Free The Funnies by John Lennon Page B

encrusted over the tub-edge wilted under cold water. I lay back on my bed, the washcloth folded across my brow, and fell into a shallow nap, where I had a nasty dream. In it, I was driving Amanda’s Chevette, and Amanda was directing me from the passenger seat. The car was filthy inside and out, slathered with some kind of tacky black goop. It kept getting on my hands and clothes.
    â€œLeft!” Amanda screamed. “Right!”
    She was steering me toward obstacles, and when I hit them, parts of the car broke or fell off. And though I was doing what I was told, she was outraged, and pummeled me with her bony fists. “You dumbfuck!” she said. Meanwhile the landscape threatened, grew darker and more treacherous with every passing second.
    There were a lot of people watching me drive, healthy, happy people waving banners and flags, as if we were part of a parade. They groaned with disappointment every time we smacked against an object. What were they doing out here, in this awful place? What was I doing out here? The dream ended abruptly when Amanda steered me into the base of a huge black volcano.
    I woke unrefreshed, spooked by the silence, and found myself missing the usually unnerving presence of my brother. Where did Pierce go? Who did he see? I had no idea. But I supposed the same questions could be asked about me, and the answers would be no less disappointing. The sun hung shockingly low in the sky—it was already evening. I had missed most of the day.
    I went to the kitchen and drank a glass of ice water. Then I pulled Susan’s card from my pocket. BURN FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC ., it read. SUSAN CALETTI, EDITOR . A telephone number.
    And on the back, another number, handwritten beside a capital H. I dialed this one. After five rings, a machine answered, and I almost hung up. Then the familiar clatter of a manhandled phone.
    â€œHello? Hello? Hold on.” The taped message droned on a second or two, then stopped. Susan came back on, her voice syrupy with sleep. “Hello?”
    â€œSusan?”
    â€œYeah, oh, hi.”
    â€œThis is Tim Mix.”
    â€œI know,” she said. “I’m good with voices. Excuse me, I just woke up.”
    â€œMe too. Sorry about that.”
    She coughed, and I heard the whisper of fabric being adjusted. “So what’s up?”
    From where I stood, I could see through the grubby sliding glass doors the entrance to my father’s studio.
    I switched the phone to the other ear, the way a person does a hundred times during a long, wrenching conversation. “I’ll do it,” I said.

seven
    Friday night in Riverbank meant ice cream and miniature golf, two things that, despite my best efforts to hate them during my college-era anti-hometown period, I still loved with unnatural passion. There is no miniature golf in West Philadelphia, and never was. There was no soft serve either, not in the time I’d lived there. I set off on foot for downtown.
    I had spent the afternoon avoiding my responsibilities as author of the Family Funnies. There was the studio to clean out and begin work in; there was Brad Wurster to call, to set up my lessons. I needed supplies, I supposed. It was July 10th, and I had until October 7th (three months after my father’s death) to become a cartoonist. I felt no urgency. October seemed so far away, like a description of autumn from a long, boring novel, and I couldn’t think of any reason why my task should not be absurdly easy.
    As a rule, people in Riverbank rarely walked places in summer; they either sat on their porches, watching people drive by, or drove somewhere themselves. This rule of thumb applied equally to the North and South sides of town, though the cars were different. People stared as I strolled along the sidewalk, at first from deep behind stands of trees, then increasingly, the farther north I got, from crumbling cement porches with wrought-iron railings. As I walked, I could