Amy Brashear - The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction

“Oh no, you just got owned,” Kevin said, perking up.

“I did, didn’t I?” Max said. He reached out for Rodney to shake his hand, which he did. (Max is a worthy opponent.) Max used his other hand to turn off the Bunsen burner before the entire school went kaboom. “Maybe I’ll join the basketball team and then Laura can do my work too.”

“Ha-ha. Not a chance,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” Rodney said. “The only way you’ll play basketball is if Governor Clinton enacted segregation again.”

“Wow. That was a pretty good comeback. Well done,” Max said. He clapped.

“Nothing to it.” Rodney smiled.

“I’d say burn , but with you and all these chemicals together, that joke could go very wrong.”

In Griffin Flat, the art supply shop, bookstore, and comic book emporium are one and the same. Dewayne Smith’s, named after the owner, Dewayne Smith. As mentioned, he fed my X-Men and Flash habits, among others. But he also fed my Judy Blume habit. Max and I hit up the store as often as we could if time allowed and we had the money. In today’s case it was an emergency; Max needed a new ruler. He’d broken the other one lunging for the TV set. I still wasn’t sure on the details, even after Max’s long and convoluted story.

Apparently, he’d heard the garage door open because his mom got home early from Bible study, and he couldn’t use the TV remote control—because his dad had taken the batteries out and put them into the radio, just like it said to in the FEMA pamphlet—so Max had to turn the channel on the TV manually since he was watching Top 20 Countdown instead of PBS, and needed to switch to Nova before his mom caught him. How exactly that series of events resulted in the breaking of his ruler was unclear. But here we were.

Terrence tagged along. Before taking care of the ruler, Max darted behind the cash register to watch Dewayne Smith’s TV. He had to work the set, slap it a couple of times and adjust the antennas, but here Max was allowed to watch as much TV as he wanted before he had to go home. I don’t even really think he cared what was on, as long as it wasn’t PBS. He was one of the few kids I knew who had cable TV, and his parents wouldn’t let him watch any of it. (There were porn channels, or so I’d heard.)

“Our shipment will be late this week,” said Dewayne Smith. He was talking about the comic books.

“Noooooooo,” I said, a little too loudly.

A few people in the store turned and stared. But only for a second. They understood. Most of the people who came here weren’t of the Kevin Barnes variety.

I went to the Judy Blume shelf. I needed my favorite author to tell me how to handle life right about now. She had gotten me through tough times before. Whenever I needed help, I’d go to my mom, and she’d gift me with enough to buy a Judy Blume paperback. Or she’d buy them herself. When she couldn’t find the right words, which was often, she’d let Judy Blume do the talking. When I got my period, I was handed Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret . When Mom felt like I gawked at Christian Slater too long, she handed me Forever . I dog-eared the juicy parts for reference. When Mom and Dad were getting a divorce, she accidentally handed me Tiger Eyes instead of It’s Not the End of the World . I had to wonder why she had Tiger Eyes at the ready. I called Dad every day for a month, making sure he was okay. Mom gave Terrence Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, and gave me Deenie for another reason I’d rather not share.

“Any new Blume today?” Terrence asked, wandering back to the book area.

“No. It’s sad, really,” I said.

He laughed.

“No practice today?” I asked.

“Canceled due to the movie,” he said. “So is this what you and Max like to do for fun?”

“Yeah, it’s exciting,” I said, trying to sound as deadpan as humanly possible.

“Dad and Edna are working late again,” he said, picking up Smart Women .

“It’s still really weird hearing my mom’s first name,” I said.

“The same goes for me when I hear you call my dad Dennis,” he said, walking over to the comic books. “So what’s good?”

“I can’t believe you just asked what’s good,” Max called, still in a trance in front of the TV screen.

“Don’t mind him,” I said.

“I never do,” Terrence said with a laugh.

“Ha-ha. Very funny,” Max said, not losing eye contact with the inanimate object. I shuffled over to the comic book section. Terrence hung over my shoulder, eyeing the comics curiously. Unlike Max, I was happy to give him a tutorial and tell him what was good.

“This one is Peter Parker and the Amazing Spider-Man . [50] Marvel. Vol.1 #259, December 1984. Contains the story of Mary Jane Watson. It’s pretty good. I’m more of a Firestorm [51] DC. Ronnie Raymond is a high school student and Martin Stein is a Nobel Prize–winning physicist; an accident fused them together. Their first appearance was in Firestorm: Nuclear Man #1, March 1978. girl, okay, but the X-Men? I freaking love the X-Men. [52] Marvel. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created mutants who were born that way. Are you into DC [53] DC Comics, founded in 1934 by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. or Marvel? [54] Marvel Comics, founded in 1939 by Martin Goodman. Because I like both. But DC has the best supervillains…” I broke off, looking at him looking at me as if I’d been speaking in Russian. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“No. But it’s cool,” he said.

I smiled.

He turned and picked up a copy of Batman , near the bottom of the rack. “A lot of superheroes are orphans,” he said.

“Batman, Superman, Spider-Man,” Max said, listing off the super orphanage.

“Why?” Terrence asked.

“Character development,” Max said. “It’s great to give them a tragic backstory.”

“I’m not an orphan, but I feel like one,” I said, not thinking before speaking.

Luckily Terrence never asked what I meant. He just listened to me talk.

“I’m not an orphan in the traditional sense, like Annie, but my mom is newly married to your dad, and my dad is off—”

“Saving the world from annihilation,” Terrence chimed in, finishing my thought.

“Funny that we are dealing with the fallout,” I grumbled.

“Survivors of the aftermath,” Terrence said in a dramatic doomsday voice. When I laughed, he added, “Sorry. It’s the comic books. They’re messing with me.” He glanced at the snowy image on the TV screen at the front of the store. It looked like the local news… sort of.

“Now, what are your thoughts on Star Wars ?” he asked.

“Oh, I’ve got thoughts,” I said. “The first one was really, really good. The Empire Strikes Back was even better. But Return of the Jedi was… Honestly, I think they made it just to sell merchandise.”

“Did you know that the movie was originally called Revenge of the Jedi ?” Dewayne Smith asked from behind the register, eyes on the TV. “They made, like, only a hundred T-shirts. I got one. And when the time comes, I’m going to sell that merchandise and retire.”

He might have been a grown-up, but Dewayne Smith was an even bigger nerd about movie and comic book trivia than we were.

Max hopped off his stool and walked over.

“Speaking of Star Wars, you two are like Luke and Leia,” he said. “You know, Return of the Jedi Luke and Leia, when they find out they are brother and sister and Leia can officially be with Han.”