10

Why do you build me up
Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down?
And mess me around
And then, worst of all
You never call, baby
When you say you will

Tony Macaulay & Mike d'Ablo

How can I talk about Peter Parker and not talk about his infamous "excuses" and his numerous "disappearing acts"? The answer is I can't. I suppose you've heard the lyrics of the song I've etched at the start of this chapter. It's "Build Me Up, Buttercup," a song whose words are a remonstration to one's crush, who dolefully and frustratingly keeps letting him down after she promises to be there for him at every turn, thereby lending the name to the song. It's a very old tune. One I often heard on my mother's lips back in my childhood days in Montoursville, and perchance it just popped into my head while I was writing these portions because in a weird idiosyncratic way, it aptly describes my time with Peter as well. Because I could, without being too dramatic or over-inflationary, definitely make the assertion that there were things about him that were comforting, yes, but at times, equally intolerable, and annoying, and irritating beyond belief.

And this was the crux of the matter with the enigma that was Peter Parker. If not intentionally then either through the nature of his antics or his mysterious aura. Every time I felt like I'd managed to peel back the layer of secrecy to take a glimpse at the real him, something inexplicable would take place an instant later that would once again add new facets of mystery to his character. And the numerous injuries he'd often carry around with him would be one of those things. He would hide them under tinted glasses or baseball caps when he was out in public, never once offering any kind of believable explanation except for a few stammering words of no conviction. And if that wasn't odd on its own, there was also the confusion associated with his behavior, which from time to time would puzzle me to no end. The biggest and most obvious among them being the way he'd disappear in the middle of high octane settings like Harry Houdini in his pomp. One second he's there the next he's a column of empty air. At first, it drove me mad simply because I could never spot any discernable pattern to these vanishing acts. Well, other than they always seemed to happen at important moments. Like when we were inside a bustling deli or the university campus or when Harry him and I might be out on our nightly escapades, and I'd hear the infamous words – "Be right back!" or "Something's come up" or sometimes a combination of both being whispered into my ear – and before I'd even had the chance to raise an eyebrow, he would be gone.

I even tried keeping a count of these incidents, convincing myself that I was doing it as nothing more than an exercise in pointlessness. But the idea that I was doing it in the first place sort of nullified that line of reasoning. Obviously, I was miffed by him running out on me repeatedly, and I had come very close to letting him have a piece of my mind on one or two occasions, only to somehow find the cool in the last second to hold myself back. So, by keeping a mental account of it, even if as a mindless game, I felt I was gaining a measure of things and not acting irrationally with something I didn't have to because ultimately, it was none of my business what Peter did with his time.

That being said, it did make me question a lot of things about him. Like why provide me with excuses that were so lame and lacking in gumption every time he did pull one of these moves. He didn't owe it to me or anyone else, unless, and that's where my suspicions were creeping in, there was something behind the veil that he didn't want to draw my attention to. Also - and this really bugged me to no end as well - how could anyone possess the uncanny knack of disappearing whenever danger surfaced its head like Peter Parker? There was something inhuman and otherworldly about his ability to almost sense wrongdoing from a mile off and react accordingly. And there was definitely no luck associated with it either because it happened too many times on my watch for me to simply attribute it to the intervention of fate or mystifying coincidences. I only need to think back to that time - though there were many to follow - when we ran into the Shocker – Herman Schultz, A New York City terrorizer – and his attempt at breaking into the main vault of the City Bank just as we were in the vicinity one day, and as the police sirens passed us by, almost on cue, I turned to my left and of course, Peter Parker was already gone.

If it was Shocker one week, it was Rhino the next, and Sandman the one after that, and just when I thought we were running out of maniacs in the city and he was running out of excuses to throw at me, something else would happen that would take up my attention in an equally mystifying proportion. But before that, I'd try my best to catch him out on his bullshit. Though that was easier said than done because every time he would pull one of his ninja moves of deception, he'd back it with some semi-concocted, cockamamie story about how he'd just remembered that he'd left his stove gas on (he didn't even have a stove!), or how he'd just remembered an appointment with his doctor, which to be fair made a little more sense considering the volume of cuts and bruises and niggling scrapes he'd carry around with him all the time. Often, a typical interrogation would go something as follows -

"So where were you Sunday?"

"Had to clean my room"

"Where'd you disappear to after lunch on Tuesday? We had plans, remember?"

"May asked me to clean out some stuff from my old room"

"Saturday? Movie night?"

"Clearing out snow from our neighbor's drive"

He had an answer ready for everything that I would throw at him, like some kind of extra slippery eel. Over time, I started to use a different set of tactics to question him when my usual methods were rebuffed with relative ease.

"Man, that Doc Ock attack on Midtown was wild. And to think we were just a block away from where it happened!"

"I know right"

"Which reminds me, why'd you run away when that thing happened? You're not that big of a coward are you?" adding the last bit as airily and sarcastically as I could.

"Oh yeah, I definitely am. I'd run away if so much as a dog barked at me from across the street. You know I'm no tough guy, MJ"

And that kind of answer, delivered in a sincere tone of voice, with an austere look of honesty, would only doubly frustrate me because it felt even more condescending than when he'd offered me his lame excuses earlier which were obviously a lie but somehow more palatable than these new monk-like responses where he'd agree with everything I put forward as a challenge. I was just amazed, and at times, even a little amused, when the frustration, annoyance, and general irritation had passed away, that he was in some ways such an accomplished actor already, albeit out of necessity to hide whatever it was that he didn't want me to know about, while I was the one training to be a professional thespian. And perhaps therein lied the difference between us, his skills were streetwise and meant to deceive and to serve some ulterior purpose – good or bad I didn't know yet but I was erring more towards bad - while mine were meant to wow and captivate a crowd.

Admittedly, I would be lying if I were to say that everything I've said so far is an objective, unbiased account of Peter Parker's conflicting personalities because it isn't; in fact far from it. I was much too involved, much too entangled in his web to make a logical judgment of all his sides, good or bad, because often it came down to how he treated me. And often how he treated me was not too dissimilar to the opening lines of the song I started out with – "Why do you build me up Buttercup? Just to let me down?" – And quite unsurprisingly, that's what he would do constantly. Build me up for a great fall. And of course, he would never be there to see it because every time I'd go up on stage in front of a packed auditorium, pull out my dialogues and hand waves with flourishes while stealing the occasional discreet glance at the darkened crowd, the row of seats lined in front of me would contain all the familiar faces of my new college friends, even the indifferent sulking face of Harry Osborn in some far off back row, but not the face of Peter Parker. Never him. No, his seat would be empty despite the innumerable promises he had made earlier to make it to my first university production.

Or even the ones after that.

If only he knew the feeling in my stomach every time I turned my gaze towards him and he wasn't there, maybe, just maybe he'd always be there.