Rage
"1"
It wasn’t often that Brian actually made use of the employee’s cafeteria at work. He usually enjoyed getting out for an hour or so, stretch his legs, maybe do some browsing and let the office fog get cleared out before the second round after lunch. This particular day was cold and rainy he had opted not to do so.
Normally if he stayed in the building he would eat at his desk so that he could have some time to himself, but today he decided, for no real reason, to go to the lunchroom.
He was sitting alone, as he preferred, at the corner table behind a column, reading with his back to the room when he overheard the conversation a few feet away from him.
“You’re not going to believe what I ran across the other day.”
“A fucking comic book? Still going through puberty, are we?”
“Screw you—take a look at this thing. Anything catch your eye?”
There was silence for a moment as the thing was evidently looked over.
“You mean besides the fact that the cover is a drawing of two fags involved in a blow job?”
That caught Brian’s attention—there was only one book on the market that could possibly fit that description.
“Look closely, asshole—anyone familiar?”
“…Holy shit, Batman.”
“Has anyone else seen this thing, like maybe Vance?”
“…You want to be the one to tell him?”
“I think I’ll take a pass on that, thanks.”
“Get a mental picture of the look on his face when he finds out that his partner is a gay hero—in spandex, no less.”
“He’ll shit—in that calm, controlled way he has, of course.”
“I can see it now—‘Eh, Brian, might I have a word, if you don’t mind’?”
“Like Kinney would give a shit.”
“He might if his partnership contract has a morals clause.”
“And the odds of that would be……? What? Infinitesimal? Like Kinney would sign anything like that.”
“From what I hear, he’d even fuck Vance if it would advance his career.”
“He’s not that bad.”
“He’s a prick.”
“And the best creative mind in the company—and have you ever seen him pitch a client? He’s fucking good.”
“And good at fucking, too from what I hear.”
Tired of the conversation behind him and finished with his lunch, Brian stood up, turned around, fixed his co-workers with a glare, tossed his trash in the can and left them staring at one another, wondering what he’d do.
Shit.
About an hour later Brian and Cynthia were sitting his office going over the new design of that cereal box when Vance knocked on the frame of his open door.
“Brian, have you a minute?”
Excusing herself, Cynthia returned to her own desk as the owner walked in, taking a seat. She closed the door on her way out.
He pulled the offending comic from his jacket pocket as he sat in one of the easy chairs opposite Brian’s desk. “I’m not sure if this is really quite the image that we’re trying to cultivate. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what this is about?”
“It appears to be a superhero getting a blowjob,
“…Yes, and I couldn’t help but notice that he bears a striking resemblance to you.”
“I think the jaw is a little weak to be me.”
Vance fixed him with a look. “And unless I’m mistaken, the character on his knees seems to look quite a bit like that young man you brought to the cookout at my home a few months ago. Would you mind explaining this?”
Brian sat back in his chair. What the fuck. “It’s written, drawn and produced by two friends of mine. They chose to use me as the model for the lead character. I had nothing to do with it.”
Vance seemed somewhat exasperated. “Surely you could have stopped this if you had wanted to.”
“I don’t mind being a force for good,
“How much distribution is this thing getting?”
“I’m not directly involved in it, but I believe that it’s gotten national distribution, mostly to small venues.”
“And it’s selling well?”
“It generally sells out.”
“Surely you see the problem here?”
Brian leaned back in his chair. “Actually I don’t. My name isn’t on it anywhere, neither is Vanguard’s. There’s no direct connection—I’m not in any way supporting it or financing it, nor do I receive any compensation from the thing. I simply look like the main character.”
“I found this thumb tacked to the bulletin board in the employees lounge.”
Brian’s intercom buzzed. He hit the button. “Brian? I’m sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Schmitt is here.”
“Thank you. I’ll just be a minute. Maybe he’d like some coffee.” He looked over at Vance. “He’s the President of that German drug company trying to crack the American market.” Vance nodded in approval.
He handed the comic to Brian. “Make sure that this doesn’t get in the way of anything.”
“Don’t worry,
Vance stood up to go, “You know, Brian, not all of our clients will see this with the same humor you evidently seem to. I would appreciate you’re making sure that you’re not associated with this anymore than necessary.”
The threat was obvious, not needing a response.
Things were quiet for another month and a half. No one had the nerve to mention the comic to Brian and he certainly wasn’t about to bring it up. Business went on as usual, none of the clients had any idea, or if they did, had the tact or sense to say nothing about it. In fact, there was no reason to—Brian still went to work every day, did his job better than anyone and brooked no bullshit.
Then the third issue hit the stands.
The cover for this one was, if possible, even more provocative than the one featuring a full color blowjob. This one had the character, JT on all fours with Rage about to mount him from behind, both had their pants—or their spandex down around their knees and little was left to the imagination.
This time Vance didn’t bother to let the office gossip reach him,
he was waiting for Brian at
“This is completely unacceptable, you must realize this.”
“
“Obviously you’ve seen this before?”
“Two men fucking? Sure, all the time.”
Vance was not amused. “You saw this issue before it was printed, didn’t you?”
“Like I told you, I have nothing to do with this.”
He seemed to be counting to ten. “That wasn’t my question. You saw this before it hit the stands, didn’t you?”
Of course he had, for Chrissake. Justin had drawn the thing while he was alternately sitting on the couch and working at the desk in the loft. “I saw some of the sketches, I didn’t see the finished layouts.”
“Good God, Brian—how am I going to explain this to the clients?”
Brian leaned over, getting his laptop from his briefcase and setting it up on the desk. Plugging it in, he began booting the thing. “Somehow I don’t think it’s too likely that our clients read that shit and if they do, I doubt if any of them would have the balls to say anything—in fact, they’d probably get off on it. Maybe we could arrange a signing party.”
“I am less than amused, Brian. You do something about this. Am I making myself clear?”
“
“Then I suggest that you explain to these friends of yours that this is becoming an embarrassment for you and your company and if this sort of pornography continues, your continued employment might well be in jeopardy.”
Brian looked at him for a second. The man was bluffing. He had to be.
“Come on,
His bluff called, Vance knew it would never stand up in court, but he was still furious about the thing. “Brian, I’m telling you to deal with this before it becomes a problem.” He left the door open as he walked out of the office, passing Cynthia on her way in.
She glanced at the comic on Brian’s desk. “It sounds like he’s not too happy about your extracurricular activities making print.” She looked closer at the cover drawing. “Wouldn’t that hurt your knees, or are yours calloused by now?”
“Fuck off.”
She was laughing as she handed him his schedule for the day.
No more was said for several months. Occasionally a copy of the now monthly comic would show up on either a bulletin board at Vanguard or on a table of the lunchroom, but Vance didn’t make a point of it. Perhaps the fact that the later covers were slightly tamer in comparison to the ones he had so objected to helped, but still, he wasn’t happy about the thing.
After about six quiet months, Brian had hoped that the whole stupid thing had blown over—until the afternoon he was on telephone to the coast in a conference call when the client asked him if he had, by any chance, seen that new gay comic that was making a splash.
“Excuse me?” Now Brian had met the man on the other end of the phone in a face to face they had arranged a couple of months before in LA.
“My kid showed an issue to me last night, Bri—the main character
caught my eye right away—it’s you, right? So I checked out some
of the past issues. It’s out of
Vance jumped in—“George, I’ve seen this little trifle myself and Brian and I have discussed it…”
“Yeah, whatever. Is he still there,
“George, like I told
“Well I’d appreciate it if you could put me in touch with them or their agents. I can go through the publisher, but I prefer to just cut to the chase.”
Brian and Vance looked at each other, Cynthia; sitting in taking notes leaned forward slightly.
“Which chase is that?”
“I think this thing has some development potential, I’d like to talk to them about rights and how they see the series evolving, what they’d like to do with it. These creative types usually have some ideas about where they’d like to see their creations end up.”
Brian took a short moment before continuing smoothly. “I’d be happy to speak to them about this if you’d like, George and I’m sure that Vanguard’s legal could go over any contracts you might come up with the standard percentages and all worked out.”
Vance sat back; Brian had the floor and was covering the bases.
“By a coincidence, I’ll be seeing the artist this evening for dinner. I can give the writer a call…”
“That’s—let me see here—Michael Novotny and Justin Taylor, right?”
“That’s right. I can call Michael and run the idea by them and then if they’re willing, we could set up a conference call for you all to talk—say tomorrow at this time?”
“Perfect.”
Vance spoke up before the connection was broken. “George, this seems to be all working out smoothly. Might I ask about the campaign and the storyboards we sent you? Is there anything you’d like…?”
“They’re fine,
Brian laughed out loud. “George, you know that the first rule of negotiation is to not let the other side know you want what they have.”
“Fucking A I know that. I’m making an exception for this. I’ll talk to all of you tomorrow.”
The connection was cut. “This is not literary or entertainment agency, Brian. I’m not sure that we should be using our legal department to go over any contracts this may involve.”
“I realize that. I just didn’t want George to think he could steamroll them. I’m sure there wouldn’t be a problem getting their publisher’s legal people to deal with this, but I thought that you might like the fees this could generate if it hits. Besides, I’d say there’s a good chance we’d be able to corner the ads for whatever they come up with producing.”
“Quite.”
Vance was ready to leave. “I’ll have the contracts for George’s ads sent down to legal and give them a heads up that they could be looking at entertainment contracts soon.”
Brian picked up the phone. “Mikey? You’re gonna shit…”