Sequel: Earth to Me

Generation Why Bother

I Like to Hear Myself Talk Because I Get Reminded of how Annoying I Am and it Keeps me Grounded

Through the glass, I could see Andy leaning against the balcony and the smoky clouds come from his mouth as the winter air froze his breath. He was grabbing at his arm despite the pained expression that let us all know he was hurt.

Anthony couldn’t tear his eyes away from the ground, and thus he couldn’t bring himself to look at the man he’d just burned.

“Someone go out there,” he hissed, still terrified. “Someone go talk to him.”

From across the room, Mick looked at me with his eyebrows scrunched together in worry. He nodded his head towards the sliding door as if to tell me to be the one to take the fall, to go out there and see what was going on with Andy.

“I -” I started, kind of unaware of what I was saying and the fact that I was the only one who spoke.

Anthony stared at me for a long time before copying Mick and jabbing his thumb back to the wall of windows where Andy escaped, silently commanding me.

I did what I was told, hesitantly stepping towards the door and going outside, where Andy was slumped over the concrete wall. The flesh of his arm was torn and man, it looked like it hurt, but somehow it probably didn’t compare to the hurt caused by both him and his best friend.

“Hey,” I said quietly, trying to get his attention as I eased the door shut.

He briefly glanced over his shoulder and saw it was me. “Hi.”

“…You okay?” I knew the answer to that question and it sure wasn’t good.

Slowly, he turned around, and from the light peering out from the apartment, I could see the tears in his eyes that had also trailed down his face. He shrugged, avoiding eye contact.

What else could I say? There were few things I was worse at than comforting people, let alone comforting someone who had just exploded in front of the rest of the guardians.

“I’m not okay, in case you couldn’t tell,” he choked out, crossing his arms.

I licked my lips nervously. “…Is there anything you wanna maybe talk about?”

He forced a laugh. “There’s too much to talk about. You’ll have to give me a starting point if you want me to vent.”

“I don’t want to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” I said. The last thing he needed was more pressure.

“I don’t mind it, and I especially don’t mind talking to you,” he sighed. “I just don’t know where to begin.”

I had a ton of questions of my own, though I didn’t want to interrogate him. “How about…well…what was that whole thing about Johnny Cool?”

He rolled his tongue around in his mouth for a moment and took a deep breath. “The thing is…I’m Johnny Cool. He’s mine, and he’s me. When I got out into the real world and realized how much I wasn’t suited for it, that’s when I created him. I’m the creator of that stupid kid and I’m the one who puts him through all of the crap that he has to, and I feel horrible about it. I know, it sounds stupid. Someone whining about putting a fictional character through some tough stuff – but you know something? All the crap that he’s gone though, I’ve gone through. That’s why I’m telling you he’s me. I made him with my own hands, my own soul, my own heart – he’s my flesh and blood on a piece of paper. And you know what’s funny about it all?”

He started pacing as he said it all, brushing his hands through his hair to make it stay back, and as the words wound on, so did he. I even regretted bringing it up at first knowing how fast his heartbeat must’ve sped up just by reliving all of those thoughts and expressing them for what had to have been the first time. His hands grew frantic, his face tightening, eyes widening.

“He’s just like me. He’s this cocky, overconfident kid in a lonely world who has no real friends and he doesn’t know how to be a hero, and I love him to death. I feel sympathy for him. But I’m the same way. I’m a loser who doesn’t know how to be a hero either, and I can’t stand myself. Why do I love some random character I started doodling when I got outta high school and Put’emup, Put’emup started off when I don’t even like myself? Why do I care more about a fake world with fake people who seem more real to me than people in real life? I don’t know. I can’t answer that fuckin’ question. I never knew.”

He stepped closer to me when he asked those questions like I knew the answer; I stayed quiet. This was his moment and he needed to say what he could. Anything I could have said would’ve cheapened it. I just bit my lip and listened to everything he said, standing still and nodding every so often to let him know that even if nobody else was, I was listening.

“The only thing I ever knew is that Johnny is me and he’s a way for me to tell my story to a world that doesn’t care about me, but might just care about a rock n’ roll guitarist caught up in a world he doesn’t know anything about. Hoping that somebody might wonder about the cartoonist who made those comics, wondering what he’s gone though and maybe actually caring for once. Maybe some stranger who I never even met before loves me more than anybody I know well enough to sort of call a friend. Johnny Cool, that’s me. Anchor, that’s me. I make the comics and I don’t care how much praise I get for them or if anybody knows Andy Allen and Anchor are the same person. All I care about is whether Johnny lives well enough to be able to touch the lives of a few people who realize that just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it’s fake.”

Just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it’s fake. I wish Anthony could’ve heard that. Maybe it was something Andy had tried to drill into his head over the years and Anthony got sick of him yapping about it, turning against the words and the thought. I had to look down at the ground to process it all at that point. Had to have it locked away in my brain.

“I never wanted to make it known that I was multitasking with the comic and the band. Not even Mick or Chance know – I’ve kept it hidden from them too. Even I realized early on that that would be way too much pressure to multitask at my age; it was one of the first things Anthony told me to do that I actually agreed with.”

He even smiled a little bit and kicked the cement to scatter the leftover snow. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he looked back up at me and gave me this relaxed little grin like he was about to say something that tied us together in some way.

“And artists – we’re a weird bunch. I have a degree in visual arts and I ‘waste’ my time doodling comics when I could be working on some abstract shit that I don’t have the heart to do, and I got shit for it from my dad growing up, I got shit for it in high school, I got shit for it in college, I get shit for it now from my family still. A bug-eyed kid can be just as important to people as a picture of a leaf that’s been distorted to hell and back or a circle with a line through it. It doesn’t matter what it looks like – art is art. Johnny’s my way of reaching out to people and as long as I know that there are people out there who like hearing his story – my story – I’m fine with that. I don’t care if his legs are too skinny or his head’s too big. That’s who he is. That’s who I am. Big headed without a foundation to stand on.”

He knew I doodled my days away and that’s why he brought that up. The more he spoke, the more it seemed like the pain was lifting away, but the smile that grew across his face became more and more exaggerated to the point where I couldn’t tell if he was faking or not.

“His whole world is my world. We’re one in the same, Johnny and me. And we’re a weird bunch, cartoonists. We wear our hearts on our sleeves when we draw and write. My characters come out of every inch of me, Johnny the most. We get attached to things that don’t even exist to other people. But then why do people get so caught up in music if it’s something they can’t see with their own eyes? Why do some folks love being in love? It’s ‘cause they feel it. They feel it with their own bones. It gets their guts. That’s why I devote my time to doodling a character who I love more than I love myself.”

He held a fist to his chest. The smile faded and he shifted his eyes to the side.

“‘Cause he’s Johnny, and he’s Anchor, and he’s Andy– these people who don’t know the first thing…about being anything.”

As he finished, his hands laying plainly at his sides, he looked up at me with the same face he wore when Anthony called him out. I flinched out of instinct and gulped, scared to speak. He was close enough for me to touch him on the arm just gently, and for a moment my fingers twitched, wanting to do so but knowing the consequences of Anthony trying that.

Making sure to keep the lightning bolts hidden away, I dared to reach up and lightly touch his arm that was still hidden by the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He inhaled just a little and stiffened at my contact. Somehow I had to let him know that there was somebody who didn’t think he was completely hopeless, and from the slight smile he squeezed back out at me, I may have achieved that.
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I wrote this chapter wayyyy before the outline was even finished. Granted, it was a bare-bones version, but a vast majority of Andy's dialogue is the same. I think it was what made me realize how much I love Andy from the getgo. xD