The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Authors: Michael Chabon
Tags: Unknown, Fiction, Suspense, Humorous, Historical, Coming of Age, Action & Adventure, Authorship, Heroes in Mass Media, Comic Books; Strips; Etc., Czech Americans
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into it that morning as they all were leaving the house together for the last time, by way or in lieu of expressing the feelings of love, fear, and hopefulness that his brother's escape inspired. It was the drawing of Harry Houdini, taking a calm cup of tea in the middle of the sky, that Thomas had made in his notebook during his abortive career as a librettist. Josef studied it, feeling as he sailed toward freedom as if he weighed nothing at all, as if every precious burden had been lifted from him.
PART II
A COUPLE
of BOY
GENIUSES
1
When the alarm clock went off at six-thirty that Friday, Sammy awoke to find that Sky City, a chromium cocktail tray stocked with moderne bottles, shakers, and swizzle sticks, was under massive attack. In the skies around the floating hometown of D'Artagnan Jones, the strapping blond hero of Sammy's Pimpernel of the Planets comic strip, flapped five bat-winged demons, horns carefully whorled like whelks, muscles feathered in with a fine brush. A giant, stubbly spider with the eyes of a woman dangled on a hairy thread from the gleaming underside of Sky City. Other demons with goat legs and baboon faces, brandishing sabers, clambered down ladders and swung in on ropes from the deck of a fantastic caravel with a painstakingly rendered rigging of aerials and vanes. In command of these sinister forces, hunched over the drawing table, wearing only black kneesocks clocked with red lozenges, and swaddled in a baggy pair of off-white Czechoslovakian underpants, sat Josef Kavalier, scratching away with one of Sammy's best pens.
Sammy slid down to the foot of his bed to peer over his cousin's shoulder. "What the hell are you doing to my page?" he said.
The captain of the demonic invasion force, absorbed in his deployment and tipped dangerously back on the tall stool, was caught by surprise. He jumped, and the stool tipped, but he caught hold of the table's edge and neatly righted himself, then reached out just in time to catch the bottle of ink before it, too, could tip over. He was quick.
"I am sorry," Josef said. "I was very careful to don't harm your drawings. See." He lifted an overlaid sheet from the ambitious, Prince Valiant-style full-page panel Sammy had been working on, and the five noisome bat-demons disappeared. "I used separate papers for everything." He peeled away the baboon-faced demon raiders and lifted the paper spider by the end of her thread. With a few quick motions of his long-fingered hands, the hellish siege of Sky City was lifted.
"Holy cow!" said Sammy. He clapped his cousin on his freckled shoulder. "Christ, look at this! Let me see those things." He took the kidney-shaped sheet that Josef Kavalier had filled with slavering coal-eyed horned demons and cut to overlay Sammy's own drawing. The proportions of the muscular demons were perfect, their poses animated and plausible, the inkwork mannered but strong-lined. The style was far more sophisticated than Sammy's, which, while confident and plain and occasionally bold, was never anything more than cartooning. "You really can draw."
"I was two years studying at the Academy of Fine Arts. In Prague."
"The Academy of Fine Arts." Sammy's boss, Sheldon Anapol, was impressed by men with fancy educations. The ravishing, impossible scheme that had been tormenting Sammy's imagination for months seemed all at once to have a shot at getting off the ground. "Okay, you can draw monsters. What about cars? Buildings?" he asked, faking an employerly monotone, trying to conceal his excitement.
"Of course."
"Your anatomy seems not bad at all."
"It's a fascination for me."
"Can you draw the sound of a fart?"
"Sorry?"
"At Empire they put out a whole bunch of items that make farting sounds. A fart, you know what that means?" Sammy clapped the cupped palm of one hand to the opposite armpit and pumped his arm, squirting out a battery of curt, wet blasts. His cousin, eyes wide, got the idea. "Naturally, we can't say it outright in the ads.
PART II
A COUPLE
of BOY
GENIUSES
1
When the alarm clock went off at six-thirty that Friday, Sammy awoke to find that Sky City, a chromium cocktail tray stocked with moderne bottles, shakers, and swizzle sticks, was under massive attack. In the skies around the floating hometown of D'Artagnan Jones, the strapping blond hero of Sammy's Pimpernel of the Planets comic strip, flapped five bat-winged demons, horns carefully whorled like whelks, muscles feathered in with a fine brush. A giant, stubbly spider with the eyes of a woman dangled on a hairy thread from the gleaming underside of Sky City. Other demons with goat legs and baboon faces, brandishing sabers, clambered down ladders and swung in on ropes from the deck of a fantastic caravel with a painstakingly rendered rigging of aerials and vanes. In command of these sinister forces, hunched over the drawing table, wearing only black kneesocks clocked with red lozenges, and swaddled in a baggy pair of off-white Czechoslovakian underpants, sat Josef Kavalier, scratching away with one of Sammy's best pens.
Sammy slid down to the foot of his bed to peer over his cousin's shoulder. "What the hell are you doing to my page?" he said.
The captain of the demonic invasion force, absorbed in his deployment and tipped dangerously back on the tall stool, was caught by surprise. He jumped, and the stool tipped, but he caught hold of the table's edge and neatly righted himself, then reached out just in time to catch the bottle of ink before it, too, could tip over. He was quick.
"I am sorry," Josef said. "I was very careful to don't harm your drawings. See." He lifted an overlaid sheet from the ambitious, Prince Valiant-style full-page panel Sammy had been working on, and the five noisome bat-demons disappeared. "I used separate papers for everything." He peeled away the baboon-faced demon raiders and lifted the paper spider by the end of her thread. With a few quick motions of his long-fingered hands, the hellish siege of Sky City was lifted.
"Holy cow!" said Sammy. He clapped his cousin on his freckled shoulder. "Christ, look at this! Let me see those things." He took the kidney-shaped sheet that Josef Kavalier had filled with slavering coal-eyed horned demons and cut to overlay Sammy's own drawing. The proportions of the muscular demons were perfect, their poses animated and plausible, the inkwork mannered but strong-lined. The style was far more sophisticated than Sammy's, which, while confident and plain and occasionally bold, was never anything more than cartooning. "You really can draw."
"I was two years studying at the Academy of Fine Arts. In Prague."
"The Academy of Fine Arts." Sammy's boss, Sheldon Anapol, was impressed by men with fancy educations. The ravishing, impossible scheme that had been tormenting Sammy's imagination for months seemed all at once to have a shot at getting off the ground. "Okay, you can draw monsters. What about cars? Buildings?" he asked, faking an employerly monotone, trying to conceal his excitement.
"Of course."
"Your anatomy seems not bad at all."
"It's a fascination for me."
"Can you draw the sound of a fart?"
"Sorry?"
"At Empire they put out a whole bunch of items that make farting sounds. A fart, you know what that means?" Sammy clapped the cupped palm of one hand to the opposite armpit and pumped his arm, squirting out a battery of curt, wet blasts. His cousin, eyes wide, got the idea. "Naturally, we can't say it outright in the ads.
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