– Just inspect this photo, F. The guy is soft in the gut.
– He’s fat, all right.
– But–
He’s fat. He understands the fat. Use your eyes! Look at his face. Now look at Plastic Man’s face. Charles Axis wants to be our uncle. He is one of us slobs who dwells pages behind Plastic Man. But can’t you see that he has made his peace with Plastic Man? With Blue Beetle? With Captain Marvel? Can’t you see that he believes in the super-world?
– F., I don’t like it when your eyes get shiny like that.
– The Fat! The Fat! He’s one of us! Charles Axis is on our side! He’s with us against Blue Beetle and Ibis and Wonder Woman!
– F., you’re talking funny again.
– Charles Axis has an address in New York, look, 405 West 34th St., New York I! Don’t you think he knows about Krypton? Don’t you see him suffering on the outer limits of the Bat Cave? Has anyone ever lived so close to fantastic imaginary muscles?
– F.!
– Charles Axis is all compassion, he’s our sacrifice! He calls the thin but he means both the fat and the thin; he calls the thin because it is worse to be fat than thin; he calls the thin so that the fat can hear and come and not be named!
– Get away from that window!
– Charles! Charles! Charlie! I’m coming, I’m coming to be with you at the sad edge of the spirit world!
– F.! Uppercut! Sok! Thud!
– Puff! *##! Sob! Thank you, my friend, I guess you kinda saved my life.
That was the last time I ever equaled F. in a physical contest. He gave Charles Axis fifteen minutes a day in the privacy of his room. Fat fell away or turned to muscle, he increased his chest measurement, he was not ashamed to strip for sports. Once on the beach a huge man in a very white bathing suit kicked sand in his face as we sat sunbathing on a small towel. F. merely smiled. The huge man stood there, hands on hips, then he performed a little hop and jump, like a soccer kickoff, and kicked sand in his face once again.
– Hey! I cried: Quit kicking that sand in our faces! F., I whispered: That man is the worst nuisance on the beach.
The bully ignored me completely. He seized F.’s thick hard wrist in his own massive fist and yanked F. to a standing position.
– Listen here, he snarled, I’d smash your face … only you’re so skinny you might dry up and blow away.
– Why did you let him shove you around?
F. sat down meekly as the man strode away.
– That was Charles Axis.
– But that man is the worst nuisance on the beach.
30
A note! At the bottom of the box of firecrackers I find a note.
Dear Friend
Turn on the radio
your dear dead friend
F.
At the bottom. How well he knew me. I held the message (written on a telegraph form) against my cheek. Oh, F., help me, for a grave divides me from all that I love.
RADIO: .… to Mrs. T. R. Voubouski, 56784 Clanranald, to the three nurses in the Barclay dormitory from you-know-who, a real climbing disk by Gavin Gate and the Goddesses – and don’t forget, during this hour of the Early Morning Record Gal you can phone your dedications in –
DRUMS SHUFFLING: SHNN shnn shnn SHNN shnn
ELECTRIC INSTRUMENTS: Zunga zunga zunga (a promise of incessant regular sex pumping)
GAVIN GATE: I could have left zunga zunga zunga (he’s got all the time in the world – he’s traveled a long path to tell this cruel story)
and said (electric pulse breathing)
I told you so
GODDESSES: told you so (a battalion of black girls, his officers
recruited from bombed gospel altars, they
ambush me with unspecific hatred and white
teeth)
GAVIN GATE: I could have told
the whole wide world
he leave you sad and blue
GODDESSES: sad and blue
GAVIN GATE: Shaid I coov ran
GODDESSES: Ahhhhhhhh
and said ahhhhhhhh
it good for you ahhhhhhhh
to geh now ahhhhhhhh (STOP!)
GAVIN GATE: But I know when it hurt you
DRUM: Smack!
GAVIN GATE: don’t you know it hurt me too?
GODDESSES: hurt me too (they had soared away into universal love suffering but now they are back in uniform, more precise now, as if they had vowed to guard themselves against a fatal emotional excess, chop/chop/chop/)
DRUMS CLIMB FIVE STEPS. GAVIN GATE WHEELS OUT OF HIS CORNER FOR THE SECOND ROUND. THIS WILL BE TO THE DEATH. THE GODDESSES ARE READY TO SUCK-MURDER THE VICTOR.
GAVIN GATE: I could have said
that you had
it coming to you (Who are you Gavin Gate? You have a strange command. I think you have been through some ordeal and have learned too much. You are the king of some slum block and you have handed down Laws)
GODDESSES: coming to you (they take off their luminous bras and drive to fearful heart like a squadron of kamikaze)
GAVIN GATE: When you walked out
and turned
your back on me
GODDESSES: back on me
GAVIN GATE: I pleaded Baby (his strength is established, his troops are in razor order, now he can weep over us)
Ohh No!
Please Plea Please!
GODDESSES: Ahhhhhhhhhhh
Baby don’t go!
Cause I knew he would hurt you (back to superior narrative style)
DIDACTIC DRUM THUMP
Don’t you know it hurt me too?
GODDESSES: hurt me too
Ah
Ah
Ah (step down the marble stairs to lift his head)
GAVIN GATE: He said he had you
dancing on a string (in some sad locker-room where all male lovers recreate, Gavin has heard the details of the lay)
GODDESSES: Ahhhhhhhh (Revenge! revenge! but don’t we still bleed, Sisters?)
GAVIN GATE: As far as love goes
you were
GODDESSES: Hah! (they purge their hatred with this exclamation)
GAVIN GATE: just another fling
Oh I oh oh oh
may be a fool (but we know you’re not, nor am I, for we deal with
