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claustrophobic, almost
ashamed. This store said Wheee!
    It was L-shaped and not more than twice the size of my
living room. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling. The check-out counter of
wood and blue Formica was opposite the entrance. New arrivals lined the side
wall on the left. Hardcovers and trade paperbacks were in an island of shelves
in the middle. Rows of long white boxes full of back-issues were stacked at the
back of the store. In front of the register hung a free-standing rack of action
figures; behind it was a glass case showcasing limited edition figurines and knickknacks
and several of the more valuable comics. Beside the door hung posters hyping DC’s
and Marvel’s upcoming summer crossovers.
    It was like my second home.
    “So you manage it?” Griff said.
    “Sometimes I feel like I live here,” I said. “Simon comes in
on Wednesdays for new arrival day, which gets busy, and on other days he’ll pop
in and out. Aside from that it’s pretty much mine.”
    “Is it just you and him?”
    “No, there’s two college kids who work a couple afternoons.”
I told him about Marissa and Zane and how they both went to Cape Cod Community.
When Simon taught a comic history course there two years ago he came away with
sidekicks. “Marissa’s pretty angsty,” I said, “but when it comes to comics she
knows her shit. And Zane is... well, Zane’s Zane.”
    “Your comic book familia ,”
Griff said.
    “I guess we are, a little bit.”
    He smiled and strolled past the Indie section. I liked
seeing him here; it was a nice collision of worlds. “How’s the comic book business
these days?” he said.
    “Hanging in there. Little ups and downs, but steady for now.
There will always be geeks.”
    “That’s true,” he said. “Hey,” he added, pointing to an Adam Strange comic, “I know him. This
guy used to be in the Mysteries in Space comics my dad had a bunch of. You know him? He catches some kind of transporter
beam and gets whisked to another planet where he has a beautiful wife and goes
on amazing adventures. It was very spacey.”
    “I like his ray gun,” I said. “It looks like it came from
the 1940 World’s Fair or something.” I made a gun with my fingers and fired at him.
“So are you about ready?”
    “Oh, I thought we were going to hang out for a while?” His
eyes were earnest. If I imagined a chunk of gauze dangling from his lips like a
bloody stogie, he wouldn’t be much different from the kids who came in with
their moms.
    “Oh. Yeah. Hang out? I guess I figured there isn’t much to
see.”
    “Here,” he said, handing me the Adam Strange comic and then taking another one for himself. “Let’s
read comics.”
    We sat down on the floor, our backs against the Marvel
trades, and it felt like a thousand different things might happen. But the only
one that did was that we sat and read the comics. He didn’t touch me or even
look at me in a way that made me think he wanted to. We just sat side by side
and I turned the sweet-smelling pages when he turned his, but I didn’t actually
read a single word.

 
    We locked up the store and started back to the
parking lot. In the distance we heard the ominous screech of another plow, like
a huge beast making its presence known on the snowy savanna.
    “You’ve been walking all over Massachusetts in the snow
today, haven’t you,” I said. I blew out a puff of white breath. Yes, the
visible breath coming from the mouth and nose did look cool, and that was why
there would always be smokers.
    “This morning feels like yesterday to me, though,” he said,
“so not really.”
    “Oh, that’s right. I forgot you’re a whole consciousness period
ahead of me.”
    “Which is probably why I’m so wide awake,” he said. And
then, pointing across the street, he added, “That Dunkin’ Donuts looks open.
Buy you a hot chocolate?”
    I’d been in here almost every day for the past
year—summer days, winter days, in rain and snow and sunshine,