You Suck: A Love Story Chapter 6

Chapter SixDo Animals Get the livelys?Clint was the only one of the Animals still left(a) at the Marina Safeway. He was tall, with a wild mop of unyielding hair and thick, horn-rimmed glasses that were held unneurotic with medical tape, and he had a look of deep panic on his face. Hed been trying to keep the store together for nearly a week with only a couple of stock boys from the day crew, and a ostiary from a temp service (even Gustavo, the Mexican porter with five kids, had incurn false with the Animals), notwithstanding today a huge order had produce in on the truck and he knew he demand professionals. He dialed Tommys number for the fifth time that night. It was four in the morning, but Tommy was their leader and perhaps the best frozen-turkey bowler the world had ever known. He knew what it meant to be an Animal he would be awake.The machine beeped. Clint said, Dude, theyre all gone. I exact your help. Its just me, near temps, and the Lord to-night. Clint had be en recently reborn after five years in a drug-induced haze. He swore that the Lord would forever be on his night crew. The guys took off for Vegas. Call me. No, just bring your box cutter and come to work. Im buried.Once they had been nine strong, the Animals. Nine men, all under the age of twenty-five, left alone in a grocery store for eight hours with only Tommy to bring off them. Theyd been given their name by the day manager, who had come in one morning to find them drunk, hanging from the giant Safeway letters on the front of store, pelt one a nonher with marshmallows. Tommy had recruited them to fight the old vampire. Theyd found the vampire, sleeping inside a vault on his yacht, and they had also found his art collection. After sell it for ten cents on the dollar, each of them had netted a hundred thousand dollars. Tommy went home with Jody, Clint went home to pray for the vampires soul. Simon had been killed. The rest of the Animals headed for Vegas.Clint hung up the pho ne, so sat nap hard in the managers chair. It was too much responsibi illuminatedy. The weight of it would drive him oer the edge. Even now he could hear dogs barking in his head.Front door, the temp night porter called over the half wall of the office.Clint stood up to see the Emperor and his dogs at the double electric doors. He grabbed the keys, disarmed the alarm, and opened the door. The Boston terrier shot by him, heading for the beef-jerky disp arrange.Your Majesty, Clint said. Youre out of breath.The oversized man held his chest as he panted. insert the troops, young man. C. Thomas Flood has been knock overed to a bloodsucking fiend. Gather your weapons, we must charge again into the breach.Its just me and noobs, Clint said. Did you say that Tommys a vampire?Indeed. I saw him not two hours ago. As pale as death.Well, thats not good.Your talent for stating the obvious is unprecedented, young man.Come in. Clint stepped away from the door. We are waiver to need to pray on this.Well, theres a start, said the Emperor. so I need to call Tommy and tell him to never mind or so coming to work, Clint said.Splendid, said the Emperor, without a hint of sarcasm. I believe weve achieved a new level of doomed.Youve always been good to me, Jody said.Well, I try, Tommy said.He was going up the narrow stairway to their loft. She was slung over his shoulder, her forehead bounced off his belt with every step. She seemed so light. Tommy was still astonish at his newfound strength. Hed carried her ten b immures already and he wasnt even looking it. Well, he was a little tired of listening to her, but physically he wasnt fatigued at all.I can be such a puss sometimes.Thats not true, Tommy said. Yes, it was.Yes it is, yes it is. Yes I am. I am a total beef cattle sometimes.Tommy stopped at the top of the steps and dug in his pocket for his keys.Well, maybe a little, but So I am a bitch? Youre saying Im a bitch?Oh my God, is the sun never going to come up?Listen, youre lucky to have me, you wuss.Yes I am, Tommy said.You are?He swung her over to her feet, then caught her before she went over backwards into the wall. She had a big goofy smile on her face. Sometime during the evening, blood had dripped down the front of her blouse and there was some smeared on her lip. She looked a little corresponding shed been punched out. Tommy tried to rub away the blood with his thumb. The cloud of alcohol breath she let go on him do him wince.I love you, Tommy. She fell into his arms.Right back at you, Jody.Im sorry I gave you noogies. Im still learning to harness my powers, you know.Thats okay.And called you a wuss.No problem.She licked the side of his neck, nipped at him. Lets make love before the sun comes up.Tommy looked over her shoulder at the destruction they had wrought on the loft the last time theyd done it, and he said something he never thought he would hear coming out of his own mouth. I think Ive had comme il faut for tonight. Maybe we s hould just lock down.You think Im fat, dont you?No, youre perfect.Its because Im fat. She pushed him away and stumbled into the bedroom, then tripped and tumbled face-first into the shredded remains of their bed. And old, she added, although it was only through his acute vampire hearing that Tommy understood this, since she was speaking directly into the mattress. Fat and old, she said.Youre going to get whiplash from those mood swings, Red, Tommy said quietly as he climbed into bed with his clothes on.Then he lay there beside her thinking about all that they had to do, about how they were going to have to find a place and move without going out during the day, and beyond that, just exactly how were they going to get through and stay hidden? The Emperor could tell. Tommy could tell he could tell. And as much as he liked the Emperor, it wasnt a good sign. And so even as he worried, and listened to his misfirefriend yell at him, C. Thomas Flood became the first vampire in history to actually pray for the sun to come up.A few minutes later, his prayers were answered, and the two of them went out.Since becoming a vampire, Jody had always hated the way consciousness came on at dusk like the streetlights coming on. there was no groggy twilight amidst sleep and wakefulness, just bam, welcome to the night, heres your to-do list. Not tonight. Tonight she got her twilight, her grogginess, and a headache as well. She sat serious in bed so fast she nearly somersaulted off the end, then, when her head didnt seem to follow her, she lay back down with such force that her roost exploded, sending out a snowstorm of feathers to whirl around the room. She moaned and Tommy came bounding into the room.Hey, he said.Ouch, Jody said, grabbing her forehead with both hands as if to hold her hotshots in.Thats new, huh? vampire hangover? Tommy waved some feathers out of the air in front of him.I feel like death warmed over, Jody said.Cute. Ill bet youre missing coffee right now.An d aspirin. Ive fed off of you when youd been drinking. Why did it affect me now?I think maybe the huge cat guy had a little to a greater extent in his blood than I did. Anyway, I have a theory about that. We can test it later, when you feel fall in, but right now we have a ton of embrace we have to do. Weve got to figure out the move. Clint called me from the store last night. Wanting me to work. Then he called back all freaked out, saying I shouldnt come in.Tommy played the contentedness for her. Twice.He knows, Jody said.Yeah, but how does he know?Doesnt matter. He knows.FuckLittle bit softer now, Jody said, holding her hair like it was hurting her.Too loud?Jody nodded. You know, for your notebook, Tommy. Vampire senses when youre hungover? Not so good.Really? That bad?Your breath is nauseating me from across the room.Yeah, we need toothpaste.Theres someone at the door? Jody covered her ears. She could hear sneakers scraping the paving from all the way downstairs.There is?The door buzzer sounded.Yep, she said.Tommy ran to the front windows and looked down to the street.Theres a Humvee limo out there thats about a block long. Youd better answer it, Jody said.Maybe we should just hide. Pretend we re not home.No, you need to get it, Jody said. She could hear the shuffling at the door, the rock and roll playing in the limo, the bong bubbling, lines being chopped on a CD case, and a male voice repeating the phrase sweet blue titties over and over like a mantra. She grabbed the pillow from Tommys side of the bed and pulled it over her head. Answer it, Tommy. Its the fucking Animals.Dude, said flip-flop Jefferson, a wiry black man with a newly shaved scalp, wearing mirror shades. He pulled Tommy out of his doorway and hugged him furiously crazed, back-slamming, good-to-see-you guy hugs. We are so fucked, dude, Lash continued.Tommy pushed away, trying to reconcile that he was glad to see his friend with the fact that Lash smelled like a beer-bar urinal filled with mackerel.I thought you guys went to Vegas, Tommy said.Yeah. Yeah. We did. Everyones in the limo. Its just that I need to trounce to you. Can we go inside?No. Tommy al close said that Jody was sleeping, which had been his excuse for keeping the Animals out of his loft in the past, but Jody was supposed to have left town. Step in the stairway, Ive got something happening upstairs.Lash nodded and looked over the top of his shades and bounced his eyebrows. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed over. Tommy could hear his heart racing. Coke or fear, he guessed. Both maybe.Look, dude, Lash said. First thing, we need to borrow some money.What? You guys have over a hundred grand each from the art we sold.Yeah, we did. We had a big weekend.Tommy figured in his head. You guys blew over six hundred grand in what four days?No, Lash said. No, not all of it. Were not completely broke.Then why do you need to borrow money?Just twenty grand or so, to get us through to tomorrow, Lash said. Luckil y I closely have my MBA and have mad business skills. Otherwise wed have been broke yesterday.Tommy nodded. Twenty grand was about six months salary for him at the Safeway. Hed been a little intimidated by Lashs almost-MBA up until now. Now he was just worried that Lash would be able to tell he had changed. He said, So, like you were saying, youre fucked.We were doing fine, only down like ten grand each, until we met grubby. Lash looked at the ceiling wistfully, like it was a distant memory he was trying to conjure, alternatively of something that had happened a couple of nights ago.Blue?You know that group they have in Vegas? The Blue hands?Yeah, the guys who paint themselves blue and pound on pipes and stuff? Tommy was lost.Yeah, Lash said. Well, it turns out there are blue women, too. Or at least theres one. And dude, shes sucking us dry.In the back seat of the limo, Blue held Barrys face between her boobs, snugly generous to keep him under control, but not so snug that he co uldnt breathe. While the other Animals had drunk, smoked, and fucked themselves into a zombielike stupor and now lay sprawled about the glittery interior of the limo Barry had opted to do two hits of XTC, a line of coke, and a bong load of sticky skunk weed, which had put his brain into some sort of redundant tribal loop that had him kneeling naked before her, chanting sweet blue titties for the last twenty minutes. She just couldnt take it anymore, so she had grabbed his curl-fringed bald head and pulled his face into her cleavage just to shut him up. Mercifully, he had gone quiet, because she really didnt want to suffocate him as long as he still had money.It takes a meandering road of wrong turns to take a girl from being the milky-skinned cheddar princess of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, to a blue-dyed call girl turning tricks at downtown casinos in Vegas, but Blue would be damned if shed add yet another wrong turn by smother a golden goose between her proportionally improbable si licon joy orbs. The Animals were her way out, and if she had to stay in character as an Alien joy Unit or a blueberry muffin to keep them on the hook, she would.Blue was a method hooker. Early in her adventures, after shed left cocktailing referable to a propensity for spilling drinks, and before shed begun stripping, where her lack of balance was mitigated by the presence of a sturdy pole, she had a short career acting in low-budget porn. She befriended a promising actress named Lotta Vulva, who gave her a book on the Stanislavski Method. If you can find your sense memory, Lotta said, it will keep you from barfing on the actors. Directors hate that. The Method had served Blue well since then, as it allowed her to calculate betting odds or figure her checkbook while her character was performing acts that she herself would have found unpleasant or outright disgusting. (How much better to reside in her sense memory of the budding Cheddar princess, coaxing the hearty, whole-milk good ness from the udders of a Holstein, than to face the harshly lit reality of her actions?)After six months Blue was driven out of the film business by a defect one director called not enough tits to fill a shot glass, which no amount of Method was able to remedy. She returned to cocktailing, albeit at a strip club, where she seldom had to carry more than one ten-dollar beer at a time, until she saved enough money for breast-augmentation surgery and made her way to the pole. She danced her way through her twenties, before she was driven off the stage by younger, more gravity-resistant girls, and because she had skipped personal typing class in high school and had therefore besmirched her permanent record, she landed in the employ of an outcall escort service.I feel like Im doing Dominos delivery blow jobs, Blue told her roommate. Satisfaction in twenty minutes or less or your money back. And the agency is taking most of the money. Ill never get out of this business at this rate.You ne ed a gimmick said her roommate, a cocktail waitress at the Venetian. Like those Blue Men guys in the show. I swear theyd just be a bunch of frat boys beating on garbage cans if they werent painted blue.And so it began. The fallen Cheddar princess of Fond du Lac found some semipermanent skin dye, opened credit-card deposit accounts, had some pictures taken, placed ads in all the free sleaze rags around the city, and Blue was born. It wasnt as if she wouldnt have been able to make a living without the gimmick most guys will shag a snake if you hold it steady for them. further it turned out they would wear a lot for the exotica of a blue woman.She worked as much as she could handle, and her savings had climbed to the point where she could actually see the happening of an exit. But about that same time, she realized that by going blue, she had opted out of the pipe dream of every hooker, stripper, and telemarketer the rich guy who would take her away from it all. The giant star who would drop a fortune on her to become his personal pet. There would be no big score for the blue chick, or so she thought, until the Animals called her in for a combination strip show and fuckfest. Where they got the money didnt matter. What mattered was that they had a lot of it, and it appeared that they would keep giving it to her until it was all gone. She had nearly half a million dollars in her makeup case, and Blue the character Blue could put up with a lot of attention from the Animals while she hid in the back of her mind and formulated an investment funds strategy. The tall, skinny one, Drew, had opened the hotel-room door and said, Hi. We discussed it and agreed that when we were kids, we all really precious to bone a Smurf.I get that a lot, said Blue.We just wanted to bone a Smurf, Lash said.Understandably, said Tommy.Shes really nice, Lash said.Important quality in a ho, said Tommy.But now we cant seem to quit.So you want me to do what hold an intervention?No, youre our leader. We look to you for other things. So we want you to give us money so we can keep partying, and pay our rents and stuff.And when all of my money is gone, then I can intervene.Sure, if you feel you have to, said Lash. Hows your credit?Lash, are you high?Of course.Right. Of course. What was I thinking? Tommy was relaxing now about Lash noticing that he was a vampire. Clearly the former stewards of Safeway night stock, in addition to being wasted, had gone collectively out of their minds. Lash, I dont almost have an MBA like you, but isnt there sort of some business principle that youre violating? I mean, isnt there a class about not spending your rent money on hookers or something?Step off, Flood, Lash said. You hooked up with a vampire.She was cute, Tommy said.An important quality in a vampire, Lash said, looking over the top of his shades.She had sex with me, Tommy countered. He wanted to say that she was nice, but Lash had already used nice for his blue hooker.I think I ve made my point, Lash said. Give me your money.You havent made your point. You completely havent made your point. Tommy reared back as if to punch Lash in the chest, as the Animals did to one another all the time, but remembered that now he might crush some of the Animals ribs. Instead, he said, Dont make me cave in your skinny chest, bee-yotch.Your redheaded vampire kung fu is no match for the direful blue booty kung fu. Lash made a howling chicken noise and waved his hands around as he fell back into a fighting stance, then went right back onto his ass on the steps. He laughed until he choked, then coughed and said, Seriously, dude, if you dont give us money, were going to be totally broke in about six hours. I did the math.You could go back to work, Tommy said. Clint called here last night. Theyre buried at the store. They need night stockers.No? Lash said, twist down his sunglasses.Yes, Tommy said.Then were not fired?Evidently not, Tommy said.Thats it. We could go back to wor k. Thats what well tell her. We have to go back to work.Why didnt you just tell her to go away before she did you all the way here from Vegas.We didnt want to be rude.Oh, right. Well then, off you go.Lash pushed to his feet and steadied himself on the banister long enough to look Tommy in the eye. You okay? You look pale.Im heartbroken and shit, Tommy said. He hated it, but Lashs bloodshot eyes peering over the sunglasses had actually given him a twinge of hunger.Right. Lash went through the security door.Tommy watched him as he paused at the rear door of the limo and turned back.You need some blue butt to cheer you up? Lash asked. Our treat.No, Im good, Tommy said.All for one, and whatnot, Lash said.Appreciate it. Tommy shrugged. Heartbroken.Okay. Lash threw open the limos door and two of the Animals, Drew and troy weight Lee, rolled out onto the pavement, followed by a great storm cloud of pot smoke.Fuck, dude. Did you know there was a door there? said Drew, the scruffy thin one .Look, said Troy Lee, the Asian guy who actually did know kung fu. Hey, look, its fearless leader.Go to work, Tommy said. Its only seven. You guys can get sobered up and be completely ready for your shift at eleven. Not a chance, Tommy thought.Yeah, we can do it, Lash said, peeking into the limo. Hey, Barry, climb off, motherfucker, Im up next, then its Jeffs turn. I put it on the board. Blue, dont let him do that to your ear, baby, you wont hear for a month.Tommy closed the security door and sat down hard on the steps, hiding his face in his hands to try to make it all go away. The Animals had been his friends, his crew. They had taken him in when he was alone in the city, made him their leader, and if he got the tone of Clints second message right, in about four hours, when they got to the store, they were going to turn on him.