12/19/12 - Leads You Here Despite Your Destination

The secret to good Pad Thai (or so my handsome man tells me) is in the !@#$ing ginger.

Some people apparently swear by the tamarind sauce, which can be hard to find if you don't live somewhere like !@#$ing Neo York City, where there's cookie-cutter Asian markets every 2.5 !@#$ blocks. But he says that's bull!@#$, because, apparently, the Thai themselves didn't use it until they got it from China.

(Kind of like how Chop Suey, made by immigrants in America for their restaurants, eventually filtered back across the Pacific. You asked some fellow in Beijing what Chop Suey was and he'd wonder if you were !@#$ing propositioning him, or something. Never worked for me, though...)

But no. You can get by just fine without tamarind paste, but you abso!@#$inglutely have to have the right ginger. He uses a big !@#$, deflated-!@#$-sized hunk of galangal, which can also be bought at the cookie-cutter asian market store, and gives it a whole different flavor. He also marinates the chicken in soy sauce and lime juice, too, rather than just the soy, which he says is what makes it his.

He's possessive like that, my man.

Other than that, it's the usual mix you get on the "Long Wang and Hung Well Can !@#$ing Cook for Fat White Idiots That Watch Us" shows on what passes for the Food Network, these days. Marinate the chicken, make the sauce, cook the noodles until they're just south of firm, throw the other ingredients in the pan and stir-fry the !@#$ out of them, and then add the chicken, the noodles, and drip the sauce in a little at a time until it's gone and the noodles are perfect.

That and some limes, onions, crushed nuts, and a couple cold Singhas, and we're eating.

(Oh, and maybe a jar of chili sauce for !@#$holes like me who like it so hot my toes curl, snap, and want to secede from my !@#$ feet. He just laughs at my need to bake my !@#$hole, and I promise to bake his later, after dessert.)

He says he learned how to make this from his first serious boyfriend, who he met when he was just in the service. Young, blonde, corn-fed American man-boy, stationed in Southeast Asia, where the nights are hot and sweltering, and the local men who like non-local men have that drowsy, luscious look about them as they preen and sweat in the heat of the city, and the shoreline...

Of course, he kept his love for a local man quiet. That was the military culture, back then, especially in that branch of the service. But he tells me he figured people !@#$ing knew, but just chose not to say anything. Probably because those lovely man-boys had most of his fellows !@#$ing questioning themselves, too.

(And we all know how that goes, right?)

But then came another !@#$ posting, and it came !@#$ sudden, too, which is also part of the culture. He had to say goodbye quicker than he would have liked, which left hurt feelings all around. So by the time he made it back there, years later on a visit, things had changed, and not for the better.

But at least they got to say goodbye properly, that time.

And he still remembers him, now and then, when he makes this dish, which he hasn't been able to do for the longest !@#$ing time. And all that's thanks to the substandard cooking facilities on Deep-Ten, along with how rarely they could actually get proper !@#$ing galangal, to say nothing of fish sauce, fresh spring onions, and chicken that wasn't !@#$ing pre-cooked for safety's sake.

(Figures that his super-high-tech robots could fix him a decent !@#$ drink in his chair, but he couldn't really rock out in the !@#$ing kitchen.)

And now all that's gone, son. No more big, beautiful, super-amazing weapons platform keeping us safe from galactic invaders, star gods, weird weapons from beyond the frontiers of space, and !@#$ like that. Just a big !@#$ cloud of debris and dust !@#$ing floating around the !@#$ing Earth, well outside the Moon's orbit.

No more Alpha Base Seven, either, thanks to what sounds like a major cluster-!@#$ of poor choices on their acting commander's part. But it's the loss of Deep-Ten that's really going to !@#$ us, when a certain problem comes along.

(And it's coming, son. Boy is it !@#$ing ever.)

In the end, it was my love who had to pull the !@#$ plug on the thing, himself. And it should have killed him, too, thanks to the "if I die, it doesn't work" sort of precautions they stopped using back in the 1980's, when it became readily !@#$ing apparent just what a stupid !@#$ plan that really was.

But boy, was he ever surprised to learn that I'd known all along...

* * *

10/29/12

Mount Sinai Medical Center
16:34


"... ask why, just !@#$ing do it," SPYGOD shouts into his communicator as he kicks his way through another set of swinging, metal doors: "I want to hear directly from that !@#$ vampire hunter, and I want to hear from him !@#$ing yesterday. With noodles.

"What? How the !@#$ should I know?" he continues: "I've only got half the entire free !@#$ world on my plate, now. Go see if he's !@#$ing hiding back in !@#$ing Poland, or something. Jesus."

He sighs and hangs up, and then, for good measure tosses the phone into the air and shoots a hole right through it.

"!@#$er," he mutters, as much to who he was yelling at as to himself, and kicking through one last set of doors as he finally arrives at the hospital's world-renowned Cybernetic Prosthesis Surgery section.

"Sir, you can't shoot off guns in here," one of the harried doctors says to him, coming up with a large pile of papers on a clipboard: "Please tell me how I can help-"

"Tell me what's !@#$ing going on with Director Straffer," SPYGOD answers, getting right in the man's face: "Right the !@#$ now."

"No use asking him," one of the other ones says, getting up from her chair and walking over to SPYGOD: "We just keep him around to change tubes and things."

"Can I go now?" the man says, inching away and trying to conceal that he's !@#$ed himself.

"And you are?" SPYGOD asks, waving the pants-peer away with a wave of his hand.

"Doctor Langley," she says, shaking his other hand: "I think I need to prepare you for what you're going to see."

"How much of him is left?"

She blinks: "Did someone tell you...?"

SPYGOD smiles, weakly, and taps his eyepatch: "I know what color your tampon is, doctor. Let's not play !@#$ing games, shall we?"

She coughs and nods, walking him down towards the isolation room.

"Apparently one of your Strategic Talents found him in what was left of a lunar escape craft, two days ago," she says as soon as they're out of easy earshot: "I didn't catch her name-"

"Brightstarsurfergirl," he says, getting a little testy: "We had her looking for anything we could use, up there. Not a whole !@#$ lot left, to hear her tell it."

"Well, when she found him, he was in a self-induced coma. He'd hooked himself up to the power unit of the craft, and made some heavy modification to his own power plant. It seemed to be in perfect working order, but he wasn't using it."

"If he did, it would have !@#$ing killed him after he blew up Deep Ten," SPYGOD says: "Safety precaution to stop him from falling into the wrong hands and compromising his !@#$ mission." 

"Oh," she says: "That's-"

"Top black !@#$ing secret, that's what it is," he interrupts, putting a hand in her face to push her off as they get to the door of the isolation room: "Just be glad you didn't have to agree to a full body prosthesis to be able to work in this joint."

"Don't expect too much," she says as he strides into the room: "He's a little loopy..."

SPYGOD doesn't give a !@#$. He walks on up to the bed they've got him on, doing his best not to cry. And the moment he gets up to it, and sees what's there, he snaps his fingers at the few med-techs in the room, and gestures pointedly to the door he just came through.

He doesn't need to say anything. They're gone in seconds. And then it's just him and what little they could salvage.

His head. 

"I look terrible, don't I?" Straffer says, trying to smile. His skin is leathery and dessicated, and his eyes are unfocused and red. Tubes are running into and out of the ragged stump of his neck, bringing oxygen and nutrients straight into his brain.

"You look like you," SPYGOD says, grabbing a chair and sitting down in it, close enough to reach out and touch his lover's cheek.

"You know, for a spy, you're a terrible liar."

"Only when I want to be."

"So you knew, all along?"

SPYGOD smiles: "I did. Why do you think I didn't hold back in bed?"

"Oh, well that's disappointing," Straffer says: "I was kind of hoping you were holding back."

"You catty little !@#$," SPYGOD snorts, and then laughs, not trying to stop the tears, anymore. 

The head smiles, and closes his eyes: "I missed you."

"I didn't know you were alive," SPYGOD says, trying not to choke up through his tears: "I thought you were dead. I thought when they had another you, that meant you were dead."

"They just missed me," Straffer says, opening back up again: "Idiots attacked me when I was in a spot that needed repairs. I shot out the windows and spaced them. Then I launched myself at the Moon."

"You..." SPYGOD blinks a few times.

"Good use of time, making alternate escape plans," Straffer says, smiling at how befuddled his lover is: "I think you might have told me that, once."

"Yeah, maybe I did," SPYGOD says, tousling his hair: "And you wanted this all to be a surprise?"

"I did. That's why I told the leader of the resistance not to say anything, when he visited me at Alpha Base Seven. I see he kept his promise."

"Yeah, he's good at that," SPYGOD sighs: "Usually..."

"What's wrong?"

"Oh... !@#$ing nothing, !@#$ing everything,"  SPYGOD replies, putting his hands in his lap: "I made some... !@#$ it, I made some bad choices. I !@#$ed up pretty bad and now it's about to come crashing in on me."

"Is the world free?"

SPYGOD nods: "Yes."

"Are we safe for now?"

"Yes."

"Then tomorrow can go suck itself, love. We'll figure it out when we get there. And we'll do it together."

"Together?" SPYGOD asks, putting his hand back on what little remains: "You mean that?"

"Oh God, yes," Straffer says: "All through that fall through space, this moment's what kept me going. I don't want to spend another cold, empty night without you. I want you in my life, (REDACTED). I want you in my bed. I want you in my future, now and forever. And if I have to be a head on a pillow, then !@#$ it."

"Actually, I don't think that's going to be a problem," SPYGOD says, leaning in and winking: "I can hear them talking about your new body, right next door. Just like the old model, only better."

"I didn't think they'd give me one after how I blew up my job."

"Well, I sort of talked to the President about that, before we came over," he says, smiling: "As soon as we're back up and running, we're going to need a new space-based defense system. And you're the right man for the !@#$ing job."

"Your opinion?"

"His words. Exactly."

"He's changed a bit."

"He has, yes," SPYGOD says, hitching a little when he thinks about what that changed man might do in a few days, when an uncomfortable truth comes out.

"I'm surprised you didn't want me for the COMPANY."

"Naah. You got your job, I got mine. We'd drive each other !@#$ing mad if we worked together."

"We might do it living together, too."

"Yeah, but good mad, I think," SPYGOD says, tousling his hair again: "I love you."

"I love you, too," Straffer says, closing his eyes: "We don't have to talk, now. Just stay here with me?"

"Forever," SPYGOD promises.

And for that night, at least, it's kept.

(SPYGOD is listening to Under the Milky Way Tonight (The Church) and having a Singha)

3/10/12 - Whatever You Do You Can't Stop Falling

It's the Summer of 1929, and New York City's streets are hot enough to fry eggs on. The air reeks of sweat, and tempers are as short as the temperatures are high. Dumb things are said, bad things are done, and the only way to escape the consequences is to run like !@#$.

That's exactly what (REDACTED) and two of his younger brothers, are doing right now -- running like !@#$.

Some ill-tempered things were exchanged between them and the Irish family from down the block, and it didn't quite stop with words. So now (REDACTED), Edofardo, and Cesare are booking it through the city streets, trying to avoid getting anything worse than the black eye Edofaro's sporting, or the bloody nose (REDACTED) is holding into.

(Cesare, being the youngest, was short enough to duck and cover. Lucky him.)

(REDACTED) is leading the pack. He takes them over boxes and crates, leads them past street vendors, hustles them down back alleys, and tries every trick he knows to lose the !@#$ing bastards. Unfortunately, they know these streets, too. And they have more friends. Every time the three brothers turn a corner, the mob behind them has swelled by about one or two more young, angry heads.

His mind is racing along with his feet. Should they split up? No. If the Irish catch one of them, alone, there'll be another funeral in the family.

Should they turn and fight? No. There'll be three funerals, at this point.

Should they turn and say they're sorry? No. See above.

Running, then. Just keep !@#$ing running. Run run run run run.

And he's so busy running he doesn't realize he's just run into his older brother, Ignacio, who was on the way back from the Cuban grocer with some produce for grandmother. They tumble to the ground, the paper sack breaks, and Cesare and Edofardo trip over the two of them like something out of a movie.

The Irish kids screech to a halt, maybe ten feet from the pile up, and start laughing. (REDACTED) looks at Ignacio, who looks at his younger brothers, and their injuries. Then he looks back at the large group of kids, gets to his feet, and cracks his knuckles.

(REDACTED) grins, rises, and does the same. 

Ten minutes later, both Ignacio and (REDACTED) look like they went a few rounds with Jack Dempsey. But you really should see the other guys, all limping home and holding their faces together with their hands. Cesare and Edofardo are in sheer awe of their older brothers, and are carrying what groceries they could salvage from the busted bag as they quietly make their way home.

"Next time you want to pick a fight with the Irish, leave me the !@#$ out of it," Ignacio scolds (REDACTED). His younger brother looks up to him and sniffles, feeling about three inches tall, right now. But then he sees Ignacio wink through a swollen eye, and knows the simple truth about family.

Right, wrong, or !@#$ed up, they will always have your back.

* * *

It's years later, and now the city is running cold and hot. Cold because it's early December. Hot because it's the day after the day that's going to live in infamy, according to what the President said.

"You ain't fighting in that war unless you got to," Mama is scolding both her oldest boys, waving the late city edition of the Times around their cluttered, aromatic kitchen: "You get drafted, you go. But you ain't volunteering. I won't be having my boys dying for this country. Not when good family at home needs our help."

Ignacio and (REDACTED) look sheepish. She has no idea they already volunteered this morning. Them, the guys across the hall, the man down the landing, and men and boys up and down the street. Even the Irish kids down the way, God take their eyes. They were all lined up at the recruiters, this morning -- hoping they can do something.  

Anything. 

Before getting in line, which was already quite long by that point, (REDACTED) looked at Ignacio and wondered aloud: "You think we should be doing this? Mama's gonna have a fit. You how she is about the home country."

"Yeah, when she ain't giving up the Church and everything that comes with it. I gotta sit through one more of those crazy tent things I'm gonna go crazy."

"But I hear Italy's in cahoots with Germany and Japan-"

"You know what? !@#$ Italy," Ignacio said, smiling: "You heard the stories Grandma, God rest her soul, used to tell. Where was Italy when Grandpa made the wrong people angry and couldn't get work? Where was Italy when he had to come over here, huh? And then he got off that !@#$ing boat with a couple coins in his pocket, and Italy finally shows up, but just to take those coins."

"Well, yeah. But-"

"But nothing, (REDACTED). Everything we have, we made over here in America. You and me? We were made in America. This is our country. This is our family. And when the family's in danger, you put up your fists."

Suddenly (REDACTED) can't quite think of what to say. It's like that time when he was staring at Mr. Rossiter's "business partner," Bradley, the night the revival went bad, and feeling that strange thing that's haunted him all these years. He doesn't know what this moment means, but he knows he has to follow it, because it's right.

Mama doesn't find out they're in the Army until they've left for training. She doesn't forgive them until halfway through the war. But in each and every letter, she tells her boys to watch out for each other, because they're family.

And, even though the War takes them in very different directions -- Ignacio to the Pacific, (REDACTED) to Camp Rogers, and then Europe -- they do they best they can to obey her.

* * *

It's well after the war, and (REDACTED) goes by SPYGOD more than his own name. He doesn't visit home all that often, partially for security reasons and partially because he's so !@#$ing busy, being a national hero and all. 

(That and, let's face it, his mother drives him up the !@#$ing wall with her nagging and worry. Hasn't be been in the Army enough? When is he going to get a nice girl and settle down?)

But he always has a phone line open for her. And when she calls him up, one night, with that horrible tone of voice that means she's breaking, inside, he's back in New York City before anyone knows he's gone. 

"You have to stop him," she tells him, her fingers pale and her face wrinkled, looking like a ghost under the black clothes she's worn since Papa died: "You have to talk sense into him."

By 'him' she means 'Ignacio,' who came home from the War a changed man. Still loves his mother, still a good man, but no longer willing to obey her as readily as he once did. 

(Yes, she's overlooking the volunteering thing.)

"What's Ignacio done?" SPYGOD asks

"He's fallen in love with a Cuban girl," she says: "The one that works at the grocers you kids shopped at."

"What's so bad about that?" he asks, trying to remember the girl: "Is she not Catholic?"

(Yes, she's given up on evangelism, too.)

Mama can't say for crying. It's just too much, whatever it is. So he goes over to Ignacio's apartment to get an explanation.

His brother opens the door, happy to see him but knowing why he's there. Behind him, seated at a table, is a young lady that SPYGOD doesn't quite recognize, except that she bears a striking resemblance to the son of the lady that ran that grocers, all those years ago. 

Then she lifts her head up to smile at him, and it's more than enough for him to see her adam's apple. Suddenly he understands.

He looks at his brother, smiles, and hugs him -- long, strong, and unflinchingly. 

"You too, huh?" he laughs.

"Yeah," Ignacio says, laughing and clapping his brother on the back: "Me too."

They talk for quite a while, after that -- the three of them. They laugh and cry and argue and get a little drunk, and laugh and cry some more. Then they hug and depart, brothers always, and SPYGOD can't believe how happy he is that his brother's found someone.

But when he gets home to his mother, he swallows the truth inside him, and just tells her that he couldn't get through to Ignacio, either. And when she goes insane in her own kitchen, throwing her prize plates against the floor and screaming that that man is no longer her son, every word burns him like fire from shame. 

* * *

The Korean War is raging, and SPYGOD's in the thick of it, but he takes the time to read his brother's letter from start to finish.

(Sitting on what's left of some glowing supercommie as his corpse cools, and the light slowly goes out of him.)

The key paragraphs that stand out for him are these: I wish we could stay here. I wish we could be part of the family, still. But our mother and Cheri's father won't see us. My own brothers spit at me, now. 

And mother... oh mother, I know I've broken her heart, but what can I say? She told me not to lie, but I guess she didn't want me to volunteer the truth, either.

SPYGOD feels numb, right now, re-reading that. Numb and ashamed.

The rest of the letter goes by in a whisper, but the salient point is this: they're moving to Cuba, which, in recent years, has turned into something of a non-stop party. Between Cheri's family and the local non-existent social mores, they should be fine.

"!@#$ing Cuba," SPYGOD curses, knowing full well that the place is a corrupt snakepit, and no place for a dignified lady like Cheri. However, given his brother's tendency to put up his fists when family need defending, he figures they'll be okay.

As long as they're careful.

* * *

It's early 1961. Another wave of escapees from Castro's Cuba have come to America's shores. And SPYGOD has received word that Cheri is amongst them, and asking for her help.

There's no word about Ignacio. He's terrified about what that could mean. 

Halfway to Miami he learns she's not in holding with the other refugees, which he finds understandable, given that she's a US Citizen. However, halfway again, he learns that she's under arrest. Something about public indecency and resisting arrest. 

He finds her in a waiting room at a police station. Apparently her mode of dress -- worn without thinking while escaping -- caused a few eyebrows to raise, and bluenoses to overreact. A serious bruise is developing under her left eye, and it's clear it was delivered post-arrival.

After sticking his gun in a few faces to find out who assaulted his sister-in-law, beating the !@#$ out of the persons responsible, and securing her release from the now-terrified constabulary, SPYGOD gets Cheri into his car and drives them away.

"What happened?" He asks, holding her hand: "Please tell me what's happened, Cheri."

"Oh, my Ignacio," she cries: "The soldiers came for him. He tried to stop them from arresting someone harmless. A schoolteacher who talked to much, told too many jokes. He stopped them and they told him he was dead, and he just laughed. You know your brother. He said the Irish in New York didn't scare me, the Japs in the Pacific didn't kill me, Batista in Cuba was afraid of me, what are you going to do?"

"What happened?" He asks, knowing he isn't going to like the answer.

"They came for him. Twenty men with guns. He roared at them and told me to get out the back. He had a suitcase packed for us both. I ran and ran, and he screamed like a lion. Roaring at them to take him if they could. And there was gunfire, and I looked back, and..."

She breaks down into hysterics then. It's all SPYGOD can do to hold her hand and drive while crying.

A few days later they have a token funeral service, given that they'll probably never have a body to bury. Mother is long dead, and neither of his brothers will attend if Cheri is there, which she is. So only his sister Maria, her husband, their children, his elderly aunt, and some of Cheri's younger siblings will join them. They cry and pray and drink and argue and cry and laugh and cry some more.

Less than four months later, he's in Havana, trying to kill Castro. That doesn't work out so well. 

* * *

"Now, see, if that Kennedy idiot had had a real plan, that bearded !@#$ would be dead by now," Nixon's saying, pounding his desk and laughing with Ford, Kissinger, and all his advisers: "We wouldn't have to be worrying about supercommies in our own !@#$ing hemisphere."

Everyone laughs at that, and SPYGOD just bites his tongue. After all, he's the one who's been doing his best to make sure that the President's "real plan" -- aka the CIA's Operation Mongoose -- has been going nowhere for the last few years. In fact, he was just informed, not that long before this little meeting of the minds, that yet another shipment of poisoned cigars had been intercepted by his people in Havana, and 'creatively rerouted,' as they say in the business.

(One of his Strategic Talents actually EATS cyanide as part of a well-balanced diet. Go figure.)

"Yeah, I think he was going to have someone go down there and talk him to death," Kissinger says, his deep European voice a never-ending source of amusement.

"That would be his way, wouldn't it?" Someone else -- a balding, weasel-faced fellow with an atrocious mustache -- adds: "Simpering East coast liberal faggot. Probably thought he could get in bed with him by getting in bed with him."

For some reason that comment gets the most laughs so far. And for some other reason -- maybe somewhere, deep on the cellular level -- SPYGOD decides he's had enough of this !@#$

"That simpering East coast liberal faggot got his PT boat blown out from under him, back during the War," he says, tasking a none-too-cautious step towards the President's desk: "He dragged one of his crew to safety with his !@#$ing teeth and held onto him until they were rescued. What the !@#$ did you !@#$-streaks do during the War?"

There's silence, for a second. He can see the shock building behind the President's little eyes, and, knowing its going to turn into outrage at any moment, decides to press the attack.

"Further, I can personally verify that the simpering East coast liberal faggot you're talking about got more !@#$ than a toilet seat. He used to say he got a headache if he didn't drain his balls at least three times a day, and he had no shortage of women willing to help. I saw him do three at once in this very office, gentlemen. One right after the other, like oysters."

"Now see here, sir--" Nixon stammers, but he's silenced by the rage in SPYGOD's eyes.

"The man !@#$ed Marilyn !@#$ing Monroe, gentlemen. In the !@#$. In his wife's bed. And while I know he'd hardly be the only gay man in the world who would do her, too, I can verify that his motives were entirely heterosexual."

"How would you know what a fag thought, (REDACTED)?" Ford asks: "I mean, I know some of those capes are a little swishy, but-"

"Because I !@#$ing am one, sir," SPYGOD says, putting both hands on the desk: "I've known I was a homosexual since I was old enough to know what one was."

The weasel-faced man harumphs: "Looks like someone's wanting an early retirement, Mr. President."

"Oh, is that what you think?" SPYGOD says, straightening back up: "I killed Hitler, you mustachioed little douche. I run our Strategic Talents program. I saved that simpering East coast liberal faggot of yours from an assassins' bullet, and... gosh, how many times have I !@#$ing saved the world? I don't think I have enough fingers and toes to count, buddy."

"Look, I think this conversation's gotten a little out of hand," the President says, putting his hands up in surrender: "No one here's saying you should quit, SPYGOD. Your country owes you several times over. But... could you be a little less gay around us?"

SPYGOD snorts: "Half your burglars are queer, Mr. President."

That ends the conversation, then and there. In the future, the President records all Oval Office conversations, hoping to catch such nuggets of truth so he can hold them over people's heads. That doesn't work out so well, either.

But no President, from that point on, ever uses the F-word in SPYGOD's presence. They don't even dare do it while he's in the same building that they are. It's understood that the man is what he is, and it's best just dealt with, or left alone.

No one wants to make him angry, knowing that he'll put up his fists for family.

* * *

Now it's more than 45 years later, and President Nixon is dead. He has gone full circle from loved to disgraced, then begrudgingly rehabilitated, then ultimately forgiven and beloved in death.

Kennedy's gone, too, just recently. His wife, Marilyn, still grieves. Ford and Kissinger slipped away, too, but no one really made much of a big deal over their passing, given their unfortunate proximity to Nixon. 

The mustachioed douche did jail time for the same thing that brought Nixon down, and is something of a cult hero amongst certain conservative circles. He has a radio show and books and people love him for things that they should rightly despise him, for. 

(And every time SPYGOD sees him, he uses SPYGOD vision to make him !@#$ his pants.)

SPYGOD's younger brothers and sister are dead. Their children's children, and their children, have no idea that he is related to them in any way, shape, or form. Part of this is for their safety, and part of this is because they cut all ties to him after certain facts came to light. 

To her eternal credit, his sister, Maria, did not care, and loved him anyway. But still the secrecy is kept, so that her descendants will not be bothered by science terrorists in search of blackmail material.

And Cheri? She found love again, years later, and spent the rest of her life with that man. Before she died, SPYGOD made her a promise, and took custody of her ashes after the funeral. 

Now Fidel Castro is dead. And, as SPYGOD and Dr. Krwi have been making their way through the violent, burning city of Havana -- sometimes by car, sometimes on foot, depending -- they hear that his brother, Raul, may also be dead. Or possibly in hiding, or surrendering to the yankees in The Flier. Who knows the truth?

But as they've been making their way across the city, SPYGOD's been carefully steering them in one direction. Once they get there, just outside the city limits, the Doctor has to ask why they're stopping in this large, lonely field where no one has sown any crops, or placed any buildings or signs.

And SPYGOD, by way of an answer, pulls out a jeweled box, maybe the size of a small piggy bank. The old man had seen it, sitting on the desk in the apartment, and wondered what it was. But when SPYGOD opens it, somewhat reverently, and starts to scatter the ashes inside it out onto the hot wind, and then onto the ground, he begins to understand.

"I love you, big brother," SPYGOD says, smiling through the tears: "I love you, too, Cheri. You rest easy, now. Your fighting days are over. We won."

They watch the clouds settle for a time, and then get moving before the mobs descend on the burial grounds, too. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Love Comes Quickly (Pet Shop Boys, Disco remix) and drinking tears of sorrow, and joy)

10/14/11 - It Gets !@#$ Better

Hello, kids. This is SPYGOD, and I'm coming to you live from the helipad on The Flier with an important message.

Message number one: do not stand too close to the edge. You never know when a gust of wind or draft from an aircraft engine's going to send you over the edge. And when you're this high up, all they'll be able to identify you by is your dental work and DNA.

Of course, that's a hazard. We can prepare for hazards. For example, we can all wear abseil suits and obey the !@#$ signs that say BACK THE !@#$ UP.

Yes, they really do say that. See? Look at our beautiful, profane signs. They say we mean business in a playful sort of way.

(You oughta see what we got hanging down in the armory. And the bathrooms.)

But what do you do when life is one big hazard? Well, sometimes it is. And we usually call it "High School."

Especially if you're gay.

Evolution is a hard bastard. We're hardwired by nature to detect differences, and instead of celebrating them, we often segregate based on them. Sometimes it's harmless, and even beneficial. But most of the time it's bull!@#$ that gives rise to cliques, pecking orders, and victims.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you about that last one.

I'm not ready, willing, or even able to tell you about my childhood. But you can probably guess that, like a lot of you, I realized there was something different about me. Something not quite in step with other kids. And while certain things were not discussed, and therefore not on the forefront of bullies' minds when they went about their business, certain words and ideas were very !@#$ painful.

Especially when they were true.

The more things change the more they stay exactly the same, as one other queer liked to say. So yeah, I know there's a lot of you beautiful LGBTQ kids out there, watching this, who are wondering what the !@#$ point is.

The deck is stacked like a science villain's deathtrap. The straights all know what you are before you do, even if they don't know what it really means. If you open up to the world and tell them who you are, you get smacked down in return. And if you stay silent, maybe you wish you could be open, you're watching what happens to others and become afraid to take that leap.

(And then there's the people who are out who give you !@#$ because you're not out. But you listen to them complain about what happened when they did come out, and you're thinking "Oh yeah, that sounds like a great deal, right there. !@#$ that noise." But that's another story.)

Now, I'm supposed to stand here and tell you that, judging from my own experience, it gets better. That's the idea behind these spots. That there's an end to the bullying and name calling and sense that you're not as good as other people because of that one, little thing that's so small, and yet so important.

And, yes, it does. It gets a !@#$ of a lot better.

For one thing, when you get out of High School, you're done. Gone. If you never want to see any of those retarded !@#$ who thought it was fun to call you rude names, you don't have to.

!@#$ 'em. !@#$ 'em all. Send back your reunion invites with photos of you and your partner out having a good time. Eventually they'll stop sending them.

And if you run into them again, be sure to point out how awesome your life is, now. No thanks to them, of course. But thanks for the first experience in overcoming adversity. You're a better person now because of what they did.

Not that you owe their stupid !@#$ any thanks at all.

For another, when you turn 18 you can buy a handgun. You get a gun and a conceal carry license, no one will !@#$ with you. People used to carry swords for the same reason. Now you can't flash steel without being arrested, but with a little paperwork and a class or two, and a clean record, you can get a .45 and have it on your belt.

(Explain that to me.)

And did I mention the fact that once you're 18 you can also go into the armed forces, and be trained to defend our fine country?

True, once upon a time you would have had to lie about what you were in order to get in, and keep it under wraps the whole time you were in uniform. But no !@#$ longer. Thanks to certain forward-thinking individuals, you can now be the gayest or dykeiest Marine, Green Beret, Navy Seal, or whatever bad-!@#$ position the Air Force and Coast Guard have available, and no one is allowed to !@#$ with you because of it.

They wouldn't !@#$ dare.

Of course, we at The COMPANY have been proudly not giving a !@#$ about that sort of thing since I've been running the show, which is forever. In fact, we're happy to accommodate your thing. It keeps after hours recreation rather lively, which is an important part of saving the country and the world on a near-daily basis. Work hard, play hard, as Teddy Roosevelt used to say.

(He also used to take strange substances, Hulk up, and throw hippos into each other to make lunch. But that's another story.)

And I could tell you that, once you get older, you could possibly become the head of something like The COMPANY.

Yes, you could have all this firepower and these secrets at your fingertips. You could be one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet if you played your cards right. And all those people who called you names and flushed your head down the toilet in High School will be running scared for the rest of their natural lives out of fear of what you might do in long-overdue retaliation...

But I won't.

No, really. I won't. I wouldn't dare. And that's because of someone else I'd like to talk to you about, today.

Like I said, I'm not ready, willing, or even able to tell you about my life. It's classified out the !@#$ wazoo. And for good !@#$ reason, too.

So let me tell you about my buddy John, instead.

Like me, John grew up in the early parts of the last century. He knew there was something different about himself, too, but didn't quite know how to put it into words. But at some point he learned that being different had a terrible price attached, and did his best to hide it.

He succeeded in this, but a little too well. Afraid that someone would discover his secret, he went out of his way to learn everyone else's secrets, so he'd have something to counter them with if they came after him. It worked better than you might think, and soon he was rising up through the ranks of his chosen profession, and getting good reviews from the people above him.

When they put him in charge of his own show, he did some amazing things with it. But all the time that fear and worry about being discovered was gnawing at him like a cancer. He became massively paranoid, and because he was paranoid he did all kinds of bad things, and made all kinds of really bad suggestions.

As a result of all that, my friend's good accomplishments are badly besmirched by the bad he did, and the worse he though we should do. It's fair to say that, by the time he died, he was a highly controversial figure, and it hasn't gotten much better over the years. Every time you turn around they're trotting out some new and horrible thing that he did in secret, either by himself or with his friends.

Sometimes, I can't even blame them for wanting to take his name off of the FBI Building.

Yes, kids. I'm talking about J. Edgar Hoover, the father of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and its Director for life, at least until he died in 72. He was liaised with the Liberty Patrol, before and after The War, and I got to know him very well in that time. Maybe a little too well, in some respects.

He was a great man, a visionary, and had a genius for organization. He was also a pathologically self-promoting, hateful, vain, and jealous !@#$ who was willing to ignore the liberties of the few in order to guard the lives of the many. And that is never a great trade-off, kids.

Ask anyone.

So I can't help but wonder. I'm not going to lay the whole of his character and life story at the hands of his repressed sexuality. But how much of that paranoia and fear was because of what he was, rather than who? How much of that evil legacy was shaped by the fact that he had that one shameful thing he could never be open about?

If he could have just said "Hi, my name is J. Edgar Hoover, and I'm as gay as a three dollar bill," would fear have warped his personality like a bowling ball dropped into a sheet of rubber? Or would he have been less of a !@#$?

I don't know, kids. We may never know. And even if we do learn, someday, it might be so classified that even I don't get to look at the answer.

But I'm pretty confident that, if he had been able to just say what he was, and say it proudly and openly, things would have been a lot different at the Bureau, back then.

So don't be afraid. Don't be scared. Don't let others' stupidity, fear and hate make you stupid, fearful, and hateful.

Open up and announce yourself to the world, because it is our party. It's the one time invitation to the ball we get to have for the rest of our lives. And no one can take it from us unless we let them.

My name is SPYGOD. I run The COMPANY. I'm the most powerful fag in the world.

And it does get better.

Goodnight.

(SPYGOD is listening to Was It Worth It (Pet Shop Boys) and having the mother of all pink foofy drinks)

10/9/11 - More Crass Commercialism - SPYGOD's ABCs (pt 3)

Note: Continuing on from the previous two installments. 

As previously noted, the tone began to vary wildly, from the childlike drivel with a sharp edge it was supposed to be, to things that could have come off early, mildly-regulated Wikipedia, or frankly sloppy !@#$. It could have been saved, one supposes, but events conspired otherwise.

The story goes that the group editor was in the middle of a midlife crisis at the time, and playing minesweeper at his desk when he wasn't seeking illicit favors from Dr. Yesterday's "support staff." A number of important balls were dropped during this time, and not just his own, but somehow he avoided being fired. (This may say something about the *ahem* high esteem in which The COMPANY holds its licensing department.)

By the time the mockup was finally done, the market had dropped out of the "kids book for adults," and it was shelved on the far back burner, along with "SPYGOD" golf caddies and pop-up books. 
(If you have no idea why the latter would have been a bad idea, see "Penis," below.)


L is for Liberty Patrol

When World War II happened, a lot of American superheroes signed up with the government to fight overseas, or guard America from spies and saboteurs. These brave folks fought hard to keep us safe and free, and once the war was over, the government offered a lot of them a chance to keep working for America. The Liberty Patrol was born!

The Patrol was really busy right after the war, making the Germans and Japanese behaved themselves, and watching for leftover Nazis and supervillains. They also kept an eye on the Commies, now that the Cold War was officially on, and no one could trust anyone from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Then they went in to fight in Korea, and never really came out again. After that, the President decided he didn't want superheroes fighting in wars, and made The COMPANY, instead. Now all superheroes that are good enough to work for the Government work for The COMPANY, in one way or another, and the rest can do whatever they want as long as they don't make total !@#$holes of themselves.

SPYGOD was a member of the Liberty Patrol. He wasn't around a lot because he was off doing secret things, and doesn't appear in a lot of photographs, but he was there. Really. Ask anyone.

M is for METALMAID

A long time ago there was an evil villain named Doctor Morbo. He lived in Eastern Europe and had his own country. He worked with the Nazis during World War II, but turned on them at the end, and then worked for the Soviets, sort of. But the rest of the time he was scheming to take over the whole world, hurting his own people, making robot monsters, and being a real !@#$.

One day, the Soviets decided they didn't want to work with him, anymore. So the President sent The COMPANY in to deal with his sorry !@#$. There was a big fight and Doctor Morbo was dead. But Doctor Morbo had a lot of dangerous equipment, doomsday devices, and other things lying around, so America and the Soviets had to turn them off or do something with them.

One of the things that was left behind was a new kind of killer robot. SPYGOD took one look at it and said it would be a great thing to have guarding The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. with him, as well as cooking, doing laundry, and cleaning up, because SPYGOD doesn't do that kind of domestic !@#$.

So Dr. Yesterday reprogrammed the robot, and rebuilt it to look like a different kind of machine. And now METALMAID lives and works with SPYGOD as his best robot friend ever!



N is for Neo York City

Once upon a time there was a big city, and it was called New Amsterdam. It was full of Dutch people, and no one liked the Dutch. So when the Dutch people who made the city were run out of it by good, righteous Americans with pitchforks and torches, it became York City. Mostly because the people who ran out the freaky deeky Dutchmen were from York, back in England.

But there was a big !@#$ problem! No one could tell if York was in England or America, and the mail was going every which way. And since the mail took forever to get anywhere, back then, and the mailmen were being eaten by dinosaurs and cavemen, anyway, the people in America decided they should be New York.

(They tried to get the people in England to change their name to Old York, but the letters they kept sending making the suggestion kept getting get lost in the mail. So they said !@#$ it changed their own name to fix the problem.)

After fighting off weird terrorist bull!@#$ from Dutchmen, fighting the American Revolution, the Civil War, some bull!@#$ wars no one remembers, and then World War II, it was a pretty good bet that New York City was going to stay. However, one day, this weird metal !@#$hole came from the future and turned the city into this massive computer thing that moved like it was made out of metal Mexican jumping beans on bad speed. And no one wanted to call it New York city after that.

So the pussies that ran the city at the time decided to call it Neo York City, instead. Mostly because everyone thought the first Matrix movie was really !@#$ cool, but also because it was... wait for it... new. And that's all that matters to those jack!@#$.

So now all the people who used to make nice "New York City" products are out of a !@#$ job and have to turn tricks in metal alleyways in neighborhoods that aren't what they used to be, and won't even be what they are now in a couple years.

You tell me how that's new and improved, mother!@#$.

O is for Omniopticon

When SPYGOD put the Chandra Eye in for the first time, many years ago, he told people that he could see everything. And he can. Sort of.

The truth is that the eye doesn't show him things so much as it lets him hear things. And he can hear a whole !@#$ lot. People whispering from miles away. Television shows before they make it to your television. Phone conversations. Satellite transmissions. Computers talking to one another. Crickets making crank songs.

Lots of !@#$ things.

The problem is that, since SPYGOD's just a regular joe like you and me, he can't handle the massive flow of information being able to hear that many things can provide. So he has to get really messed up on lots of alcohol and drugs or he'd go crazy. But he doesn't want to take the eye out because then he'll lose all his powers and get old and die or something.

And I bet I wasn't supposed to tell you that... oops.



P is for Penis

Yes, SPYGOD has a penis. He was born with one, obviously. And he used it quite a bit, to hear him tell it.

But when he put the Chandra Eye in, something very strange happened to his penis. It began to grow and change, ever so slowly. Over the years its turned into something that looks like a squash someone crossbred with an octopus, a snake, and a strawberry. And that's just when it's lying down on the job!

SPYGOD's penis is a dangerous weapon. He can shoot pellets of semen out of it that are hard and fast enough to kill people. He also says he can change the chemical content of his pee pee into poison, flammable stuff, or weirder things. But he gets drunk and says a lot of bull!@#$, so this could be that. Do you really want to find out, though?

No one is absolutely sure why anyone in their right mind would let him !@#$ them with that thing. He also says he gets very few complaints, so it must be !@#$ good. Either that or he's paying a lot for PR.

Q is for Queer

Is SPYGOD gay? Is the Sun hot? Is Dadaism misunderstood? Does the Bear Pope !@#$ Catholics in the woods?


Yes, SPYGOD is !@#$ gay. He has been gay since he was old enough to know what and who he was attracted to. And he has been Out since before they used the term Out. So there.

He came by it honestly. He did not catch it like a cold. He did not get indoctrinated by some creepy weirdo who wanders around towns, looking for small boys and girls to turn into homosexuals. He did not have faggot dust sprinkled on his head by the fairy fairy.

(And no, it wasn't fluoride in the water, either. Jesus !@#$ Christ. They didn't start doing that !@#$ until when, the 70's? He was born in (REDACTED), idiots. Get a clue.)

So yes, the man is gay with a capital G A Y. He likes men. He likes cocks. He likes... well, you get the picture. (See "Penis")

But here's a picture maybe you don't get. Here's a man who runs a very powerful spy organization (See "The COMPANY"), carries three times his weight in weapons (see "Guns"), knows all your secrets ("Eyepatch," "Omniopticon") and is not the sort of person you really want to mess with, ever ("!@#$hole" "Drunk").

And you want to tell him he can't get married in your state? Really? 

No, you go ahead, buddy. You tell him. You tell him about destroying the sanctity of the institution, laws, morals... all that !@#$. You tell him.

Me, I'm going to be hiding over here in this old WWII bunker they made strong enough to survive a direct bomb blast. I'll come out when I can't hear anything screaming, anymore. Like, a year from now.

Nice knowing you, 'phobe.


R is for (REDACTED) 

When you read things about SPYGOD, you see the word (REDACTED) a lot. This is a fancy way of saying "You don't need to know that, so we blacked it out."

Why don't you need to know that? Because it's super dooper ultra black top secret, and no one needs to know that. Half the time SPYGOD himself doesn't even need to know these things, and that's why he drinks so much. To forget. (Among many other reasons.)

SPYGOD's age? REDACTED. Real name? REDACTED. Place of birth? REDACTED.

Skills? REDACTED. Weaknesses? REDACTED. Full suite of superpowers? REDACTED. 

What he did during the Cold War? REDACTED. Who he worked with? REDACTED.

Everyone he's ever killed? REDACTED.

What he left last night in a paper bag on the Mayor of Neo York City's front porch? REDACTED.

You get the !@#$ point, kid?

So stop asking him impertinent questions. Impertinent is a fancy way of saying "you want too much information." If you think it's compromise security, don't bother opening your yap.

Just ask him about the weather. You'll learn more that way.

(SPYGOD is listening to Called Out in the Dark (Snow Patrol) and having a Bells Cherry Stout)

6/13/11 - Trench Guns and Roses

Hello America, my name is SPYGOD. And, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I am 101% queer as !@#$

Any of you got a problem with that? No? Good. I can shoot people through an internet connection. It is scientifically possible.

So. What do you want to know? People always want to ask me something when I throw that out there. It's like a nervous tic or something that we can't go from "Hi, I'm SPYGOD, and I'm a transvestite" to "Oh, I work on Deep Ten. Let me tell you about the gaseous manatee-eating alien we had to deal with, today."

(DAMOCLES. Gotta love em.)

People used to ask me "when did you decide?" as if there was a switch I turned on in my head, one day, out of sheer boredom with heterosexuality. So I always asked "When did you?" which usually shut them the !@#$ up.

And if it didn't, one of my many guns usually did.

People these days are somewhat smarter. They don't want to know how I got this way, anymore. Now they want to ask me "when did you know?"

The problem is that, in true intelligence work style, I didn't know that I was supposed to know or not know something for the longest time. I simply was.

That and, in the time and place I grew up in, there weren't a hell of a lot of answers to the questions I didn't know I should be asking. This was the Great Depression, after all, and money wasn't the only thing you kept hidden in the closet.

But if you want an insight, I will happily provide you with the story of the day that, when I looked back, later on, should have informed me that something was a tad bit askew.

Not everyone lost their jobs when the market crashed. Some people continued to do very well because they were either smart with their money, or had something that a lot of people who still had a lot of money still needed. And Mr. Rossiter and his business partner, Bradley, were lucky.

Mr. Rossiter was the florist in my neighborhood. He was an upstanding, older gentleman with an excellent eye for color and design. He had people from Wall Street making the trip all the way down to our !@#$ neighborhood in order to get their daily flower fix when times were good, and when things went tits-up they continued to come on down, just not as often.

The two of them had worked and lived together since the late teens, not long after Bradley got back from Europe to hear the grownups tell it. They were supposedly business partners, but everyone kind of knew what was really going on. Us kids didn't get told directly, of course, but some words have an inherent power to them even if you're not 100% certain of their true meaning.

"Invert," I think they said. That was the polite term. We all used the impolite one, but not all of us really knew what it meant.

But Mr. Rossiter was an upstanding older gentleman. He was polite to everyone, never said an unkind word, and let people skip on their bills for a while if they got in over their heads. And while Bradley was quiet, and tended to let his "boss" do the talking, he was gentle and kind, and an extremely hard worker.

So no one made a big deal about the reality behind those words, and no one made any trouble for either of them. Whatever went on behind closed doors and drawn shades, late at night, it was no one's business but theirs.

As it should have been.

Then came the crash in '29, and my !@#$ neighborhood became even !@#$ier. People just barely hung on to their homes, the repossession truck was on the prowl, and every time you turned around someone just up and ran off, or ended it the only way they could.

We didn't have much to begin with, so when I tell you we lost everything, maybe you can figure out what that means. Dad stood in line for day work, mom was barely holding it even, and what little money me and my siblings could scrounge up was just enough to keep us in roof and food.

Times like that, you need someone to turn to, or someone to blame. Some people are happy to provide you with both, and most of them are happier still to do it for a fee.

Which is why my parents dragged me and my siblings off to the tent revivals whenever they pulled in to sell us Jesus. And boy did they ever.

Fire and brimstone, pain and death, Heaven and Hell. If I'm so good at using the great unsung armies of the world to fly off to fight evil in great apocalyptic battles, I think part of it's because I was getting in on the ground floor when I was just a kid, watching those snakebiters and whiskey priests froth at the mouth in anticipation of the End Times to come. They knew how to work up and work over a crowd, that's for damn sure.

But then came the day that it wasn't enough to preach about sin, and preach against sin. They began to demand to know who was sinning badly enough to cause God to turn his back on us, and bring the Devil in.

And everyone was happy to confess their small transactions and shortcomings before the Lord in the hopes that the economic downturn would be lifted up by angels on high. Hell, they were even happier to denounce one another if no one wanted to fess up. It was one big hill of chickens trying to peck one another to death for Jesus, starting in the morning and ending in the evening, and I loved it.

I mean, heck, it sure beat school. 

But when the lifting never happened, and people got antsier and more desperate, so they had to figure out who wasn't there to confess. Who was holding the neighborhood back and down? Who was sinning against God and unrepentant?

Who indeed?

Which is why an angry mob stomped from the revival tent, through our !@#$ neighborhood, and down to Mr. Rossiter's flower shop. It was getting dark so we had torches. Some carried them unlit to use as clubs. All the while singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" at the top of our lungs.

If there was a plan, I had no idea what it could have been. Break down the door and demand a confession? Smash everything for God and country? Run them off? No one explained anything. I don't even know if they had a plan.

But the moment they got to the front door, the plan was over.

There were Mr. Rossiter and Bradley, one in a nightshirt and one in pajama bottoms. Both of them were unamused.

And both of them were armed with Winchester Model 1897 pump action shotguns.

Mr. Rossiter had one of the older kind that he'd used in the Spanish American war. Bradley had the modified kind, which they called a Trench Gun. The ones the Germans hated so much that they threatened to summarily execute any American soldier they captured carrying one.

He'd carried it throughout France. They hadn't taken him, but judging from the bullet wounds in his chest they must have come close on more than one occasion.

They obviously didn't take his gun, though.

"You all want to back up and leave, now," Bradley said: "I like you all, and I know you all. I'm going to just chalk this up to high spirits and bad times. But if you want past us, you will have to walk through lead. I don't think you want that."

The Preacher started yelling something about Jesus. Everyone screamed and yelled and, for a moment, I thought they were just going to surge forward. But Bradley walked down the steps, apparently unafraid, and pointed the gun right at the Preacher's chest.

"You know why we called the Germans the Huns?" he asked: "They all had belt buckles that said Gott Mit Uns. I think it meant 'God is with us.' Maybe they believed it and maybe they didn't. Either way, they lost.

"So unless you know something they didn't, I'd back up a few steps and rethink this one."

The Preacher was lost for words, for once. Someone in the back started yelling again, but didn't catch on, and then Mr. Rossiter came down and spoke his peace:

"I thought we were friends. I thought we were neighbors. Tell me I wasn't wrong. Please."

Maybe it was the guns. Maybe it was an old man crying. Maybe it was Jesus, finally showing up and telling us to get behind him. But the crowd started dissipating, like smoke, until no one was left but the two men on their front steps.

No one spoke of that night again. The florists continued to prosper, in spite of the times, until Mr. Rossiter died of a heart attack, two years later. The whole neighborhood came out for the funeral, possibly afraid of Bradley coming after them if they didn't.

Bradley handed the business over to Mr. Rossiter's sister, who didn't want him involved in it. He got another job, somewhere, and last I heard he went back into the Army after Pearl Harbor.

I've never been able to find out what happened to him. Maybe that's for the best. I hope he died with honor and was buried with it, like a man who served his country. Like so many others, united in service and in death, all other facts of their lives washed away with their blood.

I took three things away from that night.

First is what Two Face told the Fresh Prince in that Men In Black movie. A person is smart, but people are stupid. We have to be on guard against idiots who want to rise others up in hate and fear, no matter the excuse or the reason. That never did anyone a lot of good, and never did anything but get people killed for hardly anything at all.

Second is that, standing there, looking at Bradley on the steps in the firelight, glowing with sweat and muscles rippling, I felt something. I wouldn't know what that something was until much later, when I wondered why I didn't feel the same way about girls as my little brothers did, and had more in common with my sister than maybe I should have.

I think back on that night a lot, and dream of kissing him hard and full on the mouth, like a man. I dream of thunder in the sheets and my body driving him down into the bedsprings.

I dream of a world where he and Mr. Rossiter could have marched hand in hand down the street, open and unafraid. I dream of a world where they could have gotten married and had that piece of paper mean something in every state, and every nation of the world.

I dream of the simple power of a word more powerful than any slur or taunt. I dream of that word and know it has few boundaries. I dream of a time and a place where that word is raised on high, and cherished, and we don't have to be afraid or beat down bullies or fascists or religious zealots to defend it.

I think of Bradley and I dream of the word "love." It really just is that !@#$ simple.

And third is that trench guns are awesome pieces of military hardware that have been improved upon, but never quite duplicated. I have ten scattered around in various locations. I always have one nearby when I'm away, and I never go into the field without one.

My name is SPYGOD. I run The COMPANY. I killed Hitler, saved three Presidents, am 101% queer as !@#$. And you can bet your sweet, tanned ass this dress, these earrings, and the lipstick matches this Winchester.

Maybe not the eyeshadow or the heels, but !@#$ it, a girl's gotta be daring once in a while.

(SPYGOD is listening to Dreaming of the Queen (Pet Shop Boys) and having the prettiest little umbrella drink you ever saw, with a cocktail gun instead of a sword)