judge. “Congrats. Now I gotta job to do.”

  Back at the ragtag breakfast buffet, another swarm of freshly made-up ghouls had emerged and beelined toward the doughnuts and folding chairs. Silas watched them walk with a stern expression on his face.

  “Tiff: silicone!” He dropped the bulky drums outside the tent and kicked them, but he didn’t retreat into his tent.

  Good sign?

  Trip kept his tone casual. “You look great. I mean, you always look great, but it’s really great to see you.” He winced. “Looking great.”

  “You too. You haven’t been eating.” Silas crossed his arms.

  “No. Yeah. I know.” Trip thumbed the loose waistband of his cargo pants. “I’ve been working. I—”

  “Forgot.” They spoke the word in unison, same pitch even. For the first time, a reluctant smile flickered across Silas’s face, until he wagged his head to shake it loose.

  Silas heaved a deep breath. “Trip, why didn’t you call me? Ever. Not once.”

  Trip opened and closed his mouth like a trout.

  “Which told me a fuck of a lot about what was important.”

  “No.”

  “So you did call me?” Silas glared at him. “You called the wrong number for sixty-four days?”

  “No.”

  Silas wagged his head in disgust. “I’m so stupid! Somehow… you fuck off to parts unknown, and I’m suddenly thirteen years old and the fat loser again.” He rubbed his eyes. “One more sign I need a therapist or a fucking drug addiction I can afford. Know what? I’m checking out crafty last week, hottest fucking stud tries to gobble my knob in broad daylight. Do I care?”

  “Do you?” Trip wouldn’t look away.

  Silas seemed confused.

  Trip pressed. “I don’t. I don’t think any of that shit matters. I think life is complicated and messy.”

  “I can’t.” Silas turned to consider the tent, his back a wide wall.

  Finally, Trip said aloud what he’d thought for over a month and wished Silas would look at him when he said it. “I missed you.”

  For several moments, Silas didn’t react. His back remained still as he faced the trees. Then his shoulders shook, and at first Trip thought he was crying, but the nonsound coming out of him was uglier than tears. Silas began to laugh without making any sound or sign of happiness. Finally, he glanced back at Trip and laughed so hard he trembled, his mouth turned down.

  “What?”

  “Not a thing.” Silas punched his thigh hard, then shook his head and spat.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You hurt me,” he said. His hoarse voice made the truth sound final.

  “I know. I know I did.”

  Silas wheezed and wiped his nose. “Trip, everything can’t come from one person. It’s a two-way deal. But there are certain things you can never undo or unsay.”

  “I know.” Trip peered at the brightening sky. “You blow shit up, it changes. I know that.” The impromptu dance floor had come a long way. The putrid horde had swollen to nearly a hundred and fifty cheerful ghouls happily slurping caffeine and munching fried dough as the Godzilla sun finally rose, radioactive over the trees. Trip exhaled. “I can’t just rearrange wreckage and unwrite history. Sweeping up the broken glass and replacing it doesn’t mean that broken things unbreak themselves. No retcons for the shit that matters.”

  Standing under these lush trees, he remembered the gray day they’d met, with Trip terrified about running in a circle in broad daylight and Silas in his zombie costume, all his insides on the outside, the raw heart oozing behind shattered ribs.

  Somewhere in the past six months, he’d done some growing up.

  “So….” Trip shifted on his feet. “Kurt made me an offer.”

  Silas frowned a little. “He has a weakness for whores.”

  Ouch.

  Trip unzipped his portfolio and balanced it on his right arm.

  “I don’t need to see anything, Trip. Don’t wanna.” Silas closed his eyes. “Please.”

  Trip opened it and revealed the finished cover for the first issue of the comic: Scratch slick and smoldering, so completely and obviously Silas he felt sleazy admiring it. “I can’t even draw him as someone else.”

  “This fucker doesn’t exist anymore. He’s dead.”

  “No. Scratch’s a survivor. We’re gonna publish it first of the year. Long buildup. Full marketing campaign in advance.”

  “We?” Silas looked wary.

  Trip took a breath. Here goes nothing. “Kurt bought it for Unbored Games. He’s publishing the graphic novel.”

  “Kurt-Kurt?” Silas’s mouth moved uncertainly for a moment. “My Kurt.”

  “You set it up. You gave him the book.”

  “Yeah, uhh…. Not for that. He’s not a publisher.”

  “He’s an opportunist.” Trip snuffled and planted his feet solid. “Scratch is gonna become a video game. Some kinda rainmaker, he says. The comic book is like… parsley.”

  Silas shook his head. “The what?”

  Someone blew a whistle, three short blasts, and the crowd of zombies stood at attention. A pretty Black Widow with a clipboard climbed onto the table to read off a list of locations. Long pale rays warmed the hazy air as the sun crept higher.

  “They’re branching out or something. I dunno. With some tech thing, and you brought Scratch to him.” Trip rocked. “Gonna make us very rich.”

  Silas looked at him sharply.

  “You and me.” Trip let his arms drop, not hiding behind them or hugging himself. They hung loose at his sides, and he took a deep breath. “He wants you to come do creature design for it. And makeup for the promo. You’d have your own team under you. Full control.”

  Silas snapped his mouth shut and rubbed his face roughly. “A sex-demon video game.” He chuckled in the back of his throat. “Crazy fucker.”

  “He gave us a publicist. We’re going to leak it during Pride this afternoon. Big float with some kind of teaser. We get to ride on the damn float.” Trip pointed southeast-ish. “Shirtless, if you wanna.”

  The zombies, several hundred strong now, cleaned up the breakfast area and shuffled to the starting line.

  “Bullshit.”

  “For real.” Trip opened his arms. Bring it on. “We may even become a political statement.”

  Silas stared at him openmouthed. “Who will?”

  “Us. Scratch.” Trip leaned forward and hugged himself. “Kurt has this batshit notion Scratch will piss all the right people off. Major press coverage and some kind of new gaming hoo-hah needs the right story.”

  Silas blinked, as if he remembered something. “Fucking Ziggy.”

  Trip tapped the Scratch card. “Our little devil got the gig.”

  Silas nodded with his hand over his mouth. “No.”

  “Silas….”

  He stepped closer and poked Trip to punctuate. “No. No, we don’t license it. No, you can’t make me into a game. No, I won’t work with y
ou. No, I can’t believe Kurt would stick his nose into our shit unless you told him some stupid empty lie. No, I don’t think any of this is a good idea.”

  Trip held his gaze and whispered, “There’s no such thing.”

  Finally, Silas stared steadily at Trip like the effort killed him. “I missed you.” A humorless laugh closed his eyes. When he opened them, the redness had turned them deep mossy green.

  “Sorry.” Trip’s own eyes welled up.

  “Not like, gosh-I-wonder-what-Trip-is-doing missed you. I mean I actually started to feel like I’d survived some horrible amputation and part of me had been hacked off and lost in a haunted warzone being gnawed by the walking dead. I missed you because you were missing. I actually spent weeks trying to imagine what you were doing at any given moment… obsessing, really.” He didn’t wipe his wet cheeks. “Trip must be seeing the new Superman this weekend. I wonder if Trip’s asleep. I wish I could swallow Trip’s load right this second. Trip needs to stop and eat now, something not dyed or in plastic. I even went to watch the Big Dog office doors a couple of times, like the Little Match Queer, when I knew you had pages due, just to make sure you were okay, but then you… I dunno: vanished.”

  “I quit. I fucking quit.” Trip pressed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “I guess so. I think so.”

  Silas shrugged. “I loved you.” His mouth broke. He looked away.

  Trip didn’t blink, but he closed his mouth before he said anything. Shut up and listen.

  “For a stretch there, I thought I was gonna end up in the hospital. I didn’t eat for four days and then threw up for a week. Lost twelve pounds fast. I had to buy new pants. First time in my life losing weight didn’t make me feel better, I can tell you that.” He glowered at the trees. “Asshole.”

  “I am an asshole.” Trip nodded. “I didn’t do anything I said I would. I couldn’t do any of it. Everything was bad. Sleeping, living, working.”

  “Good.” Silas didn’t sound happy at the thought at all. “Good. I hope it was fucking awful.” He wiped his face.