The Night Gwen Stacy Died

by Sarah Bruni

  “Who is that guy?” Andrea asked.

  “Oh, just this guy.”

  “Well he’s looking at you like some kind of pervert.”

  “Let him,” said Sheila.

  She needed to stand up now, to signal to him somehow. But she felt scared of walking straight up to the bar. It didn’t seem right to run into him this way, with Andrea and Donny. Peter belonged to another part of her life that had nothing to do with this one. Sheila got up to go to the bathroom.

  The bathrooms were at the far end of the bar, with a sink just to the right of the back door that led to the alley. Sheila felt sure that Peter Parker would be on the other side of the door when she finished. She fantasized about slipping out the back door with him without even washing her hands. She imagined how his taxi would be waiting just in the side lot and how he would gesture toward it, silently opening the passenger-side door for her, how she would get in, how he would close the door, run around to the driver’s seat, and then: they would drive. Where didn’t matter. Anywhere really. She pressed her hands to the bathroom door in anticipation of him being there, the way that she’d been taught in grammar school to touch her bedroom door to detect if there was a fire in the house at night.

  Sheila’s family had always slept with their doors open. If a door was closed, her father said, something fishy was likely going on behind it.

  “I demand an open door policy in this family,” he said, as if their bedrooms were foreign countries resistant to trade.

  Sheila checked her face in the bathroom’s dirty mirror and it was pretty much what she expected: limp brown-blond ponytail, smudged eyeliner, thin smile. She opened the door slowly. Peter Parker was not there. She washed her hands and turned the corner, but he wasn’t even in the bar.

  “Looks like your buddy took off,” Andrea said.

  “Who?” said Sheila.

  Andrea shook her head. “Just be careful. He’s way older and he was looking at you like a piece of meat. I wouldn’t get into that if I were you.”

  “I met a boy,” Sheila told the coyote in Macbride Hall.

  The mountain coyote gazed at Sheila, eager for her to go on.

  A piece of meat! Had he really looked at her that way? Sheila knew she was supposed to feel objectified, but she felt fantastic. She could feel every muscle in her leg, every tendon expand and contract, as she pedaled her bike to the museum.

  “It’s stupid,” she said to the coyote. “He’s not even really my age.”

  But the coyote did not seem bothered by this detail. It stared straight ahead as if to suggest that relative age was the most insignificant factor in the world to a coyote that had lived in a glass case for over a century.

  “There’s a chance he thinks he’s a superhero,” Sheila admitted.

  This too barely fazed the coyote. For all Sheila knew the mountain coyote was also susceptible to delusions of grandeur, what with the plaques and glass around it.

  “I might say something.”

  Silence.

  “I must be an idiot,” Sheila told the coyote, “I must be crazy,” but the coyote didn’t give any indication that there was any reason for her to hesitate in approaching the boy.

  She couldn’t sleep that night after her conversation with the coyote. She couldn’t explain the endless flicker of her thoughts or how they continued to route toward Peter: the outline of his shoulder under the sleeve of his T-shirt, the flat surface of his fingernails moving quickly as they counted though dollar bills, the way he had looked at her in the bar, the way he had looked away from her. She slipped on a sweatshirt over her pajamas, tiptoed downstairs, and turned on the computer that sat idle on her father’s desk in the corner of the room. She typed “Spider-Man” and “Peter Parker” into the empty search engine box that was waiting for her there. She had never bothered to see any of the blockbuster Spider-Man movies, because—well, why would she? She generally didn’t waste her time with films marketed to prepubescent boys.

  “Sheila?” her father called down the stairs. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah, I’m on the computer,” she paused, “looking up some stuff for school.” Was there something devious about researching Spider-Man in the same way that there was something devious about learning French? She wasn’t sure what would create worry in the minds of her parents anymore, what would signal that she was in some way not living a normal life or healthy life. Her own father could probably tell her as much about Spider-Man as the Internet, but she wasn’t about to ask him.

  A pause, and then nothing. The creak of the stairs that signified her father had retreated back into his bedroom.

  First there was the expected stuff, the stuff everyone knew: spider bite, spider sense, great power, great responsibility, blah blah blah. Sheila scrolled down the page. Most of the stuff she read had to do with villains and superpowers, not the kind of thing that interested Sheila. But the more she researched, the more the varied facets of Peter Parker’s character seemed to gesture in directions that were completely contradictory. By some accounts, Parker was a hopeless recluse, a school nerd who was ridiculed by everyone; by others, outside of his school work, he was a part-time photojournalist who drove a motorcycle through the school parking lot and revved the engine around pretty girls, asked them out for sodas.

  He was a chameleon, and not just because of the whole secret identity thing. The other people in Peter’s life sometimes seemed baffled by his actions. Sheila clicked on a reproduction of a short spread from one of the early comic books. Peter Parker peeling around the school parking lot on his motorcycle. A blond girl named Gwendolyn Stacy gasps, clearly impressed, Actually I never thought of you as the motorcycle type before, Pete!

  Peter Parker smiles in a satisfied way and looks the girl straight in the eye.

  Lady, there’s a LOT you don’t know about me! But stick around—I’m planning to educate you!

  Sheila sat back. She blinked at the screen. This is not the way science nerds spoke to pretty girls. Some things were not adding up here; some things were going to require further investigation.

  The next time she was near the college, Sheila walked into a store that sold comic books.

  “Can you please direct me to your Spider-Man section?” she asked the boy behind the counter.

  “Huh?” said the boy.

  “Spider-Man,” said Sheila.

  “Depends on the title. And the year. Back issues in the boxes, more recent on the walls. Alphabetical order,” he said.

  Sheila found a few relevant comic books in plastic sleeves along the walls. She brought them back up to the counter.

  “Could I look through these?” she asked the boy.

  “Sure,” he said, “if you buy them.”

  Sheila turned the comic books over and looked at the prices written on little white stickers on the cellophane.

  “Oh, I don’t really even want to read them,” said Sheila, “I just want to find out about Spider-Man’s life.”

  A few boys flipping through issues looked up from their shopping. Shuffling quieted near the front of the store.

  “What for?”

  “Oh, personal reasons,” said Sheila. “Anyway, they’re awfully expensive.”

  “They get much more expensive as you move up the wall there,” said the boy, finally making eye contact, or perhaps just catching her eye on his way to glancing down at her selections. “These in your hand are barely controversial issues.”

  “Just give me the bottom line,” said Sheila. “What sort of person is he really?”

  The clerk sneered. “He’s shy. He wears glasses. He gets bit by a spider.”

  “Glasses?” asked Sheila. “No, that doesn’t sound right at all. I thought he rides a motorcycle to school.”

  She started to put her selections back on the shelf, but in the back of the store she cornered a customer who looked about twelve and who set everything straight. Peter Parker didn’t really need eyeglasses; he wore them despite 20/20 vision. The motorcycle
he bought with money from working as a photographer for the local newspaper, which was just a part-time gig he worked on the side of high school. The reason why he worked side jobs was to fund his life as Spider-Man; he had to pay for his web-shooter and some of the other tools hidden away in his costume. When he wasn’t fighting villains, his life as a regular kid was pretty rough. His uncle Ben was killed by a criminal who broke into the house one night; he lived alone with just his aunt May. His parents, don’t even ask—he doesn’t have any. His first real girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, was killed by the Green Goblin, and Peter Parker, first crazy with regret at not being able to save her in time, then fell in love with Mary Jane Watson. Spider-Man had never wanted to be Spider-Man. It was just something that came up; he didn’t want so much responsibility, but he did what he could with it since there was no getting out of the role once it came. It wasn’t always easy for him to know what was the right thing to do.

  The next day at lunch, Sheila decided to see if Anthony had any further information. He was a guy. He might know something.

  “Did you ever see any of the Spider-Man movies?”

  “First one,” Anthony said. “Kind of sucked.”

  “I never saw it,” Sheila said. “Would you want to maybe watch it this weekend or something?”

  “Did you hear what I just said about it kind of sucking?”

  Sheila stared. “Forget it,” she said. “I’d rather watch it alone.”

  Anthony laughed. “Since when are you into Spider-Man movies?”

  “I don’t know,” Sheila said. “I’m not.”

  Anthony nodded. “Okay.”

  “What?” asked Sheila.

  “Nothing,” Anthony said.

  Sheila looked from the crumbs on the table and up to Anthony. She felt a prickling at the back of her ears. “Since when are you so interested in pep rallies and the court of Spring Fling?”

  Anthony shook his head. “It’s a dance at our school. We go to school here. It’s not like some random thing I just decided to become obsessed with for no reason, like, I don’t know, French or Spider-Man.”

  Sheila bristled. “Yeah, except you’ve never been to one of these dances in your life. I mean are you even going? I haven’t heard you talk about asking anyone.”

  As soon as Sheila said it, she wished she hadn’t. Anthony was looking down at the crumbs now on the table and he was biting down on the inside of his cheek. Don’t say it, Sheila prayed, Please don’t say anything. But it was too late.

  “I guess I was kind of thinking we could go together,” Anthony said. “I mean I know dances are a waste of time and everything but it’s our last year.”

  Sheila felt all the blood rush to her face. She placed her sandwich down slowly, diplomatically, on the table. “Let me think about it,” she said, and though she had tried to say it with as even a tone she could manage, she could tell that she had said the wrong thing, because Anthony shoved the rest of a half-eaten apple in his backpack and walked away.

  “I saw you in the bar the other night,” Sheila told Peter Parker when he came into the station between fares.

  “Yes,” said Peter, “I saw you too.”

  “Do you usually go there?”

  “I don’t go out that much.”

  “Do you think I’m pretty?” asked Sheila.

  “How should I know,” he said.

  “Because of how you were looking at me.”

  A glazed look went over his face. “You had your hair pulled back that night at the bar. At first I didn’t recognize you. There was something with the light: your hair, your chin, your neck, your jaw—” He reached across the counter then like he was going to touch her jaw, but he stopped himself. He shook his head. “I think you’re interesting,” he said finally.

  “But not in a sexual way, I guess?”

  Peter smiled. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one,” said Sheila. “How old are you?”

  “Shouldn’t you already know that? You checked my ID enough times when I first started coming in here.”

  “It’s state law,” said Sheila. “Anyway, Mr. Parker, I know that’s a fake.”

  “You’re a fake,” said Peter.

  “You think you can say whatever you want to me,” Sheila said. She was playing with him, testing him. Then she felt herself lift her palm and open it. Before she’d thought the action through, she had raised her hand and pulled it back, as if she planned to strike him. She had seen a woman do this in a French movie once, and when she did, the man she was after took her to bed.

  Peter raised his hand in reflex and caught her hand midair.

  The force of his hand stung in her palm. She paused, rubbing her hand with her fingers. “Oww,” she said.

  Peter stared at her strangely. He didn’t look like he wanted to take her to bed at all.

  Sheila exhaled slowly and slapped a pack of Camel straights on the counter. “Was there something else you needed, sir?” she asked. “Or will that be all?”

  Peter Parker looked from the cigarettes to Sheila. “That will be all,” he said finally, and he laid down $6.25 before leaving, which Sheila made a point to ring into the register, though she would have given them to him for free. She felt furious. She had two hours before her shift would be over, and she could hardly stand the thought of it. She stared at the shelf of forty-ounce beers in the cooler directly opposite her counter for another five minutes before pulling open the cooler door and selecting one.

  “Est-ce que vous êtes libre vendredi prochain?” the French woman on the CD asked.

  “Je suis désolée,” said Sheila. “C’est impossible.”

  “C’est toujours pareil!” the French woman gasped. “Tu n’es jamais libre!”

  Someone was throwing an important birthday party in the world of the French CD, but Sheila expressed regret that she didn’t feel up to attending. Sheila declined each one of the French woman’s pleas until her regret for not attending the party and her general regret grew into something amorphous and inconsolable. She was sorry for everything. She was sorry that she had worried her parents. She was sorry that she couldn’t seem to communicate with the only person who stirred something in her. She was sorry that she had disappointed Anthony. She wished she could be the kind of person who could want the things she was supposed to want. She sat behind the counter of the gas station and drained her forty ounces of beer and willed herself to want those things.

  She stood outside of Anthony’s window for a few minutes before she threw the first rock. She had been to his house a bunch of times when they were younger, but lately they had stopped hanging out when they weren’t in school. His house looked smaller than she remembered, the landscaping more overgrown. Anthony’s parents were sometimes away on business for stretches of a few days at a time, so when this was the case, Anthony was always helping his dad out around the house on the weekends. It seemed like he had slacked a bit lately, which probably meant he was home alone tonight, but Sheila figured she’d better not take any chances. It took the contact of three rocks for Anthony to come to his window and open it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked when he saw Sheila standing on the sidewalk.

  “Waking your ass up,” said Sheila. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Anthony laughed, “It’s nine o’clock. I’m not sleeping. You could have rung the doorbell like a normal person.”

  “Oh well,” said Sheila. “Are you coming down or not?”

  Anthony closed his bedroom window and was downstairs with an extra hoodie in his hand within two minutes. He offered the hoodie to Sheila. “You cold?”

  “I don’t get cold,” said Sheila. “I’m superhuman.”

  “Oh, not this shit again,” said Anthony.

  “I’m kidding,” said Sheila. “I just rode my bike pretty fast over here, that’s all.”

  There were woods close to Anthony’s house, and without saying so, Sheila began navigating in that direction.

  “Listen,” An
thony said as soon as they had stopped in a clearing where moonlight rendered one another visible. “I’m sorry about the other day. I shouldn’t have tried to push you about the dance thing.”

  Sheila leaned in and hesitated only a second before kissing him on the mouth. Anthony pulled away from her in surprise, only slightly, but then he started to kiss her back. Anthony was directing the kiss now, slowly, quietly, in a way that let her know that he respected her, that he wanted her to feel safe with him. As soon as he started to lead the kiss, Sheila regretted what she had started. But it was Anthony who pulled away first.

  “You taste like beer,” he said. He said it like a parent.

  Sheila stared at him. She shrugged. “Do you want some?” she asked. “I brought another one with me.” She looked at her backpack in the dirt where the other beer was waiting. Beside her backpack a tiny trampled plant was trying to wrestle its way through the soil. It was spring. Everything was trying to figure out how to come back to life, and it seemed like it should have been an easier thing to figure out.

  Anthony took a step back. “Why are you doing this?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” said Sheila slowly. “I thought it was something you wanted.”

  “And what do you want? Is it something you want?”

  Sheila stared for a minute before she began to shake her head, slowly. She wanted to say she was sorry but the words wouldn’t come. Maybe she had exhausted her capacity for regret already with the people throwing the French birthday party, because now that she really needed to produce a genuine version of the feeling, the sentiment stalled in her throat. “That’s fucked up on so many levels, Sheila,” Anthony said, and when still Sheila said nothing, Anthony turned and started walking back to his house alone.

  She awoke with a headache. There was a pounding sound coming from somewhere, and at first she thought that it was inside her own brain, but when it started up again she realized there was someone knocking on her bedroom door. After Anthony had left her alone in the woods behind his house, she had spent another few hours sitting on a log. She had polished off a reasonable portion of the second forty-ounce beer on her own. The knocking started up again. Sheila stood and walked to her door then opened it. Behind the door, her father stood with the newspaper in one hand and his reading glasses in the other.