Chapter Text
It was a chilly fall morning. A light drizzle tapped against the windows of the music shop. Gee was polishing guitars as a record spun on the shop’s communal record player. The job was pretty much a dead end for her, but she didn’t mind. It kept her busy. She was a broke art student, and she would usually spend the money she earned as soon as the check cleared. She knew this was a possibility when she decided to work at a music shop. She’d never been talented when it came to playing instruments, but she loved music nonetheless. She collected vinyl, CDs, posters, basically any physical copy of the sounds she adored. She could sing a little, but she was too shy to do it in front of anyone else, so nothing ever came of it.
Instead, she preferred fine arts. Well, technically it was fine arts. She liked to paint and draw, but Gee didn’t consider her art “fine.” It was intentionally messy and childish. Since she was a kid, she had a fascination with superheroes. She always wanted to be a comic book author, but getting into the business was difficult. She went to art school to attempt to kickstart her career, but so far, it had only resulted in harsh criticism and student loan debt.
The very little amount of money she did end up keeping from her job went straight into the pockets of the university. Gee was lucky if she got to eat three meals a day. Ray, her coworker, noticed her getting progressively skinnier over the last few months, so he started bringing extra sandwiches for her. She wasn’t in a position to turn him down, but she always promised she’d pay him back one day.
The bell chimed to signal that someone was at the door. It’s eight in the morning. Gee stepped out from behind a shelf to see who dared to enter the shop this early.
“We’re not open yet-” But she stopped herself when she saw the short figure at the door. His hair was short and black, with some fringe swooping over one side of his face. He wore a muscle tee that exposed his toned, inked arms. His pants were slightly too big for his waist, showing off the swallows tattooed on his hips. This was the boy she’d seen at that hardcore show the other night.
He was the guitarist. Normally, Gee focused on the singers, but it was hard to miss him. He was doing everything but playing that damn guitar. He thrashed and threw back his head in a way that made Gee lock her eyes onto him. She couldn’t believe that it was the same guy who stood in front of her now. This time, he looked meek, like a puppy who’d just been scolded. She felt her cheeks flush, suddenly embarrassed that she’d told him off.
“Oh,” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I can come back later-”
“No!” Gee interrupted, a little too eager. She pulled herself together before continuing. “No, it’s fine. I can make an exception. What’cha lookin’ for?”
He looked at her a little skeptically before deciding he was in a hurry, so he should just go with it. “Strings. One of mine busted.”
“Yeah, well, you were playing pretty rough.” She stopped breathing. Shit. “I mean, were you playing pretty rough?” Smooth one, Gee.
“I always do,” He chuckled, following her to the strings.
“Here,” She pointed to the shelf displaying strings in various shapes, sizes, and colors. “I’ll be sorting records over there. Just shout if you need me.”
He nodded and she walked away. She secretly hoped he’d forgotten everything he knew about the instrument he played like it was a part of his own body. She couldn’t play for shit, but she sure as hell knew how guitars worked. She knew which strings were returned the most frequently. She knew which ones splintered and which ones would glide under your fingers like butter. She could probably learn to play if she had the time, but if she wasn’t working, she was in class. If she wasn’t in class, she was drawing. If she wasn’t drawing, she was at some shitty venue watching underground bands scream into microphones. She was booked.
Gee walked over to the record player to flip the vinyl, then went back to her work. She lugged boxes of vinyl out to the crates that she’d carefully organized by genre and alphabetical order. She sat the box down next to the punk section and began to restock the B’s. She stocked up three copies of Reject All American by Bikini Kill, before adding two copies of Damaged by Black Flag behind them. She repeated this process until the short punk boy approached her.
“You ready?” She smiled up at him, standing up from the box.
“Yeah,” He said, grabbing his wallet from his pocket as the two approached the counter. “I like that you guys spin vinyl instead of using a computer or something.”
“It sounds better that way.” She punched numbers into the cash register. “$7.99.” He handed her a wad of cash as she put the strings into a small paper bag. “Cool tattoos, what’s it say?”
He pressed his fists together to show her his knuckles that spelled out Halloween. “I was born on Halloween.”
“That’s awesome,” She said, passing the bag to him. “Have a good day…” She trailed off, realizing she didn’t know his name.
“You too!”
And with that, he was out the door.
-
When Ray came in at noon and tossed Gee a sandwich in a plastic bag. She clumsily caught it, tossing back a smile. He clocked in then went to the back-right corner of the store to restock drumsticks. He tried to learn to drum once, and he wasn’t terrible, but his heart was stolen by the guitar. He was the most talented guitarist Gee knew. He was technical but still experimental. His movements were swift and confident. Ray was the reason Gee wished she had time to practice. She looked up to him.
“Thanks for the sandwich,” Gee said. “I promise I’ll pay you back.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Ray said, brushing off her concerns.
“I’m worried about it.” Gee confessed. “I feel like I should just drop out. All these classes do is take my money and make me cry.”
Ray heaved a box of capos to the guitar section, Gee following him to help him sort them by brand. “Don’t drop out. What are you gonna do if you don’t get to write your comics? Seriously, you’ll have a midlife crisis at twenty-one.”
Gee sighed. “You’re right. Having a degree doesn’t guarantee me a job at DC, though.”
“No, but it helps. Why do you want a job at DC so bad anyway? You can always just publish your comics on your own.”
“Yeah, but I have so many great ideas for a Batman alternate universe. I can’t use their characters if I don’t work there.” She walked behind the checkout desk and returned with a sketchbook. She flipped through pages until she found a sketch of a leather-wrapped, Edward Scissorhands esque Batman. “Look. I’m calling it Kingdom of the Mad. He sleeps upside down because he thinks he’s a bat. He’s, like, rabid or something.”
“Rad.” Ray nodded, breaking down a cardboard box. She followed him and flipped to the next page.
“Robin needs work, but I wanted him to give a sorta victorian acrobat vibe. For Penguin, I wanted him to actually kinda look like one. Does he look like one?”
“Yeah,” Ray confirmed. “Especially his nose.”
“Good,” Gee continued, flipping the page again. “The joker design is my favorite. I finished it just before you came in. I was struggling with it, then out of nowhere I just had a vision.” She held it out to him and he took the book, eyes grazing over the page. The joker was a short, young man with black hair. He wore a child’s Dracula mask and black, fingerless gloves.
“This is sick,” Ray beamed, reading over the notes in the margins. “‘Halloween.’ What does that mean? Like, it takes place during Halloween?”
Gee’s face turned red. She took the book back and slammed it shut, shoving it back into her bag. “Don’t worry about it.”
Ray laughed. “What was that?” She shook her head, but Ray persisted. “No,” He continued. “I know that face. What does ‘Halloween’ mean?”
She covered her face in her hands and groaned. “Ugh. Fine. But don’t laugh.”
“I won’t!”
“You’re laughing right now!” He tried his best to straighten his face, but he couldn’t. “Whatever,” She continued. “This morning, a boy came in. I saw him play at The Underground a few nights ago. He’s really cute. My Joker is inspired by him.”
“Knew it!” Ray celebrated. “Why’s it say ‘Halloween’ then?”
“I don’t know his name. All I know is that he has ‘Halloween’ tattooed across his knuckles because that’s when he was born. So, I’ve just been calling him Halloween.”
“For the whole four hours you’ve known him.” Ray chuckled.
“Shut up! I said you can’t laugh at me!” Gee playfully punched his shoulder. “Besides, I don’t even know if he likes girls like me.”
Gee didn’t have to elaborate. Ray knew what she meant: Trans girls. Gee started her social transition in high school. People always made fun of her, but never to her face. They didn’t want to risk being known as an asshole. She knew, though. She saw them snicker when she wore skirts. She felt all eyes on her when she walked to the teacher’s restrooms instead of the public, student ones. People tried to catch her off guard, hoping to get a snippet of her ‘man voice.’ Going off to college was an escape, because none of these people knew her from high school. She started taking estrogen when she was eighteen, but when the debt started to pile up, she couldn’t afford to keep taking it. She’d done voice training since she was a freshman in high school, so most people couldn’t tell at first glance. She’d been blessed with curves, even when she was a boy, and she enhanced them with pushup bras and shapewear.
It was exhausting to put so much effort into her appearance every day, but she still found joy in it. Every morning, she’d put together an outfit that accentuated the natural curve of her hips. She lacked practice with makeup, compared to most girls who had been doing this since middle school, but she was an artist, so most of the skills translated. It took time to adjust to a curved surface instead of a flat one, but by her senior year, she was a pro.
“You never know until you try.” Ray encouraged her. “I say go for it. Maybe learn his name first, though.”
-
Gee twisted the key to the door of her apartment, trying not to drop the bag of groceries as she did it. Well, they hardly counted as groceries. It was a few packs of ramen and coffee pots. That’s all she could afford. She sat her bag down on a chair in the kitchen, grabbing her sketchbook out of it and placing it on the counter. She grabbed a pot, filled it with water, and turned on the stove. When the water came to a boil, she ripped open a pack of ramen and dropped it into the water. While the water bubbled, she flipped through the pages of the sketchbook.
She looked at her Batman designs and daydreamed about the possibility of them being brought to life in fully fledged comics someday. She had her own original ideas too, but she put much more effort into the Batman ones. Her plan was simple: Pitch the Batman ideas, get a job, work on Batman for a while, then pitch her own original storylines. Unfortunately, she hasn’t had a chance to even follow through with phase one.
College was supposed to get her foot in the door. That’s what her parents told her. Her art teacher in high school always told her that she was talented, but college made her feel stupid. When she went to critiques, she always slumped down in the corner, hoping the professor would miss her. Maybe they’d just skip over her, but they never did. Everyone else had these beautifully polished pieces that looked like they belonged in museums. Their art was classical and sort of abstract. It was the type of art that just looked like blobs of color to the untrained eye. The meaning was always deep and philosophical.
Gee’s wasn’t like that. Her’s was straight to the point. It was bright, colorful, and simple. She used harsh lines and heavy shadows. She drew people, mostly. It didn’t represent anything. It was superheroes and drawings of her friends. In the comic world, her art was spectacular, but she wasn’t in that world yet. She was in the world of redundant shapes that represent some sort of poetic bullshit.
She wondered if the other students in her classes felt the same way she did. She wondered if they enjoyed making that art or if they just did it because they had to. That was the thing. Gee refused to make anything that didn’t feel authentic to her. She wouldn’t tape a banana to the wall and call it art just because some old man at the university told her to. Her stubbornness was her kryptonite, and she knew that.
The timer beeped and Gee took the pot off the stove, pouring the noodles into a bowl. She scarfed them down in large bites. She was starving and exhausted. All she wanted was to finish eating and go to bed. She rinsed the bowl out in the sink, not bothering to thoroughly clean it. She would do it eventually, but now, her bed was calling her name.
-
It had been roughly a week since Halloween, as Gee had dubbed him, had come into the shop. Gee was off work, and for the first time in forever, she had nothing to do after class. Burnt out from school, the last thing she wanted to do was make art. She had done nothing these last few weeks but pour ideas onto paper. What she wanted, honestly, was to see that punk boy again. She couldn’t remember his band’s name, but she knew where he played. She’d seen him around there before, even when he wasn’t playing.
She decided she would go to the venue. She felt a little stalker-ish, and she wasn’t proud of what she was doing, but she wasn’t really sure what else to do. Gee had never had feelings like this for someone before. She’d never really had feelings for anyone at all. In high school, most people made fun of her. She had too much self respect to fall for someone who would treat her that way. Halloween was neutral about her, and as sad as that sounds, that was enough for her.
When Gee arrived home from class, she changed out of her bummy school clothes. Well, bummy for her, anyway. She always dressed pretty nice, but today she wore a simple, loose-fitting top with jeans. She deemed this much too boring for where she was going. She wanted to look the part. She wore a plaid skater dress, black tights, combat boots, and a slightly oversized leather jacket. She swooped her black bob to the side, teased it, and sprayed so much hairspray that she thought she may pass out from the fumes. She rubbed red eyeshadow onto her eyelids and put black eyeliner in her waterline, which she immediately and deliberately smudged.
As soon as she deemed her look acceptable, Gee headed out the door.