All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman Read Free Book Online Page A

watches her watchclouds out the airplane window. The Perfectionist notices she’s being studied. She doesn’t look over. She keeps her eyes on the clouds.
    He swallows, clears his throat. His thumb and forefinger rub together.
    ‘Perf ?’ he asks.
    The Perfectionist looks over. He’s looking right at her. For the first time she looks right at him. She reaches out and traces her index finger across his lips.
    ‘Literal?’ she asks.
    ‘Literal?’ says the Broken-Hearted Man. ‘Nobody’s called me that in years.’
    The Literal and the Perfectionist dated in high school. They were very much in love. They were each other’s first. They separated to go to university but pledged to stay together.
    To prove his love the Literal gave the Perfectionist his heart. He put it in a shoebox, wrapped the box in silver paper and carried it down to the post office. After licking twenty-nine dollars and forty-seven cents’ worth of stamps, he addressed the package to the Perfectionist, c/o McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.
    Three weeks later, the same shoebox arrived in the Literal’s mailbox. It was wrapped in the same silver paper, but the box had been opened. His heart was inside. At that moment, the Literal stopped being the Literal. He became the Broken-Hearted Man. He was so crushed he never talked to her again.
    ‘What are the chances I’d be sitting next to her on an airplane?’ the Broken-Hearted Man asks himself. Impossible odds. Must be fate. Daily for thirteen years, sometimes three times a day, he’d rehearsed this moment. He knew exactly what he was going to say, what tone of voice he’d use. He wouldn’t be bitter – that would make him look weak. He’d be casual. He would be glad to see her. It wouldn’t be the most important moment of his day.
    ‘It’s been so long,’ the Perfectionist says.
    All the Broken-Hearted Man’s plans evaporate. His eyes go wide. He can’t stop it. He can’t spin it or control it. It simply floods out of him.
    ‘Why did you do that?’ he wails. ‘Why would you do that to me? Why did you return my heart?’
    The Perfectionist stares at the Broken-Hearted Man. Her teeth grind together.
    ‘I loved you so much,’ the Perfectionist says. Her eyes have gone glossy. ‘Without it, what would you have loved me with?’
    The Broken-Hearted Man says nothing. He looks at his shoes and nods. He moves to the back of the airplane, finds an empty seat.
    Tom returns from the washroom. He sees the Perfectionist crying. He strokes her hair with his hand. He almost feels her lean into him. She doesn’t hiccup.

FOURTEEN

THE BUTTON FACTORY GALLERY
    Tom watches the Perfectionist sniff. In the washroom he’d realized that smell, like sound, was invisible. He scrubbed the deodorant from his underarms. He ran on the spot as fast as he could for six minutes. He’s still out of breath. Sweat drips from his forehead. There are moisture stains under his arms.
    The Perfectionist leans towards him. She sniffs. He unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt and holds it open at the collar. The Perfectionist leans closer. Tom flaps his arms like a chicken. She closes her eyes. She breathes in until her lungs are full.
    ‘Who are you fighting?’ Tom asks. A good question, but Tom’s referring to a specific experience they had at the Projectionist’s art show at the Button Factory Gallery.
    Tom and the Perfectionist both received an invitation. He’d assumed she wouldn’t want to go but he was wrong. She wanted to see what the Projectionist called art. The Projectionist is the only superhero ever to receive a Canada Council grant.
    The reception started at seven and Tom and the Perfectionist stepped from their cab at nine. They entered the gallery. It was shoulder to shoulder with superheroes. Everybody was there: the Cartographer, 360, Fifteen-minutesago, the Barometer, even the Scenester.
    Tom and the Perfectionist circulated through the hot room. The Perfectionist was sweating