1.
We met the Murdoch family at the park for a picnic. Kev doesn't drive. He knows how because I insisted emergencies might happen. Still, I'm his designated chauffeur. Hip deep into summer and he was in a black trench coat. It's his look. Not many get to see his look live and in person.
Ben Murdoch had maybe 6 months left. 11-years-old, battling a rare form of cancer. Kev and Ben both dressed way too warm for August. Ben's skin a pool table blue chalk, looking brittle all over, walking with a cane. His mom took me aside early on in the visit and let me know Ben was headed for a wheelchair. Every step hurt. He insisted on the cane, walking, meeting his hero Kevin Bell, Comic Book Artist a.k.a. Practically God.
At a certain point, it was just Kev and Ben in Kev's house. Kev's childhood home right next to what was my childhood home. My dad lived in it up to the day he killed himself. I didn't over share that tidbit with the Murdoch family. The Make A Wish Foundation probably wouldn't be too pleased to have one of their success stories mucked up by some idiot over sharing.
I dredged up all sorts of other small talk objects trying to avoid the fact my own kid was healthy if obsessed with her pad. Mr. Murdoch smiled, but it was the automatic pilot version. After a year of doctors and nurses and strangers saying they were sorry and none of them able to do shit, he'd perfected it. Ben's mom was pretty and apologetic for her gaseous state. Nicorette Gum plus the patch plus a cocktail of herbals was slapping her digestion silly. The questionable quality of the picnic potato salad hindered her as well.
Ben left town with ten sketches in hand, including a full on original art page, penciled and inked by FanGeek.com's Artist of the Decade, featuring the Incredible Hulk and Ben fighting some sort of alien menace. Kev didn't draw the Hulk monthly anymore. Marvel had given him license to do whatever he wanted. He was up to his eyeballs in Sub-Mariner and Alpha Flight. The former because drawing sea grass was like drawing his alien limbs. The latter just because he liked the assemblage of Canadian freaks and geeks.
Finally removed from obligation, back in the house, the Murdoch family, the whole world safely away, Kevin removed the trench coat. It was like peeling an orange rind in love with the meat. He wears it for too long at a time and the sweat pours out. His condition creates 'super-sweat'. Practically glue. One more little plus of being born with tentacles instead of arms. I call them arms. Kev calls them 'the girls'. He swore like a sailor, peeling the trench coat. Finally, he flung it away. The girls seemed to watch the arc and the landing and just as quickly lost interest.
"How'd it go?"
He snagged the just-from-the-fridge Pepsi out of my hand and popped the tab and guzzled it. Kev doesn't do booze. It makes the girls ache.
"I thought you said it'd be right. Letting Ben know your secret."
Swallowing, he shook his head.
"Why not?"
"No. I did it, ok?, but it didn't feel right." He looked at me. "What?"
"I didn't say anything."
"But you look like I let you down."
"That's not it."
He drained the Pepsi, crushed the can, tossed it up in the air with the right tentacle, and swung the left, belting the can through the air. It bounced off a wall and dropped into the recycling, tinkling on impact on top of all the other crimped cans.
Not only can Kev draw with the girls, but on top of penciling two to three best-selling comic books a month, he's exercised them to the point they're muscular. Maybe not with all the strength of Doctor Octopus' arms, but I've arm wrestled Kevin, and lost every time.
