You Suck (15 page)

G
ustavo Chavez had been born the seventh child of a brick maker in a small village in the state of Michoacan, Mexico. At eighteen he married a local girl, the daughter of a farmer, herself a seventh child, and at twenty, with his second child on the way, he crossed the border into the United States, where he lived with a cousin in Oakland, along with a score of other relatives, and worked grueling, twelve-hour days as a laborer, making enough to feed himself and send more money home to his family than he could possibly have made in his father’s brickyard. He did this because it was the responsible and right thing to do, and because he had been raised a good Catholic man who, like his father, would provide for his family and no more than two or three mistresses. Each year, about a month before Christmas, he would sneak back across the border to celebrate Christmas with his family, meet any new children that might been born, and make
love with his wife, Maria, until they were both so sore it hurt to walk. In fact, the vision of Maria’s inviting thighs would often begin haunting him around Halloween and the hapless night porter would find himself in a state of semiarousal as he swung his soapy mop, to and fro, across fifteen thousand square feet of linoleum every night.

To night he was in the store alone, and he was feeling far from aroused, for it was Christmas night, and he could not go to mass or take Communion until he confessed. He was feeling deeply ashamed. Christmas night and he hadn’t even called Maria—hadn’t spoken to her for weeks, because like the rest of the Animals, he had gone to Las Vegas, and had given all his money to the blue whore.

He had called, of course, after they’d first taken the vampire’s art and sold it for so much money, but since then, his life had been a fog of tequila and marijuana and the evil attentions of the blue one. He, a good man, who cared for his family, had never hit his wife, had only cheated with a second cousin and never with a white woman, had been undone by the curse of the blue devil’s pussy.
La maldición de la cocha del diablo azul.

This is the saddest, loneliest Christmas ever,
thought Gustavo as he dragged his mop past the canvas doors leading into the produce-department cooler.
I am like the poor
cabrón
in that book
The Pearl,
where by simply trying to take advantage of some good fortune, I have lost all that I care about. Okay, I did get drunk for a week and my
pearl
was a blue whore who fucked the
chimichangas
out of me, but still, pretty sad
. He
thought these things in Spanish, so they sounded infinitely more tragic and romantic.

Then there came a noise from the cooler, and he was startled for a second. He wrung out his mop, so as to be ready for anything. He didn’t like being in the store by himself, but with the front windows broken out, someone had to be here, and because he was far from home, had nowhere else to go, and the union would see that he was paid double time, Gustavo had volunteered. Perhaps if he sent home a little extra, Maria might forget the hundred thousand dollars he’d promised.

There, something was moving behind the plastic doors of the cooler, which were waving slightly. The stout Mexican crossed himself and backed out of the produce department, swinging his mop now in quick swaths, leaving barely a hint of dampness on the linoleum. He was by the dairy case now, and a stack of yogurts fell over inside the glass doors, as if someone had shoved them out of the way to look through.

Gustavo dropped the mop and ran to the back of the store, saying a Hail Mary peppered with swearwords as he went, wondering if those were footsteps he heard behind him, or the echoes of his own footfalls resounding through the deserted store.

Out the front door and away,
he chanted in his head.
Out the front door and away.
He nearly fell rounding the turn at the meat case, his shoes still wet from the mop water. He caught himself on one hand and came up like a sprinter, while reaching back on his belt for his keys as he went.

There were footfalls behind him—light, slapping—bare feet on linoleum, but fast, and close. He couldn’t stop to unlock the door when he got there, he couldn’t look back, he couldn’t turn to look—a second of hesitation and he would be lost. He exhaled a long wail and ran right through a rack of candy and gum by the registers. He tumbled over the first register in an avalanche of candy bars and magazines, many of which displayed headlines like
I MARRIED BIGFOOT
, or
SPACE ALIEN CULT TAKES OVER HOLLYWOOD
, or
VAMPIRES HUNT OUR STREETS
, and other such nonsense.

Gustavo scrambled out of the pile and was crawling on his belly like a desert lizard scrambling to get across hot sand, when a heavy weight came down on his back, knocking the air out of him. He gasped, trying to get his breath, but something grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head backwards. He heard crackling noises in his ear, smelled something like rotten meat, and gagged. He saw the fluorescent lights, some canned hams, and a very happy cardboard elf making cookies as he was dragged down the aisle and through the doors into the dark back room of the deli like so much lunch meat.

Feliz navidad
.

O
ur first Christmas together,” Jody said, kissing him on the cheek—giving his butt a little squeeze through his pj bottoms. “Did you get me something cute?”

“Hi, Mom,” Tommy said into the phone. “It’s Tommy.”

“Tommy. Sweetheart. We’ve been calling all day. It just rang and rang. I thought you were going to come home for Christmas.”

“Well, you know, Mom, I’m in management at the store now. Responsibilities.”

“Are you working hard enough?”

“Oh yeah, Mom. I’m working ten—sixteen hours a day sometimes. Exhausted.”

“Well good. And you have insurance?”

“The best, Mom. The best. I’m nearly bulletproof.”

“Well, I suppose that’s good. You’re not still working that horrible night shift, are you?”

“Well, sort of. In the grocery business, that’s where the money is.”

“You need to get on the day shift. You’re never going to meet a nice girl working those hours, son.”

It was at this point, having heard Mother Flood’s admonition, that Jody lifted her shirt and rubbed her bare breasts against him while batting her eyelashes coquettishly.

“But I have met a nice girl, Mom. Her name is Jody. She’s studying to be a nun—er, teacher. She helps the poor.”

It was then that Jody pantsed him, then ran into the bedroom giggling. He caught himself on the counter to keep from tumbling over.

“Whoa.”

“What, son? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, nothing, Mom. I just had a little eggnog with the guys and started to feel it.”

“You’re not on the drugs, are you, honey?”

“No, no, no, nothing like that.”

“Because your father has rehab benefits on you until you’re twenty-one. We can have one of those interventions if you can find a cheap flight home. I know that Aunt Esther would love to see you, even if you are strung out on the crack.”

“And I her, and I her, Mom. Look, I just called to say Merry Christmas, I’ll let you—”

“Wait, honey, your father wants to say hi.”

“—go.”

“Hey, Skeeter. Frisco turned you into an ass bandit yet?”

“Hi, Dad. Merry Christmas.”

“Glad you finally called. Your mother was worried sick about you.”

“Well, you know, the grocery business.”

“You working hard enough?”

“Trying. They’re cutting back on our OT—union will only let us work sixty hours a week.”

“Well, as long as you’re trying. How’s that old Volvo running?”

“Great. Like a top.” The Volvo had burned to the wheels his first day in the City.

“Swiss sure can build some cars, can’t they? Can’t say much for those little red pocketknives they make, but sons-abitches can build a car.”

“Swedes.”

“Yeah, well, I love the little meatballs too. Look, kid,
your mother’s got me deep-frying a turkey out in the driveway. It’s starting to smoke a little. I probably oughta should go check on it. Took an hour to get the oil up to speed—it’s only about ten degrees here today.”

“Yeah, it’s a little chilly here, too.”

“Looks like it’s starting to catch the carport on fire a little. Better go.”

“Okay. Love you, Dad.”

“Call your mother more often, she worries. Holy cats, there goes the Oldsmobile. Bye, son.”

A
half hour later they were sipping coffee laced with William’s blood when the doorbell rang again. “This is getting irritating,” Jody said.

“Call your mom,” Tommy said. “I’ll get it.”

“We should get some sleeping pills—knock him out so he doesn’t have to drink all that booze before we bleed him.”

The doorbell rang again.

“We just need to get him a key.” Tommy went to the console by the door and pushed the button. There was a buzz and the click of the lock at street level. The door opened—William coming in to settle on the stairs for the night. “I don’t know how he sleeps on those steps.”

“He doesn’t sleep. He passes out,” said the undead redhead. “Do you think if we gave him peppermint schnapps the coffee would have a minty holiday flavor?”

Tommy shrugged. He went to the door, threw it open, and called down. “William, you like peppermint schnapps?”

William raised a grimy eyebrow, looking suspicious. “You got something against scotch?”

“No, no, I don’t want to mess up your discipline. I was just thinking of a more balanced diet. Food groups, you know.”

“I had some soup and some beer today,” William said.

“Okay then.”

“Schnapps gives me mint farts. They scare the hell out of Chet.”

Tommy turned to Jody and shook his head. “Sorry, no way, minty farts.” Then to William again: “Okay then, William. I gotta get back to the little woman. You need anything? Food, blanket, toothbrush, a damp towelette to freshen up?”

“Nah, I’m good,” William said. He held up a fifth of Johnny Walker Black.

“How’s Chet doing?”

“Stressed. We just found out our friend Sammy got murdered in the hotel on Eleventh.” Chet looked up the stairwell with sad kitty eyes, which he sort of always seemed to have since he’d been shaved.

“Sorry to hear that,” Tommy said.

“Yeah, on Christmas, too,” William said. “Hooker got killed across the street last night, same way. Neck was snapped. Sammy has been sick for a while, so he splurged on a room for the holiday. Fuckers killed him right there in bed. Just goes to show you.”

Tommy had no idea what it went to show you. “Sad,” Tommy said. “So how come Chet’s stressed but you’re not?”

“Chet doesn’t drink.”

“Of course. Well then, Merry Christmas to you guys.”

“You, too,” said William, toasting with his bottle. “Any chance of a Christmas bonus, now that I’m a full-time employee?”

“What’d you have in mind?”

“I’d sure like a gander at Red’s bare knockers.”

Tommy turned to Jody, who was shaking her head, looking pretty determined.

“Sorry,” Tommy said. “How about a new sweater for Chet?”

William scowled. “You just can’t bargain with
The Man
.” He took a drink from his bottle and turned away from Tommy as if he had something important to discuss with his huge shaved cat and couldn’t be bothered with management.

“Okay then,” Tommy said. He closed the door and returned to the counter. “I’m
The Man
,” he said with a big grin.

“Your mom would be so proud,” Jody said. “We need to go see about Elijah.”

“Not until you call your mom. Besides, he’s waited this long, it’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

Jody got up and came around the breakfast bar and took Tommy’s hand. “Sweetie, I need you to play what William just said back in your mind, really slowly.”

“I know, I’m
The Man
!”

“No, the part about his friend being killed by a broken neck, and how he has been sick, and how someone else was killed the night before, also by broken neck. I’ll bet she was sick, too. Sound like a pattern you’ve heard before?”

“Oh my God,” Tommy said.

“Uh-huh,” Jody said. She held his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “I’ll get my jacket while you fluff up your little brain for traveling, ’kay?”

“Oh my God, you’ll do anything to get out of calling your mom.”

H
e was the best one-handed free-throw shooter in the Bay Area, and that Christmas night he had sunk sixty-four in a row in his driveway hoop, shooting the new leather Spaulding ball his dad had left under the tree for him. Sixty-seven in a row, without ever setting down or spilling his beer. His record was seventy-two, and he would have broken it, had he not been dragged off into the bushes to be slaughtered.

Jeff Murray was not the smartest of the Animals, nor the most well-born, but when it came to squandering potential, he was the hands-down winner. Jeff had been a star power forward through his sophomore, junior, and senior years in high school, and he had been offered a full-boat ride to Cal, Berkeley—there had even been talk of his going pro after a couple of years in college, but Jeff had decided to impress his prom date by showing her he had enough vertical leap to clear a moving car.

It was a minor misjudgment, and he would have cleared the car had he not drunk most of a case of beer before the attempt, and had the car’s height not been eight inches enhanced by the light bar on the roof. The light bar just caught Jeff ’s left sneaker, and somersaulted him four times in the air before he landed upright in a James Brown split on the tarmac. He was pretty sure that his knee wasn’t supposed to bend that way, and a team of doctors would later agree. He’d wear a brace forever and he’d never play competitive basketball again. Although he was a smokin’ one-handed H.O.R.S.E. player, and he might have even been a champion if it weren’t for that slaughtered-in-the-bushes thing.

He liked the new leather ball, and he knew he shouldn’t be using it on the asphalt, and especially this late at night, when the sound of his dribbling might disturb his neighbors.

He lived in a garage apartment in Cow Hollow, and the fog was blowing in damp streams up his street, making the basketball sound lonely and ominous, so no one complained. It was Christmas—if all some poor bastard had was some hoops, then you’d have to be a special kind of heartless to call the cops on him. A car turned at the end of the street; blue halogens swept through the fog like sabers, then went out. Jeff squinted into the fog, but couldn’t make out what kind of car it was, only that it had stopped a couple of doors down and it was a dark color.

He turned to take his record-breaking shot, but distracted, he put a little too much backspin on the ball and it
jumped out of the hoop. He ran it down at the junipers by the garage, but was only able to tip it, so that it went into the bushes. He set his beer down on the driveway and went in after it, and—well, you know…

F
rancis Evelyn Stroud answered the phone on the second ring, as she always did, as it was proper to do. “Hello.”

“Hi, Mom, It’s Jody. Merry Christmas.”

“And to you, darling. You’re calling rather late.”

“I know, Mom. I was going to call earlier, but had a thing.”
I
was
a thing,
Jody thought.

“A thing? Of course. Did you get the package I sent?”

It would be expensive and completely inappropriate, a cashmere business suit, or something in a houndstooth or a herringbone, something worn only by matronly academics or matronly spies with stout poison-dart shoes. And Mother Stroud would have sent it to the old address. “Yes, I got it. It’s lovely. I can’t wait to wear it.”

“I sent a leather-bound set of the complete works of Wallace Stegner,” Mother Stroud said.

Fuck!
Jody kicked at Tommy for making her call. He skipped out of range, waving a scolding finger at her.

Of course. Stegner, the Stanford paragon. Mother was one of the first coeds to graduate from Stanford and she never missed an opportunity to point out that Jody hadn’t gone there. Jody’s father had also gone to Stanford. She was born to Stanford, and yet she had disgraced them by going to
San Francisco State, and not finishing. “Yeah, those will be great, too. I guess they just haven’t caught up with me yet.”

“You’ve moved again?” Mrs. Stroud had lived in the same house in Carmel for thirty years. Carpet and draperies never survived more than two years, but she’d been in the same house.

“Yeah, we needed a little more space. Tommy’s working at home now.”

“We? Then you’re still with that writer boy?”

Mom said “writer” like it was a fungus.

Jody scribbled on a Post-it at the counter:
Note: Break Tommy’s arms off. Beat him with them.

“Yes. I’m still with Tommy. He’s been nominated for a Fulbright. So, did you have a nice Christmas?”

“It was fine. Your sister brought that man.”

“Her
husband,
Bob, you mean?” Mother Stroud did not care for men since Jody’s father had left her for a younger woman.

“Well, what ever his name is.”

“It’s Bob, Mom. He went to school with us. You’ve known him since he was nine.”

“Well, I had a smoked turkey delivered, and a lovely foie-gras-and-wild-mushroom appetizer.”

“You had Christmas catered?”

“Of course.”

“Of course.” Of course. Of course. It would never occur to her that by having Christmas dinner catered, she was making other people work on Christmas. “Well, I put my
present in the mail, Mom. I’d better go. Tommy’s being honored at a dinner to night because of his massive intellect.”

“On Christmas?”

Oh, what the fuck. “He’s Jewish.”

She could hear the intake of breath on the other end of the phone.
This is the light version, Mom, imagine how scandalized you be if I told you he was dead and that I killed him
.

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“Sure I did. You must be losing details. Gotta go, Mom. I gotta help Tommy get his penis piercing in before the dinner. Bye.” She hung up.

Tommy had been dancing naked in front of her for most of the phone call. When she hung up he stopped. “Did I mention that I worry about your ethical equilibrium?”

“Said the guy who was just playing
buff the scrotum
with my red scarf while I was making the merry Christmas call to my mother?”

“Admit it. You’re a little turned on.”

D
r. Drew—Drew McComber, the Ohm-budsman, the resident pharmacist and medical adviser to the Animals, was afraid of the dark. The fear had crept up on him, like a hash brownie, and coldcocked him with an inescapable paranoia after four years on the night crew at the Marina Safeway. Thing was, he awoke in the evening, to the pervasive grow lights in his garage apartment in the Marina, then drove four blocks under the streetlights to the brightly lit Safeway, then
got off work in the morning when the sun was well off the horizon, to return to his grow-lit apartment, to sleep with a satin mask in place. He encountered darkness so infrequently that it seemed like a menacing stranger when he did.

On Christmas night, round midnight, Drew sat among a jungle of five-foot-tall pot plants in his living room, wearing sunglasses and watching a movie on cable about the special relationship between the lady of an English manor and her chimney sweep. (Because of his work schedule, and the constant demand to stay wasted, Drew found it difficult to keep a girlfriend. Until the Animals found Blue, his sex life had been a largely solitary affair, and (sigh) apparently had become so once again.) Each time the chimney sweep’s sooty hand smacked the powdered bottom of the lady of the manor, Drew grieved a little—that dusky handprint on alabaster flank falling like a shadow on his erotic soul. There was arousal, but no joy. Sad and lonely wood did tent his hemp-fiber cargo pants.

Then, as if scripted by
Erecto, the Generously Endowed Pizza Delivery God of Improbable Trysts,
there was a knock at Drew’s door. Rather than answer the door directly, Drew adjusted himself and ambled through the ganja forest to a small video screen in his kitchenette—a video peephole. He’d installed it in the days before his doctor had given him the prescription that made him a quasilegal medical marijuana grower
(patient complains that reality harshes his mellow
—
prescribe 2 grams cannabis every three hours by inhalation, ingestion, or suppository).

Sure enough, as if he had called in an order, the video screen revealed a pale but pretty blonde standing on his doorstep in a conservative blue cocktail dress and heels. She might have just come from a party or a dinner out—her hair was pinned up with tiny blue bows. She might have shown up to audition for the role of the lady of the manor.

Drew keyed the intercom. “Hi. Are you sure you have the right house?”

“I think so,” said the girl. “I’m looking for Drew.” She smiled into the camera. Perfect teeth.

“Jeez,” Drew said, then realizing that he had said it allowed, he cleared his throat and said, “I’ll be right there.”

He smoothed his erection down, pushed his hair behind his ears, and in five long strides he was through the forest and at the front door. At the last second he remembered the sunglasses, pushed them up on his head, smiled broadly, and threw open the door, releasing a wide beam of ultraviolet light into the night fog.

The pretty blonde dropped her smile, then screamed as she burst into flames and leapt out of the light. Drew ran out into the dark to save her.