The Road Narrows As You Go (56 page)

Jim Cooper, Tennessee: Have you ever met with Anton LaVey or any members of, or visited, the Church of Satan? What is the nature of your relationship to LaVey and the Church of Satan?

Thomas Luken, Ohio: What is the meaning of No Manors?

Doug Walgren, Pennsylvania: Did you or did you not partake in a ritualistic ceremony at Dystonia Manors in the spring of 1981?

Thomas Bliley Jr., Virginia: Were you, or were you not, at one point, invited to and accepted to eat the flesh of a man dead of AIDS?

Norman Lent, New York: When did you first sign a contract with Frank Fleecen?
Dan Coats, Indiana: What is your relationship to Frank Fleecen? I mean, bedroom-wise. Are you sleeping together? Have you ever?

Michael Oxley, Ohio: Did you ever take stock or bond tips from Frank Fleecen? Can you name your investments and holdings?

Michael Bilrakis, Florida: Did you reinvest in Lupercal Inc.? What reason did you have for buying stocks and bonds in Lupercal Inc.?

John Dingell, Michigan, Chairman: I have here before me a copy of a twenty-two-page comic book called
The Mizadventurez of Mizz Biz Aziz
, issue number nine …

Jim Slattery, Kansas: I have here a sworn affidavit from a witness who testifies to an occasion in 1982 in which you forcibly compelled a small Christian child to paint a satanic symbolism on your garage door. Can you confirm the truth to this? Using black magic mind-control, did you force a god-fearing child to scrawl satanic imagery on your garage door? A simple yes or no answer will suffice, Miss Ashbubble.

Gerry Sikorski, Minnesota: How many times a month would you say you sleep as in sex with Frank Fleecen?

Rich Boucher, Virginia: Would you characterize Frank Fleecen as your business manager? Are you laundering profits for him through secret numbered accounts? As a follow-up I'm going to throw a few of Frank's clients' names at you and you tell me if you recognize any. Would you recall for the subcommittee the times you might have seen Frank Fleecen conversant with a bond salesman named Ralph Glassman, an arbitrageur named Quinn Kravis, or the fragrance entrepreneur Jon Jay?

Thomas Luken, Ohio: Do you make your investments at the advice of Frank Fleecen? When did you first start to buy and first start to sell bonds? If you're not making them, are you aware of trades going through your accounts at Locus Solus First National?

Doug Walgren, Pennsylvania: I have here before me a small glass phial, if you will, labelled
Ruthvah ~ scent of Crowley ~ for Men
—what do you know about this cologne, Miss Ashbubble?

Thomas Bliley Jr., Virginia: Frank Fleecen is more than your business manager, isn't he? What's that like?

Norman Lent, New York: I fear some of my other subcommittee members would like to paint you with the same brush as is being used on the child molesters in the McMartin preschool trial, the employees in the ongoing trial of their purportedly satanically abusive preschool in an affluent neighbourhood of Los Angeles. As a grandparent, I agree we must all be on guard to protect children from the influence of this modern age's cults, superstitions, feminisms, cynicism, and subjective liberalism, but I can't tolerate a witch-hunt. Once and for all, let me be the one to set the record straight—do you or do you not use your daily comic strip
Strays
as a satanic mind-control tool to turn our small children into devil's slaves?

Michael Bilirakis, Florida: This leads me to ask, are you, or were you not also secretly born and raised in Canada? And in the very same satanic Canadian city as Dr. Pazder's original patient, Michelle Smith?

Dan Schaefer, Colorado: Did you or did you not bury your mother in the same cemetery as where Michelle Smith remembers being buried alive by Satanists?

John Dingell, Michigan, Chairman: All right, we've each had the chance to ask questions. Let me just say on a personal note, Miss Ashbubble, that my entire family loves your comic strip, and knowing what I do about you now, I feel personally abused. You have exploited our trust in you for subversive motives and I can no longer read the funny pages confident they'll be a safe, wholesome place to laugh at a slice of life. Before we conclude, are there any other last questions from subcommittee members for the witness?

Rich Boucher, Virginia: Yes, I have one quick question I don't think any of us asked. Are you lying to us about anything you've said here today, Miss Ashbubble?

Norman Lent, New York: Okay, last chance, so let me repeat Rich's question, Miss Ashbubble. Are you lying to us?

38

The National Cartoonists Society Awards were held on the last Friday in June. Five days left. We remember the day of the awards because it was five days before the premiere of
The Strays Summer Christmas Special
and there must have been ten of us going to the ceremony in San Diego. Wendy got tickets for us and Frank, and we all flew in Hexen's company airliner. Piper and his wife would meet us there. Gabby Scavalda wouldn't miss this either. After months of debate, Wendy settled on a Kaisik Wong gown, Versace heels, and handmade handbag. Meanwhile, we were dressed in five dollars' worth of thrift store formalwear. Biz wore a tiara, a vintage silk Chanel dress from the Jazz Age the colour of champagne, fishnet stockings, and heels with buckles to match.

I want to thank the world who gave me life, Biz hissed as she walked through the crowds with us towards the bar, tickling the chins of strangers and talking to no one in particular. I'd like to thank the man who showed me what stupid is and what ain't. I absolutely got to say a thank you to Hick Elmdales wherever you are, you supported me when nobody else did. I must thank all my queens, alive or dead, wherever you are. Fuck AIDS, she said.

Biz downed two martinis in quick succession. Tipped the bartender and ordered another, turned about-face and walked between two stunned assistants for Tom Ryan's
Tumbleweeds
and made her way to our table.

Smooth Patrick was doing double duty tonight as a nominee's assistant and the creator of his own strip,
Loch & Quay
, nominated for best new strip. He was chuffed to say the least. Dressed in sunglasses and leather jacket to contrast the scotch white shirt and black tie. He carried a motorcycle helmet to the table. Smoothie also brought a date, she came on the back of his motorcycle. Her name was Clara, she was a talent manager for the Chula Vista rock band Murder, about to release their debut
Sham Sandwich
on an imprint of the record label SST. He wanted Clara to meet Rachael as soon as possible because it was only by telling her in the supermarket that he knew Aluminum Uvula that he got her to come with him on this blind date tonight.

Do you have a manager? said Clara as she wedged her chair in between Twyla and Rachael.

Patrick didn't take off the aviator sunglasses. Was my category around in your strip's first year in syndication, Wendy?

I don't know. Yes it was, I guess. Wendy turned her back as Bill Watterson walked right behind her through the mingling guests. She preferred to pretend not to see him over the anxiety of pre-awards hellos— her conscience could handle the antisocial deceit. His conscience chose the polite lie, too, apparently, or he was blind in his peripherals. She knew without having to be told, he must be nominated for cartoonist of the year as well. She imagined the same thought might have crossed Watterson's mind.

Oh, hi, Wendy, Bill said in his gentle Midwestern songbird's voice. Wow, it's been years …

All of a sudden she realized Bill Watterson's face was right there in front of hers. He looked like the exact kind of slope-shouldered librarian she invariably had a crush on when she was in her teens. His eyeglasses
were the size of television screens and required almost nonstop attention to keep from slipping down the wide onion bulb of his nose.

Oh my god, Bill! I haven't seen you since
Calvin and Hobbes
launched— it is
so good
I can't stand it. You're the—I'm serious—(whispering so Charles Schulz, who was nearby, couldn't hear) the absolute
best
on the funny pages. I mean in my opinion of course. Sheesh, I'm excited every morning to read it. Makes me want to commit.

Aw,
she
-whiz, said Bill Watterson and ducked his head low, muttered a gracious
thanks
, and said how he'd almost given a strip after nearly twenty pitches when all of a sudden
Calvin
got picked up.

You should tell that to Patrick, he'd cheer up.

Hey, I can't wait to watch that special I've seen so many commercials for. It sounds really funny. What a terrific spin to have your characters discover Christmas but get the time of year wrong. And you made it yourself. That I like. Normally I think these things end up being big long commercials for stuff kids don't need. And the voices are all wrong.

Well, I hope you like it, Wendy said.
You
could have a cartoon so fast with your characters. Oh my.

Naw.

Naw? Yaw! Seriously. Where are all the Calvin toys? I want to buy them. Your characters are going to be stamped on everything. You'll be a bzillionaire, Bill. A monster money monger.

Maybe, but I kinda say no to all those offers.

No? As in,
Naw
? Really, to all? You accept none? said Wendy and took a drink from our hand and belted it back. But, but, but, nine-
tenths
of my income is toys and
stuff
.

Biz raised her martini to them and said, That's the only way I'd have a strip in the papers. No toys, no merch, no sponsors. Just the strip.

My syndicate hates me for it, believe me. The fights we get into are not cool. They remind me a lot of strips don't get asked for these deals. But when I think about it, I don't think Calvin would approve. Merchandise
doesn't fit with his philosophy. To capitalize on his image like that would be antithetical to Calvin. He would tease me in my sleep if I sold him as toys, I know he would.

Boy oh boy. Maybe that's my problem. My characters are all about making money, said Wendy and massaged her jaw. They harass me nightly for not selling their godless images
enough
.

Watterson turtled his head into his shoulders, as if to apologize for sticking his neck out against what Wendy thought was inevitable in the trade. Good luck tonight, he said.

Yes …, she said. You as well.

Wendy fell on us and said, Oh god, I sounded like such an arrogant jerkoff, didn't I? Like I'm so much more experienced because I've been doing this for five years or whatever. He's older than me and I was practically mothering him.

There's punk-looking comics and then there's punk-acting comics, and that right there is both, said Biz Aziz, pointing a finger at Watterson as he got swarmed by admirers and friends.

Wendy stroked her chin and said,
He knows I'm nominated
. Now I'm afraid I'm
not
going to win and
he
will.

That's when Frank Fleecen sat down and kissed her on the cheek. How are you feeling? he asked. Excited?

All the names, but not all the names of cartooning, were here tonight. We saw Dik Browne hold court, Chester Gould take aim at the buffet table, and Gary Larson pick his nose. A dinner was about to be served that tasted about as good as biting into the seat of a taxicab. Five or six awards would be handed out interspersed with a lot of impromptu jokes and other vaudeville business to stretch the evening to three or four excruciating hours. The Reuben was handed out last, at around two in the morning.

Guess who I heard they invited to deliver the Reuben tonight, Frank said with a wink to Wendy.

Who? Ronald Reagan?

Manila Convençion.

Oh, her. Yes, well, said Wendy.

Frank's eyebrows went up. Bodes well for you and the Reuben, yes?

Oh god, you just made me so nervous.

You deserve this win, he said.

Can I veto a merchandise contract if I want to? she asked Frank.

Some product you don't like? That muffin mix is being recalled.

No, I love them all, even the worst ones. Just asking.

Frank blinked. Well, yes.
You
can veto. But not contractually. Cartoonists don't contractually
own
their comics. You are contracted to draw the comic you create for your syndicate.

Bill Watterson nixes all offers for toys and merch for
Calvin and Hobbes
—nothing but the strip. What do you think of that
zabaglione
? she said as she stabbed her chicken entree repeatedly with her fork and knife, not cutting through only wounding its surface.

What's the matter? Frank said.

What's the matter with you? she said.

I'm happy for you, he shouted. What else do you want? Fuck, my life is falling apart and you're nominated for an award? I'm happy. I'm happy.

You never said anything to me about your life falling apart. Wendy put a hand on his thigh and squeezed. Are you going to explain what you mean by that or just leave me to feel guilty for whatever? You know, Reagan told me he wished Berke Breathed would quit drawing
Bloom County
, think I should tell him? C'mon, Frank. Don't mope on my big night.

I'm happy for you, he said.

We sat nursing drinks and politely applauded for the other awards doled out that evening for best new strip, gag of the year, hall of fame, and the Popeye Award for outstanding service to comics—all in the lead-up to the award for artist of the year, the Reuben.

*

Manila chose to wear a man's black tuxedo that night, with a black silk cummerbund and a formal white shirt half unbuttoned, offsetting her tanned skin. Black patent leather high heels. Between her cherry-red lips was a fourteen-inch-long handrolled contraband Cuban cigar smoking along finely and reeking up the place. Her platinum blond hair, tied into a braid, she suddenly let loose with a wave and a flourish, and all the men gasped.

One last trick. She went down on her hands and toes and, smoking the cigar, counted out twenty-five one-handed pushups. The audience leaped to their feet around us and roared with the kind of applause normally saved for after the ceremony, at the strip club one block over and two blocks down.