Saint Joseph School

Cat Skills

It is easy enough to go from the City of Villains to the City of Heroes, provided you take the cheater's route through Pocket D ... and have a heroes' clearance as you walk through the doors to Founder's Falls. I am bold enough for the former, and Nennya provided me with the latter. With a flick of a laminate card, I go from being Vinegar Tom, bratty-cat scourge of the Rogue Isles, to Persiflage, heroic savior of banks and Bryan Baxter's lovelife. I'd considered going all out with a frilly skirt and high heels, but Nix never wears coture, and I'd be doing it only to indulge myself.

I do so like indulging myself.

Never mind, here I was, in a pretty pair of Fendi sunglasses, a few items from last year's CK winter line, and a bundle of supplies in a thick-packed Gucci shoulderbag. I looked like a rich refugee, a golden beast of burden.

Finding Rocco wasn't so difficult as I had anticipated. If I was burdened with winter gear, I was also burdened with Rocco's applicable numerals, symbols, and letters, each digital phrase spelling out information on Where Rocco May Be Right Now.

I decided to take the ambush approach. I took a cab to the train station and called him from a pay phone. "Hello, Rocco. Yes, it's good to speak to you, too. Fancy getting out of town for the weekend? Oh, yes, me too. Meet me at the downtown train station, no, not the tram, the train that will take me out of this postage stamp of a state. We're going skiing. Pack light, bring lip balm. You have two hours. I'll pick up your ticket while I'm waiting. Yes, I'm in town now. Hurry before I find some other gay model superhero to run away with. That's a good boy."

He's overjoyed to see me, of course, hugging nearly the life out of me at platform 3. The train arrives, huge, filthy, and real, and we board. We are going to the Catskills, that epic place of Jewish vacationry, where nobody puts baby in the corner, and the lodging is cheap. My goodness, I can't believe I've never gone before. I wish it were Vail, but I can't abide the logistics of a plane flight in the middle of the Holiday Terror Alert. I'd prefer not to end up sleeping in an airport terminal in Dumbfuck, Illinois, wrestling for the last candybar in the vending machine with buttertroll offspring. The train is safer, even if our destination is more pedestrian. Besides, I don't have an infinite supply of American dollars, despite what others might think.

Rocco wants to talk, and I make nice noises and cuddle against him obligingly in the train seat, bogarting him as legspace, and then, sharing an iPod between us, earbuds connecting us like some sort of acoustic beast, I sleep.

We wake up in the mountains of upstate New York. It's a beautiful afternoon, and the sun is shining on the fresh snow. There are obliging taxis with snow tires, and I read off the address to our driver. He has a Sue-Sue or a Tom-Tom, but apparently our chalet on Windham mountain is a popular destination.

It's an adorable guest house, simply adorable, a tiny room in a chalet. It holds a wardrobe, a fireplace the size of a graham-cracker box, a bed, and us. We unpack quickly, digging around for winter wear. Rocco admires my pink ski suit, and I admire his hat. He calls me 'Sugarplum" and I call him "Candycane."

We feel very encouraged, very pleased with ourselves indeed. How lovely to be young and rich and without care. You really should try it sometime. It can be wonderfully sustaining.

Deleted

The bunnyslopes are infested with snowboarders. Little rabbitruns are tailored to their needs here and there, with half-pipes and metal-capped angle rails. The boarders have a different look than the skiiers. They look like skiiers who have been dipped in a thin bath of obnoxiousness and blacklight posters. They rarely fall; they coopt certain portions of the runs and do them over and over again.

"I want to run the moguls," I say. Rocco needs the practice. The moguls are little humps of hardened snowdrift, low-angle blunted cones. There's a trick to moving over them, keeping your hips flexible as you glide over them sideways. I do the series first, and wait for Rocco. He slowly makes his way down, attempting to run them straight, refusing to turn. He gives up after three humps and instead skis down the tiny gully between them. There are jeers from some of the snowboarders, and they come in too close to Rocco. If he were less self-confident, he might have fallen.

"Cheap," I say. "What would you do if you were on a mountain and you couldn't avoid the rough terrain so easily?" I adjust his hat and scarf, and Rocco laughs at me.

We go down that slope again. We have an audience. The smack-talker who carved snow on us is standing with a group of other snowboarders, watching one or two of them do fancy tricks on the run. Skiiers don't go quickly down the moguls, and they jeer everyone who attempts them. When we go past, our designated asshole clicks on to his board and comes after us, carving up snow, making barking noises as he comes, cutting in front of Rocco so suddenly that I'm afraid he's going to fall down. A small telekinetic gesture and he rebalances. The snowboarder laughs, pausing on the slope, and does it again.

We're almost halfway down the run when we see him fall. Some irregularity in the trail, a patch of ice buried in powder, causes him to fall, bouncing end over end like a toy. He loses his hat and gloves. I pull up sharply, close enough to talk. He doesn't move for a second, collecting his bruised ego, then sits up, flashing me a look of pure hate.

"Fucking fag," he says. His knee is bent at a strange angle, his ankle too.

"You've hurt yourself," Rocco says. "Let us --"

I cut Rocco off with a fist to the chest. "You have a broken ankle," I say, with no small amount of glee. "See what happens when you're an asshole? Karma's a bitch."

He straightens his leg with a painful grimace, face gray. "Screw you."

"My name is karma," I say. I hawk a loogie, compensating for the wind, and it lands with a splat deadcenter on his crotch. "Stay here and try not to die. We'll get the ski patrol."

I beckon for Rocco and we continue down the hill, and we let the official people do their official thing. Mr. Shit-talker will be delivered to the dubious ministrations of the field hospital. Meanwhile, Rocco and I go to the lodge for a little hot chocolate.

"We could have helped him, Drix," Rocco says to me. "It would have been easy. We could have helped him down."

"Yes," I say, brooding. "That's the hero habit. You need to break that. He'd have just hated us more. That extra twenty minutes in the snow, that's what will teach him to act better. And I'll feel better about it. Look." I point out the broad window to where the ski patrol is navigating a sled-stretcher down the trail. "See? He's fine."

Rocco broods. "We're supposed to do good," he says. "Do good to them that hate you."

I look at him. "I'd rather do good to them that love me, or hey, even those who live and let live. Rocco, you're here drinking cocoa with me, we're going to retire to our little room in a few hours for snuggling and debauchery. Surely you can find the mental fortitude to pay attention to me and not that vague nobody?" I give him my most fetching smile, and his eyes brighten. There it is. What reason can't do, lust will.

I like Rocco. He can be dreadfully slow, but he eventualy gets it.

Someone to Watch Over Me, or, Gone with the Whim
((co-authored, Fashion Police and Vinegar Tom))

People like us know how to survive/ There's no point in living/ If you can't feel alive
We know when to kiss/ And we know when to kill/ If we can't have it all then nobody will
The World Is Not Enough - Garbage

The day had turned dusky with a fog white haze before night finally subdued the mountain. I sat quietly on the plushy carpet near the fireplace placing more wood on the low burning fire. I was ever so careful not to wake Drix. He was laying in bed, sound asleep and splendidly spent from today's adventures. I watched intently over him, wondering what he was dreaming of, to make him smile that way.

I had everything I wanted. Didn't I?

But all I could think about was that guy. Yes, I was bothered. It wasn't much to forget about the crass comments--sticks and stones, right? But when he'd taken a tumble, it hadn't mattered. He was a jerkwad, but he was still a person in trouble. I'm a hero. Heroes don't leave people behind.

Drix stretched, his brown legs whispering under the quilts. I stared at him. He wasn't a hero. He was so honest about that. He saved people on his own time, according to his own inclinations.

I looked out the tiny frost-covered windows and thought about how cold it was out there, and how happy I was to be in here. I could smell him, smell his candy-flavored breath and that strange spicy perfume of his fur. An icy draft flickered through the leading and over my face. So cold out there. It must have been very cold to lie there, leg broken, face in the snow, and be spat on. I tried to cheer myself with the fact that the kid was wearing North Face and not Dolce & Gabbana. It's a crime to deface fashion.

I daydreamed for a second. I thought about flying out there, finding his gloves and hat, and taking them to the hospital and giving them back to him, and apologizing for leaving him there. My mind did this funny thing. When I saw him there, in my mind's eye, I heard him calling me "faggot" and "cocksucker" and throwing ice cream on my coat ... and me losing control. Grabbing the call button and looping it around his throat. Seeing his face go purple. Covering his bulging eyes with his stupid hat.

"What are you thinking of?" Drix's soft voice said, a soft rumble under the crackle of the fire. "Your mind is full of ... sex, and pleasure. Is it me?"

My stomach turned over. "No," I said, looking at him. "Is it really?" I said. "I was thinking about that kid."

I could see his mercurial face in the flickering light. He crawled out of bed and came over to me. "What kid?" His brow furrowed. "Oh. Him. Pfft. Forget him." He rummaged in his bag and brought out a pack of clove cigarettes, and lit one off a hot coal. An instinct made me want to move slightly, offer him a place on my knee, but I didn't. He sat on the bed instead.

"I don't want to go to Bloodvine," I said. "I want to stay in Paragon City. I want to be a hero."

He said nothing. There was a perfect moment, frozen in time. Neither of us seemed to breathe.

"Shut up," he said, only half-jesting. And then, leaning forward on his knee. "Really?" His voice rose. I'd never heard him yell before. "Really. Well, that's just great, Rocco. Congratulations. Bully for you." He flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the fire and whirled around on his feet, moving through the chiaruscuro room, tossing his belongings into his bag.

"Wait ... what are you doing!" I stood up, stretched out my hands to him.

"I'm getting out of here." He pulled on his boots and coat like it hurt him. "I'm going back to the Isles, to Bloodvine, to the place that isn't good enough for the Fabulous Fashion Police. Fuck you."

"We don't have to break up!"

"Yes, we do." Each word punctuated by a hard fingertip tap to my chest. "You promised to love me, Rocco Ritchie, you promised to be with me and stay with me. You promised."

"You could come to St. Joe's! Nennya loves it there. Why can't you come?"

"Ha! Don't make me laugh. I hate your school, Rocco, and I hate what it turns you into. I wont I won't go, I wouldn't go for a million dollars."

I found my snowpants, my boots. By God, I was going to follow him if he was leaving.

"You never had any intention of leaving," he said, tossing his toothbrush and a handfull of sweets into the pockets of his duffle. "You got what you wanted from me, you got your dirty little adventure, and now you're done. Well, fuck you." He pulled the zipper and looked me in the face.

"You're boring, anyway."

I don't know what would have happened next. Maybe I would have followed him, maybe done something. I don't know. But he levitated my coat, my perfect coat, new, this season, and cast it into the fire. It was reluctant to burn, but it scorched before I could pull it out, and I pulled it out before I turned to go after Drix.

But by then, he was long gone.