Casey beams as I twitch and sputter. “Oh, man, this is the best part. Watching you search for a term.”

My face floods cherry, ’cause he’s got me right on the money. “That’s not funny. This isn’t funny.”

“Are you kidding? This is hilarious! This is like the part in a Van Damme movie where they explain the accent!”

“Shut up! I’m not a homophobe!”

“I never said you were,” he says, now compassionate. His eyes still have the knowledge they carried last night, an unfamiliar understanding; he knew exactly what buttons he was pushing and how many times he could push them while still being fair. “That’s not what I’m trying to do here, Locke. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t even know you were gay.” I sigh. “You left that part out when we were talking. I didn’t know.”

“You’re a guy,” he says. “It freaks a lot of guys out. Makes them think I’m just going to hit on ’ em nonstop. Plus, Randall’s friend and all, you know how it is.”

“So what, you don’t tell me so I won’t see it coming? Thanks.”

“Okay, okay, bad explanation. Forget it, I’m a moron.” He holds up his hands in defense, giving me his most humbled, pitiful look. “Last night was my fault, no questions asked. I’m really, really sorry I acted that way, and you have every right to be mad.”

The question that’s racked my brain all night bubbles up to the surface: “Why?”

His eyes go to his coffee, irritated, angry at himself. “Number of reasons, I guess…Well, the easy one is that I just broke up with someone. Religious kid, typical self-loather. He got in a fight with me Thursday night, called me a lot of really fucking awful things, and then told me never to call him again. Which is why I was sitting alone, drinking myself into a warm little coma. So there’s that…” He makes eye contact with me again, and it hurts; there’s shame there, the kind that I recognize on a daily basis. “But also, y’know…You’re not the only one who realized they weren’t alone last night. The black is something that’s been screwing with me, mucking up my whole existence, for as long as I can remember, and soon I convinced myself that it was just me. That my anger, my hate, was unique, because it existed in a way that no one else seemed to understand. Trying to kiss you last night was sort of impulsive and…and drunken, but a good deal of it was…excitement? Rejoicing?” He shakes his head. “That’s the best I can do. I’m sorry, Locke. Really, really uncool, I know.”

My cheeseburger comes, and I load ketchup onto it, giving myself time to think through this emotional swamp before me. How can I hate him for feeling the same elation I did, knowing there was someone who gets it? The venom growls, aching for action, but I manage to push it down with a bite of burger. Condemning Casey any further for acting the way he did last night wouldn’t be warranted; it would be cruel, unnecessary.

“Well, look,” I say, “I’m not gay, so please don’t try that shit again.”

“Yeah, duly noted.” He chuckles. “Well, there go my plans for the afternoon.”

I laugh despite myself, and he can tell we’ve slain the monster of this particular conversation, and we’re okay again. The laugh feels good, unscripted, real. “You okay from last night? I didn’t do any real damage, did I?”

“Nah, after some coughing and sputtering, I was fine. I ended up going to Renée’s, spilling my heart out to her about the whole thing.”

The venom raises its head, interest piqued. “You told Renée about what happened?”

“Yeah. She likes you, by the way. I can tell. Randall really has talked about you a lot, you know? We’ve been mad excited to-”

“Bullshit, Casey, don’t try to make me feel okay. My dad does that voice on Christmas a lot better. You didn’t tell her about me, did you? About, y’know. The venom.”

“Well…yeah,” he says, puzzled. “Kind of an important part of the story, that.”

Anxiety explodes into my head. “Oh fuck, Casey, why? That was private! I didn’t expect you to tell anyone about…fuck. Fuck.”

“Oh, get over yourself.” He sneers. “Look, Renée’s been one of my best friends since God knows when. She knows all about the black, so it’s not like you freaked her out that much or anything. Honestly, the only thing that upset her in the least is that I made a move on you. Relax.”

As we finish up the meal and pay, I try to calm myself, pushing away the idea that any chance I had with Renée is already poisoned and heading toward a slow death. We come out into the glaring autumn sunshine, burning out our retinas from a hundred reflections in a hundred apartment windows. Casey effortlessly throws on a pair of stylish wraparounds, transforming him from angsty teenage gay guy to slick badass villain. Which reminds me.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Casey nods.

“When you’re…every night, going to sleep, I have a character, or a couple of characters, and I play out situations in my head. They’re superheroes, or wizards, and the venom is…their power, the source of what drives them. It feels really childish, but I play out these story lines in my head, and it makes me feel safe, like the venom’s not my enemy anymore.” I gauge his reaction to my ramblings and find it’s not wary or weirded-out, but anticipatory. “Do you do that?”

“Not really,” he says slowly, his brow furrowed seriously. “It’s not characters and superheroes for me, but I sometimes think of the black as a power. Something I can use, tap into if need be. However, while we’re on the subject of superheroes…” He reaches into his tote bag and pulls a book out with sort of a Shakespearean flourish. “Check page forty-five.” There’s a slap on my shoulder and a warm smile, and then he bounds away uptown in a jovial, charming sort of way.

The book is a graphic novel, a collection of Spider-Man comics. The cover shows Spider-Man leaping out of the path of what looks like his evil twin, a big, bulky Spider-Man dressed all in black with a gaping mouth full of sharp alligator teeth and a long, thick tongue. The character looks familiar, and I try and remember who he is for a few seconds before looking at the book’s title.

The cover reads, Spider-Man versus Venom!

The world around me goes silent, and everything on Earth becomes this all-too-perfect creature trying to tear Peter Parker a new one on the cover of this book. This is going to be good.

Absentmindedly I flip to page forty-five. Sitting there is a small scrap of paper reading, “Renée,” followed by a phone number and an address.

This is going to be very, very good.

The rest of the day is spent in my room, on my bed, with this book open, falling in love with Todd McFarlane, comic-book artist extraordinaire.

Venom’s actual name is Eddie Brock. Apparently he was a big-time reporter until Spider-Man exposed him as a fraud and his career got ruined, after which he was forced to write for tabloids and scrape together just enough cash to eat. He blames Spider-Man for the whole ordeal. Then one night, while he’s trying to kill himself, he’s attacked by the symbiote, this black, drippy alien that Spider-Man used to have as a costume before he realized it would try and bond with him for life-this thing lives inside a person and manifests itself as a suit, pouring out of the host’s body like black fluid coating. The symbiote bonds with Brock, and he becomes Venom, who’s basically Spider-Man’s insane, buff, and utterly hideous doppelgänger. He’s a good guy at heart, really. Just homicidal.

How the hell have I not discovered this character before? I have the Internet (Topher Grace played him in the movie? Is that a joke?). I’m kind of a geek, in that I don’t have many friends and like reading. But this whole time, there’s been a character in comics literature that looks, acts, feels like he was created for no one but me, and I’ve been clueless to his existence. What the hell, man? Watching him get beaten down every issue is murder. Every sanctimonious speech Spider-Man screams out about innocence and sanity, I want Venom to open his huge caiman mouth and bite that little red head off.