comic book asylum

We’ve Got Issues

The front door is painted to resemble an old phone booth, like the kind Clark Kent dashes into when he needs to change into Superman. While his monogamous relationship with that particular phone booth outside the Daily Planet never made much sense to me, I’m as close to super as I’ve felt in a while. I haven’t been here in months.

Comic Book Asylum is geek heaven. The cashier in the Captain America shirt is restocking seven-dollar pens shaped like Thor’s hammer. Pricey busts of Wolverine and the Hulk and Iron Man gloriously line a shelf modeled after the fireplace in Wayne Manor. I’m surprised some forty-year-old virgin isn’t having a seizure over the Marvel and DC clashing going on here. There’s even a closet full of classic capes you can either buy or rent for an in-store photo shoot. But my favorite spot is the clearance cart with the dollar comics, since, well, they’re carrying dollar comics and that’s a hard price to beat.

They even have action figures Eric and I would’ve played with when we were younger, like a combo pack of Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Or a set of the Fantastic Four, though we would’ve probably lost the Invisible Woman—Get it?—since my favorite was the Human Torch and his was Mister Fantastic. I even had a soft spot for the bad guys, like Green Goblin and Magneto, because Eric always preferred the heroes and that made it more fun.

Genevieve continues to choose this place on Trade Dates because she knows it makes me happiest, although the community pool where I took swimming lessons used to be a close second before I almost drowned. (Long story.) She wanders off and looks through their posters, and I cut straight for the clearance cart. I rifle through the comics for something badass that might inspire me to work on my own comic some more. I left off on a suspenseful panel of Sun Warden—my hero, whose origin story involves him swallowing an alien sun as a child to guard it. Right now he only has enough time to save one person from falling off a celestial tower into a dragon’s mouth, and he’s torn between his girlfriend and best friend. There’s no doubt Superman would save Lois Lane, but I wonder if Batman would save Robin over his girlfriend of the week. (The Dark Knight gets around, man.)

Some guys are talking about the latest Avengers movie, so I quickly choose two comics and rush over to the counter so I won’t have to Hulk out if they spoil anything. I never got to see the movie when it came out in December because nobody wanted to go. We were all in a funk over Kenneth.

“Hey, Stanley.”

“Aaron! Long time no see.”

“Yeah, I had a bit of an episode going on.”

“Sounds mysterious. Leaping over tall buildings with a mask on, maybe?”

I take a second to answer. “Family stuff.”

I hand him my gift card and he swipes it for the two-dollar charge. He swipes one more time before telling me, “Zero balance, dude.”

“No, I have a few dollars left.”

“I’m afraid you’re poorer than Bruce Wayne with a frozen bank account,” he says. He should be ashamed of himself—not because that’s a rude thing to say to a customer, but because he’s been recycling that same weak joke for months now. No shit I would be poorer than Bruce Wayne on his poorest day.

“Do you want me to put them on hold for you?”

“Uh, you know, it’s cool. Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Genevieve comes over. “Everything okay, babe?”

“Yeah, yeah. You ready to bounce?” My face warms up and I’m getting teary, not because I won’t go home with these comics—I’m not eight years old—but because I’m just really fucking embarrassed in front of my girlfriend.

She doesn’t even look at me when she reaches into her tote bag and pulls out a few bucks, which somehow makes me feel even worse. “How much is it?”

“Gen, it’s fine, I don’t need these.”

She buys them anyway, hands me the bag, and starts talking to me about an idea for a painting, one where starving vultures chase shadows of the dead down this road, unaware the corpses are above their heads. I think it’s a cool enough idea. And as much as I want to thank her for the comics, her changing the subject so I didn’t have to feel shitty about myself was probably a better move.

“Remember that time Kyle got the Leteo procedure?”

Remember That Time is a dumb game we play where we “remember” things that have happened very recently or are going down now. I’m getting the game running to distract her while we walk through Fort Wille Park on 147th Street, close to the post office where my dad worked, near a gas station where Brendan and I used to buy candy cigarettes whenever we felt stressed. (We occasionally joke about how dumb and childish that was.)

“How can anyone know for sure if no one’s seen him?” Genevieve is holding my hand as she hops onto a bench, walking along the back with the worst balance ever. I’m positive she’s going to crack her head open one of these days and I’ll be begging Leteo to make me forget witnessing it. “A lie could’ve snuck its way into Freddy’s mom’s rumor mill. Also: saying he forgot Kenneth is a little extreme since Leteo suppresses memories. They don’t erase them.” She’s never believed in the procedure either, and she once believed in the power of horoscopes and tarot cards.

“I think it counts as forgetting if you never remember it again.”

“Good counter.”

Genevieve finally loses her balance and I catch her, but not in that heroic way where I could carry her away into the sunset, or even in a funny way where she lands perfectly horizontal on top of me and we kiss. It’s more like her body twists and I catch her under her arms but her legs drop and skid back, and now her face is facing my dick, and it’s awkward because she’s never seen it. I help her up and we’re both apologizing; me for no reason, and her for almost falling nose-first into my crotch.

Well, there’s always next time.

“So . . .” She pulls her dark hair away from her face.

“What would your battle plan be if zombies came at us right now?”

This time I change the subject so she doesn’t have to feel embarrassed. I hold her hand and lead her through the park. She shares her half-assed strategies about climbing apple trees and waiting them out. Spoken like a true dumb-idiot.

Genevieve’s mother used to bring her here as a child, when it was more kid friendly with seesaws and monkey bars. She stopped coming here as much after her mother died in a plane crash a couple years ago on her way to visit family in the Dominican Republic. Whenever we have Trade Dates, I usually take her to other places, like the flea market or the skating rink on half-off Wednesdays, but today we’re going to remember that time she asked me out.