Grey

Red Skies

Martina had a clear view of Jeffery’s bedroom window. Had Jeffery known this, he might have been more mindful of the activities he engaged in with curtains open. For one thing, he probably would have masturbated less (never mind the fact that the idea of Martina watching him would likely have precipitated a rise in Jeffery’s onanistic exercises, albeit with the curtains closed). For another, he would have spent less time sitting alone in his room on weekend nights reading comic books, flipping though “Crisis Crossover!” issues of Infinity, Inc. and Blue Devil, charting their place in the Crisis chronology by the appearance of red skies.

But Martina wasn’t watching Jeffery. She did for a few nights after she first arrived in the neighborhood, but after about a week she realized there wasn’t much to see beyond Jeffery’s two favorite solitary pursuits. The compulsive comics-reading intrigued her, but not being able to read along at such a distance, she grew bored of merely perusing the covers (invitations to worlds she could not enter); and though she had never seen a boy masturbate before, the novelty wore off as soon as she realized Jeffery had mastered one technique and was unlikely to vary his performances for the sake of curious onlookers. Martina trained her telescope on the stars instead.

Crisis on Infinite Earths, now up to issue #7, and its attendant crossovers had occupied Jeffery’s free time for the better part of a year now. It had become his mission to collect and catalogue not only the entire 12-issue series but every issue of every series that impacted on or was impacted by the Crisis. He was already reading a fair number of these affected series (Green Lantern, Justice League, obviously Wolfman’s New Teen Titans), but many more were unfamiliar to him (the World War II-obsessed All-Star Squadron, for one). A tip from Doug at Hall of Heroes sent him to the back-issue bins, hunting for two issues of the gothy weirdo book Swamp Thing that contained early cameos by the Monitor.

Some of these comics were essential parts of the story, but others exhibited their relationship to the events of the Crisis solely by the existence of skies colored deep red instead of the usual light blue, evidence of the Anti-Monitor’s invasion. The characters went about their usual business under these red skies, perhaps aware of the epic battle to save the multiverse that raged in the heavens above them, perhaps not; but either way, they had to take care of things in their own lives first. Maybe they cared about Supergirl’s shocking death at the end of Crisis #7, but they didn’t know her personally. They weren’t invited to the wake.

Jeffery had never been a big Supergirl fan, but he found Kara Zor-El’s heroic, last-ditch effort to save her cousin Superman from the Anti-Monitor strangely affecting. The beam of yellow energy that slammed into her torso with a bright red THOOOMMM and blown out her back in a multicolored shower of rays that could have been innards or refracted energy or artistic license or a combination of all three had also filled Jeffery’s mind with a complete imagined history--he barely knew that Kara was Kal-El’s cousin, but in the moment of her death he could see her relationship not only with Superman but with all of the five Earths’ champions, the adventures that led to this point, her struggles to measure up to her cousin’s example. As Superman hugged her body to his chest and screamed wordlessly against the red sky, Jeffery felt as if he were in the panel with them--as Kara, or as Kal, or as both.

Jeffery read the comic again, then masturbated guiltily, thinking of Supergirl’s red skirt and headband. When it was over he apologized to the grieving Superman on the cover of Crisis #7, then turned out the lights and went to sleep, Kara’s last words in his head: “I love you so much for what you are. For how... good you are...”

Martina didn’t notice Jeffery’s light going out. She had given up on watching first him and then the stars when she discovered that she also had a clear view of Tad Walker’s bedroom window. Tad did not masturbate, not that Martina could tell, and he preferred to read Sports Illustrated and Michael Crichton. He also liked to reenact famous movie scenes in front of his mirror; his recent favorite was the Tom Cruise tighty-whitey dance from Risky Business. After his fourth besocked slide across his bedroom to Bob Seger, Martina decided that Tad needed to attend her birthday party.

*****

The school year had just started, so Martina still did not know anyone beyond her next-door neighbor Jenny, a year younger than Martina and just starting her freshman year. Martina was grateful for the friendship, but after spending the final week of summer watching daytime TV with uninterrupted commentary by Jenny, she resolved to dump Jenny unless she could prove socially beneficial.

“The boy who lives across the street, Jenny--what’s his name?”At lunch over beef nuggets, Martina and Jenny occupying a solitary corner table.

“Jeffery?”

“No, his neighbor. The tall one.”

“Oh, that’s Tad. He’s a senior. He’s on the baseball team. I used to know his sister but she had cancer and died. He had a Labrador named Bozo but he died too. These beef nuggets are so good. His parents got divorced three years ago and he visits his dad every third weekend. He likes The Cosby Show. He has a Motley Crue poster in his bedroom, but my dad says they worship Satan--”

“I know, Jenny.”

“Have you been up there? You like him!”

“It’s not like that.” It was like that. Martina spotted Tad across the lunchroom. He was wearing jeans and the same white dress shirt he wore in his Risky Business roleplaying. Martina thought she could see the outline of his underwear beneath his jeans. “If I gave you something, could you give him it to him for me, Jenny?”

“You do like him! I knew it! I’m so gonna tell him--“

“Can you do this or not?” Martina braced herself to regret the sharp tone she took, but she found she liked the way Jenny’s smile dropped, the catch that crept into her voice.

“Maybe you’re not the only one who likes him, Marty. You know? Maybe there are like other people who’ve been his neighbor for longer and used to know his sister before she died and now it’s not so weird to take them to a dance or whatever because they’re in high school now. Did you think about that?”

Martina saw Jeffery exit the service line and scan the room for friendly faces--or if not friendly, at least neutral--to sit with. He spotted Jenny and Martina and pointed himself in their direction. “Never mind, Jenny,” said Martina. “I’ll do it myself.” She bussed her tray just as Jeffery sat down with his. He watched her go, forcing himself not to imagine her in a red skirt. “That’s our new neighbor, right?” he said to Jenny.

“I guess.”

“What’s her name?”

“Her name’s Marty, but she acts like a bitch when you call her that.” Jenny took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “But don’t get your hopes up, because she’s in love with Tad Walker.”

*****

Despite her resolve, Martina did not dare approach Tad for three weeks--not until the day before her birthday party. She continued to watch him through her telescope, saddened a bit when he moved on from Risky Business to Temple of Doom, miming ripping out his own heart in his bedroom mirror. The plans for the party went on without Martina’s input, as her mother took it upon herself to invite the children of parents she met at the first PTA meeting of the year. Jenny remained Martina’s only friend, inasmuch as that word failed to accurately describe their relationship as Martina saw it. “Assistant” was the word Martina would choose, except that Jenny had yet to assist her to her liking.

The party had in fact been Jenny’s idea; Martina had abandoned her dream of Seven Minutes in Heaven with Tad Walker a week into the school year, as she still sat at the table in the corner, Jenny’s solitary audience. It was Jenny who suggested to Martina’s mother that Martina might like a party but was too embarrassed to mention it, in an act of (to Jenny’s mind) kindness that was mitigated only by Jenny’s withholding of the name of the one guest Martina was hoping to see. Tad’s mother had no time for PTA.

Jeffery’s mother Pam, however, was a devoted member, so he had received an invitation--one that, as far as he knew, was written and mailed and whose envelope adhesive was moistened by Martina herself. The party was scheduled for a Wednesday evening, at Martina’s house. Jeffery was not entirely happy with this selection of date and time, as he was expecting to spend a good portion of Wednesday night reading and rereading Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, which was to arrive in stores that day.

He convinced Pam to pick him up after school and drive him to Hall of Heroes, where he grabbed a copy of Crisis #8 from a stack of at least a hundred on the shelf. As he paid, Doug told him to “hold onto your ass, because it’s about to be blown away.”

“Don’t tell me what happens, Doug!”

In the car, Jeffery examined the cover: Barry Allen, the Flash, holding the limp body of the Psycho-Pirate, this tableau framed by the thick legs of the Anti-Monitor in the foreground. “THE FINAL FATE OF THE FLASH” proclaimed the cover. Jeffery dared not believe the fate this cover led him to imagine.

He read the comic on the ride home, in the back seat with the light on as the early fall dusk came. He flipped the pages quickly, only skimming the dialogue, not lingering over Perez’s intricate crowd scenes to identify all the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, every page leading him closer to the inevitability promised by the cover: the Flash escaping the Anti-Monitor’s confinement and discovering the anti-matter cannon that could destroy the five Earths that still remained, and his decision to use his super-speed to destroy the cannon. On page 23, Barry raced around the cannon, his speed destroying his own body as it destroyed the cannon. “There’s hope...there is always hope...Time to save the world! Time! Back in time...Do what you have to...We must save the world...We must save the world...” The Flash disintegrated inside his costume, and then the panels themselves were sucked into the collapsing anti-matter cannon.

Jeffery couldn’t finish the issue. There was something here, on this page, something he had been missing. A story is a reason to exist, he thought, and a reason to die. There are people who love you, and more people who need saving. You live separate lives but you come together when you need each other, you come together when you want each other. “Trust us, he will be mourned,” said the caption, and he would be--by Hal, by Wally, by Ralph and Sue, even by Bruce and Clark, in their own stoic ways. They had their own series, their own lives to lead, but they were connected by more than just red skies. They crossed over.

A wet sniff drew Pam’s attention to the rearview mirror, where she saw Jeffery wiping red eyes, his comic lying open on the seat next to him. And as she wondered what had happened to her son, the car hit something, solid but vulnerable. Jeffery jerked forward, hitting his forehead on the front seat headrest. Pam stepped on the brake, swerving to a stop in front of Martina’s house.

Martina rushed out of the house in a new red skirt which Jeffery, in his confused and injured state, fixated on; he did not realize at first why Martina was screaming, or why his mother was restraining her from rushing to the front of their car, or why the woman and the girl both fell to their knees together in the street.

Jeffery got out of the back seat, for some later-unfathomable reason picking up the comic on his way. He saw Tad Walker, lying in the road, motionless, a wrapped present a few feet from his right hand. “Call an ambulance!” Jeffery heard his mother shout to Jenny, who had emerged from Martina’s house. He couldn’t tell if Tad was dead or alive, but noted how unheroic and fragile Tad looked. Now Tad’s mother was rushing out of her house, alarmed and angered by the commotion, but sprinting fearfully when she saw who was splayed out on the street. If Tad dies, Jeffery thought, he won’t have given his life for nothing. All these people mourning, all these people caring, while I have my own adventures.

Jeffery closed the comic book, which had been hanging loose by its back cover. He folded it into a loose tube, careful not to crease it. He looked at Martina, crying, reaching weakly out to touch Tad’s foot. “Martina,” he said. Martina looked up at him, as if hearing a gunshot, and for a moment they were participants in each other’s lives.