Betty or Veronica?

The walk home from school took a half-hour or so (depending on how motivated we were on any given day) giving Bobby and I plenty of time to talk about the plethora of things that tickled our curiosity. One conversation came up…in differing permutations (the names changed but the intent remained)…a bit more often than the most.

“Betty or Veronica?”

I shrugged at first, I only read Archie comics when there weren’t any more super-hero comics in the spinner rack at the drug store. “Betty, no doubt,” I said resolutely. “She’s so sweet and Veronica is a spoiled brat. Archie is a dope not to see that.”

“Well you’re right that Betty is sweet…and cute. But Ronnie has all that dough…”

“Money ain’t everything, Bob,” I said, though I had to admit that my conviction was a bit lacking. “Kato or Karate Kid?”

Bobby rolled his eyes. “That’s too easy. Dude, Kato would kick Karate Kid’s butt so fast it wouldn’t even be funny. Superman or Spider-Man?”

I chuckled. “Talk about easy, Superman.”

Bobby looked at me incredulously. “Are you nuts? Superman is a big boring boy scout who can do anything! What kind of a stupid power is ‘super-breath’ anyway??? Spidey is a kid like us!”

I shook my head. “Spider-Man is always whining. He’s got all of those powers and yet he’s always crying about this or that. It’s boring.”

“That’s what makes it real!” he said. “Marvel’s heroes all have problems and they still get the work done. That’s what makes them cool! That’s what makes them real!”

“I don’t want my super-heroes to be ‘real’, Robert,” I said patiently. “I want my super-heroes to get in there and get the job done without all of the whining. Superman and Superboy and the Flash and the Teen Titans and all of those guys are too busy stopping super-villains to worry about whining about how hard their lives are!”

Bobby sighed. “You just don’t get it, man.”

“Guess not,” I said knowing that, yet again, we weren’t going to agree on that particular point. “Lois or Lana?”

Bobby weighed his options. “Hmm, I’m gonna go with Lana…redheads are cute. Gwen or Mary Jane?”

“Mary Jane,” I said with a sly smile. “She’s cooler…and redheads are cute. Aquaman or Sub-Mariner?”

“Give me a break, Sub-Mariner…it ain’t even close. Supergirl or Wonder Girl?”

We looked at each other and smiled. We nodded and, at the same time, we both said, “Wonder Girl!” with satisfied smirks on our faces. We walked on, the subject of discussion flowing seamlessly to the relative merits of long division as we rounded the corner that led to Bobby’s house.

Guy

Today would have been my brother, Guy’s 48^th birthday. My brother loved me fiercely sometimes while we were growing up. My brother hated me fiercely sometimes while we were growing up (I don’t really blame him for that…he suffered the indignity of “why aren’t your more like your big brother” more often than I would have probably been able to handle.) Mostly, he loved me…he was proud of me…he wanted me to fly to places he’d decided he would probably never fly to.

My brother Guy was exasperating and needy and he had terrible tastes in friends and addictive behaviors. I loved him fiercely sometimes while we were growing up. I hated him fiercely sometimes while we growing up.

I don’t know if that’s the way of all brothers but it was the way of my brother and I.

My brother Guy died in 1992…a bitterly unsurprising overdose…and today…today would have been his 48^th birthday.

the night

You shouldn’t be here. You know that.

But you are here and it’s too late to turn back. Your searing blood is pounding in your head… your thundering heart seems ready to leap out of your chest…your resolve is threatening to fail you at any given instant.

The night is silent…nary a creature stirring in the impassive moonlight…the night is damp and thick and hungry…your fear is a palpable thing…your courage is waxing and waning with each wary, hopeful step…you shouldn’t be here…you know that…and yet here you are…

The breathing…steamy, pungent, casually edacious, filled with unnerving concupiscence…startles you without being a true surprise…you knew it was coming…you prayed it wasn’t coming…it was the reason you pushed past rationality and came out into the dead of the still night.

You had to know. You had to come here. The breathing envelopes you and you curse yourself, a fool.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Your throat is as starkly arid as the Sahara and yet you are still somehow able to croak out a reply. “I know. But I had to come. I had to know.”

“And now you do.”

You swallow hard. You fight back tears. You wonder if there is some bargain to be made. You silently plead for the intercession of a god you have long ignored. You close your eyes as the darkness touches you and draws you in. You shouldn’t be here. “I just wanted to know.”

“And now you do.”

You don’t have time to scream.

And the night…damp and thick and a bit less hungry than before…goes silent again.

Yes

"Do you remember...?"

The day we sat on the outermost edge of the bridge watching the storm-swollen river rage far beneath us...tempting fate while making naive plans for the future?

"Yes."

"Hmph. Then do you remember...?"

The afternoon we stopped along that quiet backcountry road and had gloriously primal sex in a field of wildflowers because the perfume and the longing wouldn't allow us to do otherwise?

"Yes."

"Well, do you remember...?"

The night we swore fervent fidelity we both knew was a bitter, unavoidable lie...our last night together before this one?

"Yes."

"Smug bastard."

"Yes."

"I love you even though. Do you...?"

"Yes."

Magdalena

Everybody called her “Maggie” but she never seemed like a Maggie to me. I’m not especially fond of nicknames (though I’ve accumulated a fair number of them in my time) but I understand that they fit some people like a glove and I don’t fret overmuch about it.

That said, nicknames don’t fit some people at all…Maggie never fit her. Once she (kind of reluctantly) told me her given name…Magdalena…I never called her anything else because that fit her like a glove (I’m not sure if she minded…I think not because she was the kind of woman who would have said if she was bothered.)

Magdalena was an enigma to me and to most of the other people who worked in the same offices as we did. She didn’t smile that often but her dark eyes were always bright with laughing, knowing, daunting energy. They were also infused with an almost tangible melancholy that revealed itself most tellingly in her rare, unguarded moments.

She walked softly and talked softly and flitted just outside the reach of anybody trying to get inside her personal space. She used Jesus and her quietly acerbic wit to keep people at bay but she couldn’t completely hide the caring heart she guarded so carefully (it seemed like she had endured more than her share of heartache through the years but I never knew for sure since she only doled out tantalizing tidbits of her past from time to time.)

I think she thought of me as awkward but somewhat endearing buffoon…and back then I probably was…but she tolerated me graciously just the same.

I lost track of Magdalena when I quit both the company we worked at and the city of Los Angeles to move south but I always hoped she’d found happiness…the melancholy in her dark eyes was something that was as out of place as the nickname was…in a circle of love (as sexist as it may or may not sound, she seemed like a woman destined to be the firm but loving mother to a good number of children.) If there is any justice in the universe it has proven to be so.