Mister Tender made my father famous, at least among fans of graphic novels. My father wrote and inked them. Not comic books—never call them that. Graphic novels. My father created Mister Tender, and Mister Tender nearly killed me.
My father was the sole owner of Mister Tender. He wrote the stories, he drew the panels, inked the artwork, colored all the bold and beautiful violence. No one else helped bring that monster to life.
The Mister Tender series ended its run fourteen years ago, shortly after I was released from the hospital. There was no final volume, no end to the story. My father simply refused to ever draw that character again. He also refused all future royalties, assigning them to a local women’s shelter, and shunned all interview requests. We never again said the name of that demonic bartender in our household, which we didn’t occupy together all that much longer. Two years after the final image was drawn, my parents’ marriage fractured, and my mother swooped up Thomas and me and moved us to the States. My father was left a shell of a man, riddled with depression, his hands bloodied in his own ink.
I visited him as often as I could, which wasn’t enough. If it had been up to me, I would have chosen to live with my father, but a child has no recourse when the law proclaims a parent’s right to custody as “untenable.”
My father was stabbed to death three years ago in London by an Islamic extremist; this is, at least, the common belief, for the single eyewitness (an elderly pedestrian over two hundred feet away) described the assailant as having worn a black, robe-like outfit, which he referred to as “Muslim garb.” The murderer was never caught.
Dad had very stupidly drawn a political cartoon showing Mohammed, and despite Mohammed having been made into a rather appealing figure, the cartoon was a death warrant. The murderer’s blade pierced my father four times: twice in the chest, once in the stomach, and the fatal blow to the neck. So now, because God apparently finds such things amusing, two members of the Hill family have been brutally attacked with knives, and I stand as the lone survivor.
Mister Tender was a bartender—part human, part demon—and he was excellent at lending an ear to stories of woe. Then he’d convince his customers to do very bad things. The thumbnail image of him on my dating app is not a photograph of a real man but the character himself. Just the sight of him roils my stomach, even though, in truth, he’s a beautiful creature. Thick, dark hair, swept back 1920s style; preternaturally smooth, white skin; strong, high cheekbones; dark, jade-green eyes, a gaze that pierces into your deepest, most hidden places. He’d fix that gaze on you as you slid up to the bar. Then he’d slide over a new cocktail of his own devising, a mixture of some unknown liquid, bubbling and smoking, a kaleidoscope of colors. As you considered the logic of actually drinking it, he’d lean over and, with just a touch of Cockney, say, So, then, what’s your fight against the world today, love?
That’s Mister Tender.
And Mister Tender always pours heavy.
My thumb twitches to delete the match suggestion, but I don’t. I’m drawn to it, the way a person might reach out to open a closet door, checking for a hiding intruder.
I press on the link.
He has the same traits as my father ascribed to the character in his debut. Unknown age. Occupation: bartender. Likes: making wagers, watching people lose. Dislikes: teetotalers. Yet there’s one bit about this Mister Tender’s profile that is markedly different from his deceased namesake. The Mister Tender of my father’s creation resided in the West End of London.
Here, on this little screen, Mister Tender lists his hometown as Manchester, New Hampshire.
Mister Tender has come to America to find me.