"Superhero secret identities are like virginity," she told the camera. "All these sweaty boys want to see the day when she gives it up, the day everyone knows her, but then after it’s gone, they’re disappointed. They want her to have a secret identity again."
Doug supposed that was true. It was always this big euphoric event in a comic when the hero’s girlfriend or whoever learned his secret. Everybody wanted to read that story, but a year later the writers would probably give the girlfriend amnesia. You always wanted to put the cat back in the bag.
He’d blown his cover last night at that party, but Doug was going to be more careful from now on. He sort of wished he hadn’t even told Jay.
They watched the world premiere of a new movie trailer and then attended a ten thirty panel discussion with DC comics editors, where there was a prize: a light-up resin Green Lantern ring, one of only five thousand produced.
"Cool," said Jay.
"Green Lantern’s gay," said Doug.
The panel moderator flashed it off and on a couple of times. "Is that not awesome?" he said. "And the ring goes…to the audience member who has traveled the farthest to be here!"
"Philadelphia!" shouted Doug. A dozen other attendees shouted their hometowns, too. The ring went to a man from Belgium wearing a Tintin shirt.
"We don’t live in Philadelphia," whispered Jay.
"We live in a suburb of Philadelphia. You think they know where Ardwynne is?"
"I know you thought that was it," the moderator continued, "but it just so happens…yes, I think I may have another ring…for whomever’s traveled the farthest from within the United States?"
"Philadelphia!" Doug shouted again.
"Bangor!" shouted some kid from Bangor.
"Bangor is farthest!" said the moderator.
"No, it isn’t!" Doug protested. He got to his feet. "No, it isn’t. Not if you take into account the curvature of the Earth, which—"
"Bangor’s farther, kid," said the moderator.
Doug sunk into his chair. "Let’s go," he said to Jay. "Panels suck."
"You don’t want to sit awhile? You look tired."
Doug answered by rising and walking out the side door while a fan asked the panel about an obscure Superman versus Muhammad Ali comic from the seventies.
"Sorry you didn’t win," said Jay when he’d caught up. "I think Bangor is farther, though."
"I don’t care, I just wanted the ring to sell it. I didn’t really expect to win. Nobody ever wins anything."
Twenty minutes later Jay won a new shirt for shouting, "Crisis on Infinite Earths!" a fraction of a second faster than seven other boys. It read, MY MOM AND DAD WENT TO THE NEGATIVE ZONE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT. By twelve o’clock it was covered by thirty-one free buttons. "I’m having a really good time," he said. "Aren’t you?"
Doug didn’t answer. Jay looked him in the face for maybe the first time in an hour, and turned pale.
"We should…" he said, "we should find you somewhere to sit down. And get something to eat."
Doug nodded.
"What about a milkshake?" Jay asked when they found an empty table near the snack bar. "Or, like, a smoothie?"
"That sounds…like the worst thing in the world," said Doug. "Seriously, if I…if I’d had an appetite for anything these past weeks, I’d have eaten it. I’d eat my own hand if it sounded good. I don’t want anything anymore."
"You look a little better."
"It helps to sit down. Away from everyone else."
Jay flinched as someone at a far table shouted "‘UP QAGH!" and thumped his chest.
Doug and Jay turned to watch the largest of four Klingons pound the tabletop with his world-shattering fist, bouncing half-eaten French bread pizzas off paper plates made translucent by grease.
"Sooo," said Doug, "why so many Klingons, do you think? I mean, there have been Star Trek comics and all, but they’re not popular or anything."
"I think they just have the outfits all ready from the last Trekkie con," said Jay. "So they’re coming here and they think, why not show colors?"
"My party wants your ketchup," said a very short Klingon who was suddenly at Jay’s flinching shoulder.
"Oh," said Jay. "Sure, you…We’re not using it."
The short Klingon held the ketchup bottle aloft and turned to address his table.
"Qettlhup!"
"QETTLHUP!" the others answered in chorus.
The Klingon departed.
"I gotta go," said Doug. "Can we go? I just want to lie down for a while. I thought here at the con I could take my mind off it, but—"
Jay’s face fell, and Doug’s gut twisted again. He understood how Jay felt — he didn’t want to have to leave either. This was where they belonged. These were their people. The San Diego Comic-Con was a mystical city that only appeared for a few days each year, like Brigadoon.
"There’s still three more days," said Jay, brightening a little. "I’ve heard it’s best to buy old comics on Sunday. Maybe we can figure something out for you tonight. Find you some blood."
"Gah!" moaned Doug. "That’s the frustrating part! It’s everywhere! It’s all I can smell! People full of it! And do you know how many characters I’ve seen today with blood in their names? There’s Bloodstorm, Bloodaxe, Bloodlust, Blood-hawk, Baron Blood, Baroness Blood, Bloodhound, the Blood Brothers…Even the superhero on that kid’s bag over there looks like a big drop of blood with a cape."
Jay looked. Doug looked again. It was a big drop of blood with a cape. It said "Type O Hero!" on the side above the Red Cross logo. Jay jumped out of his seat.
"Excuse me," he said to the kid. "What’s that bag about?"
"It’s full of free comics. If you give blood outside."
"Outside?"
"At the bloodmobile."
Bloodmobile, thought Doug. He could drive that around all day.
4
Quick, Robin…To the bloodmobile!
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to miss — a long white-and-red school bus parked on the broad sidewalk where the line had been that morning. It must have pulled up after the convention started.
"What are we going to do?" said Jay.
"We’re both going to — ow — we’re going to say we want to donate," said Doug from under his poncho. "You’ll go first, and I’ll scope out the bus, try to figure out where they keep the blood. Then you create a diversion, and I make off with a jar or two."
"They put it in jars?"
Doug adjusted his hood. "I don’t know. A jar or a tube or — It doesn’t matter."
They stopped next to the bus, near the open donor entrance. There was no line here. In the shade, Doug could manage to lift his chin a little and see Jay’s troubled face.
"What kind of diversion?" said Jay. "What should I do?"
"I thought of the creating-a-diversion part," Doug said. "Can’t you at least come up with your own diversion?"
Jay thought about it a moment with a Charlie Brown look on his face.
"I could…freak out," he said. "I could pretend I don’t like needles."
"There you go. Perfect. And can you still throw up at will like you could in sixth grade? That would be good."
They stepped up and into the bus. A woman in Muppet-print scrubs came to meet them.