Part 11 (1/2)
”He can fly, and he goes after the spies that killed his girl, and now he can really do what he alanted to, which was help the forces of deet that he has a weakness, that without his Synth-O-Blood pu ” Sa for a naested Jerry
”Blood Man,” said Julie
”The Swift,” Marty Gold said ”Fastest bird in the world”
”I draw really nice wings,” said Davy O'Dowd ”Nice and feathery”
”Oh, all right, damn it,” Sammy said ”They can just be there for show We'll call him the Swift”
”I like it”
”He can never stop being the Swift,” Sammy said ”Not for one Goddamned minute of the day” He stopped and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand His throat was sore and his lips were dry and he felt as if he had been talking for a week Jerry, Marty, and Davy all looked at one another, and then Jerry got down from his stool and went into his bedrooton typewriter
”When you're done with Davy's, do e to slip out for an hour, late Saturday, to return Rosa Saks's purse to her, and then again on Sunday afternoon, for two hours, returning with the crooked irl named Mae As for Frank Pantaleone, he disappeared soht on Friday and eventually turned up fully dressed in the eainst his knees When he finished a page, he would bellow out, ”Boy!” and Sammy would run it upstairs to Joe, who did not look up fro trail of his brush until just before two o'clock on Monday
”Beauteeful,” said Sammy He had been finished with his scripts for several hours but had stayed awake, drinking coffee until his eyeballs quivered, so that Joe would have coned This was the first word either had said for at least an hour ”Let's go see if there's anything left to eat”
Joe climbed down froh pile of illustration board and tracing paper that would be the first issue of their comic book He hitched up his trousers, worked his head around a few times on the creaky pivot of his neck, and followed Sammy over to the kitchen Here they found and proceeded to devour a light supper consisting of the thrice-picked-over demi-carcass of a by now quite hoary chicken, nine soda crackers, one sardine, some milk, as well as a yellow doorstop of adaed, under the milk bottle, between the slats of the shelf outside theFrank Pantaleone and Julie Glovsky had long since gone home to Brooklyn; Jerry, Davy, and Marty were asleep in their rooms The cousins chewed their snack in silence Joe stared out theonto the blasted backyard, black with ice His heavy-lidded eyes were ringed with deep shadows He pressed his high forehead against the cold glass of the
”Where am I?” he said
”In New York City,” said Saht it over ”New York City, USA” He closed his eyes ”That is not possible”
”You all right?” Sammy put his hand on Joe's shoulder ”Joe Kavalier”
”Saain, as when he had first enclosed the pair of newly le of partnershi+p on page 1 of the Escapist's debut, Sammy's belly suffused with an uncomfortable warmth, and he felt his cheeks color It was not ht he took in thus e attachrief, half affectionate, half ashamed, for the loss of Professor von Clay that he had never before allowed hiave Joe's shoulder a squeeze
”We've done so ht,” said Sa money”
”Now I remember”
In addition to the Escapist and the Black Hat, their book now boasted the opening adventure, inked and lettered by Marty Gold, in the career of a third hero, Jerry Glovsky's Snowman, essentially the Green Hornet in a blue-and-white union suit, coas,” and a roadster that Sammy's text described as ”ice-blue like the Snowed to rein in his bigfoot style, letting it e of Fan, the bucktoothed but hard-fighting houseboy, and of the Snowered, bemonocled adversary, the dreaded Obsidian Hand They also had Davy O'Dowd's first installs, and Radio Wave, drawn by Frank Pantaleone and inked by Joe Kavalier with, Sammy was forced to admit, mixed results This was Sammy's own fault He had yielded, in the creation of Radio Wave, to Frank's experience and proith a pencil, not daring to offer hi of the strip This act of deference resulted in a dazzlingly drawn, tastefully costumed, su girlfriend, quarrelso police commissioner, Achilles' heel, corps of secret allies, or personal quest for revenge; only the hastily explained, well-rendered, and dubious ability to transh the air ”on the invisible rails of the airwaves,” and leap unexpectedly fro of jazz-loving jewel thieves It was soon apparent to Sammy that once they ise to him, all the crooks in Radio Wave's hometown need simply turn off their radios in order to thrive un over, Joe had already inked half of it
Julie had done a nice job on his Hat story, illustrating one of Sahtly cartoony style not too different fros and cars; and Sah Joe's layouts were, to be honest, a little static and overly pretty, and then rushed and even scratchy-looking at the very end
But the undisputed glory of the thing was the cover It was not a drawing but a painting, executed in tempera on heavy stock, in a polished illustrator's style, at once idealized and highly realistic, that re but which Joe had actually derived, he said, froreat anti-nazi covers to co airplanes, no hel females There were just the two principals, the Escapist and Hitler, on a neoclassical platforainst a blue sky It had taken Joe only a few ht fist arcing across the page to deliver an ihts and shadows that e seem so real The dark blue fabric of the Escapist's costume was creased with palpable pleats and wrinkles, and his hair-they had decided to do the kerchief as a old and at the same time looked messy and windblown His musculature was lean and understated, believable, and the veins in his arm rippled with the strain of the blow As for Hitler, he caht-crossed clean out of the painting, head thrown back, forelock a-splash, ar red strea, beautiful, strange It stirred ratified, of cringing fear trans retribution, which few artists working in America, in the fall of 1939, could have tapped so easily and effectively as Josef Kavalier
Joe nodded and squeezed Saht,” he said ”Maybe we done soainst the wall of the kitchenette, then slid down until he hit the floor Sammy sat down next to him and handed hian snapping off tiny pieces of cracker and tossing thereater Pit His nose in profile was a billowing sail; his hair descended in exhausted coils over his forehead He seeined that he istfully recalling soo, an advertising jingle for poimcrack museum, his father's ear-whiskers, the lace hem of his mother's slip All at once, like the paper flower inside one of Empire Novelty's Instant Miracle Garden capsules, the consciousness of everything his cousin had left behind bloo dye
Then Joe said, half to hiain that Rosa Saks”
Sahed Joe looked at him, too tired to inquire, and Sammy was too tired to explain Another few minutes passed in silence Sa there for a ain and he snapped open his eyes
”Was that the first woman you ever saw naked?”
”No,” said Joe ”I drew ht”
”Have you seen?”
There was more implicit in this question, naturally, than the mere observation observation of a woo prepared a detailed account of the loss of his virginity, thetale of an encounter under the boardith Roberta Bluht in New York City, the eve of her departure for college, but he found he lacked the energy to recount it So he just said, ”No” of a woo prepared a detailed account of the loss of his virginity, thetale of an encounter under the boardith Roberta Bluht in New York City, the eve of her departure for college, but he found he lacked the energy to recount it So he just said, ”No”
When Marty Gold wandered upstairs an hour later, in search of a desperate glass of milk to counteract the effects of the coffee he had drunk, he found the cousins asleep on the floor of the kitchenette, half in and half out of each other's arms Sleepless, ulcerated, Marty was in a very illcredit that, instead of throwing a fit at their having violated his prohibition on sleeping in the apartment, he threw an army blanket over Joe and Sammy, one that had returned with the Waczukowski son froht in the bottle of milk from the sill and carried it with him back to bed
12
Monday dawned as thein the history of New York City The sky was as blue as the ribbon on a prize-winning laleamed like a horn section Many of the island's 6,011 apple trees were heavy with fruit There was an agrarian tinge of apples and horse dung in the air Sammy whistled ”Frenesi” all the way across town and into the lobby of the Kra As he whistled, he entertained a fantasy in which he featured, some scant years hence, as the owner of Clay Publications, Inc, putting out fifty titles a hbroith a staff of two hundred and three floors in Rockefeller Center He bought Ethel and Bubbie a house out on Long Island, way out in the sticks, with a vegetable garden He hired a nurse for Bubbie, someone to bathe her and sit with her and ive his mother a break The nurse was a stocky, clean-cut fellow named Steve He played football on Saturdays with his brothers and their friends He wore a leather helmet and a sweatshi+rt that said arranite and chro in his private dining car on turtle hty Molecule had once saotten Sa Island cottage, kissed his randar Yes, on this last beautiful erously opti me a Superman?” Anapol said without preamble when Sammy and Joe walked into his office
”Wait till you see,” said Sammy
Anapol made room on his desk They opened the portfolios one after another, and piled on the pages
”Howan eyebrow
”We did a whole book,” said Sammy ”Boss, allow me to present to you”-he deepened his voice and flourished his hands in the direction of the pile-”the debut issue of Empire Comics' premier title, Masked-” Masked-”
”E”
”Not Racy”
”Maybe it's better”
Anapol fingered his Gibraltar chin ”Empire Comics”
”And their pre paper on Joe's painting ”Masked Man Co to be called Joy Buzzer Joy Buzzer or or Whoopee Cushi+on” Whoopee Cushi+on”
”Is that what you want to call it?”
”I want to sell novelties,” said Anapol ”I want to move radios”