“I’m more like the fucked-up Ally Sheedy character, I think,” says Miss Demeanor, as she reaches stroke the crotch of Psycho Superstar’s shredded jeans. “But I do rock.”
“Oh, baby, you knowwwwww what ah like!” Psycho Superstar croons, Big Bopper style, placing his hands behind his head and performing several spastic pelvic thrusts.
The Perfect Pair look away in disgust, even though SuperBarbie has been casually grinding SuperKen’s erection between her gym-toned butt cheeks all evening.
Her wine-cooler-fuelled euphoria unrestrained, Hippie Avenger cheers, “Now, like, all we need are superhero names!”
Since they are aware that everyone calls them Ken and Barbie behind their backs, anyway, The Perfect Pair are good sports about it. They simply add the prefix “Super” to their nicknames, and then they run off giggling into the cottage, where they will kiss and fondle and suck and stroke and finger each other, but they will not have actual intercourse, since they have promised God (via the Teens Need Truth club) that they will wait until their wedding night to consummate their bond.
Mr. Nice Guy and Hippie Avenger invent one another’s Indifference League names. They have been dating for the past couple of months, and they’re going to the senior prom together; they have not yet stumbled upon Just the Right Moment to have sex with each other, though.
As far as the rest of the gang can tell, Miss Demeanor is not so much dating Psycho Superstar as simply exchanging bodily fluids with him. Nevertheless, she is so moved when Psycho Superstar names her after his second-favourite rock song (a track from the Kim Mitchell EP), that she jumps up and hugs him, kissing him on both cheeks. Miss Demeanor’s lips have spent much time on other parts of Psycho Superstar’s body, but she’s never kissed him there before. Her lips normally hit him like punches, like challenges, but these ones are more like whispers. He has to holler “Fuckin’ RIGHT!” at the top of his lungs just to keep things in balance.
Without girlfriends or sex buddies to assist them in selecting their own alter-ego titles, The Statistician and The Drifter pick their own. The other Not-So-Super Friends agree that their new aliases suit them.
The Indifference League spends the rest of the night becoming superheroically intoxicated.
“Hey, Statistician!” The Drifter calls out, now full of cheap, sweet beer and renewed brotherly love, “Cook me up another bratwurst, wouldja?”
“Indeed,” The Statistician replies, “but first you’ve got to activate the Brat Signal.”
It’s a pretty good joke for The Statistician.
Mr. Nice Guy smiles drunkenly at the stars; even if the other members of The Indifference League don’t realize it yet, he knows that the day that has just passed by will be a defining moment for all of them, that they have just formed the sort of esoteric bond that keeps friends together for the rest of their lives.
And it happened here, at his cottage, because of him.
I am happy, he tells himself. All is well. Yeah.
Mr. Nice Guy glances at his watch, his most prized possession: The Super G Digital Athletic Chronometer. It has a built-in calculator and everything; it’s as if he’s got the instrument cluster from a fighter jet strapped to his wrist.
The Super G reads 12:11 a.m. Eleven minutes past midnight. It’s tomorrow already.
The day that has just passed also happened to be his eighteenth birthday. None of them remembered, not even Hippie Avenger.
It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. It’s okay. It was a good day anyway.
When Psycho Superstar turned eighteen last month, they all chipped in for a bottle of rye whiskey for him, and he got to grope both Miss Demeanor’s and Hippie Avenger’s bodies when they complied with his request for “a birthday babe sandwich.”
For Mr. Nice Guy’s birthday, nobody even passed a card around for everyone to sign.
But it’s okay. Mr. Nice Guy doesn’t mind.
He is happy. All is well.
*
There is a pensive smile on Mr. Nice Guy’s face as he floats up from this old memory and resurfaces in the present, where his fingers are still hovering over the keyboard of his outdated computer.
It never happened again. Despite Mr. Nice Guy’s consistent efforts, that weekend twelve years ago was the last time that they were all together in the same place at the same time — well, except for the funeral, of course. Sure, a few of the other Not-So-Super Friends would show up at The Hall of Indifference from year to year, but never everyone, and sometimes no one at all.
This year will be different, Mr. Nice Guy thinks. He can feel it. This year, everyonce will come. He blinks, blinks again, and then continues typing.
Of course, the invitation is also extended to everyone’s significant others.
The Statistician’s moody, passive-aggressive wife was inducted into The Indifference League a few years ago, but Mr. Nice Guy doesn’t dare mention in the email the nom de plume that he and Hippie Avenger invented for her: Time Bomb.
Miss Demeanor and The Drifter have taken to calling her that, too, but never in front of The Statistician, and especially not to Time Bomb herself, who could go off at any moment, without warning.
Mr. Nice Guy stabs at the keyboard again.
The Drifter, Hippie Avenger and Miss Demeanor, invite your current main squeezes along if you’ve got ‘em, and we’ll initiate them into the League.
Mr. Nice Guy leans against the backrest of his faux-leather desk chair, hoping that either Miss Demeanor or Hippie Avenger shows up solo; lately he has found himself wondering if, under the right circumstances, some of the old magic might return with one of his former girlfriends. It’s been a lonely year.
He shakes his head, and types some more.
Mr. Nice Guy will provide all the booze and food (especially the bratwurst!). I’ve bought new sheets and pillows for The Hall of Indifference™, so no need for sleeping bags anymore!
Long Live the Not-So-Super Friends™!!!!!!!
Your Fearless Leader,
Mr. Nice Guy
Of course he will provide everything, the food, the booze, the lodging. He will pay for it all, without expecting anything in return, even though most of the other Not-So-Super Friends have higher incomes than he does. Of course he will! He is Mr. Nice Guy!
Mr. Nice Guy deletes “Your Fearless Leader.” SuperKen will surely make fun of him if he includes that line. He is about to hit the “Send” button when he notices something else, in the second paragraph of the email:
To commemorate this milestone year, all surviving members of the Indifference League™ are hereby summoned to The Hall of Indifference™ for the upcoming holiday long weekend!
He also deletes the word “surviving.” No need to reopen that old wound.
2
PSYCHO
SUPERSTAR
“Madness, as you know, is like gravity.
All it takes is a little push.”
— The Joker, from the movie The Dark Knight, 2008
Psycho Superstar was the only member of The Indifference League who ever claimed to posses any superpowers: “Rockin’, Drinkin’, and Kickin’ Ass.”
He