Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [179]
“I’m telling security to be on the lookout for…um…whaddayacall…streakers,” he told us. “Streakers. What a weird fuckin’ place this is. Anyway, so don’t get any ideas you can run through the convention and get out of here if you’re fast enough.” Then the little toad laughed, though for the life of me I don’t know why, and he and the thugs backed out the doorway.
Before closing it completely, Washburne stuck his sweat-slicked head back into the room and smiled the only smile I’d seen him offer since I’d laid eyes on him. It looked completely out of place. Like a bowtie on a baboon.
“And don’t bother coming back to Nikkid Bottoms,” Washburne said, a giddy, chuckling, sadistic glee in his voice. “That door will be closed by the time you get there.”
Sophie’s head shot up almost as rapidly as mine.
“What?” we both said.
“Sorry, Sophie,” Washburne told her, though clearly he didn’t mean it.
“Washburne, you bastard!” Sophie spat, revealing a darker side that jolted me and excited Morgan. “If I can’t get back home, I will rip your fucking nuts off and feed them to rats!”
And somehow, I believed she would.
“Not if you can’t catch me, and you can’t catch me, you can’t catch me…” he said in a weird, playground singsong. “Because the door will be clooooosed. Just like this one. HA HA HA!”
And as promised, he closed the door.
We were on our feet in an instant, but I already knew from the rumbling, and thumping, and clicking sounds in the hall outside that we were pretty much sealed in. As Morgan, Sophie, and Waboombas struggled with the doorknob, I paced the room like a weasel on a leash, looking for any way free, and more importantly, something to wear once I had exited.
There wasn’t much in the way of either doors or clothing options. There were some plastic chairs, food containers, a table, bottled drinks, hors d’oeuvres, posters, and a sofa. I checked the posters, but they were small, rigid, and translucent, so they could be lighted from behind, and wouldn’t obscure anything that needed obscuring, except maybe Morgan’s little gentleman. The plastic containers were a similar translucence, milky-clear, and equally useless, and the hors d’oeuvres were miniscule, and fairly flavorless to be honest.
But there were plastic knives.
And the sofa was made of fabric.
I began digging at the sofa like Freddie on a sexually promiscuous teenager, and immediately snapped the knife. I grabbed another, and shattered that. Then a third. A fourth. After nearly putting my eye out with the fifth, I finally gave up and screamed in anguish, throwing things, upturning tables, and knocking over folding chairs.
I was about to shatter a metal and plastic seat through one of the windows overlooking the convention floor when I realized the broken shards of glass would rain down on a cluster of innocent children below. The energy drained out of me as I watched them—laughing, giddy, little toddlers wearing Teen Titans costumes and striking poses for their parents, who smiled with pride and joy at their…eh…prides and joys while taking picture after picture after picture.
Stupid superheroes. They’d failed me in every way.
Superheroes really were for kids, not adults, like the ninety percent of the people out there on the convention floor right now. Not men, like me or Morgan, or—well, maybe Morgan. Superheroes were really designed with children in mind. Batman. Superman. The Hulk. The colorful costumes and simple morality tales spoke to young minds in ways they could understand, told tales that uplifted them, encouraged them, and, hopefully, in some ways, helped set them on a course toward being good, honest, and ethical adults.
Not that it helped. Lots of people who loved them as kids still grew up to be non-heroic—or worse, to take your comics, your girl, and call you one of life’s ‘extras’.
Of course, superhero comics now didn’t have the kind of clarity they once had. Maybe that’s where they had failed me. These days, the bright colors of our supermen were