George Martin - Lowball

Franny swallowed, and at that moment he looked nearly as miserable as Lupo. “It’s nothing you can help with. Thanks for your concern, though.”

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sorry.” Eddie struggled to his feet, taking one last look at the sketches on the wall. “I hope you get those guys soon.”

“Me too.”

After the long day he’d had, Eddie wasn’t even up to ordering dinner from the New Big Wang Chinese Restaurant down the street. He opened a can of soup and heated it up on his tiny two-burner stove, meticulously washing and stowing the pot, bowl, and spoon when he was done.

Then he rolled his chair over to the drawing table and began to work.

Sometimes he did four-panel strips, sometimes book-length stories. Tonight it was a single large panel, Mister Nice Guy disporting himself across the page with a collection of anonymous, pneumatic women. Eddie worked rapidly, sketching the characters’ forms loosely in pencil before dipping his ink brush and bringing them to detailed black-and-white life.

One of the women resembled the redheaded detective from that morning, only with much larger breasts. Mister Nice Guy had her tied up. She smiled around a full mouth, looking up at him as he patted her head.

Eddie’s fingers tightened on his brush and his mouth twisted into a sardonic grin as he detailed the woman’s thumb-sized nipples.

After Eddie had finished the panel, cleaned his brushes, and taped the new pages up on the wall above his bed, he settled down in his chair with a small sketchpad and a black fine-point felt-tip.

Eddie tapped his fingertips together, pondering options and possibilities. Then he began to draw. With just a few quick lines, a familiar form began to take shape on the pad in his lap.

As Eddie sketched, something like white smoke began to swirl in the air, condensing and thickening, spiraling downward into a hazy bowling pin shape about seven feet tall. Bulbous arms and legs coalesced from the mist, a small head, an enormous cucumber schnoz.

Eddie looked up from his completed sketch of The Gulloon to see the same character looming over him in person, his big clodhopper boots pigeon-toed on the scuffed vinyl of Eddie’s floor. He raised one hand and gave Eddie a little three-fingered wave. The Gulloon didn’t talk.

Through The Gulloon’s eyes Eddie saw himself, a hunched warty excrescence of a joker, but that didn’t last long. The Gulloon turned away, clambered up onto the kitchenette counter, and squeezed through the finger’s-width gap that was always left open at the bottom of the window. With an audible pop he reappeared on the other side, pausing a moment on the fire escape to mold himself back into his usual shape. Then he ambled down the fire escape ladder toward the street.

Eddie himself remained in his chair, conscious and aware, but he closed his eyes to block out the view of his apartment. It was easier that way.

The Gulloon wasn’t a rooftop peeper like Gary Glitch; he liked to lurk in the shadows until he saw a pretty girl, then follow her home and look in her window. The big guy was surprisingly quiet on his feet. But tonight there was little foot traffic in Jokertown, and what there was all seemed to be heading in one direction. Curious, he joined in the flow.

Their destination was the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, at the door of which Quasiman stood handing out flyers. The Gulloon took one. “HAVE YOU SEEN US?” it said, above a grid of sixteen photos. Every one of them was a joker.

The Gulloon, one of Eddie’s first creations, was kind of funny-looking even for a joker … smooth and round and, frankly, cartoonish. But this crowd seemed preoccupied enough that he felt he could step out of the shadows without attracting too much attention. And, though he did get a few curious glances, no one in the crowd of winged, tentacled, and scaled jokers seemed too perturbed by his appearance. He entered and descended the stairs to the community hall.

The room was filling up fast. The Gulloon stood at the back of the crowd, between a bull-like man and an enormous joker who seemed to be made of gray rock, and edged back into the corner so nobody would touch him. The strange material that made up Eddie’s characters’ flesh and clothing felt kind of like Styrofoam, stiff and light and fragile.

As The Gulloon shifted around, peering around the heads of those even taller than himself, he spotted the snake-man-Infamous Black Tongue, that was what he was called-in the crowd. But though even the easygoing Gulloon tensed at the sight, Eddie reminded himself that the snake was just as welcome in the church as any other joker, and he had no reason to suspect The Gulloon of anything. Still, The Gulloon kept one eye on him as the crowd took their seats.

The murmuring crowd quieted as Father Squid rose and stood at the lectern. “Thank you for coming tonight,” he said, the tentacles of his lower face quivering with each consonant. “As you know, Jokertown has been suffering a series of disappearances. It’s said that some jokers have been snatched from the street. Others have simply vanished.” He looked down at his hands, which rested on the lectern before him in a prayerful attitude. “Sadly, this is not unusual in our community. But the numbers are higher than usual, and many suspect that these disappearances are related.”

Father Squid raised his head, and there was fire in his eyes. “We will not stand for this any longer.” Though the joker priest was old, his muscles going to fat, Eddie didn’t envy anyone who got in his way. “We will band together. We will be vigilant. And, if necessary, we will fight!” The crowd applauded. “Now, not all of us are fighters.” A few in the crowd chuckled at that. “But all of us have a part to play. You have seen the flyers with the photos of the disappeared. If you have any information as to their whereabouts, or any clues as to what has become of them, call the number at the bottom. And if you should happen to observe a kidnapping in progress, or even anything vaguely suspicious, call the same number. Better to raise a false alarm than to let even one more joker vanish.” He looked out sternly at his congregation, and a few “Amen”s were shouted. “We will now open the floor for testimony, remembrance, and ideas.”

Joker after joker now took the podium, telling tearful stories about the vanished ones, or proposing strategies that seemed to Eddie completely ineffectual, or expressing fear and concern for their own lives. But The Gulloon kept his eye on Father Squid, who stood to one side with his still-powerful arms crossed above his substantial belly.

Eddie wasn’t a religious man, and he wasn’t a member of Father Squid’s congregation. But he was a joker. And watching Father Squid standing there, looking over the crowd, he knew that the old pastor would do anything in his power to protect every joker in Jokertown.

Even him.

No matter how much of a worthless little shit he might be.

Eddie got an assignment from the J. Peterman catalog drawing men’s shirts for their incredibly fussy art director-a royal pain, but the job paid really well.

He didn’t peep at all; he didn’t draw any salacious cartoons; he tried hard not to even have any impure thoughts. Instead, he drew a long, hallucinatory fantasy story involving Gary Glitch and Zip the Hamster on a cross-country road trip. But after a couple of days without peeping he woke up from a lucid, lurid dream of The Gulloon peering into basement windows, only to realize that it wasn’t a dream. Eddie hustled his character back to the apartment and dispelled him immediately.

It was far from the first time he’d manifested his characters while sleeping. In fact, that was how he’d started. He hadn’t realized the dreams of his characters wandering his own neighborhood had been the manifestation of a wild card talent until one of the other group home residents described a really strange-looking joker she’d seen peering in her window. But ever since he’d started peeping consciously it happened only rarely.