Superman

Collage: Ansellia Kulikku. Source images: John Ciccarelli, Bureau of Land Management. DC Comics.

The other characters work as a gang, is the thing. The game is to lure the kids in with banter, and then get the parents to agree to a photo real fast before they have time to think it through. Then they explain the ground rules, that they ask for a little something for their time. A tip. Kent’s watched them work, heard the smooth way they spin it. They edge up close to the mother, play to her sympathies. Or they appeal man-to-man to the dad, make it too embarrassing for him to walk away without saying yes to the photo and giving a tip. Or if it’s the Transformer doing the talking, with his bared six-pack flexing beneath the weight of the fake truck hood on his shoulders, he plays to the mother’s deeper sympathies or the dad’s deeper insecurities.

“It’s basic human psychology,” the Transformer explained on one of Kent’s first nights working the Strip. The Transformer’s face had gone rubbery with booze, and he’d tapped his head as he said it, braying in a Boston accent that came out after the third round. It was midnight and they’d gone to drink at The Excalibur. They’d technically called it a night with the hustle, but Pokémon had suggested the “family friendly” casino in the hopes of snagging a few last photos with kids whose parents were too drunk on cheap cocktails and slot machines to get them into bed at a decent hour. “Keep your eyes peeled for a bachelorette party,” Chewbacca had said as they walked in, his mangy, furry head on his hips, and his pock-marked face revealed to Kent for the first and last time. “You can make real money off a bachelorette party if you talk them up right.” But there were no kids whose parents would let them near the drunk men playing at superheroes and cartoon characters. And there were no brides-to-be who wanted to sit on Chewbacca’s lap or feel the Transformer’s abs of steel. It was all bullshit. Kent doesn’t remember what he said that night, but it must have been something that hit one of the guys too close to the bone because that’s usually what’s happened when morning comes and he finds he’s suddenly on the outs again.

So he works alone now at the foot of the escalators leading to the NYNY-MGM Grand pedestrian overpass. Not by choice, but because the others made it clear to him that he would work alone, and that he would cede the prime spots to them. This isn’t anything new, the way the guys welcomed him at first and then