Bad Idea

by Damon Suede

  Before he faced Cliff, he schooled his features into pleasant blankness. What had Silas said? Sometimes you do it to teach them a lesson. “Gotta split.” He didn’t wait for permission.

  “Hey.” Cliff tapped his phone. “You got the signing on the twenty-fourth still. Forbidden Planet? They have a new location.” Cliff stood there, practically daring him to try and get free, knowing Trip hated confrontation. And allergens. And change. The flirty team-captain bullshit seemed like a mechanical oxymoron. Rote charm.

  Pretty ugly. Definite maybe.

  Had Trip just not noticed before, or did a couple of amazing dates with a certain makeup artist make him an expert on the male animal? I’m not that hard up, am I?

  When he pulled back to meet Cliff’s stare, even the chummy smile seemed like a white lie.

  Trip tossed the pen on the desk, grossed out by its anxious warmth.

  “Two of us are gonna take over the world.” Cliff ladled charm over him like high-fructose concrete. Which two?

  Trip gazed at Cliff from the doorway, inhaled and exhaled so he didn’t start telling the truth.

  Don’t postpone joy! In his mind’s eye, he saw Silas’s rugged, beaming face outside his building on their first date and decided to lie out loud so he could be true to himself.

  Cliff met his stare. “Don’t quit on me now.”

  No. Trip looked up. Pressure.

  “Of course not.” Trip shook his head and pretended to grin. “I’m all yours.”

  And for the first time in four years, he wasn’t.

  12

  AT FORBIDDEN PLANET, Silas lined up with his fellow geeks, hoping for an autograph but bracing for a punch in the mouth.

  These weekend promotions were usually well attended. This close to Union Square, the pop culture emporium got plenty of co-ed foot traffic. The store had recently moved into this new space, a single rectangular room with rows of high shelves stocked with comics and collectibles. This new store was less cluttered than the old, but smaller as well. The legendary window displays were scaled back to fit in a single cube of well-lit Formica with hardcovers and movie merchandise. Wipe-down convenience had replaced the funky trash-’n’-treasure vibe.

  New York had warmed up for the last few days of February, and Silas had dressed up a little in chinos and a salmon pink shirt that made his eyes blaze. He carried his backpack over one shoulder and a bag of groceries in one hand. In a comic book store filled with T-shirts and Doc Martens, he might have stood out, but that was, after all, the point.

  Seeing Trip, even forty feet away, filled Silas with a strange relief and pride. He let out the breath he’d held, then took another, bought the new issue of Hero High, and waited in line. He stared at the magenta and tangerine cover of a superpowered pep rally and listened to adult fans gabble about Alphalad and the final mastermind exams. Trip might not love the Mighty Mites, but these folks did.

  Maybe that was the real deal: no one can judge someone else’s heroes. For all its tackiness, Undercover Lovers might rescue marriages coast to coast. Browsing the bright jumble of Forbidden Planet, Silas’s gratitude grew—he worked at something he truly loved. Even junky fantasies had value. Anything could change a life.

  Art is important, but importance is not.

  The line humped forward. Trip’s eyes looked insomnia-bruised, but he smiled and joked with his aficionados, signing their purchases as the frothy tide of enthusiasm broke against his table.

  He looks sad.

  As Silas got a few yards closer, he picked up Trip’s voice, first the pitch and then actual words as he answered questions. He was warm with the fans, funny and respectful. Again, some slipknot inside of Silas strained, loosened, and fell into coils of rope. Just the sound of Trip chatting about deadlines and Prismacolors relaxed him.

  A cheerful clump of middle-aged cardigans got finished and left, and at last Silas got a look at Trip directly: pale arms, black stubble, the familiar gestures with his ink-stained fingers that animated his conversation. The lean line of muscle from his shoulder up to his freshly cropped skull made Silas smile and swell with longing. No inhaler. Apparently, Trip’s allergies weren’t bugging him.

  By the time Silas stood a few feet away, his guilty nerves had traded places with anticipation. And then the girl in front of him stepped away.

  It’s a bird… it’s a plane….

  Trip didn’t see him until he stepped right up to the folding table. At least he didn’t seem angry when their eyes met.

  Silas put the comic in front of him and smiled shyly. “Hi.”

  And miracle of miracles, Trip gave a little puff of dry laughter and uncapped his silver Sharpie. “Greetings, Mr. Goolsby.”

  “You doing okay?”

  Trip checked him up and down a second and nodded. A smile snuck across his face. “You look….”

  “You too.” Silas let go of the breath he’d held.

  For a couple of seconds, they just stared their fill, and that felt pretty fucking spectacular.

  A short, square woman in a Forbidden Planet shirt jogged Trip’s elbow and glanced at the line of comic hounds behind him.

  Trip turned and tilted his head to listen to her mutter something, exposing the strong sweep of his long neck, and then he gazed back with those huge, dark eyes, right into Silas’s. “How would you like me to sign this, sir?” He wobbled the pen in his fingers.

  “Hmm. Okay. Umm.” Silas peered at the ceiling and back. “To the stupidest schmuck in New York….”

  Trip snorted and took dictation without protest. A smirk teased the corners of his rosy mouth.

  “I forgive you for being such a twunt and promise to let you make it up to me with extended kinky sex, carbohydrates, and cash prizes.” Silas watched the words appear upside down in scrawled silver. “Exemplary penmanship, Mr. Spector.”

  “Thanks.” Trip didn’t seem too mad. “Anything else?”

  Some kid behind Silas grunted in irritation. “Is he writing a novel?”

  “Wait for me at the door so you can cook me dinner and grovel at great length and girth. X-O… Rectum N. Spector.”

  Trip wrote every word, although not much of the cover was visible when he finished. He handed it back to Silas. “Thanks.”

  “Back atcha.” Silas smiled back stupidly but ducked out of the way before the Forbidden Planet minion chewed them out again.

  From across the room, Silas watched Trip shake hands and answer questions, feeling a lazy, borrowed pride at how beautiful and talented Trip was without realizing.

  That’s my job from now on: to realize it for him.

  After about ninety minutes, the jabbering crowd petered out, and Trip crossed the room with his portfolio. “Always takes forever to get them to go.” He contemplated the zealots who lingered at the table where he’d signed. The staff patiently herded them away so they could fold and stash the furniture.

  Trip wrapped his scarf around his long throat. In the navy sweater and knit hat, he resembled an undercover cop in a ’70s thriller. “I got your message. Valentine’s, but I was in a dicky mood that night. Too ugly. I should’ve—”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Silas licked his chapped lips. “Have you eaten?”

  “Couple Snickers.” Trip shrugged. He looked nervous and tired. “Oh, and a half bag of Combos. Pepperoni-Ranch.”

  “No, goofball. I mean biodegradable food. From the earth. Never mind.” Silas shouldered his backpack and gestured vaguely with the groceries.

  Trip considered him for a moment, then started walking toward the door. “I’m listening.”

  “Is this okay?” Silas led the way across past shelves of figurines. “I thought you’d let me get away with a little retcon if I explained myself.”

  Retcon, as in retroactive continuity, was what fans called the moment a comic book shamelessly rewrote its own history and hoped no one caught on. Some retcons ruffled no feathers, replacing old cheeseball origin stories or gimmicky Silver Age teams. But some changes drove t
he devotees insane: clones and twins, personality flips, fake deaths, making up powers on the spot… any tweak that violated the core of a character. For the big heroes, retcons were a function of hundreds of writers fiddling with them over decades… shit happens and times change. For sidekicks and villains, they usually represented a last-minute edit to fix an unforeseen problem.

  Silas held the front door of Forbidden Planet open to let Trip step out onto Broadway. The damp late-February air had cleared the Sunday streets.

  As Trip walked past him, he stopped on the threshold and paused. “How much retcon we talking?”

  Shrug. “A couple days tops. The right minute would probably do it.”

  Trip looked down at the sidewalk. “I used to wish life had retcons. An undo button. Do you know how much of my shameful past I’d change if I could?”

  “I missed you, Mr. Spector. Somethin’ awe-ful.” He ladled on the twang and loved Trip’s reaction to it.

  “Mmh. Nice.” Trip bumped their arms together. “Retcon: I never gave you the Scratch draft.”

  “No dice. You did. And I fucking loved it. So you can’t take that away. Sorry.”

  They walked past the Strand and hung a right onto Twelfth.

  Silas switched the backpack from his right shoulder to his left so they could walk closer. He didn’t take Trip’s hand, but with their arms bumping like that, he could have. “Retcon: I should have just called you every night from the set. I would’ve but I didn’t want to freak you out.”

  “Nah. That’s fair. You were working and I needed to get the script finished and it’s actually better to pine a little.”

  “Pine?”

  Trip blushed as he stared at his shoes. “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Well, then, no.” Silas inhaled. “Retcon: how about before I went to Arizona, I told you how I felt and then you did the same?”

  Trip stopped and looked him square in the face, unflinching. “How did you feel?”

  Silas opened his mouth to answer and shut it. The light changed, but neither of them moved.

  Trip crossed his arms and hugged himself. “I missed you every fucking second, Mr. Goolsby. I thought about you in bed, on the train. Because of you, I put Big Dog on a leash and started Scratch-ing for real. And I didn’t say anything because I thought you saw me as a good time. Y’know? Laughs and a big schwanz until your next ex comes along.”

  Silas touched his arm. “You aren’t a good time.”

  Trip’s shoulders stiffened.

  “No! I mean…. You’re not a time. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Trip Spector. I’ve never—” Silas regarded the stars tiptoeing across the clear sky overhead. “It’s all new turf. No secrets. No plan. No map. Just treasure.”

  Trip grinned. “Me too.”

  “Lucky. And I don’t know what’s coming. But right now I feel so goddamn lucky to have a second chance that I don’t want to jinx anything.”

  As they walked, Trip put his hands in his pockets. “You know how some people collect toys or comics and they leave ’em in plastic? On eBay or whatever.”

  “Mint on card.”

  “Yeah. Like having them pristine and sealed away for display is better.”

  “Collectors pay more.” Their elbows bumped again. “Costs more because kids haven’t played with it. Dog hasn’t chewed it.”

  “I’ve let my whole life stay mint on card; so my friends keep telling me.” Trip glanced over. “I been so afraid of dings and scratches that I’d rather hang in a case under plastic. Collecting myself, sorta. I didn’t mean to, but I’ve got this habit.”

  “You get plenty rough when you wanna.”

  “Maybe.” Trip twisted to look at him. “But you don’t leave anything in the wrapper.”

  They crossed Sixth Avenue.

  “And that’s good?” Anticipation took root in Silas.

  “That’s amazing.” Trip waved the air between them. “I listened to your Valentine message about a hundred times.”

  “Yeah?”

  “More, maybe. I should have called you to apologize back. I knew exactly what you were trying to say and I wanted to say it back, but I was too… stubborn. Stupid.” Trip wrinkled his nose. “Sad.”

  “I thought you might have a date. A Valentine.” No S, but now he’d omitted it purposefully.

  “Yeah, right.”

  He turned, and they stood smiling at each other under the trees that arched over West Twelfth Street.

  “Hi.” Silas ran his hand through his messy hair. He hefted the Whole Foods bag. “We got tilapia, ginger, peppers. And they had killer broccoli.”

  “No Twizzlers?”

  “Agh!”

  “Joke.” Trip rubbed his arms. “Do you know that I don’t sneeze or scratch half as much? I mean, nearly as much as I used to. I still take a couple antihistamines, but my allergies were almost gone. Somehow you fucking rewired me.”

  “I’m glad. I like you healthy.”

  Trip perused Silas: his eyes and his mouth and his hands. “I dunno.”

  Silas stepped close. “Well, I force you to eat better and make sure you get more than three hours of sleep a night.” He glanced up at the pocked sky. “I should have made plans with you when I wanted to.”

  “You did.” Trip scoffed. “You made plans.”

  “But special plans. I don’t know how to explain. I followed this imaginary playbook because I thought I needed to… that you would—”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Silas disagreed gently, “Matters to me.”

  Trip rocked from side to side on the curb before he replied. “Retcon: I shouldn’t have expected you to fix my script. That sucked.” The streetlights overhead cast their eyes into deep shadow, but a wedge of white appeared when Trip smiled. “It was a crappy thing to ask.” He closed one eye.

  “Not our shining moment, no.” Silas frowned. “But then I lost it. Yeah. Sorry. The script, I mean, not lost my shit. Of course, then I did, both. Your script vanished because I’d carried it around with me, and then I had to spend three hours digging through a dumpster until I found it.”

  Trip chuckled. “In the garbage?”

  “Man, bar garbage. I wasn’t gonna leave until I found it. Smelled like cherry lime barf when I dredged it out.”

  “I never should have saddled you with my BS.”

  Silas frowned. “I wanted you to. Honest. I was honored. I admire you so much, and then I froze, which terrified me, and that made it worse.”

  “My fault.”

  Silas stopped and opened his palms. “It made everything real, I think. We’d had a good time, and then it was….”

  “Bad?”

  “Wonderful. Terrible. Bizarre. I dunno.”

  Trip shrugged. “Real.”

  “Yeah.” Silas smiled. “Usually I’m looking for a way to keep things simple.”

  A cab went by them at the Village Green. Trip paused to watch it pass and spoke before he turned back. “Definitely not simple.” The cab swerved downtown at the little fenced garden at the end of the block.

  Without asking permission, Silas leaned in and kissed Trip’s throat just above the clavicle.

  Trip stood rigid and eyeballed the empty block around them.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m sorry for being so afraid of everything.”

  Silas spoke gently. “You know… you’re going to have to get used to the idea of being worth looking at. You are, y’know.”

  Trip relaxed his shoulders. “And you need to stop feeling like all you are is something to look at. And you can pretend all you want that your gast is flabbered, but you know it as well as I do.” He rubbed his mouth. “You wanna grab a cuppa coffee?”

  Silas shook his head. “Huh-uh.”

  “You hungry?”

  “Not really.” Silas licked his lip.

  Trip shoved him. “Asshole. I want you to come home with me. I’m trying to be smooth, Mr. Goolsby.”

  “Well… to
ugh, Mr. Spector.” Silas snickered. “Come back to mine and let me make you a biodegradable dinner and take you to bed.” He held his hands open. “Please?”

  “I can’t.”

  So much for charm. “Oh.”

  “No, I need my clothes and my portfolio because I have a meeting at Big Dog tomorrow.”

  Silas let out the breath.

  “My place?” Trip shifted his weight. “Rain check on yours.”

  “I’m starting to think you have a phobia about my apartment. However….” Silas shrugged and sighed contently. “If you promise to pillage and plunder me mercilessly, I am willing to consent to this indignity.”

  Trip grinned back. “I’ll do what I’m able.”

  “Retcon not included.”

  When they reached Trip’s door, three youngish guys were huddled sharing a joint in front of Johnny’s Bar. The shortest raised his chin in greeting, and Trip nodded back.

  Silas stood back while Trip unlocked the entrance door and then followed him up the narrow flight of stairs.

  “They have three dollar beers, so students kinda gather. Better than doormen, security-wise.” Trip’s perfect butt shifted under his pants.

  Silas took his sweet time climbing. “Mmm.”

  On the little landing, Trip spun and unlocked his apartment door while Silas waited a few steps below. “Are you cruising my glutes?”

  “Yessir.”

  “No comparison.” With a crick-crack, Trip flung the door open, but as he turned around, Silas dropped the backpack and the groceries and unbuckled his pants while standing at the top of the stairs, exposing his packed purple briefs.

  “Silas!” Trip hissed in shock.

  Silas rubbed his mouth and swallowed. “I missed you.”

  Trip dropped his portfolio just inside and tapped the door. “Come inside.”

  “In a second.” Instead, he sank to his knees, shoved his backpack and the groceries at the threshold, and crawled toward Trip across the creaky hardwood landing.

  Trip glanced down at the front door and whispered, “The guys’ll—”

  Silas pressed his face against the high, hard curve behind Trip’s zipper. “I can’t wait.”