Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask | Page 7

baked in a nice cake, I would."
I batted a salt shaker back and forth. I had already gotten my caffeine fix, and couldn't really afford to be buying stuff all the time. Luckily, batting a salt shaker back and forth was free in most places.
A guy with a tuft of blue hair passed by the window and waved at Ken, not stopping but smiling. "That crazy Mark... he'll catch his death of cold," said Ken. "Oh... you met Mark... didn't you?"
"Don't think so."
"At Maxwell's party. Last... oh, maybe you weren't there. He goes around with my other friend Valerie."
I remembered meeting Valerie. It was hard to imagine her beside the guy who had just passed the window. Then again, Cassandra and I were hardly twins separated at birth, so that line of thought ended up giving me a hypo of hope.
"She does a poetry zine, too." He mentioned the name.
"Never heard of it," I said.
"That's 'cause you're a jerky boy. She's published some of my pictures in it."
"Everyone's published your pictures."
"Yep, there's a lot of dopes out there," Ken said with a laugh. "I told you about the Random House deally, right?"
I shook my head.
"Oh! Well, they want to publish the *Definitive Baby Sneaky 5000* ," he said, making loopy quote marks with his fingers.
"You're kidding! That's incredible, man!" I was amazed, jealous and amazed again. Ken had been publishing a comic for about a million years that he gave out for free, a mystic photocopy sandwich containing flashes of political fierceness and genuine oddity.
"Boy, was I surprised. I don't even have them all. I try to keep one of each but sometimes I give them all away by accident," he said, spearing his side order of raw vegetables. "Wow, this pepper is so fresh," he mumbled, his eyes widening.
I was a bit baffled. "So have you signed... contracts and stuff? How did they find out about you?" I couldn't imagine how they saw Ken's black-and-white drawings as a marketable commodity.
"No, it's still being worked out. They'll probably pull out," he said without apparent concern. "They're just trying to get deals with artists that are doing similar stuff to Palaver."
"Who?"
"The guy who does all the anvil things. You remember, I showed you some of his stuff . . . it's in this crazy colour spattering. I know I showed you."
I was watching the girl behind the counter sell someone some seed cake. She was attractive, her Cantonese-accented voice was really loud, and her nail polish was sparkly. "If you say so." I looked back at Ken. "Do you see her nail polish?"
He looked back and we admired it in tandem. It was silver.
He turned again towards me. "So I'm reading this book by this guy, Genet -- it's wicked. It's got these thieves..."
We talked for a few hours after that, about wicked thieves and other things.
* * *
When I arrived at the London bus terminal, I looked for the Scary Bus Lady, who was the person at the counter who always seemed to be staring at you. A quick survey among regular bus users had revealed that I wasn't the only one to look up and find her dull gaze locked on my eyeballs. Except, however, when you were buying a ticket -- then it was nearly impossible to catch her eye. As I walked through the station she came out of the back and it actually took four seconds (I counted) for her to start staring. I added this information to my mental file marked Bus Lady, Scary.
Dad was standing beside the car in the parking lot, facing away. He stuck up above the cars like a pin marking a location on a map. Usually, he had the newspaper spread out on the roof -- but today he was just looking out onto the road.
"What's up, Sid?" I said loudly, making him jerk. "The paperboy blacklist you again?"
He mumbled something I didn't hear and got into the car.
I opened the door and saw today's *London Free Times* on the seat. I picked it up and got in, thinking as I did that it was odd he had brought it but hadn't read it. I reached around and buckled in, glancing over at Dad when I did so.
He was holding the steering wheel tightly and staring straight ahead. His eyes were squinched up, like the light was too bright or he was bracing for a punch. He said, "Your mom has breast cancer."
I looked down at the paper in my lap. On it, there was a man beside an oversized cheque giving the camera a thumbs-up. I heard the click of the belt buckle and the car starting. "Are they... sure?" I asked.
Dad nodded. "Pretty sure." He put his hand on the parking brake and then took it away. "Are