Crazy Love You (10 page)

“So the last couple of books,” he said. “You know, the numbers are down.”

“Right,” I said. “The economy and the whole e-book thing.”

He nodded slowly, pushing up his dark-framed glasses, which I strongly suspected he didn't need to wear. He was a kid, wiry and practically bouncing with energy, a thick field of dark stubble on his chiseled face, a mop of curls he clearly made no effort to tame. He looked like a Labradoodle.

“I just wonder if it has to do also, some,
maybe
, with the change in tenor of the comic itself.”

“Change in tenor?”

“You know, Fatboy has always been kind of hapless. Kind of a nice guy in bad circumstances. And Priss has been a hero, like a defender of the weak and whatnot. And I think your readership really connects with that. I think they all wish they had a Priss around.”

Yeah, let's face it, my average reader is probably a lot like Fatboy. The world hasn't exactly been kind—many of my fans have neither genetics nor circumstances on their side. They wish for a Technicolor world where geeks are cool, and superpowers are the reward for some type of terrible accident or victimization, and women are flawless and easy to understand, with huge tits and heart-shaped mouths. Comic book girls only want a hero, a man with a true heart. The world of classic comics is very simple; there's a clear code, a concrete set of rules. Good is good and evil is evil. Heroes triumph eventually and bad guys never win. There are no gray areas. It's a nice place to live. And let's face it; I have never wanted to live anywhere else.

“But in the last couple of books, Priss has turned into a villain, hasn't she?”

“Well . . .” I said. Was that true?

“I mean, she isn't helping Fatboy anymore. She's
hurting
him.”

I didn't know what to say.

“I mean, she
killed
his writing partner,” said my editor. He was getting more excited. It was one of the things I'd always liked about him; he was really into the whole
Fatboy and Priss
story world.

“I liked that character and I think a lot of people did,” Zack went on. “He handled all the business so that Fatboy could just stay buried in the story, where he belonged. So it was a big surprise; I mean you must have read all the chatter and online reviews about it.”

He paused here and looked at me with raised eyebrows. There
had
been a lot of angry chatter. And the reviews were pretty brutal. But that's the one thing with having taken a lot of abuse in your life; you tend to be pretty numb when it comes to other people and the shitty things they have to say about your work. I gave him a quick nod of acknowledgment, took a sip of water.

“And now there's Molly, who's a really nice girl for Fatboy. She loves him. But how is it going to all work, you know? Do you really think Priss is going to let Fatboy find a nice girl and settle down? Do you think she's just going to ride off into the sunset on her Harley?”

I felt something clench in my gut. No, she wouldn't. Of course she wouldn't.

“So what are you saying?” I asked.

He took a deep breath, and looked at me hard. “I think it's time for Fatboy to get Priss under control. There has to be some kind of big conflict between them, and Fatboy has to win.”

I looked at Zack; he was practically vibrating. What
was
he saying?

“Fatboy is a grown man now. He's a successful writer; he wants to get married. He's not a victim of the world anymore. But he's morphing into Priss's victim. He has to man up and tell Priss that he doesn't need her anymore.”

“Break up with her?”

“Right,” said Zack. He moved his head in a slow, careful nod, made a steeple of his fingers. “But she won't allow that, will she?”

“What are you saying?” I was dimly aware that it was like the third time I'd asked him this question.

“You know what I'm saying, Ian. Don't you?”

I pushed my plate away. Suddenly the garlic shrimp didn't look very appetizing.

“You're saying that Priss has to die.”

Zack took off his glasses and rubbed at the red indentation they'd left on his nose. I'd never seen a man with nicer nails, square and pink, buffed, cuticles white and neat. He was right, of course. It's why I was stuck in the book. I couldn't go forward because there
was
no way forward. Fatboy knew that Priss had turned on him, that the dark energy he'd always relied upon was starting to work against him. He had to break away from Priss and it wasn't going to be pretty.

“And then what happens to the series?”

“Maybe you move on?” Zack said with a shrug. “Come up with a new idea. Your next big thing; I know you have a million ideas in that head of yours. These things can't always go on forever. Fatboy grew up; he's a man. Maybe you should just let him have a life. Write the best last book you can, I mean really bust it out, no holds barred. Write the most exciting, darkest, wildest
Fatboy and Priss
you ever have. Then let's brainstorm some new ideas.”

I don't really remember leaving the restaurant. I think I made some affirming noises and then zoned out, getting kind of internal about the whole thing. I walked out of there in a daze and started back to the loft. I remember the day was warm and humid, the sky threatening rain.

Fatboy break up with Priss? It was unthinkable. Yet I knew Zack was right. It was time. At first, the thought filled me with a sick dread. But then came a rush of giddy excitement. A fresh start, a shedding of all the old baggage, the person I used to be, the hold Priss had over me. I could walk into my life with Megan free and clear of all of the negativity from my past. I could come up with a new idea, a hundred of them. It was that easy, just pen to paper. If only I could get Priss out of my head once and for all.

I couldn't wait to get back to the loft. I was more inspired than I'd been in months.

But back at my place, I made the mistake of going online, checking e-mail, cruising through the social networks. It was all the usual stuff, notes from readers around the world—angry at Fatboy, in love with Priss, asking for more sex in the books. There were a couple of people who had posted pictures of themselves wearing a Fatboy mask.

I have crazy fans. And since my publisher, Blue Galaxy, started a merchandising initiative, the fans seem to have gotten crazier. For a promotion at the last Comic Con, my publisher produced one thousand Fatboy masks. It was a hideous rubber face, complete with jowls and riddled with red-and-white plastic acne. It had a head of wild black hair and gaping holes for eyes, and a wide, maniac smile. They sold out the entire run and went back into production after the convention and began to sell them online, sent out a bunch to fulfill orders from various independent comic book shops around the country.

When the masks first came out, fans would send me pictures of themselves wearing them at parties, at the office, at home, alone in front of their computers. Then Blue Galaxy started a promotion where if you posted a picture of yourself somewhere with the mask, you were automatically entered into a contest to win free comics. So then the number of pictures I received increased tenfold. I have to tell you, it freaked me out. It was a scary-looking mask; it was utterly beyond me why anyone would wear it. After all,
I
couldn't wait to shed the Fatboy I used to be.

Then a couple months after the release of the mask, some thug in the Bronx wore one during the commission of an armed robbery in which a store clerk was killed. There was a rash of other incidents—someone in a mask robbed a taxicab driver, someone menaced a couple of girls as they were leaving a club, and exposed himself. Another man wore one while running naked through Washington Square Park. The bad publicity this generated increased orders exponentially. The last I heard, there were over fifty thousand masks out there, mainly in California and the tristate area where my books were most popular.

I had one of the masks resting on a Styrofoam head, sitting on the shelf by my computer. I put it on once and looked in the mirror. I never put it on again. But I reached up now and took it off the shelf, held it in my hand. It was the cheapest possible piece of rubber, made in China, probably toxic.

“Fatboy,” I said. “Who are you without Priss?”

He didn't answer.

Fatboy is coming home from his partner's funeral. The sky is black and it's raining hard. Lightning is splitting the sky above him. But Fatboy doesn't run. He walks, slow and hulking, up Lispenard Street, the buildings thick and gray, seeming to bend in on him. He is crushed, grieving for his friend. And he's angry, angry because he knows Priss had something to do with his partner's death. As he approaches his building, a flash of lightning outlines her unmistakable form—the flip of her hair, the curve of her hips, the narrowness of her waist. He draws closer and they stand in the rain, looking at each other.

“Priss, what did you do?”

“Only what you wanted me to do.”

“No. It's not what I wanted. I never wanted you to hurt anyone.”

“Bullshit. There's a rage inside you, Ian. A big one—it's a beast. You keep it locked away because it scares you. But the beast talks to me. He tells me what you want. And I do the things you can't do yourself.”

“You're wrong. You're the beast. You do what you want.”

He walks past her and pushes open the door. The thunder and lightning, the heavy downpour—it's right above them. Priss stands soaked in the street, legs apart, hands on her hips.

“We're done, Priss. I'm sorry, but we are.”

She laughs.

“I mean it. I don't want you in my life anymore. You helped me once, many times. You were strong when I was weak. You saved me one night long ago, and I'm grateful. But I'm not weak. And I don't want you to hurt anyone else.”

“It's because of her, isn't it? Molly.” Priss says her name like a taunt. Her face grows twisted and ugly in her anger. But Fatboy doesn't back down.

“No,” he says. “It's because of me. I'm a man, not a little boy anymore. I need to stand on my own now.”

“The world's an ugly place,” she says. “Bad things happen. They happen all the time.”

“I know,” he says. “Thank you for protecting me. But it's okay. You don't need to do it anymore.”

“Do you think it's going to be that easy?”

Her rage is growing, her face becoming redder, uglier. She's getting bigger, her hair blowing around her like a mane of fire.

“You think you just walk away from me?” Her voice is a roar that mingles with the thunder.

“No,” he says. “I'll miss you every day.”

“That's sweet,” she says. “But that's not what I meant.”

“Good-bye, Priss,” says Fatboy.

He walks inside and leaves her raging as the storm grows more violent—thunder, lightning, howling wind. He leans his back against the door, as if to hold it closed. And he weeps, sinks to the ground. He knows it's not the end. But it's the beginning of the end. And things are going to get ugly.

I took Megan up to The Hollows to meet my mother, Miriam. I wouldn't have asked it of her, but she wanted to go. My grandmother and father have both passed on. My maternal grandparents both died when I was a baby, my paternal grandfather before I was even born. Bad genes on both sides.

My mother is the only family I have. She has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and she lives her life in a medicated fog as a resident of a psychiatric hospital where she also works in the library and assists in the art therapy department, drawing a small stipend.

My mother is destitute, and the costs of her care are mostly covered by Medicaid. I pay for anything that isn't covered. She is a model patient, has some off-grounds privileges, but mainly she has no desire to leave the premises. The world is too ugly, too frightening for her. Too full of demons and sinister characters, bad memories. But really, I think, it's the crushing guilt that keeps her in the little world she has constructed for herself. She is a woman who smothered her own child, and there is no changing that. There is no moving on, not for her.

“You don't find it weird? That I still see my mother?” I asked Megan as we settled into our seats on the train. We sat in the quiet car on the Acela, but some jerk a few rows back was talking loudly into his cell phone.
“Well, we haven't had the returns we expected and it might be time to dump, yaknowwhatImean, Chuck?”

Megan wore a little frown as she pulled her laptop out of her bag. Then she looked at me, giving me the full light of her eyes. “I think it's the measure of who you are. Your devotion to her moves me.”

She talked like that; she really did.

“I mean,” she said, “people don't get it, how much courage it takes to not only forgive, but to love. You love her. I can see that.”

“She's sick,” I said. “She needs me.”

Megan smiled, and her smile was so warm and loving that I bowed my head. I wished I could crawl inside that smile and live there for all of my days.

“I know she does,” she said. “And you need her because she's your mother, no matter what she's done.”

“It wasn't
her
, Megan. She had postpartum psychosis,” I said to the ground. My voice sounded urgent and pleading to my own ears. “She was someone else then. My real mother, before she got sick . . . I
wish
you could have known her.”

“I do know her,” she said. She put a warm and gentle hand on my leg. “I know her through you.”