Yeah, they had me on set to help out a little bit. Yeah, the one the movie is based on, right. I put two and two together finally and her outfit clicked. She was wearing a leather aviator helmet and from her belt jangled a riot of prosthetic arms-one ending in a claw, another in a popgun, another in a weed whacker-just like Violent Violet, one of the main characters from the indie comic book I made my bones on, Gut Check, a post-apocalyptic pro-wrestling action-drama-romance about the titular hero, an American who travels to Edo to learn sumo wrestling and goes on to become a superstar on the televised wrestling circuit before finding himself enlisted in an ancient war against demonic luchadores to prevent the Mayan end-of-days. “I am so very very happy to meet you! My name is Violet-as you can see! Violent Violet.” She had to shove the sign under her armpit to take my hand, which was when I realized that she had no left arm-or rather, her left arm stopped just above what would have been her elbow.

With my free hand I reached out to shake hers when I stepped off the escalator. I carried a small, flat, black portfolio of original art from my comic books. I was wearing sunglasses and had slung over my shoulder a beatup bike messenger bag filled with art supplies, toiletries, and a single change of clothes. I couldn’t have missed it even if she hadn’t started jumping up and down and waving it with one hand as soon as my face appeared on the arrivals level above. She was standing at the foot of the escalator holding a cheery hand-drawn sign with my name spelled out in magic-markered rainbows.

She had darkblue eyeliner drawn in a kind of Egyptian curl at the edges of her sad, serious eyes.

She looked Hispanic, no older than twenty.

She said her name was Violet and she was my biggest fan. I heard about the first death from the girl who picked me up at the airport.

The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente