|
The Spook and Crab Face Guy This was my first real attempt to write and under- In any case, I had a go at Kyle here in Chapter 7, and DC actually made me walk it back somewhat (though, to their credit, they didn't insist I scrap it altogether). |
|
ADVENTURES IN THE FUNNYBOOK GAME Kyle was cold. It was one of those ‘tween days in New York City, the days when the weather refused to make up its mind about what it was going to do. It was cold and damp and unpleasant and Kyle’s save-a-nickel landlord had the thermostat locked off at 58 degrees, though the joke was on him because Kyle kept a small space heater going all day by his drawing board and the electricity was included in the rent. Regrettably, fire insurance was not, and the growing pile of discarded paper at Kyle’s feet made a dangerous combo with the space heater, but it slipped Kyle’s mind because Kyle’s mind, Kyle’s very soul, belonged to Howard. Not that Kyle loved Howard or even hated Howard. Howard simply was. Howard was a force of nature and, frankly, if Howard didn’t exist, there’d be somebody else Kyle would be obsessing over, Tom. Paul. Nicole. Voices on the other end of a telephone always on the verge of being shut off because Kyle had been immature enough to embrace his artistic side rather than actually go for that nice, union factory gig. He could have been plant supervisor by now, pot belly and dental plan, home at 6:30 to the little woman and the fried chicken. Instead, he was Kyle the Miserable, singing for his supper, making a living by being creative. By being an artist. Creative expression is extremely cathartic and fulfilling until you actually decide to make a living doing it. Making a living by doing something creative—writing, drawing, dancing, fire-eating—requires a kind of bastardization of the creative impulse. A kind of Caged Monkey riff, where YOU MUST NOW BE CREATIVE EVERY 28 DAYS OR ELSE. Whether you feel like it or not. Whether the impulse is with you or not. Bus drivers, for example, rarely toss and turn all night obsessing over where they will drive the next day. They show up, and somebody tells them. They get their bus and that’s that. At the end of the day, they park the thing and go home to the fried chicken. Creative types, however, can never leave work at the office. Kyle could always tell you how long it would take to clean his apartment. It took him three hours and twelve minutes, exactly, to clean his apartment because he had a system; a start-the-dishes-sort-the-laundry while he did other things system. Start in the bedroom, work backward. But Kyle could never tell you how long it would take him to draw a duck. I mean, to most of us, a duck is a duck. But an artist, a real artist like Kyle, wants to know the duck’s name. Spends three hours Googling duck names, swinging by a few online fan sites hoping for an ego boost only to discover WWW.50REASONSKYLERAYNERSUCKS.COM. Which, of course, now required at least two hours of return fire to the message boards. Kyle then spent another three hours in angst over the duck’s breed—the writer clearly being an idiot, having picked a breed that doesn’t work for the story. Then Kyle needed to fully understand the duck’s motivation. All of which drove Howard nuts. Howard was Kyle’s editor. Howard had been editing comic strips for thirty-two years and had contempt for all freelance artists. To Howard, they were all Kyles. These morons who make all of this money in their pajamas. Who get paid more than his entire day’s salary to just draw a damned duck and they can’t even do that within a reasonable time. Howard had absolutely no sympathy for the Kyles of this world and reminded Kyle of that every day when Howard would call and remind Kyle a line was forming outside Howard’s door of freelancers waiting to take Kyle’s job if Kyle couldn’t turn in the damned duck already. So Kyle was cold. Shivering in a tee shirt and boxer shorts while huddled over his board, wrestling with the duck while fighting the impulse to fly down to New Orleans and fix Trudy Woodrow’s hair. A fine and noted journalist, CBN News Anchor Trudy Woodrow had the severe, angled face of a prison guard, and either had the worst taste in hair styles or the network was just having a little fun with her, because, every time Kyle saw her he got a little colder and wanted to hide the Dalmatians. Kyle was also late on his bills, which kept him glancing out the window for the Comcast truck as he figured any day now the cable guy would make Trudy go away, and one eye on his DSL connection indicator light, making sure it was green and not red. Next door Cody the yellow Labrador was barking. Cody was always barking. Usually barking at nothing. Barking was Cody’s hobby. Cody’s master would leave for work around seven in the morning, and Cody would start barking. And it wasn’t the little scrappy bark of a terrier or a toy poodle. Cody’s was the meaty, bassy, booming bark of a 125-pound Dogasuarus rex who got bored and annoyed at being left home alone all day and would take it out on the world around him. Stress and indigestion wrecked Kyle’s concentration as he went Duck-Trudy-Cody, Duck-Trudy-Cody, bang on wall, scream at dog, look out for cable guy, check DSL, Duck-Trudy-Cody. I hate my life. In a tray near his drawing table was the polished emerald metal of Kyle’s Green Lantern ring. The ring rather mocked him. Lets go for a ride. Kyle sneered at the ring, which he took off while he was drawing because the weight threw his hand off. “No,” Kyle said out loud to the ring, “Howard will kill me.” Screw Howard. He’ll wait. “He’s been waiting.” He’ll wait some more. C’mon-- put me on! Let’s hang out! Kyle sucked it in, choosing to be a grown-up. “Can’t.” Can. “No way.” Way. “I need the money.” Go to Africa— grab some diamonds. Screw Howard. “No.” And lets punk-slap the dog on our way out. “Can’t.” Punk. Kyle was more than halfway through the sixtieth draft of the duck. Mind you, Howard probably would have accepted Kyle’s third or fourth attempt but that’s the artistic process. Artists never want you to see how lame their work really is. By the time they turn something in, know at least several earlier drafts have hit the floor dangerously close to the space heater. If Kyle could just stay focused, he could turn the duck in and begin the second part of the creative process: chasing the check. He’d been keeping Howard waiting far longer than he ever should, and he suspected Howard would return the favor on the other end. See, Howard had been at this long enough to know the only reason an artist ever turns in anything at all is that they are desperate for money. Soon as the duck hits Howard’s desk, that’s like publishing an announcement in the Times. KYLE’S RUNNING FROM THE CABLE GUY. The small victory any editor ever has over the Kyles in this world is making them sweat over the check. Duck-Trudy-Cody. It was the circle of life.
I’d been sitting in Kyle’s cramped work room for nearly two hours trying to figure the guy out. Green Lantern. This was Green Lantern. While I was meticulously selected by the dying Abin Sur to succeed him as the protector of Space Sector 2814, Ganthet— the last surviving Guardian—tossed Kyle my old power ring at random. While I spent years struggling with my intellect, with my appreciation for science, Kyle just put the thing on and started flying around. It was a magic ring. The horror of my failures notwithstanding, I did my best and gave my all to protect the universe. And now, some kid not qualified to deliver pizzas has the universe’s most powerful weapon in a soap dish next to his drawing table. So, yeah, it took me a minute to let him know I was there. The conversation I might have started two hours ago wasn’t the one I’d come there to have. Two hours, and he still hadn’t finished that duck. Kyle was either too distracted or too inexperienced to realize I was there. His brief stint as the omnipotent Ion had apparently taught him less than it should. Even though he wasn’t wearing his Green Lantern ring, the ring was close enough to alert him to my presence, but Kyle had a lot on his mind. Too bad. Being a Green Lantern is a tough racket, kid. “You have a problem,” sent Kyle’s arm sweeping across his desk, knocking bottles of ink and cans of brushes over the side. Kyle spun toward me with a snarl and instinctively extended a fist on which there was no ring. I was pleased to see I wasn’t the only one who did that. I gently poked a finger in the direction of the soap dish. Kyle turned to see I was pointing at his power ring. “Oh, yeah, thanks.” “You scared the snot out of me, Spectre.” Spectre. He called me Spectre. Guess I had that coming. Ex-senators are called, ‘Senator.’ Ex-presidents are called, ‘Mr. President.’ Spectre. Guess I should be used to it by now. “I’m a little busy here—” “Yes,” I said, icily, “the duck.” Kyle was the anti-Batman, spewing so much of himself out into Creation that reading him was less about reaching in than it was screening through “the abundance of Kyle”. He felt stupid, telling me how busy he and his duck were. He immediately realized if I was sitting in his studio, all hell was breaking loose. “Sorry. What’s up?” “The Weaponers of Qward—you foiled their invasion. Defeated their Sleeper—” “Eddie Roach, yeah. The guy with the Sinestro ring. The ring turned him, literally, into Sinestro—” “And so forth,” which shut Kyle down. Not talking to a chimp, here, Kyle. “The Qwardians planted thousands of these rings throughout time and space— thousands of sleepers. Thousands of potential Sinestros.” Kyle blinked, wondering if it was his turn to speak. “Yeah, but we shut down the transformer bridges—the star gates between the Qward dimension and our own. We cut off the rings from their power source.” “Did we?” I gave Kyle the Look. Kyle swallowed. I enjoyed knowing the Look still worked. “What are we talking about, here, Spectre?” Out of habit, I began pacing around. Lots of drawings of some young woman. “The Qwardian universe exists in parallel to this one, on a different dimensional plane. Their physics are startlingly different from ours, even to the point where the Green Lantern power rings have limited capabilities there. They called it, ‘antimatter,’ and I suppose that description will do for now. “The Qwardians see most things differently than we do. Music is noise. Art is repulsive—” “Good is evil,” Kyle got to the point. “To Qwardians, evil is the natural order of things. Hating Earth seems logical and useful. Expanding their antimatter universe into this one would probably destroy both, but their goal is a kind of inter-dimensional imperialism.” “Their goal is revenge, Kyle.” Jade. The girl’s name was Jade. Jennifer-Lynn Hayden. Alan Scott’s daughter. “They’re mad at us.” “They’re mad at you, Spectre. Hal Jordan handed them their hats on several occasions.” I studied Jade. Kyle was actually a very good artist. “Qwardians don’t make those kinds of distinctions, Kyle. A Green Lantern is a Green Lantern. A human is a human. A human who is a Green Lantern— well, there’s your two-fer.” Kyle writhed in his chair. He felt Howard breathing down his neck. “I really don’t see where this is going—” “Neither did I. Took me days to figure it out. To get what was wrong with the universe. But I get it, now.” “You do?” “Yes.” I waited just to wait. Just to listen to Cody bark. Just to see how long Kyle would sit there without thinking about that duck. Kyle pounded on the wall, “Cody, shut up!” That seemed to do it. “Hal,”—Oh, I was Hal now—“what’s up?” “Math, Kyle. It’s all about numbers. Zeros and ones.” “Hal—” “If Qward exists in an antimatter universe. If music is noise. If art is repulsive—” “—if evil is good,” he offered. “—then why do we believe shutting down the transformer bridges rendered the Sinestro rings inert? Why do we think that, Kyle?” That one I just let float out there a minute. Cody started barking and the phone rang as the Comcast Cable truck pulled up outside. I gave Kyle the Look. “So, what do you wanna do?” he asked. “Me? I’ve got to see an iron worker in Pittsburg who murdered his lover’s husband. I’m going to weld him into a steel plate.” “You’re joking—” He pounded on the wall again, “Codeeee--!” Kyle gave me the one-second index finger as he answered the phone, “Yes, Howard. Sure, it’s done. No, really. I’m gonna drop it off in— yes, Howard. I— no, yes, Howard—” And then, Howard was gone. “Hal, I mean, what’s our move?” “‘We’ don’t have a move, Kyle. I don’t do that sort of thing.” “But— you helped me with Sinestro and the Qwardians—” “And got yelled at. I’ve got a boss, too.” “But— your boss is— I mean, he’s—” “Reminding me everything in creation has a role and a purpose.” On the TV, Trudy Woodrow went to blue screen. “Hal— we could be talking about thousands of Sinestros.” “Which would explain my being here.” “You’ve got to do something!” “I did. I came to you.” “B-but— how do I stop them? What do I do?” I moved toward the door. Not that I needed a door. “Change the gravitational constant of the universe.” “What?” This kid knows nothing. He’s got a magic ring. “Gravity arranges matter in thin filaments. High-density regions undergo collapse and ignite bursts of star formations. These proto-galaxies stream along filaments and meet at nodes, causing a buildup of galaxies and creating universal constants, the basic rules of how things work. “Tell your power ring to emit a wide-spectrum neutrino pulse. The neutrino is an elementary particle. Its mass is very small, so it only interacts through the weak force and gravitation. “Because the neutrino only interacts weakly, it has no noticeable effect on ordinary matter. In other words, you won’t break anything. But the Qwardian power rings—designed and manufactured in the ‘Antimatter’ Qward universe where the rules of matter and gravity are vastly different—emit an ‘Anti-Matter signature,’ if you will, which will likely react with the pulse—” Kyle looked like a girl scout left in the rain. I regrouped. “Tell your ring to emit a wide-spectrum neutrino pulse. It’ll work like an EM pulse, sending a spike to the Sinestro rings. Then just tune in to Creation to see where the rings all are, and summon them to you.” “How?” I was really trying not to dislike Kyle. “By your will, Kyle.” Out of habit, I used the door. “It’s not that big a deal, Kyle. Turn things around and start there. Won’t take all night.” But, it did.
So far as I was concerned, the entire matter of the Sleepers clean-up had been laid to rest. So, even though I still felt a great disturbance in Creation, I had every reason to assume the trouble would soon pass, and pass without my intervention, which would please the Boss. All of which is my way of explaining why, at that time, I had no idea Kyle would fail so miserably after I left. Being nearly omniscient, of course, I eventually knew everything that transpired. As it turned out, Kyle put his power ring on, and recharged it by inserting his fist into the bell of his power battery, which was, as all Green Lantern power batteries were, crafted in the shape of a large green railroad lantern. In his boxer shorts. Change the gravitational constant of the universe. Change the gravitational constant of the universe. Change— I had an oath. A very solemn oath. Wrote it myself. Change the gravimetric universal constant. Change the positional consistent gravimetric constant universal. Change— Kyle merely stood there. In boxer shorts. Fretting over simple instructions. Then he ran to the window. “Oh, Jeez—” He looked out of the window, hoping to see me flying away. “Where— Hal! Hal!” As if I actually did that sort of thing. Flying. It’s so... pedestrian. “Crap,” Kyle exclaimed as he hastily dropped to his drawing board. “Gotta write this down— change the universal graviton consistently—” Which was about when he started slamming his head against his drawing table.
“Stupid. Which got Cody barking again. About 9.2 on the Richter scale. “Cody! Cooo-deeeee!” Kyle pounded on the wall, “Shut Uuupppp!” In the midst of his panic, Kyle remembered the duck. “Crap,” he spat as he yanked his power ring off. The ring landed with a loud clink in the soap dish as Kyle put the universe on hold for five more minutes so he could get Howard off his back. This was Green Lantern. “C’mon,” he muttered as panic ripped through him. He was down to the webbed foot, little dashes of grass along the horizon line. All he needed was three minutes, tops. He wasn’t going to get it. WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF— Cody was having one of his meltdowns. It sounded like mortar rounds. Kyle snapped, raising off his seat and pounding on the wall with both fists, cracking the paint. “Dammit, dog! Shut up!!!” WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!
Kyle took a moment to
focus. To breathe. To sort out priorities in
his head. Spinning in circles was what Kyle
used to do, when he was the novice tripping
over his own feet. But Kyle was a pro now, a
real grown-up. Kyle was Green Lantern. —and a grotesquely mutated Cody, with several dozen eyes and weighing, at minimum, 1,000 pounds, smashed through Kyle’s door. As big and as ferocious as a lion, this mutated dog knocked Kyle back into his own apartment with a deafening growl and a maw that could snap Kyle’s head from his shoulders. “Ghaaaaaaahhhh!!!” Kyle heard himself scream before he actually thought to do it. The beast pounced and Kyle barely evaded. Lightning fast, the beast twisted and its jaws snapped through Kyle’s cabinet like it was made of straw, books raining down on Kyle as he tried to get his limbs to move faster. Panic coming in waves. His mind said 120 miles per hour but his motor skills were doing the speed limit. All he needed was, maybe, a second to get his bearings. The beast knew that. The attack was relentless, Kyle scrambling to get out of the way of this horrific nightmare. Kyle twisted and scrambled but this thing from hell was far faster than it looked, and it sunk its maw into the floor— Kyle barely evading a death strike to his neck. It took Kyle eight or nine entire seconds to remember he was Green Lantern. But, he finally did, extending his fist toward the hell beast. A fist that absolutely did not have a ring on it. The Beast pressed its massive, drooling maw right up against Kyle’s face, and bared its fangs at him before slowly shaking its head left to right as if to say dear man, don’t you realize I’m going to eat you? And then the beast actually said, in a horrific guttural, “Foolish man.” The last thing Kyle actually remembered seeing before blacking out was one of the Sinestro Sleeper rings embedded in the beast’s paw. |
|
TOP
OF PAGE
|
