I know as soon as I pick up the phone.  I develop a migraine.  My pores contract.  An untalented harpist plays inept glissandi along my spine.  It’s the forces of darkness calling.

“Hello, forces of darkness,” I say into the phone.

“Jeff, this is the forces of darkness.”  This is why the forces of darkness has a pretty bad rep.  He doesn’t even pretend to listen to anything you say.  The forces of darkness also insists on being referred to in the singular despite the plural name.  Also the forces of darkness is a mouthbreather, which makes talking on the phone with him discomfiting.  “Jeff, I need you to operate fast.  Otherwise, Larry’s going to run that interview with Lea Hernandez.”

“So?”

“It’s complicated.  She knows things about me and the Disney Corporation I don’t want revealed.”

“I would be surprised if she even mentions it.”

“The woman’s a juggernaut, Jeff.  Unstoppable.  It’s all she talks about.  You’re the only one I can count on.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, forces of darkness, but I have the month off.  Vacation.”

The forces of darkness mouthbreaths long ragged breaths.  What is he doing?  What’s that in the background?  Is he watching TV?

“Maybe something about Stan Lee.  You really know how to make fun of that Stan Lee guy.”

I rub my forehead.  The migraine is giving everything I look at a horrible halo.  It’s as if hundreds of flies are flitting in the periphery of my vision.  “I said, I have the month off.  Even fanboys have to stop rampaging from time to time.”

It sounds like a TV in the background all right.  I walk over and turn on my TV, the volume almost entirely down.  “Maybe you and Stan in Vegas.  Or you could write about his website.  What if...” A Horshak-like laugh here from the forces of darkness.  “What if it was like a porn site?  You know, ‘Excelsior!  Want to see hot and hunky teen sidekicks slathered in movie popcorn?  Click here!’”

“I’m.  On.  Vacation.”

“What’s this about a vacation?”

I’m changing the channels on my TV slowly, trying to match up the ambient noise in the background.  Not the Charles in Charge rerun.  I would have bet money...

“Jeff, you’re not on vacation, are you?”

Not MTV.  The Real World: Attilan season finale is on for like the seventh time.  Lockjaw is chewing some annoying bike messenger in half on the pool table.

“Jeff, you’re the only one I can turn to.  You’re the big man.  Fanboy Rampage is the cornerstone of enjoyment for the forces of darkness.  It’s the bomb, baby.”

“Uh huh.”  It’s not Lifetime, which is showing some TV movie where Meredith Baxter Birney is fighting off a stalker, raising her blind teenage daughter and performing a crucial hysterectomy operation on herself all at the same time.

“It’s fresh.  It’s fly.  Yo, it’s the dilly-o.”

“Uh huh.”  I hate it when the forces of darkness tries to co-opt today’s youth market.  Against my will, I’m being drawn into the Lifetime movie.  Meredith Baxter Birney is rolling herself on a gurney across the living room, latching the windows, applying more suction and gauze to her midsection while preparing to sew a dress for her daughter’s prom.  Meanwhile, Tom Skerritt is shown standing out in the dark with a pair of special binoculars spying on Meredith as she continues her surgical procedure.  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Tom is saying in a scarily intimate voice.  ‘Now use the three-sixteenth thread and apply more suction.  Yes, right there.”

“It’s a Leo.  It’s a hummer.  It’s...”

I start turning the channels again. “What, are you the forces of denseness, too?  I said, I’m taking some time off.”

There is a brief bout of mouth-breathing. “Why?”  The forces of darkness finally asks.

“What?”  It’s the last question that I expected.

“Why are you taking some time off?  You’ve talked obsessively about comic books from the time you were five, to just about anyone who would listen.  Why are you stopping now?”

“Well, I, uh...” I don’t know what to say.  “Well, that’s my business.”

“Is it an evil business?”  The forces of darkness ask hopefully.

“No, no.  Look, it’s just...  I think I’ve worked myself into a corner.  I need to think about this Fanboy Rampage thing.  It seems sort of formulaic.”  TNT cuts to a commercial from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, and shows its upcoming schedule for the night.  The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is on after The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.  After that, it’s The Good, The Bad & the Ugly.  Maybe they’re doing it to see if anyone’s paying any attention.

“Formulaic?”

“Yeah, don’t you think?  Pick on Marvel one month, pick on DC the next, pick on Stan, pick on Jar Jar.  Sprinkle liberally with Larry jokes and voila!  One Rampage, made to order.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t know.  I feel compelled to make people laugh by breaking out cheap jokes. But...I’m surprised by how a huge chunk of my week can go by where I’m not thinking about comics.  Maybe I’m not enough of a fanboy.”

“I don’t think anyone believes it.”

“I just kind of thought that I would have used the Fanboy Rampage for a little bit more.  Review some of my favorite books, try to draw attention to great artists who weren’t getting enough attention.  Or try and bolster that feeling of Comix Experience community.  You know, there’s a very good chance that in ten years that we’ll be buying our comic books off the Internet and there’ll be no comic book stores, just great big grain silos filled with 80 page giants.  I’m not sure if scoring easy points off a hyperbole-spouting octogenarian is really for the greater good.  It’s more like...”

“The forces of darkness?”  The forces of darkness said hopefully.

I sighed.

“Hey,” said the forces of darkness, sounding suddenly cheerful.  “don’t worry about it.  Write tender haiku about Charles Schulz; talk about your strange childhood crush on the golden age Aquaman.  Praise Hicksville!  It’s all good!  Believe me, all of my plans concern keeping comic book stores around as long as possible.”

“Really?”

“Sure!  When the Internet crashes in 2000, and then that nasty e-commerce virus I’ve been working on gets loose, no self-respecting fanboy is going to order their comic books off the Net.  No, my plans are far more...dark.”

I turn the channel and the background noise sinks up.  “Hey,” I say.  “Are you watching Bear in the Big Blue House?”

“Uh, I’ve got to go.  I’ll call Brian.  He owes me a favor.  I’ll stamp this Hernandez thing out yet.”  And then he hangs up, leaving me alone with disturbing thoughts in my head and Disney on my TV.