Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality by Bill Peters Page A

college women who are carrying their shoes.
    â€œIt actually looks bad on the whole club, that we’re leaving first,” Real Dad goes on. “We’re customers. Those guys never pay a dime in there; they do nothing to support the Bug Jar economy. The irony lays claim to them , in actuality.”
    We stop at the corner of the side street where Real Dad’s car is parked. His face is knotted up.
    â€œWell what?” he says.
    â€œWhat do you mean what.”
    â€œWhat are you thinking about, right there.”
    I tell him I’m not thinking about anything. But I’m reallythinking: Had God sent Garrett Alfieri from the Biblecopter tonight to make me ask if I should still be making jokes about Holy Grail Points, about Colonel Hellstache, to lock me in the Sad Archives Basement with regards to Necro Maverick Jetpantsing?
    But here’s what Real Dad is thinking I’m thinking: “Why are you looking at me like I’m some guy who has to retreat into my Tweed Panic Room, with my Pet Sounds outtakes?”
    â€œWhy would I look at you like you have a Tweed Panic Room?”
    Except then, the Dam Breaking Loose. Because, out of complete nowhere, Real Dad goes: “You want to see something? You want to see Rock and Roll? Here. Watch.”
    â€œOkay, Dad, what are you going …”
    â€œYou don’t think I can do it, do you?” he says. “You’ve been looking at me the whole night like I’m stand-up-comedy material, like Hi, I’m Nate, you know, The Pop Culture Essayist; the Deferential, you know, Normal-Guy Writer—let me just sit back in my flannel shirt and fold my arms and let the dramatic irony play out among the earnest. What if I told you I’ve thought about starting my own music magazine, sort of building on what Suck is doing? With raw, balls-out-of-fly commentary?” He pulls his fly zipper outward, toward me. “I talked with Carl about it tonight, talked about it with him two months ago.”
    He exhales toward the sky and quiets his voice: “Just—let me show you what I am going to need to do.”
    And suddenly I really start to really worry. As in, is he going to say: “Sometimes I think I might not make it through this life,” and am I going to have to tell him: “Well, hang inthere!” Because, the last time he was back at Mom’s house was to do laundry, four trash bags of it. And, what if, is he going to kill himself? Is he going to hold his hand out to me, and say, padded-cell-gently: Son, watch your father, and then pull a gun from his pocket and brain-spray his head all over the storefront behind him?
    So, within seconds, I have my First-Aid Rays fully charged. I care about my parents. Real Dad’s not a Tweed Panic Room Hashbrown Gargoyle. We have fun together. I’m ready to Go Off the Top Ropes, ready to do a diving save if Real Dad reaches for a gun in his sock, ready to Drop an Elbow for Life.
    Instead, he goes: “I’ll bet you I can kick the receiver hook off that payphone at the corner.”
    He points to the payphone half a block down. At that point, all you can think is: Fuck.
    â€œOne clean kick, clean break. Hook: off.” He smacks the heel of his right hand into his left palm. “Clean break. Twenty dollars. You’re taking the bet.”
    He stands over me. “Can’t we …”
    â€œI am your father and we are not going to discuss it!”
    I sit on the curb. A few blocks up, a man with longish hair—lacrosse-long—bends over and vomits into a storm drain. I’m not even looking when Real Dad takes the phone off the hook, looks both ways, gives a running start from around the corner, jumps, and jams his boot into the payphone. He does it silently, clean break, like he’s been practicing all his life. The hook plinks on the ground. He drops it in my lap.
    â€œThat’s great Dad, thanks,” I say.
    â€œOh no thank you ,