jonberger

In a world of choices
and paths not taken
and errors
I would like
a do-over
an opportunity to dial back the years
and return to more innocent times
and stay there.

I would avoid choice and decisions
and transitions.
It is in the very process of change
that things go awry
so I seek to sidestep it
simply say goodbye to all that.

I want a do-over
a chance to fix it all
by nixing all the things I did wrong
by doing nothing
ever again.

If you are granting me one wish
then that is the one
I will take.

Batman’s teen sidekick Robin was created in 1940.
The dude donning the domino mask was Dick Grayson
until in 1983, he got replaced by Jason Todd.
Todd sucked, and the comic books’ editor
was looking for a way to get rid of him.
He came up with a plan in 1988.
It involved the Joker, Ayatollah Khomeini, a crowbar,
a mother MIA, a few thousand toll calls, and a proto-hacker. You could call it “The Day the Laughter Died,”
or “Die Robin Die,”
or “A Death in the Family,”
or “What The Fuck?”
Here’s the deal:

Denny O’Neill, Batman editor for DC,
remembered an SNL skit
where Eddie Murphy told the public,
if they wanted to save a lobster from getting boiled
on the air,
they should call in.
O’Neill thought comic books should copy comedy shows
and came up with a plan to deal with the unpopular Todd.
Robin’s in danger. The public gets to vote.
Does he survive? You decide!

Jim Starlin wrote the story.
He’d already killed Captain Marvel and the Milky Way in earlier Marvel books, so O’Neil knew he could off the kid.
The villain? Only the archest of the dark knight detective’s enemies. The year before, he’d crippled Batgirl,
and best, he first appeared in the same issue where Robin was introduced.
After forty five years as Batman’s best nemesis, the Joker was going to up the ante. The story involved the Brat Wonder Todd running away,
then getting captured by the Clown Prince of Crime.
The Joker beat the boy bloody with a crowbar,
abandoning Todd in a building demolition with his newfound mother. The story was explosive.

But did Robin survive? Up to us.
DC provided two toll 1-900 numbers, each costing fifty cents per call: Dial 720-2660, Robin lives.
720-2666, and Robin’s toast.
Some creators thought it was a cynical promotion.
Some fans thought DC would never follow through.
10,000 calls were tallied in 36 hours.
In the end, the difference between Life and Death was seventy two votes. They say one industrious kid, hating Jason Todd,
got his computer to auto dial the 666 number one hundred times. The public had spoken. Robin must die.
The news had a field day, saying, apparently,
that comics weren’t just for kids anymore.
No shit.
Jason Todd was killed, the Joker took refuge in Iran,
and became Khomeini’s ambassador so he couldn’t get charged for murder. It was all pretty sordid.
The deed was done
and no one was punished.
The comic sold out. Repeatedly.

It didn’t last, of course. Nothing ever does in a comic.
When telling a serial story, every character is in service to an ever-changing plot, and no one stays dead for too long.
It took about fifteen years for Jason Todd to be resurrected. He’s not Robin, though. He’s the Red Hood,
which had been The Joker’s secret ID before he got all pale and white and crazy. Just about every other Robin, serving by Batman’s side,
has since been killed
and subsequently returned.
It’s the cycle of death
the curse you take on
when you dare to wear that domino mask
(and just so happen to be fictional).

It is fucking freezing
in this hellish place.
It beggars belief.
The smell of bacon
permeates the stratosphere
while sausage and ham
sail through the air.
This is a Wallace Shawn fantasy:
inconceivable.

I feel my tongue moving
can hear my brain shifting gears,
I can sense the vibrations in my throat
as sound escapes.
I know I’m talking.
I am sure the words I am sharing
are right and just
but I am unable
to get you to listen.

Worse:
you may be listening full well
paying attention to each utterance emitted.
You may not be ignoring me
but you haven’t taken my position.
I cannot change your mind.

How has this happened?
What now occurs
where I cannot use my considerable gifts
to effect change?
What is lacking
in my communication skills
that I cannot sway you
and make you accept
what is so patently true?

What must I do
to succeed in turning you to my side?
How is it at all possible
that I haven’t made you agree with me
and gotten you to go in with me
on those discounted disco fries?

The cashier said “Two ninety nine,”
and I handed him three bills.
He handed me back the milk
and, when I hadn’t left,
asked, “Do you want a receipt?”
“No,” I said.

“Do you need a bag?”
“No,” I said.
“You gave me three dollars,” he said.
“Yes!”
It took him another minute
to wonder, “Do you want your change?”
“Yeah,” I said, and received my penny.
He chuckled
as if I was small
but why should I
pay more than I need to
further fill Seven Eleven’s coffers
and leave him an uneven till at the end of his shift?
It seemed dumb all around.

I think the businesses are conspiring
to cheat us more
than they ever were.
I will not be called petty
in my quest for a penny.
I deserve it.
It is only in this way
I can be
a member of the One Cent.

In seeking unique directions
in which to take artistic expression
I have begun to experiment
quite wildly
with substances that abuse my system
so that I learn more about myself,
my body,
and my endurance
(in certain regards).

I have started drinking Tabasco
straight from the bottle
and exploring the maximum Twinkies
I can consume in one sitting.
I have discovered how many ounces of steak
it takes to produce the sweats
and how many glasses of rhino milk are required
to get drunk enough
to forget I’m drinking rhino’s milk.

It educational,
what I have uncovered.
What I have learned about myself
will be incredibly useful
as I consider
how to spend my remaining eight weeks alive.

(it’s all the Twinkies)

I don’t know if she did it.
I don’t have an opinion.
I don’t care about the crime
or all the talk that’s gone on
for so long
on this very very
very boring topic.

Get it through your head:
it’s over
and has been for a while
and all this debate, assumption,
January First quarterbacking,
none of it’s getting you anywhere.
It doesn’t matter
what happened anymore;
you should move on.

It’s a yesterday conversation.
It makes you crazy going over the details
so many times.
Just let it be.
Let me be.
Shut up about it!

I was asked about you today,
asked to consider your beauty
your charm.
It was the first time I assessed you
in some time
and I have found you wanting.

I’m sure you’ve changed in no way
and it is purely my sense of you
my thinking
my assessment
that has altered.

I’m quite sure
that you’re exactly as wonderful
as you were before.
It is just that now
I see you
very differently.

There are no words to say
anymore.
They have all been said
long before.
We wait alone
forevermore
for something new
for which to live.

I had lost
the will to speak
prior to
our fortune’s leak
and dwindled joy
through months, and week
had drained away
within a sieve.

Were there aught
for me to do
to change the state
of me and you,
then, one, I’d act
and then, as two,
beg you to
at last, forgive.

August 1958, his station wagon parked on a gravel road
in Cary, Illinois, the man sat.
He’d been seen acting drunk at the staff party in Chicago.
He never did that.
He’d left his wife Dorothy hours before
and had just called his neighbor to look after her
so Police Comic‘s Jack Cole, The Spirit’s ghost,
creator of The Comet,
the man who produced Exhibit A of Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent,
pinned a note to his jacket and placed the single shot into his newly-bought rifle.
That day was Jack’s last.
He shot himself at six o’clock,
and we don’t know why.
Though a writer, he didn’t describe his motivation.
Though an artist, he painted no picture to explain his end.
We have no idea
what was rattling in his head
besides the bullet.

Jack was the best.
He’d created Plastic Man and chronicled that hero’s adventures for ten years
before secretly working for Will Eisner on The Spirit.
He became the premier cartoonist at Playboy
– the second branded item from that mag was a collection of his strips.
He had successfully escaped the funny book ghetto,
creating the brand new comic strip Betsy and Me,
syndicated in more and more papers across the country.
A second strip had been sold. Cole was taking off.
Sure, his career had had some bumps
but he was making money, getting famous.
So what made Jack look at his life
and find it wanting?
At forty three, he had no children;
is that what crossed his mind in the car
before the bullet?

Three kids found him at six,
alive but bleeding.
He was taken to the hospital where he died almost immediately.
His boss got a letter, which apologized for the inconvenience.
His wife got a letter, which she never revealed.
Dorothy sold his stuff, remarried in a year
and never spoke to his relatives again.
We don’t know what drove Jack to the brink
– other than the Chrysler.
We don’t know why such a talented man
would end it all.
Maybe it was all explained
in that August letter to his lady.
Maybe the reason was on the tip of his tongue
right next to the barrel.

A Playboy cartoon from his last year
featured a be-busted blonde,
some Sugar Marilyn,
liking it hot,
singing “I ain’t got no body…”
and by the end of year
that was him.
He had no body.
Jack was disabused of mortality.
Jack was dis-corporeal.
Jack, you dead.
Did the comic strip provide a clue?
Was it evidence of his plans?
Does it show the story
of what went through his head
beyond the bullet?

For the holidays
she gave me a painting
one from her heart
a piece she had imagined
then sketched
and finally painted
putting thought into action
idea into art.

She painted me a painting,
a considerate gift
from a caring woman
with little income
but lots of time
and a creative spirit
that could never be quenched.

She could give me
a glimpse behind her eyes
a sense of her soul
a concept giving evidence
of her core
which was so deeply appreciated
but would have been much better
if she were any good.