“Irony is so privileged,” Mark said. “It’s what happens when you don’t need to do anything to survive — it’s when the things you do have nothing to do with survival and you spend forty million dollars to make Steve Zissou and the Atomic Submarine or whatever it’s called.”
“I know,” Andrew said. “What do you want people to do then?”
“I don’t know,” Mark said. “Stop being so — you know, I mean, people now, they’re all like, ‘I’m depressed. You’re depressed. Let’s get together and be depressed.’ ”
“That’s a good name for a movie,” Andrew said. “I’d watch that movie. You would too. Admit it.”
“I don’t think I would. I’m not like you. You think I am.”
“You’re from Singapore.”
Andrew watched the new Batman movie without irony, sincerity, or enjoyment; or maybe a little enjoyment. Outside, he began then did not stop making jokes about believability, pacing, Batman’s smoothies, and Hollywood. Mark said all Andrew did was go around complaining all the time, which was pointless. Andrew apologized, then said he was just being himself — and wasn’t even complaining, really, just making jokes. Mark transposed his interpretation of Andrew’s personality onto modern society and complained about that for a while, citing postmodernism, white people, and Miranda July. Andrew stopped paying attention at white people and thought vaguely about Sara. (“Why haven’t I read it?”) Mark talked about how he should’ve seen the movie by himself. Andrew told Mark to stop saying that. Mark said it again, using different words. Andrew said he should be able to move faster and hurt things. He felt very slow and handicapped, because of Batman, who was absurd and an ironic joke — not to be appreciated without a lot of sarcasm, even by ten-year-olds. He said Mark was right; all he did was complain all the time. A long time ago Andrew’s friend Steve in Florida said All I can do is complain, why? and Andrew liked it; then one time Sara said All I do is complain and Andrew liked that; now Andrew was saying “All I can do is complain, why?” and no one liked it.
“You ruined Batman for me,” Mark said. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t,” Andrew said. “Stop saying that.” He asked Mark about liking Spiderman more than Batman. Mark explained. Andrew understood after the first sentence and stopped listening as Mark gave supporting evidence. They were on Third Avenue in New York City, walking around a bit aimlessly. (“How do you have fun?”) People were laughing because of being in Manhattan, drunk, on a Friday night — was that why? Tomorrow it would be Saturday. At work in the library Andrew would check his e-mail. At night he would work on a short story, the theme of which was that the main character was doomed, logically, since everyone was doomed. Every sentence would have to say something about that theme or else Andrew would feel that both the story and himself were ‘fucked.’ It was tedious and mostly unrewarding work (trying to be impersonal and interesting about the more despairing parts of one’s past or imagined future) but sometimes, if he wrote lucidly enough, Andrew would feel, in a way that momentarily made him believe despair was a mistake, that he missed those times, that there was a yearning, really, to his prose; and would try, then, to desire, in this missed and wanting and therefore nostalgic way, the present moment, when feeling lonely or sad; to experience it while it was happening as the thing he would later yearn for — to realize, as it was happening, that feeling bad was a mistake — as if it were words on a page, being read not lived. Schopenhauer had said that — that life was to be perceived not as a book you would write but as a book already written, something to be gotten through, so as to detach oneself from suffering, which was an outside thing, really; not actually in the text. Everything was to be accepted. The world was here. Everything was here. Mark liked Spiderman more. As it existed in what was here, in the world, that ‘Mark liked Spiderman more,’ Andrew knew, it similarly existed that ‘Andrew.’ He was sort of trying to explain this to Mark but then stopped and said, “I feel confused.”
“I don’t know why you’re so depressed,” Mark said. “You have friends. I have no friends.”
“I don’t have friends. I’m not depressed anyway.”
“If you weren’t depressed you’d enjoy Batman instead of complaining about it,” Mark said.
“I did enjoy it,” Andrew said. “And I complain when I’m happy.”
They walked one block without talking.
“I wish Batman was depressed,” Andrew said. “He would lay in bed in his Batsuit all day. We should make that movie.”
“We should,” Mark said. “Alfred would bring anti-depressant smoothies each morning.”
“Robin would watch TV and get drunk,” Andrew said. “His dialogue would be, ‘I’m a day-time drunk.’ And they’d show Batman hiding in a cave. It would do a close-up of Batman’s face and he’d be shivering between his eyes, with intensity.”
“You’d like that. You’d like it if everyone in the world was depressed,” Mark said. “That’s the only reason you like me probably,” he said hesitantly.
“No,” Andrew said.
They stared at a red light, and waited, then crossed the street.
“I don’t like happy people,” Andrew said. “They’re already happy; they don’t need to be liked.”
“Wow, so selfless,” Mark said. “You’re a saint. I commend your selflessness. Amazing.”
“Sometimes you get sarcastic like that,” Andrew said. “It’s good. How can you be that sarcastic and still sincerely enjoy Batman?”
“Because I’m not a snob.”
“Oh.”
There was a dark alleyway and Andrew saw an alien, behind which was a moose.
A bear pushed Mark and Andrew into the dark alleyway.
“Watch,” the bear said.
The bear disappeared and appeared three feet to the left.
“What did I just do?” the bear said.
“Teleport,” Mark said.
The bear disappeared and appeared one foot above the ground and dropped to the ground and bent at the knees a little.
The bear disappeared and appeared laying on its back.
The bear disappeared and appeared standing five feet away.
“I’m bored,” the bear said. “I’m teleporting.”
The bear walked to Mark.
The bear shoved Mark’s shoulder a little.
“I’m bored,” the bear said.
Mark took out a twenty-dollar-bill and held it at the bear.
The bear stared at Andrew.
“I’m bored too,” Andrew said.
The bear disappeared.
Something bumped into Andrew from behind.
Andrew turned around.
The alien.
Andrew ran away.
He walked in a deli and bought carrot juice.
Mark walked up to Andrew.
“Hey,” Mark said, and looked at Andrew’s face, then quickly to the side of Andrew’s face; lately he always looked to the side a little. “Are you hungry?”
“Do you want to eat?” Andrew said.
“I don’t know. I could eat.”