SuperKen since the graduating class awards were announced a few weeks earlier. Sure, SuperKen deserved to win Male Athlete of the Year, and probably even the school spirit award, but The Statistician suspects that one of the coaches or some starstruck female teacher must have exaggerated a grade or two for SuperKen to have beaten him for the highest academic achievement award.
“The airborne gaseous and particulate contaminants released by the detonation of a single conventional firebomb,” The Statistician explains, “would indeed outweigh those created by a burning Styrofoam cooler, by a ratio of about ten thousand to one.”
The Statistician has no idea if his estimate is even close to correct, but who is going to argue with him? He was careful to use that lovely mathematician’s qualifier, about.
“Yeah,” adds Psycho Superstar, invigorated by The Statistician’s unexpected support, “and burning forests and buildings … and bodies … that ain’t so good for the air quality, either, Sergeant Rock.”
SuperBarbie glares at Psycho Superstar and The Statistician.
“Not every man can wear the uniform, y’know,” she snaps. “Not every man has what it takes.”
SuperBarbie has been SuperKen’s girlfriend since grade nine. They’ve exchanged promise rings, and SuperBarbie has a hope chest in her bedroom, which she fills with the kitschy dust-collectors that SuperKen gives her as gifts.
Despite having a figure as similar as biology will allow to her anatomically impossible fashion-doll namesake, when SuperBarbie ties her hair back in a ponytail and squashes her breasts into a body-armour-grade sports bra, she is a tremendous athlete. In addition to being the captain of the women’s varsity volleyball and softball teams, SuperBarbie also set new city records in the 100- and 200-metre dashes. She stood right next to SuperKen at the graduating class awards ceremony with her Female Athlete of the Year trophy in hand. She is also the treasurer and secretary of the student council, the lead soprano in the school choir, and the co-chairperson of Teens Need Truth.
SuperBarbie is SuperKen’s female mirror image in every way, his ultimate counterpart. Although some of their inferiors have sarcastically referred to them as “The Perfect Pair,” they nevertheless earned enough votes to be named king and queen of the senior prom at Tom Thomson High.
“Not every man has the courage to stand up and fight for their God and their country,” SuperBarbie reiterates, flipping her ponytail at Psycho Superstar and The Statistician.
“Well, goddamn it, Hot Lips,” says Miss Demeanor, drawing from her encyclopedic memory for pop-culture quotes, “resign your goddamned commission!”
“M*A*S*H, right?” The Drifter says. “Good one!”
“My commission!” Miss Demeanor bawls. “My commission!”
“Idiots!” SuperBarbie hisses through clenched teeth.
“It’s okay, baby,” says SuperKen, patting her behind. “Let them have their fun.”
SuperBarbie emphatically kisses SuperKen, and for a moment they resemble the picture of Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart on that famous movie poster for Casablanca, or maybe Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. You can almost hear the orchestral soundtrack billowing up around them.
“Thanks!” Psycho Superstar says. “Permission for fun!”
He tosses more kerosene and beach garbage onto the fire and the column of flame roars skyward like the afterburner trail of a fighter jet.
“Your nickname should be ‘Smokey,’ baby,” Miss Demeanor suggests.
“Well, there’s already Smokey Robinson, Smokey Bear, Smokey and the Bandit,” the Statistician says. “Not too original, perhaps.”
They are all very concerned with being “original.” Hence The Statistician’s professorial Harris Tweed jacket, the way he says “indeed” and “perhaps” all the time. Hence Hippie Avenger’s sandals, her flower-printed smocks, and her, like, Flower Child way of talking. Hence Psycho Superstar’s testicle-gripping, intentionally-ripped black jeans, his collection of heavy-metal concert T-shirts festooned with skulls and demons, and the way he uses obscenities like punctuation. Hence Miss Demeanor’s blood-red lipstick, her needle-straight she-vampire hair, and the faux-leather miniskirt that barely covers her crotch, in which she sits with her legs slightly parted, daring you to look.
SuperKen and SuperBarbie feel no need to differentiate their appearances from others; their accomplishments set them apart from the crowd. The Perfect Pair dress themselves in the sort of clothing seen on any of the statistically perfect models from the current year’s Sears catalogue. At the moment, they are wearing matching “cottage clothes,” with little ducks — or maybe they’re loons — embroidered on their crew-neck sweaters and khaki pants.
“Too bad,” says Psycho Superstar. The handful of dry leaves he’s thrown crackle and vanish in the orange roar. “I like the sound of ‘Smokey’!”
“What about ‘Pyro,’ then?” Miss Demeanor says. “Nobody’s taken that one yet.”
“Some comic book superhero’s named Pyro,” The Drifter says. “One of the X-Men, I think.”
Of course, The Drifter doesn’t think Pyro is one of the X-Men; he knows. But, as the youngest of the bunch, two years junior to the rest of the gang, he’s not so sure that his encyclopedic knowledge of comic-book characters and plotlines is considered very cool anymore, especially since his older brother, The Statistician, just won all those university entrance scholarships.
“The X-Men suck,” says Psycho Superstar, as he searches around with a flashlight for more flammable items to throw on his Monument to Combustion. “Give me the good ol’ Super Friends any day of the week. Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman …”
“Don’t forget Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins!” Miss Demeanor interrupts.
She and Psycho Superstar punch knuckles, mimicking the ring-touching gesture that initiated the superpowers of the Wonder Twins; it’s no secret that the two of them have been having a thing together.
“Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!” Miss Demeanor squeals. “Form of …”
“A Steely Dan Brand stainless-steel dildo!” Psycho Superstar hollers. “Form of …”
“A tube of KY personal lubricant!” Miss Demeanor responds.
It is also no secret that Psycho Superstar and Miss Demeanor have been having quite an adventurous thing.
“Zan and Jayna sucked,” The Statistician grumbles. “The chick always got to transform into something cool, like a jaguar or a falcon, while the guy always turned into something useless, like a bucket of water or a rain cloud.”
Of course The Statistician is trying to be inflammatory; he would normally never use a word like “chick”; as the former captain of the Tom Thomson High School intramural debating team, The Statistician is always up for an argument, even when he knows he’s on the lower ground.
“Feminist bullshit,” SuperKen says.
“Hey!” yelps Miss Demeanor.
“Yeah, seriously,” Mr.
