Life on Planet Fiction
Sep. 5th, 2006 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalon
Boba Fett cradles his helmet under his arm, tucks his cape back behind his jet pack and shoots his Rum & Coke a dirty look:"Can you believe this shit? Seven bucks a drink..." He tells the beer bellied Spider-Man next to him, who has his mask pulled up over the bottom half of his face so he can sip his own drink. Old Web Head shrugs diplomatically in response and resumes his quiet vigil on the trio of anime girls posing for a camera armed squadron of Space Marines. One of the Anime girls spins around and lifts up her skirt coquettishly.
"Damn!!!"Spidey mumbles, his panty sense tingling and he gulps his drink down in one shot.
"And what's with all the pirates this year, huh?" Boba Fett shakes his head to himself in disgust."Yeah okay PotC was alright and all, but c'mon... it was no Star Wars. Know what I mean?" But it's too late. Spideys abadoned the Fett at the bar to do whatever a spider can.
Her hand glides up her friends thigh and disappears back behind a short plaid skirt. She presses her into the window wall of the rocket elevator with a long solid kiss. Arms wrap around a black corsetted waist. A fishnet leg prys between two bare ones. Neon dreads bob up and down. Muffled heavy breaths and the sound of wet lips smacking against each other. The floors are lighting up faster and faster. I lean back against the door, not sure whether it's that they can't see me or they don't care who see's them, but either way I will myself to go invisible and pinch any sign of a breath off in my throat, knowing that even the slightest hint of my presence could shatter the fragile spell.
PING!!! the doors open and She pulls out of the kiss and takes her friend by the hand and drags her out of the elevator. I can make out their make up now that they're not making out. The dominant one is some kind of Zombie Rivet Head and her friend seems to be a Catholic School Girl Elf.
Neither one see's me. That's always been my gift as a writer and my curse as a regular person. To be able to see everything but know deep down you can only touch this world with your words.
The door closes and i'm plummeting back down to the ground.
The spell is broken.
"I only know one spell" my friend 'Zatanna' tells me after I bum a cigarette off her, "Kcuf Uoy!" Her magic words sound sweet flavored in her Carolinian accent.
I rearrange the words until I figure it out and laugh. This is the smoking patio and hence one of the busiest locations of the entire Convention. Hell, even Jesus is lighting up and if a Camels good enough for the Son of God then it's good enough for me damn it! I'm wearing a luchadore wrestling mask and savoring my anonymity. Only "Zee" was smart enough to see through my secret identity.
"How about something easy like 'Rednerrus!'" I suggest and once 'Zee' puts the words together she tips her top hat at me in agreement. I get up and stagger over to the bar realizing that it's not even night yet and i'm already drunk and hanging out with a member of the Justice League.
The strobe lights flash frame a sea of dancing bodies the way you might pluck a particle of energy out of a wave. Raw moments frozen and soaked in lightning white: Closed eyes savoring the song. Open hands reaching up to grab the song out of the air. A boot kicks menacingly in mid air. A torso wrapped around the beat. Black lipstick smile mouthing the words. The flag flight of a skirt or kilt in mid step. Eye patches forming permanent winks. A forest of uplifted arms swaying in the wind of the mix. Crouching photographers lurking like voyeur goblins.
I realize that no one is ugly when they dance with their heart.
Then back to the dark. Glowsticks orbit shadows and lightsabers clash to Darkwave pop.
It's an hour or two before dawn rises on a Monday morning and
dj_spider has got the ballroom packed like it's Saturday night. Sooner or later the music will stop. The charm runs out of luck. The ink of the talisman fades into the blankness of the page. The spell will break, shatter and scatter...
... only to gather and weave itself back along the currents of the past.
Ash reverses into flames. Dust is made flesh again.
Drifting around the dealers room, the hopeful faces of middle aged fan-men and women trying to hustle swords, bootleg DVDs, t-shirts and action figures. I would stop occasionally and flip through the long rows of comic book boxes, not really looking for anything in paticular just looking really.
I find nothing and decide to make my way back to the bar.
That's when I catch it out of the corner of my eye, hanging there in the crowded gallery of comic book covers: Avengers Annual #10. The mylar bag is marked in big red letters reading: SALE- 1st Appearance of Rogue - ONLY $20! It's exactly like one of those dreams where you find something you've lost years ago and suddenly realize that not only was this what you were looking for all along but that it's also been right in front of you all along!
I must've been only 11 or 12 then.
I was coming home...finally.
I had spent the last two months imprisoned at a summer camp. Two months of forced isolation and social awkwardness. Two months of no friends. Two months of being thought of as 'retarded' because I would disappear into the woods and play "The Avengers", running around pretending I was Hawkeye or Iron-Man perpetually battling genocidal robots and alien invasions. Two months spent drawing Han Solo in sketch pads. Two months studying the arcane laws and rules of Advanced D&D. Two months where I thought I was the only boy in the world that found organized sports a bore and other children my age to be nothing more than socially accepted savages.
During the course of one of my "Avengers" games I end up cutting my ankle open on a broken beer bottle left by one of the older kids. I limped over to the nurses office, roughly a mile down a dirt trail and was promptly rushed to an ER. When my parents were notified they freaked. When my Mom had an anxiety attack on the F-Train that was that. My Dad and my Grandad rented a car and drove to upstate NY to pick me up. I had no idea they were coming. I was sitting on my bunk bed drawing creatures from my 'Monsters Manual' because I wasn't allowed to leave the room except to eat. When I was told I had visitors and saw that they were my Dad & Grandad I almost cried with relief.
They must've seen the look on my face and knew what was up. My dad had a 'talk' with the councilors and when he came back he asked me if I wanted to come back to Brooklyn with them. I was packed and ready to go within a few minutes. I made no good-byes except for the 16 y/o girl who was nice enough to talk to me when her boyfriend let her and hopped in their car.
There in the backseat was a giant stack of comics my Dad had collected for me over the last two months. The first one I grabbed off the top was Avengers Annual #10. Death duel with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants! Iron Man defeated! Thor's powers stolen by Rogue! A final ditch battle led by Hawkeye against the Brotherhood! At that moment it was the single best comic book I had ever read! The last two months melted with each turn of the page. There in the safety of the back seat going back to where I belonged. Mom. Dad. Brooklyn.
Back to the sanity of my imaginary world.
Eventually, as the years drifted by quicker and quicker, other comic books became 'the single best comic I had ever read' and as they changed so did I. Eventually I began to emerge from the shell of my made up world. Made friends. Met girls. Got a 'life'. Days rolled into years quicker and quicker until that magic day I was rescued from camp drifted away across the horizon of memory.
Until that moment some 20 odd years later.
Within five minutes i'm on my way back up to the main lobby with my new found treasure tucked safely in my messenger bag. I step off the escalator and merge into a crowd of other little kids
who never stopped playing games either, not entirely, not behind the closed eye walls of their imagination. A secret army of spandexed mutants, pirates, samurai assassins, black vinyled gunmen, anime ninjas, armored knights and retro witches.
And for a moment I let that lonely little boy of two dozen summers ago smile again.
