Cousins

The store was firmly shut and looked. The massive chain draped through the handles, secured with a lock that would hold the imprisoned titans from escaping, gave little doubt the place would ever open again. We watched the man work, spreading the large boards over the glass windows, screwing them directly into the siding. Soon they would be tagged with graffiti, left to rot away like the rest of the boarded up shops in this neighborhood; startups with high goals and an economy that couldn’t sustain them. I’ll never forget the look on my cousin’s face that day, the closing of the one and only comic book store in our small town in rural West Virginia. For eight year old me, it was the closest I had ever seen to someone’s heart literally breaking.

“C’mon.” The words were barely more than a whisper and I felt his sweaty hand, much larger than my own close around my fingers. “It’s almost lunch time and Grandma will whoop us if we aren’t back by then.” 

He was fifteen then, caught up in the fight to become a man, the oldest of three children born to a constantly absent mother and an abusive, alcoholic father. He was the man of the house, responsible for his siblings, both safely back at our grandmother’s home. The sun was just beginning to fully rise in the sky, warming out young bodies and telling us lunch would be ready any minute now. I was also astute enough to know it was because the longer he stood there, watching his childhood refuge be boarded up, the closer he came to crying and that was something he refused to let me see, a sentiment that had been beaten into him from his step-father. Looking back on that day I realize it was the end of the one safe space he felt he had. That comic book shop, lined with the bright covers and endless pages of heroes defeating the evil villains, was the one place my cousin could fully be himself. He could be vulnerable. He could be free.

I hadn’t really read a comic book before that summer. Sure, I’d see a couple of them in school, passed around by the boys in the class. From the way they had spoken, it wasn’t really something for girls, though I had been interested. The first day the four of us were together, Charlie had squashed that principle, immediately showing me one of his Iron Man comics. From the first page I was hooked. We bonded that summer, walking the two blocks to the shop, neither of us with any money to spend, but the freedom to browse. We eyed the rare comics, tucked neatly behind the counter in their protective plastic. We dreamed of one day being rich enough to own them. We fantasized about opening up our own shop. And then it abruptly crashed down around us, with every chain and padlock, board and screw. 

The front door squeaked open, the old wood protesting being forced to move. The paint was beginning to chip, the once brilliant blue of the exterior had faded. “Lunch is on the table. You youngins need to wash up before you can have yours,” my grandmother’s voice rang out through the house and we immediately took off up the stairs to the lone bathroom to do as she said. I could still see the pain on my cousin’s face and went to say something, anything, but he cut me off first.

“Not a word of this to anyone.” It wasn’t exactly a threat, but it wasn’t kind. All I could do was nod, fighting to keep the fear from my eyes. I knew his family wouldn’t understand, but Grandma had always supported us; had supported him. Surely it was safe to let her in on this. His words left no room for argument, though, and it was the last day he brought his comic books.

We lost touch for a while. I was hung and he was a teen, able to drive. He began to start his own life, his own family. Cliche as it sounds he fell in with the wrong crowd, became a father right out of high school. He went to work for the local Walmart, unable to find anything else with just his high school diploma in our small, rural town. My path took me a different direction; college, graduate school. I moved from our rural town into a large city a plane ride away. I began my own family. Yet, I still remember that summer, the life lessons that had been learned in a single day; of love and loss, passion and the realization that dreams don’t always come true.

My life has kept me away from my hometown. I have prioritized other things in my attempt to climb the corporate ladder. When the news came of my grandmother’s passing I knew it was time to return, to see those I had forgotten. But mainly, I went for Charlie, understanding more about his life than eight year old me could fathom. Comics had been his refuge. He was a collector now, passing the love onto his own children, spending the little extra money he had on the one thing that continued to bring him happiness. He would never be in the position I am. He would never have the disposable income or the means to I had. I owed him more than I could ever repay for those two months spent teaching me that my gender didn’t define what I could like or what I could do. I owed him for teaching me more about myself and the meaning of what a hero truly was.

The church was quieter than I expected, hushed voices greeting one another as the sun filtered through the ornate stained glass windows of the old stone building. I almost laughed at it, this place feeling unlike a funeral in every way possible, the summer sun warming the wooden benches uncomfortably so and I was transported back to my childhood days, back to the summer sun beating down on us as we walked back and forth from our grandmother’s home. Subconsciously I smoothed the black dress of the wrinkles the car would have caused, scanning for any sign of him. It didn’t take me long. He had changed since our youth, growing into himself. His wife and children were beside him and I took a steadying breath, trying to still the nerves coursing through me.

“Charlie,” I greeted hesitantly, unsure of the reception I would get. I had disappeared and I could understand if I wasn’t immediately welcomed back into this tight knit group of people. He turned, and for a moment I thought I was going to be rejected, turned away from the intimate gathering, but then his strong arms were around me, crushing me in a tight embrace. Tears fell. No longer was I able to control the emotions for both the man who had shaped my formative years in two months or for the woman we had lost. 

We just held each other, each needing the release of the grief we had bottle for what felt like years. The mourning of the loss of innocence, of regrets. When he spoke, his voice was rough, filled with unnamable emotions, “I wasn’t sure you would make it.”

And I laughed. What else was there to do? Of course I would be there to grieve the loss of a woman who helped raise all of us. “I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else,” I whispered back, my own voice sounding foreign. Pulling back I nodded to his family and he didn’t hesitate to make the introductions, bringing me into his world with a wife and two children. 

“Before everything starts, I need to thank you. You helped shape me. You helped me know my own worth. You taught me what it truly means to be a hero and that being female isn’t a weakness.” The words rushed out of me, the nerves and tears jumbling a few of them together. Before I realized what I was doing my hand was in my oversized bag, clutching the plastic wrapped comic I had searched specifically for him. Amazing Fantasy 15. The first appearance of Spider Man in any comic book. 

He said nothing, but his look spoke more than either of us could at that moment. “Thank you,” was all either of us could manage to say.