Thanks to Sween for the inspiration.
1.
It must be a joke, but if it is, Josef doesn't see the punchline coming. He looks again at the help wanted ad: "July 22, 1968. Writer needed. Must write good. Fast turnaround." The address matches the one on the squat brick building, but it doesn't look like a publishing house. It's not a business tower like he'd imagined. Just a tired three-story tenement with a seedy bar on the ground level.
It doesn't matter. He doesn't have the luxury to refuse an opportunity. He's been out of the military for a while now, and though there are jobs for a young man, it's better to not be asked too many questions about his discharge. Unless he wants to wash dishes, it's this or leave the city. And he doesn't want to go back home.
He lets himself in the exterior door, which probably should lock but doesn't. He goes upstairs. There's noise from behind doors: kids screaming, adults yelling. And smells -- of cooking and worse. It's hard to imagine anything being published out of this squalor that he'd want his name on.
The door to Unit 3C is ajar, as are several others, not surprising, given the sweltering heat.
Josef's military haircut hasn't grown out yet, and the white dress shirt he ironed that morning is crisp. His black pants are snug at his 28-inch waist. He straightens his posture, using every inch of his 6'2" frame to project confidence.
He raps lightly on the door, enough to be heard, but holding it so it won't swing open. He doesn't want to be rude. Especially if this isn't the place.
"Hello?"
Peering inside he sees a barren room with a threadbare sofa, an oscillating fan that rustles large sheets of paper taped to the walls with every rotation. Somewhere further inside he can hear Martha and the Vandellas crooning Nowhere to Run.
He enters quietly and steps up to the sheets on the wall. They're covered in drawings, like comic book pages but larger. Rawer. They're only just penciled in, black and white, but dynamic, bolder than anything he remembers from comics as a kid. There's an energy in them that makes the figures feel as if they're jumping off the page.
He can hear a gravelly voice from deeper inside the apartment. The inflections and pauses sound like a conversation, but there's only one speaker. He follows the sound to the next room where he finds the back of a single man seated at a low stool, facing a drafting table covered in more of the same oversized sheets.
He wears a white t-shirt that hangs loose off his boxy shoulders that taper sharply to his waist, where his pants are belted. His legs spread wide and hooking back beneath the stool. The soles of his shoes are worn.
He talks to himself, occasionally glancing in a full-length mirror and then penciling something onto the sheet on his table, and then does it again. During one of those glances, he catches Josef's reflection and spins around on his stool.
His face surprises Josef. He's surprisingly young, given his build. Only a little older than Josef. Maybe 26 or 27. It's hard to say. He's square jawed with a short, blunt nose and boyish cheeks. His brown hair is darkened with sweat at the scalp, but the ends curl in the humid air.
"Hello," Josef says again, taking a step closer.
"Oh hey," the man responds, grinning wide.
2.
Josef introduces himself -- as Joe -- and asks if this is the right address for the writing job.
The man says yes. His name is Ben. Standing, he's a head shorter than Joe but twice as broad, a blocky chest topping powerful shoulders and long arms. A regular tough guy, but for his disarming smile.
He's a comic book illustrator. Freelance. He's drawing this one but needs help with the scripting. He is, he says, not so good with words.
His art is different. The dynamic drawings Joe looked over are his, and it's hard not to notice how much like their artist they are. Blocky, smiling with fists and jaws like cinder blocks, they crackle with energy. They're so alive.
But the drawings Ben shows him for this job are more subdued.
It's a one-off story, Ben explains, for an issue of Strange Tales of Science, a catch-call for science fiction, the creepy, or -- in this case -- both. So it has to go from start to finish in just a few pages.
The title is The Man from Mars. It opens on an ordinary looking man in an ordinary US city. In the morning, he has a chance encounter with another man who asks if he knows him. No, not at all. But for the rest of his day -- going to work, having lunch, taking his girlfriend out to dinner -- he keeps seeing the other man, at a lunch counter, at a payphone. He's being followed.
The reader doesn't know why. Is one of them a commie? A spy?
Our hero finally reaches the sanctuary of his home. There he removes his mask of normalcy, revealing green skin and big eyes. His secret is safe for one more day.
But there's a twist. The reader can see his stalker returning to his own home where also peels off a mask, that he too is a Martian. The end.
Joe studies the partial drawings. "Why's he following him?"
"Not clear," says Ben, looking slightly frustrated himself. "That's why I need a writer."
It's a funny way to back into a story, but Joe's too drawn in to complain.
He traces a fingertip over the false faces, accidentally smudging one.
"He's looking for his own kind," Joe suggests. "So he won't feel so alone."
Ben looks up at him with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah? I thought maybe the one committed a crime or something? And the other guy is the Mars police?
Mmmmm. That's only an external conflict.
"No," Joe says softly. "It's not about crime. It's about survival." His fingertips trace the pencil lines of the Martian's face. "They're in hiding because they have to be. They'd be in danger if they're found out. They could be beaten. Or lynched. They have these perfect disguises so they can blend in, but that means they also can't find each other. They might have subtle signs to try to signal each other, but if they make a wrong call..." He lets the thought hang between them. "Our hero's tragedy is that he's so afraid of being found out by the enemy he runs from a potential friend."
Ben considers this and nods. "What're they doing on Earth?"
Joe shrugs. "There's a... diaspora? They're displaced persons." DPs some say. A slur. There are always refugees.
"What are they running from?"
Joe turns to face Ben. "Something worse than loneliness."
His stomach growls.
"The job is mine," Ben explains, "but I can't write for shit. If you can do it I'll split the pay."
The project is due at the publisher by Friday, he says. It's a rush job. But Joe doesn't need to fill in the lettering. The letterer will do that. He only needs to write up a script that matches the art.
It's not the great American novel Joe dreams of writing. But it beats starvation. Or going back home with his tail between his legs.
"Can do," Joe says.
3.
The men fall into an easy rhythm, working around each other.
Ben sits at his drafting table, bringing the story to life. Some pages he finishes in one sitting. Others -- most, Joe observes -- he returns to again and again, filling in panels as inspiration strikes. When he's done, or done enough, he hangs the sheet on a wall.
Joe goes from one sheet to another and is perplexed. "Are these pages in any kind of order?"
"In here." Ben taps his temple, grinning.
Joe frowns. "Well they're not in my head. Not yet."
He tries to organize the sheets in sequence, leaving spaces for those not yet done. It monkeys with Ben's process, but Joe needs to know the order to work out the story from start to finish.
