Three Shades of Awesome

So apparently I’m not good enough for Red River. Which, frankly is a joke. If you look at the second year grads for this past year, most of them are quite good, but several are little better than I am now, and several are not nearly as good as I am currently.

I just feel, like I just got the wind kicked out of my sails. There are no words that can express what I feel right now… so I’ll just say it’s not good.

 Sitting here, the grass is slightly wet, the earth is mostly damp, this probably isn’t good for my clothes. I don’t care. My butt is wet, OK I care a little. But this is the place I feel safe, here in the shadow of this looming church building, I feel like nothing could ever hurt me.

I mean really though, nothing can hurt me, at least not anything we have found. It was actually at this very Church. Grace Baptist, my family attended here when I was younger, much younger, I was five years old, and me and Billy Majors were playing in the Church attic while my mother was having a meeting with the ladies auxiliary. I’ve never been quite sure what a ladies auxiliary was, my guess has always been that’s where they keep the extra ladies incase the married ones die off? I can still remember the musty smell of that attic, is had several large stained glass windows, but the largest one was of the nativity scene. All colours of light poured through that window, and Billy Majors and I would dance back and forth in the light beams as we imagined we were pirates, or astronauts, or cops and robbers, today we were pirates.

As we clashed our fake wooden swords, back and forth, under the impression that the actual point was to hit the other person’s sword, we didn’t realize that we were supposed to be trying to actually hit each other. I imagine the game would have gotten much more painful much more quickly. Billy Majors quickly backed me against the back of that great stained glass window, I stood precariously on top of an old wooden crate, my head was level with that of the virgin Mary, and as I prepared to lunge forward, Billy Majors swung. foot, I spun around, tripping over a loose board and falling with great force I crashed right through the Virgin Mary, smashed through baby Jesus, and my left foot took off most of Joseph’s face. In thunder crash of glass I plummeted out of that attic a good three stories landing outside on the stone church steps.

It hurt, boy did it hurt, a lot. I’ve talked with a few people, and they all agree it should have hurt more. I mean, I cried, then again I was a kid, I cried all the time. But, yah, I’m pretty sure I had broken bones, at first I couldn’t feel anything, when I did start to feel things it felt like my legs were straight up in the air and I couldn’t move them. As I regained feeling, I could feel the stone, cold against my cheek, as I started to move I could feel the blood that was sticking in my hair. I was almost to the point of being able to stand up when my mother and Pastor Tim burst through the Church doors. Pastor Tim quickly knelt beside me asking if I could feel my legs. I sat up, brushing the glass out of my hair. I saw out of the corner of my eye Billy Majors darting across the street, apparently held’ run out the back door.

My mother was not amused, she used my full name, she never used my full name, most of the time she’d throw a y on the end to make it sound cute and embarrassing, this was not a cute and embarrassing moment, this is what the hell did you do to Joseph’s face moment. Which incidentally was not a good moment to be me. As my mother brushed the glass off and out of my hair, and off my clothes, she asked me what on earth I’d been doing. I explained that Billy Majors and I were playing pirates upstairs, and I fell out the window. Well that was just nonsense she said, nonsense, you never wanted to be making nonsense with my mother, it wasn’t no sense, it was nonsense. Nonsense was a word I didn’t like. That was the word that my mother used for women who wanted to be firefighters, or for men who wanted to be hair dressers, and now I learned for boys who crashed through baby Jesus.

Nonsense.

Pastor Tim knelt down beside me, he said son. Pastor Tim always wanted to listen to you when he said son. Not like son of God, but like I was his son. I was pretty sure I wasn’t pastor Tim’s son, I was pretty sure that my dad was my dad, he never seemed like he wanted to be my dad, so I’m pretty sure if he could have pawned me off on Pastor Tim he would have, he said son. What really happened? Oh, now I felt bad. Why didn’t it make sense that I fell through the window? It’s not like I was making it up, if I wanted to make something up, I would have said that a dragon came and ate the window, I liked dragons back then, or that a dinosaur, preferably a T-rex came and ate the window, I don’t know why I thought that big lizards might like eating church windows, but that’s what I would have said. But, no, right now I was Pastor Tim’s son, whatever that meant, and he wasn’t content with the answer I was giving him.

Mother then went into damage control mode, cell phones weren’t that popular back then, so she ran into the Church to phone my father, I couldn’t hear her, but I was pretty sure she was estimating to dad how much a new baby Jesus window would cost. She had to hold the phone away from her face. I tried to imagine what Dad was saying, was he worried about me, was he scared I was hurt? As my mother slammed down the receiver I was pretty sure that wasn’t what was running through my father’s head.

In the end Pastor Tim gently told me what he wanted me to say, I’d been throwing rocks, there was no Billy Major here, it was just me, Billy Major wouldn’t do something like this, he was a good boy. I’d thought I was a good boy, but apparently Pastor Tim thought I wasn’t as good of a boy as Billy Majors. Little did Pastor Tim know that Billy Majors would actually grow up to be drug addicted mobster, good little Billy Majors. Actually Pastor Tim was a bit of a hypocrite too, later we found out about this big affair he was having with a woman in the choir, he said he felt like God was calling him to a relationship with her, only her husband didn’t seem to agree. Pastor Tim moved away, mom sill sends him Christmas cards. But like I said, Pastor Tim told me I’d been throwing rocks, at the window, and that they’d broken and fallen on me. There wasn’t a cut on me so obviously my story wasn’t the truth.

That seemed to make sense to my mother, and they’d always told me not to argue with adults, so I didn’t argue back. Besides I was pretty sure they weren’t gonna buy my T-rex story. So I stopped trying to fight them. After all, all the glass was uncomfortable and I just wanted to go home and get cleaned up.

That was the first time that I noticed I didn’t really get hurt like the other kids. My mother would often get angry at me for crying when I fell down, I’d scrape my knee or something, but by the time she got to me, it didn’t hurt anymore, and the scrape had healed over, she’d accuse me of just wanting attention and walk back to her romance novel, or day time soap in a huff.

It also caused me problems when teachers would ask me if I was being bullied, indeed I was, but when they see torn clothes with blood on them, but no cuts, well they assumed I was just a rather adept liar, something which troubled me greatly. It wasn’t until I learned that as well as being being invulnerable, when under attack my strength would rise a great deal. I found a few books on self defense, and convinced my father to enroll me in a martial arts class. Shortly afterward my bully problem was solved, and the accusations of my dishonesty quickly fell by the way side.

For however difficult and confusing my childhood was, I confess I miss those simple days. I miss believing that everyone Pastor Tim said was reliable, even if I knew better, I missed playing in the Church while my mother gossiped with the other women. Most of all I missed learned of right and wrong, good and evil, and knowing that all I had to do was show up to Sunday School, memorize Bible verses, and I could be a good boy, I could get gold stars, and I knew what I was doing was the right thing. I miss being sure of everything. I miss my gold stars so much.

Well the progress with my book is going well, I confess I had a good talk with Brian about it, he was surprised with how good I was doing, even said I should send it off to a publisher to get their interest. I’m really not sure of that. Personally I don’t know if I’m good enough for that, though I guess in a lot of ways good doesn’t matter, you just need to be good enough for people to want to read.

I don’t think I’d ever make a go as a full time author, I don’t know that I can really pull off being that pretentious, not that I think authors have to be pretentious, but I’d like to if I was an author. I just want to get the book finished off well enough, get it good enough that I could publish it, and then I wanna send it to Dan, and I hope I make him cry. Is that bad? In a lot of ways this is our story. It’s not really our story, it’s more my story, it’s a story that nobody knows about, because the main character is a me that nobody knows. It’s a vulnerable, and unbrokenly broken failing hero. Maybe people know that, but I don’t know that they do.

I think like so much of my art, this is just another cry for love, cry for knowing, cry for holding, and sobbing for lack of the aforementioned. I’m thinking I’m going to stop posting the chapters, now that I’m further along in development, I want a chance to flush out the skeleton of the book, start filling in the pieces, and then I want to start refining it all. Maybe even bring in a co-author. Probably not a coauthor, I’ve a hard time dealing with other people’s input. After all, my ideas are always the best.

In other news, I think the sub title is going to be, “A Mostly True Story”. I’m not sure if I should call it “Captain Invincible: A Mostly True Story”. Part of me just wants to do something like call it, “Hero: A Mostly True Story” though that might get me sued by NBC. The Working title is simply Hero, we’ll see if that changes. I had a really good book title once called, “The Secret Diary of Emery Rose” All I really got done was the first chapter where the main character thought he had the worst name ever. Also any book has a good name if you name it the Something Chronicles. LIke, the Fitzjabber Chronicles, who or what is a fitzjabber? Who knows, but damn does he have chronicles!

I don’t know what I wanna name my book, if anything it’s probably best that I don’t hold that name too tightly. I mean, really if it ever did get published I’m sure a publisher would bugger around with it enough that it wouldn’t even matter. They’d probably make the character a lesbian.

The rain, you can hear the sound all around, you can feel is soaking through your skin, the form of something covers your frame, but it’s still snaking it’s away inside. You try and resist, but the bones get wet, the heart slows, your eyes shut. There’s no light, just the sound, just the sound, of rain coming down. Racing over the street, seeping into your eyes. Just the sound of rain coming down.

You try and run, but with every step, into the river, more of yourself is washed away. Every step you’re shrinking, every step you’re sinking, there’s less and less of you, so listen to the sound of the rain. Where is left to go? Who would want you now? A drift wood heart, in a decaying body. The rain is coming down.

Your fingers claw at the rushing water, it trickles and splashes over them, as your fingers melt away. Lunging forward, trying to move, just hear the sound of the rain. Lightning flashes, and you can see yourself, one, two, three, four, five, the thunder. Listen to the sound of the rain. Another flash, where have you gone, one, two three, the thunder.

I looked for you when the storm was over, all I found was your ring. I told you my soul, it wasn’t safe outside.

Anger boils over like a vicious tide, the lid clatters to the pace of children laughing, and the sizzle deafens every ear.
Smell the burning remnants of bright hopes and happy dreams, go ahead and taste this sour mix that flows through my veins!
Put your ear to my chest and see that nothing’s beating! Oh give me your hand and we’ll scald it in all that is left!

You, the liar, the wicked fake! The clown of fate, and hope’s bitter pill! You wretched falsehood, you putrid love!
I set my doves and precious things in your hands, now the bloody mess makes the children laugh.
The false trust, you wicked smiler! If anger boils tonight, I hope it fills your lungs!
May it choke you, and burn. Might the smell of it fill your mind with grief! My one last hope is that you never see happiness!
May God not allow your head to go to the grave in peace!
The one curse I have, I give to you.
May your days be nearly as dark as mine.

Anger boils till there’s nothing left.
Until the burning carcass turns to ash.
Anger boils till soot is the soul, and dust is the eyes.
Listen to the silence found in true pain.
And you’ll hear the sobbing of the wretch you made.

So I did I brief survey tonight… I asked three individuals who I’d had various levels of interest in, ranging from oh he’s cute, to oh he’s cute and we get along really well, to oh he’s cute, we get along really well, we share the same faith, I love spending time with him, I think I’ve found the one!

I was hoping to find a common thread as to what makes me so profoundly desirable as a friend, but not as a lover. See, this is the thing that confuses me, and which I find completely and utterly asinine. Everyone wants to be my friend, with a few notable exceptions. Granted sometimes my friendships burn out, especially when talking about Windows Phone 7 apparently (it’ll be crap!) but still, I can win friends and influence people with almost no effort. If you look around normally, the sort of people who can pull this off are attractive. There’s this guy at my work, everyone loves him, he could nuke China and get away with it, but the thing is, he’s attractive. I could do just about the same thing, but as far as I know nobody at my work is mentally undressing me!

In sales, there’s a universal truth, hot people sell better. Doesn’t matter if it’s anything cars, electronics, tooth paste, whatever pretty people move more junk. Yet, I’m a damned good sales person, I could sell you an iPhone like that! Granted iPhones sell themselves. I could have convinced anyone to buy anything though!

I can even sell myself, I’m brilliant at selling myself, put me in front of a Church to “tell my story” and I’ll have the moms in the crowd crying, I’ll have the young people ready for a fight, and I’ll make the old bigots very uncomfortable! I can sell an idea, I mean sure Adullam didn’t take off, but it did pretty freaking good considering I was trying to start a church with no support, no money, no credibility, with a bunch of homos meeting at a bar!

I mean I’m not claiming to be perfect… but… I just wish I knew what it was that makes me so impossible to fall in love with? The first reply I got was really surprising, essentially I was told that because I was a Christian the guy would never even consider dating me. The third one I got a really weird answer from, and from the second one I was told that ironically some of my traits that probably make him really enjoy my friendship are one of the key reasons why he finds me romantically entirely unattractive. How absurd is that?! I mean not that he’s absurd, it’s not his fault, I’m actually convinced that I emit a low level radiation that numbs the brain centres responsible for romantic feelings.

My mother and sister taught me for years that I was unloved because I was unattractive. I mean they didn’t ever say that, but that plus jr. high and high school did a real number on my self image. Fact is, I’m pretty sure just about anyone would actually be a complete and utter fool to settle for me, simply because the ideal body image I have for myself would require bone reconstructive surgery, and genetically altered hair.

I think that’s one of the hardest things for me, when someone’s not interested I assume it’s cause I’m not attractive. Just about no one of any substance has ever told me that, but it’s always rang fairly loud for me.

I’m just feeling kind of lonely tonight, and I wish somebody loved me.

So I drew a pretty picture today. Actually I drew a couple… or… I drew one… and then remixed four others… hehe remixed… I didn’t actually mix them… you do that with audio… but you know… I can pretend that I’m cool and musical… no I guess I can’t.

Anyway, the theme of this Sunday is supposed to be LIGHT, not just Light, but LIGHT… actually I think it’s just light. But for me, it’s LIGHT. See I love light, I really truly truly truly do. Three truly so you know I mean it. See, when you work with paper, light is that fading thing that as you draw you loose. When you work digitally everything you do is with broken light, and creating light from red, green and blue! So, yah any graphic artist will probably have a better feel for what makes different colours than anyone else. To be honest I still think of light often in hex values… (six character codes that denote the amount of R, G and B your colour has… my favourite shade is still prolly 0066FF).

So yah, this is the updated graphic for the song “True God” that we do at Church. I don’t want to preemptively reveal the set list… hehe… set list… I don’t know if Nick would care. But I basically overhauled all of the graphics this week in light of this one… in light… funny. The first one I was like hmm I could tie these two together… then I was like… I could tie these three together! Then I was like well if I’m gonna do three why don’t I do all five!? And then I was like well if I’m doing all five I should probably do a background for when Tim is preaching… cause I’m a nerd.

I’m not sure anyone’s even gonna notice… they all kinda display the spectrum though, so they’re kinda rainbowy… I remember once one of my pastors was a bit concerned that I might be “pushing a gay agenda” shortly after I started with the media team and I did a rainbowy graphic… I chuckled, I’ve never quite been sure how serious he was… I don’t know that he’d be serious if he said it now since he knows me better than that… and well… I don’t think he notices when I draw subtly subversive things… (all of which are in line with the gospel mind you!)

Anyway, I feel really accomplished tonight… I don’t know that I actually accomplished all that much, but I feeeeel really accomplished! Not to mention the slides for this week just look fabulous… hehe… gay joke. Nah they’re pretty cool though, I really enjoy when I get to throw in a lot of colour in there. Sometimes my stuff ends up being just a lil too monochrome… at the same time sometimes I find the allure of the whole spectrum too hard to ignore. I’ve never been good at picking like just two colours to work with. I always wanna use all of em… cause I’m greedy I guess.

Anyway… yah… oh and someone got impaled on Smallville tonight (I got through all nine seasons)

Bus stops, well they’re fun places. Fun places caught between two instances, the one where you’re waiting and the one where you’re going. Granted you often wait at them for a lot longer than a second, but they still exist at that thrilling point where you start a new journey.

I’m waiting at one right now, for my friend Ian. We’ve never been terribly close, Ian’s kinda like that reliable friend who will help you move, but who never really makes the effort to plan a social engagement. This whole excursion was birthed largely in part to the fact that I never see Ian anymore since the other half of our group of four individuals we call friends have since started dating and don’t return my calls, or lately even acknowledge I exist. Which, really is par for the course. I mean, what’s the point of being in a relationship if not the privilage of ignoring your friends. Really I’m just jealous that I don’t have anyone to ignore friends over.

It also doesn’t help that Ian comes from that rare breed of people who even today do not feel they nee a cell phone. Why am I waiting at this bus stop you ask? Oh you thought I was waiting for a bus? No, I’m waiting for Ian’s bus, since he phoned me from work explaining that he’d be late to meet me since his bus wouldn’t be coming for another 20 minutes. So since I was already half way to my destination I figured I would meet Ian at his bus stop. Since, well that’s the kind of friend I am. Not to mention I’m pretty sure if I waited at the resturant I’d either be full or the waiter would be pissed off by the time Ian showed up.

And this, this is why Ian is wrong, because cell phones are horribly useful. Oh, not for calling people, I could care less about that feature. Actually if I could take the voice plan off my iPhone is consider it. No, you see, my phone allows me the chance to update my blog with whimsical blog posts about waiting at the bus stop, while of course waiting at the bus stop!

In other news I’ve been reading a book at work called “soulfully gay” which I got from Rob before he moved. I’m mostly reading the book because it has a nice cover. I hate to admit it but that’s the truth. The guy who’s writing it seems to be somewhere between a flake and brilliant. Part of me wants to be angry at it because I can’t recommend it. He’s a sort of post Christian who throws around the word spirituality like it’s going out of style, but at the same time he’s incredibly honest and insightful. So I’m gonna keep reading even if he mentions astrology now and again all the while while stating that he doesn’t believe that the plants or stars actually influence much of anything.

It’s a fun read, though I confess part of me feels almost like I’m sick of the gay thing. Like it was fun for a while, but now I’d almost like to just be normal. Like I’m still gay, still flirt with guys, but I’m a lol sick of still being a novelty for people.

I don’t really know what I’m saying, I think I’m just a bit cold. To be honest though-

I think I just either missed Ian, or he missed his bus. Eitee way it just drove by and I didn’t see him get off!

So strange thing, apparently my hatred of call centre jobs was limited to that one employer… I actually ended up on a pretty sweet “campaign.” I do customer service for a major car tire company… that has a man… made of tires as their logo… that’s pretty google safe right? Oh Google you make my blog so vague.

Anyway, yah, I have Americans call in and talk to me about their tires, and I frantically look at online systems and booklets trying to avoid letting them figure out that I’m basically reading marketing speak directly off glossy pages that have nice pictures of tires and sexy cars on them. It’s actually a really fun job partially because I’m only good at it and not mind blowingly exceptional like I was at my last job. So I’m actually almost remotely worried I could get fired. For example, I wouldn’t show up an hour late at this job and get really irritated if they threatened to fire me… at the same time I wouldn’t have in the back of my head all the times they scammed me out of money, or in general screwed around with me, because they haven’t really done that.

Now that’s not to say that I some how think that this is the Jesus of employers… actually well Jesus jerks me around sometimes too… but he’s a lil different… he’s kinda God so he’s allowed to do that… and I think I’m supposed to call it testing… or refining or something spiritual like that… but He knows I know the score so we’re cool like that… I hope.

But yah, I actually like my coworkers… not that I didn’t like my coworkers at the Rogers Kiosk, I liked Byron when he wasn’t trying to play me, and I liked Rem, and I like Britney, and I liked Tamara (though she quit after Christmas) I even liked Mandy when she wasn’t being all moody… OK Mandy was always moody but even then sometimes I liked her. Heck sometimes I even liked “the Bitch that Stole Christmas” though I preferred her when she wasn’t trying to get me to quit.

The problem there was, I was too good, and it never really got acknowledged. No pay raises, no admin not screwing around with me, I just got stuck with the evening close shifts (that I kinda liked but were slower) and got yelled at for taking breaks that in general were half of what I was legally expected to get. There’s only so many times you can display the “Encyclopedia Technologica” that is my mind numbing long term memory, to a resounding “meh” before you start thinking… I need to do something else.

I mean I know my customers will miss me in two years when their iPhones and Samsungs kack out finally… hopefully in two years since I almost never sold the extended warranty… but at the same time I wanted to be gone by then anyway. Ideally I woulda liked to have been working at Apple by now, but I think my employment file has a big black mark that says, “Potential Employee sent crazy email trying to explain why I’m a crazy nut job for not hiring him, and while he’s entirely right I’m a nut jobber American who can’t get that in Canada saying, yah I guess, when asked about another job offer is not the biggest sin possible… so never hire this guy, even though he’s smarter than the entire Polo Park store…” yah… I’m assuming that the woman who blacklisted me talks a lot like me when I’m in a weird mood, and is as scatter brained as me.

What was I saying? Right, I talk about tires all day. So yah, now David, the guy who doesn’t drive, the queer who never cared about cars… aside from the cute yellow ones, talks on the phone with American grease monkeys with cute southern accents, which I picture half naked and gliseny, all day…

Yah whenever the guys from this one dealer chain call in I always picture them as hot half naked calendar models… I also flirt with them but I’m not sure they notice. My coworkers have actually started laughing about how happy and flirty I get on the phone. I’m just always really excited to talk to anyone on the phone, and I make my callers laugh a lot…

It’s crazy but, I’m actually really enjoying this job! Probably because it’s actually a challenge. It’s crazy times. It’s also nice because even though I’m unsure of things, I keep “doing great!” I should have gotten a job at a call centre earlier, they’re insanely nice, and they just seem fixated on making sure I don’t quit. I’m pretty sure I could ask my “coach” to drive to Safeway and buy me grapes and feed them to me… OK… perhaps that’s pushing it… I might be able to get her to get me a chocolate bar from the vending machine though?

The biggest downside though, is that I don’t work right next to a Safeway anymore… I spend all day craving their sandwiches, I get one every shopping trip I make now just because I miss the taste of them… mmmm

I’ve also been writing a fair bit, I’ve got the romantic subplot slash big plot, of my book done in my head, or mostly done. It’s just gotta work it’s way onto the paper! I don’t wanna spoil it for you but it’s gonna be awesome!

Anyway, but it’s almost midnight, and I have to be up at 9ish, so I should probably wrap this up… ugh, that’s the bad thing though, I’ve been so bloody busy. Betwen work, and there’s also a chance I might be becoming a financial planner… (who’da thunk!?) and I’m trying to write, tomorrow I gotta draw up my Church drawings for this week, and… holy frick I’m busy… I’m so busy…

Other than that… what else? Oh, I think about Dan a lot less, though I still think about him. I wish I didn’t, he txted me by accident the other day, it hurt… fair bit. Then I got asked out on a date by a straight guy… that whole thing there is confusing… he’s straight, but he wants to date me, cause he likes talking to me, and he kissed me, but apparently only my mind turns him on… is that weird? Yah I’m pretty sure that’s weird…

Oh, maybe I should say something about the straight guy who wants to date me… I sold him a phone, and he flirted with me, but he’s straight, I’m really confused by it all… he’s super cute though, he wasn’t when I first met him, but he got a hair cut which did wonders for him. Did I mention we kissed? Yah… thinks I’m super smart and fun to talk to…

So just for everyone keeping score.
First I met Josh, who shared my faith, and my taste in music, and a whole lot of stuff, but was really distant and in general couldn’t see himself in a relationship with me.
Then there was Dan #1 who lead me on, trying to get into my pants (I didn’t realize this) but who was scared off by a relationship… only to get married.
Then there was well… a lot of guys who basically told me you’re not hot enough go away.
Then there was Logan who also shared my faith and taste in music, but who just couldn’t see himself in a relationship with me… but was less distant and crazy than Josh.
then there was Dan #2 who thought I was hot, basically wanted to use my for physical stuff, then got emotionally attached, then got emotionally distant, and who decided I was too smart and engaging to date…
And now I have a guy who finds my mind incredibly sexy and wishes that he found guys attractive because he thinks I’m great.

I mentioned it to Josh and he didn’t say anything, I asked what he thought, his reply, “Well really, there’s always something with you.”

Sidekicks, sidekicks have it rough. I feel sorry for em. I’ve never been anyone’s sidekick, can’t say I really want to be the sidekick. Everyone really wants to be the main hero. Like Batman, Batman’s nobody’s side kick, not even for Superman! Same with Spiderman, essentially, if you have Man in your name, well then you’re the Man. I guess. I’ve always wanted to have a sidekick though. I’ve considered being a sidekick, but, even then nobody has ever really wanted to, take me under their wing, rescue me from danger, that sort of thing. Journey Man has made some jokes about me being like a sidekick, but if anything he’s like my side kick who doesn’t get a key to my secret hideout.

Sidekicks, they’re kinda like that person who you come home to, well and go out with, and fight crime with. They’re kinda like kinda like someone you are in a really clingy relationship with actually. Actually the whole thing doesn’t sound very healthy now that I think about it. But, really every hero longs for a sidekick. They’re that inexperienced person you get to take under your wing, sure a lot of the time you’re younger, and friends make all kinds of inappropriate jokes suggesting you’re in an inappropriate relationship… especially since half the time your sidekick is in form fitting tights… and to be honest sidekicks are often pretty good looking, like this one sidekick I knew, he was pretty dang ripped, I’m not entirely sure how he ended up with the Zipper… but well, I mean with a name like the Zipper, and well yah, lots of inappropriate jokes went around the league about that one.

I actually had some sidekick hero drama the other day. This kid I met once, he went by the Blue Bird when I met him, a bit of a cliché but he had this great cape, so he made it work. Anyway, we met a while back, even patrolled together a bit, became pretty good friends, I asked him if he’d like to be my sidekick, and he got kind of uncomfortable with the idea, and I was all, oh no worries it’s cool man. We worked it out, I always respected the guy, and he respected me, but he needed to go it alone. But we stayed in touch, sometimes we’d just hang out in my secret hideout/spare room for hours just talking, listening to the police scanner. I confess if it’s a really cold night in winter, don’t tell the villains but most of us are letting the guys who get paid to be out in crappy weather do the patrolling if you know what I mean.

Most of the time from January first through till February the vast majority of heroes stay in doors, and order pizza from whoever’s running the best deal. You’ll know the weather’s gotten too cold for tights when the cheapest pizza in town is being delivered to the same places all the time. Take your worst cheap ethnic joke, be it the scots, the jews, the asians, ukrainians, anyone, I promise you superheroes are cheaper. We’re all trying to save our nickels and dimes for new crime fighting gear. Most of us have lousy entry level jobs that don’t require too much thought just so we can focus all our time on crime fighting.

Anyway, right sidekicks. But yah, so the Jay, that’s what he’s going by now, the Jay, and I were hanging out the other day, and he tells me this hero he’s been sidekicking for, well there’s some stuff that’s been going on that doesn’t make sense to him. You know, like deliveries of strange materials being delivered to the guy’s hide out, the guy never seems to let him see what he’s working on in his lab. He’s a lab guy you know. Like, I mean I’m a bit of a lab guy too, but this guy’s like a big lab guy. Really secretive. Really like, well the guy’s loaded, came from money, so he can afford to be a lab guy. That’s the king of hero the guy is. Which, I don’t know why the Jay paired up with him, I mean their crime fighting styles really didn’t match up, half the time the guy sent my buddy out on patrol without him, and was like, txt me if you need me. Like who says that? Txt me if you need me! What kind of hero does that! Well, needless to say this guy was not the Man! Not at all. In fact this one time, I ran into the Jay, he’d got his cape caught on a fire escape (you gotta watch those capes!) and where was his hero? My guess playing World of Warcraft back at the lab!

So well I’m not gonna let the kid be taken apart by these henchmen that he’s fighting! So I burst in there! WHAM! BAM! SLAM! KATHWAK! I, I wish they used Kathwak more. Anyway, I fought em off, then I pulled him free, then we whipped them handily! I kind of thought at that moment, that maybe he might be wishing he had taken me up on the sidekick thing. I mean, you know I was pretty handy with those henchmen. But, all he could do was feel stupid for not having txted the guy to come help him. I was so mad, like the kid didn’t do anything wrong but he felt bad!

Anyway though that was a while ago, this story is more recent. So we were sitting at this restaurant. This nice one by my place, he was drinking his way through a beer, just the one, most heros try and avoid getting drunk, and I could tell that in a couple years the Jay isn’t gonna be anyone’s sidekick! Anyway, but he tells me all this weird stuff that’s been going on.

So of course I’m like, “Have you gotten on his computer when he isn’t around?”
“Like I said he’s always on it, I just wish I knew what was going on, I’m sure it’s nothing but it just makes me uncomfortable.”
“OK, but really if you guys are partners well he should be letting you know what he’s working on.”
His eyes kind of sank, “He says I’m just the sidekick and that I know what I need to know.”
“Dude I’d never treat a sidekick like that.”
“Well I’m sure it’s just for my own good, maybe I wouldn’t understand what he’s working on? Maybe it’s time sensitive? He, he’s really busy on it I bet he just doesn’t have the time to explain it.”
“It sounds like you know something’s up. And really every good super hero always makes sure they’re not being played, I mean if it’s nothing he can’t really get mad at you for finding out.”
“Yah, well maybe. Huh, I’m kind of tempted to, just you know hack his files and see what’s up.”
“When did you get all super hacker? I thought you were more of the brawn not the brains type.”
“Well he told me his iTunes password once, and I kind of get the feeling he uses that for everything.”
“Well when we get back to my place we can check.”
“Can you just give me your iPhone? I want to check this.”
“I hardly imagine he puts his most incriminating files on anything my phone can access.”
He grabbed my iPhone, “ He uses Facebook a lot, I’m just gonna check on there!”

I waited as he logged in, and I saw the colour drain from his face. Sure enough, he may have been evil, but he wasn’t a genius. All the while while the Jay had been patrolling the city, his partner was plotting to blow it up! Apparently he’d been networking with several major villains, and they were just a few weeks away from dirty bombing a good chunk of the northern part of the city.

There’s something really hard about finding out that the person you trusted was evil. That’s just, that’s hard. I mean I’ve been disappointed by people before, but I’ve never had to find out that someone was flat out evil. The poor guy. For a while you could kind of tell that he wasn’t really ready to believe it.

“Well, maybe he’s just, you know, maybe he’s infiltrating them! Maybe he’s just doing it to find out more information!”
I pulled my phone back and started reading the messages, “Well if that’s the case then why is he giving them blue prints of this building? Or suggesting bomb sites? It really seems like he’s actually the one planning the whole thing.”
“Maybe he’s just gathering evidence? You know he started it to see who would join?”
“Most heroes don’t create crime, I mean we may find existing crime syndicates and you know try and join them to find out secrets. But if we do that, normally we’d tell each other. Like the Journey Man tried to join the Asian mafia once, I don’t know why he thought it would work, he’s pretty dang not Asian, but he made sure to let us all know so that if we did run into him we’d fake a fight instead of trying to take him down.”
I could see his eyes starting to shake, “And, well… I guess he hasn’t told anyone?”
“You’re his sidekick, you’re supposed to know those sorts of things before anyone.”
“I, I guess…”
“Cheque please!”

We walked out, and started back toward my place. I tried to comfort the poor guy while I started txting my old league buddies. I told the Synapse to get cracking on collecting all the information we needed, I got the Human Flamer on stand by, the Gazelle agreed to help us out, Smoke Screen sent me to voice mail, nothing new there, and Lady Smash said she couldn’t help because she was going to protesting her nephew’s bris. Eventually I got ahold of Ten Face, the Zipper, Cloud Surfer, Exchange Rate, and Captain Fidelity, and we started making a game plan. I won’t bore you with the details but we found out we had some time to spare before they were going to do anything, so we planned it all out well, we took down everyone involved at the same time, and the city was safe, nobody even found out about it.

I just feel really bad for the Jay. I mean, everyone was really good to him about it, nobody really blames him, to be honest a few of us felt bad for not even having noticed what was going on there. But you could tell the guy blamed himself. It’s really hard to just let someone go from being you idol one minute, to pure evil the next. You often want to see the good in them, but I mean even if that good is there, the guy wanted to blow up half the city! Not to mention, after all that time in the lab, the guy just smelt awful it’s like the dude didn’t even shower.

The Jay’s a great guy, I hear he might be doing a name change again though, last time I talked with him he was considering the name Wing Span, which, well I think this really might be a time to break out on his own. If he needs someone to watch his back I’m sure he can find a crime fighting partner, he’s a great guy, he won’t have any trouble.