Love, Loss, and Death Rays

“I can’t keep doing this, Robert! Every week, I try to plan a nice date for us and you cancel!”

“But Liz,” Robert’s face scrunches as he tries to think of a rebuttal. “It’s not my fault that Alpha Man keeps blowing up my inventions!”

Liz rolls her eyes. “I swear to God if I hear his name one more time I’m going to lose it. All you ever talk about is ‘Alpha Man this’ and ‘Alpha Man that.’ What about me, Robert? What about us?”

“What about us? You knew what you were getting yourself into when you decided to date the great Black Falcon!”

“Look, it was charming at first. I loved seeing your passion every time you invented something new. But now it’s gotten old, and I’m tired of not being your first priority.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but as the sworn enemy of Alpha Man, I, The Black Falcon, must—”

“—must dedicate my life’s work to taking him down. Yes, I know. You have that on a tapestry that hangs on the ceiling above your bed.” Robert’s eyes dart to the corner, looking a bit embarrassed, but then his face lights up just a little bit.

“You memorized that for me?”

“No, I memorized that because I stare at it and study all the individual stitches to keep from falling asleep during sex.”

“W-what are you trying to say?” His lip quivers.

“I’m saying you’re bad in bed, Robert. That’s what I’m saying,” Liz replies coldly. She stands with her arms crossed and her foot tapping passive aggressively against the floor.

Out of nowhere, there’s a loud knock on the door. “Knock-knock!” says a voice everyone in the room is all too familiar with.

Robert looks confused. “Dude what are you— ”

“The fists of justice!” shouts the visitor without waiting to see if the response matched his “witty” joke. The door suddenly bursts open and comes off the hinges, falling slowly and loudly to the floor. In the doorway stands the unpopular Alpha Man, sporting his neon green spandex suit with a matching green cape, a blue “AM” across his chest, and his blue boots that are clearly platformed, though he’ll never admit it. He stands with his fists in a defensive yet ready-to-fight position. Robert and Liz both stare in shock. Alpha Man quickly lowers his fists and relaxes his stance.

“Is...is this a bad time?” he asks, completely oblivious. Robert still stands in complete shock as Liz shoots a look over to him.

“See? This is the kind of crap I’m talking about. We can never just have time alone. Everything revolves around this...stupid looking string bean!” she gestures to Alpha Man, who is still standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“Hey, him bursting in here has nothing to do with me!” Robert looks over at the highlighter man, who is still trying to process that Liz called him a string bean.”By the way, what are you even doing here? We weren’t scheduled to fight until this evening. My death ray isn’t even finished. I’m not even in costume. And instead of meeting me at the lair like we do every week, you decided to come to my apartment, which is a direct violation of the rules we set on day one.” Alpha Man stumbles to defend himself, but Robert cuts him off before he gets a full sentence out. “I mean, you just straight up broke my door, what is wrong with you? I can’t afford renter’s insurance so I’m going to have to replace this door out of pocket. I spend most of my money on making these stupid inventions so your stupid hero powers don’t go to waste, and now you come in here, invade my privacy, and damage my property. I thought I was supposed to be the supervillain, but that was a dick move, man.” Alpha Man lowers his head.

Suddenly, what little remained of the door was slammed shut, and Robert turns to realize The two men stand in silence, both trying to process what exactly happened.

“So,” mumbles the spandexed specimen, “I never knew your real name was Robert.”

“Yeah,” Robert forces a laugh. “It’s a family name.” They look at each other in silence. “ What’s yours?”

“Elliot.”

“Elliot?”

“Yeah, but I go by Eli usually.”

“That’s a stupid name.”

“And that was uncalled for.”

“What? I’m just being honest. Also I hate you. That’s like our thing.”

“Well yeah, but that one was personal, man. Jeez.”

“Yeah well I just lost my whole entire girlfriend so I’m a little upset at the moment.” Robert’s voice breaks as he speaks. Pretty soon, his entire face is running as he stood in the center of his apartment, sobbing uncontrollably. Eli slowly makes his way across the room and slowly puts an arm around his arch nemesis. Robert continues ugly-crying, and Eli gives him a few shoulder-pats in a superficial attempt to comfort him. Robert grabs the edge of Eli’s neon cape and blows his nose before he can stop him.

“Oh gross! What the heck is wrong with you!?” Eli asks, yanking the cape out of his hands.

Robert sniffles. “Well, I figured since your cape is such a putrid shade of green that it would blend right in.”

Eli pushes Robert off of him. “Okay, you know what? I’m going to help you feel better. Not because I like you, but because I can’t be everyone’s hero if the villain is too depressed to do anything worth stopping.” Robert tries to look offended, but deep down he knows he would do the exact same thing if the roles were reversed. “Before we do anything, though, do you by chance have an extra set of clothes I can change into? I feel a little overdressed for the occasion.” Robert rolls his eyes and walks into his bedroom.

“What size pants do you wear?” Robert shouts across the apartment.

“Depends, how stretchy are they?”

“Unlike you, we normal people don’t wear stretchy pants on a regular basis,” Robert says, coming out with a handful of clothes. “Here, just wear these.” He tosses a pair of black sweatpants at Eli. “They’re baggy and the waistband stretches, so these should be fine. And here’s a tshirt I never wear. And here’s a hoodie because it gets drafty in here, especially now that you’ve broken my door.” He tosses the rest of his clothes at him. “The bathroom is around the corner on the right hand side.” He gestures over to the corner, and Eli quickly exits the room.

Robert makes his way over to the couch and sits down, deflating the second he makes contact with the cushion. He pulls out his phone, half expecting to see a message from Liz. Of course, there was nothing, and Robert decides to initiate a conversation with her. He spends a few moments trying to compose a decent message, but ends up just sending “I’m sorry.” However, it only takes a few seconds for him to realize that the message won’t go through. Robert resorts to scrolling through five years worth of photos, each one more painful than the last. Eventually, Alpha Man comes back outside holding a mass of neon green in his arms. Robert gestures for Eli to throw his suit in the laundry hamper, then makes room for him on the couch. Eli sits down, and Robert notices he’s still wearing those ugly blue boots.

“Dude, take those off,” Robert says, scoffing at Eli’s shoes. “I don’t like having shoes on the carpet.”

“No, I’d rather keep them on. They’re quite comfortable actually, and I think they really bring the outfit together.”

“Literally, everyone knows that those are platforms. Just take them off.”

Eli scoffs, utterly offended that Robert would even suggest something like that. “I am utterly offended that you would even suggest something like that! These are not platforms, for I am naturally this tall.”

Robert just stares at him for a few moments before simply declaring, “No.” The two bicker back and forth for way too long before Robert finally caves in, explaining that he will just have to steam clean the carpet later.

“Well, I’m glad you‘ve finally come to your senses. Anyways, as I said earlier, I’m going to do my best to help you out for my own personal gain.” Robert ignores that last part and tries to pretend that Eli is being genuine. “So...what do you normally do on a nice afternoon like this?”

Robert immediately tears up. “I usually go out with Liz,” he says, his face flooding with tears and snot once again.

Eli furrows his eyebrows together, seeming to think way harder than his brain is capable of. “I’ve got it!” he says, dramatically standing up to demand the attention of the only other person in the room who is sitting directly next to him. “How about we have a dramatic fight!”

Robert rolls his eyes. “Of course you’d say that. That’s the whole reason you showed up here in the first place. I already told you, my invention isn’t even— ”

“No no, not a superhero/supervillain fight. A normal person fight. Just you and me.”

Robert lights up a little. “No stretchy pants?”

“No stretchy pants. Just normal clothes.”

“That actually sounds fun. Where do you wanna do this?”

A stupid grin creeps across Eli’s face. “How about right here!” He dramatically swings his leg around to kick me, but wildly miscalculated how much force he put into that kick. He immediately loses his balance and fell into my coffee table, breaking it and the picture frame on top of it.

“What the heck, why would you do that?!” Robert jumps off and attempts to roll Eli off the broken frame. “Oh god...this picture…” Robert’s voice shakes as he picks up the now wrinkled and slightly torn photo from behind the shards of glass. “This was my favorite photo from when Liz and I went to Montana for our third anniversary. She’s a hiking junkie, so I spent a year saving up enough money to take her to hike through the Rockies.” Robert barely makes it through before breaking down.

“Oh yeah,” Eli interjects, “I remember that year. That was the year where all of your inventions sucked, and I almost pitied you for your pathetic failures.”

Robert stops almost mid sob and looks up at Eli. “Ok. I’m ready to fight you, just not in here.”

“How about Pioneer Park down the street?”

“No not there. That’s too close to where I work, and I don’t want my boss to recognize me,”

“Oh, where do you work?”

“It’s a vintage video game shop called Nostalgic Video Games.”

“I’ve heard of that place! That’s where I got my— ” Eli gets interrupted by more of Robert’s sobs. “Oh what now?”

“That’s where I first met Liz,” he sniffles. “She needed a new controller for her Game Cube, and we just got to talking about or favorite games. Turns out both of us favor Paper Mario...you know Thousand Year Door right?”

“Of course I know it. It just figures people like you would favor such a game as that. Personally, I think Majora's Mask is the superior Game Cube game.”

Robert continues talking like Eli didn’t just voice his unwanted opinion. “I ended up getting in trouble with my boss for talking on the job, but she gave me her number and we had our first date right here in this apartment.” Robert’s entire face is running at this point. “We stayed up all night playing Paper Mario and— ”

“Alright look. You seriously need to move on from her. This is a little ridiculous.”

Robert wipes his nose. “Dude, it’s only been like an hour,” he sniffles, sounding quite confused.

“Exactly. And I have just the solution to help you get over her.” Eli pulls out his phone and opens up Tinder. “I’ll help you set up a dating profile. As you can see, I’ve been on here for quite some time, so I’d say I know what I’m doing.”

“I’d argue to say the less time you spend on a dating website, the better you are but go off I guess,” Robert mumbles under his breath as he takes Eli’s phone. He starts reading through his profile, which got progressively worse as he went on. “Well, now I know where you got your name from, Alpha Man.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Eli asks, getting overly defensive.

“Well for starters, every single one of your pictures is just you in a stupid fedora.”

“You’re just mad that I have better style than you.”

“Says the guy who thinks a neon green bodysuit looks flattering on anyone.” Before Eli can get another word in, Robert continues. “You also said that you ‘prefer a woman who can cook,’ which wouldn't be a problem if you didn’t finish that statement with ‘so she’ll be most useful in the kitchen.’ That’s like super messed up.”

“How? I’m just stating my preferences.”

“You later just said that you don’t want any ‘radical feminists who think they have opinions.’ Dude, I thought you were a superhero. That’s just straight up sexist.”

“I bet Liz came to you with a bunch of femenist nonsense and look where that got you. You’re sad and alone and so desperate for help that you came to me, your arch nemesis, for comfort.”

“First off, you basically forced yourself into my apartment and then decided that I needed your help. Second, have you ever been with a woman? Ever?”

“I’ve played HuniePop, does that count?”

“How do people look up to you? Like you have the personality of a vat of grease. It’s not even hot grease; it’s cold grease that’s been sitting in the same vat for weeks. That’s you. You’re gross.”

“Oh yeah? Well you—”

“Nope. Get out of my apartment. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“But what about—”

“Burn the clothes. I don’t want them now that they’ve touched your grease. Just get out of my apartment and I’ll beat the crap out of you later. Maybe for once I’ll stop holding back because I feel bad for you.”

“Holding back?? I assure you the reason you lose every week is because of my awesome superpower!”

“Oh my God, ‘the power of intellect and atheism’ is not a superpower! And the only reason that you win every week is because I intentionally put a really obvious flaw in my invention that anyone with eyes can see.”

“But...why would you—”

“Because the one time I didn’t let you win, you faked your own death for six months just to see if people would miss you. And to be quite honest, those were the best six months of my life, because I finally got some downtime to spend with Liz instead of dedicating everything to making you feel important. Now could you please, just get out of my apartment and let me cry about my ex girlfriend.”

Eli turns dramatically. “Fine, have it your way. But while you cry over your stupid ex, remember that females come and go, but guys like me stick around for the long haul. It seems like women still need to learn that concept, but it seems you’re starting to learn, right?”

Robert stands in silence for a few moments, tears still silently streaming down his face. Then a look of complete anger washes over his face. “You know what? I’m done with this, whole charade. I’ve dedicated ten years of my life to creating and perfecting this persona I created because I saw some sad nerd on Craig’s List asking for a superhero/supervillain roleplay partner, and because I was a sad nerd too, I bought into it.”

“I’m not a sad nerd,” Eli mumbles.

“I’ve at least had sex with a real life woman! I may not be very good at it but at least I’ve had it!”

“That doesn’t mean anything!”

“I bet you still live in your mom’s basement!”

“She said it’s fine as long as I pay rent!”

“You are literally thirty. Grow up and join the real world, ‘Alpha Man.’ I’m done being the Black Falcon.” Robert turns and goes into his room and comes out holding a mass of black spandex in one arm and a rolled up tapestry in the other. “And for the record, I’ve always hated the stretchy pants,” he says, throwing the costume at Eli. He’s barely able to catch it.

“But, if you won’t be my super villain anymore, who will?” he pleads, picking up the rouge glove he failed to catch.

“Go make another Craig’s List post,” Robert replies coldly. He uses his free hand to reach into his pocket and pulls out a small box. “I’ve had this for over six months, but I was too afraid to just commit. But I think it’s now or never.” Robert looks at the ring box and tears up a little. “Now get out of my apartment. I have to go win back Liz.” With that, Robert quickly leaves, throwing the tapestry in the trashcan on the way out. Eli waits a few moments to let Robert have his dramatic exit before he awkwardly leaves, accidentally knocking over the trash can in the process.

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Photo from Tumblr