Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 6

Chapter 6The AnimalsThe day date concourse c eached them the Animals. The store manager had come into operate on one morning to fall turn up one of them intermission, half-naked, from the giant red S of the Safeway sign and the nap of them intoxicated on the roof, pelting him with Campfire marshmallows. The manager yelled at them and called them Animals. They cheered and toasted him by spraying beer on each other.There were seven of them now that their leader was gone. They wandered into the store around eleven and the manager informed them that they were make upting a in the altogether crew chief This guy will whip you into stipulation hes done it all, his application was four pages long.Mid nighttime found the Animals sitting on the registers at the trend of the store, sharing worries oer a case of Reddi Wip.Screw this ace from stern East, verbalize Simon McQueen, the oldest. Ill throw my fifty cases an hour standardized always, and if he wants more, he can do it himself. Simon sucked a hit of nitrous oxide from the whipped lap up can and croaked, He wont last longern a fart on a hot skillet.Simon was twenty-seven, muscular and as wiry-tense as a banjo string. He was pockmarked and sharp-featured, with a great mane of brown hair that he unploughed out of his face with a bandanna and a lightlessness Stetson, and he fancied himself a cowboy and a poet. He had never been inside six-gun range of a horse or a book.Jeff Murray, a has-been high school basketball star, pulled a can of whipped selection from the open case and said, Why didnt they just promote one of us when Eddie left?Because they dont be intimate their ass from a hot rock, Simon said. Can up, he added quickly.They probably did what they thought best, said Clint, a myopic, first trimester born-again Christian, who, having latterly been forgiven for ten years of drug abuse, was eager to forgive others.Can up, Simon perennial to Jeff, who had up closeed the whipped cream can an d was pushing the nozzle. Jeff inhaled a powerful swarm of whipped cream that filled his mouth and throat, shot from his nostrils, and sent him into a blue-faced strangling fit.Drew, the crews pot supplier and therefore medical officer, dealt Jeff a vicious vitamin C in the solar plexus, causing the ex-power forward to expel a glob of whipped cream approximately the size of a small child. Jeff fell to the floor gasping. The glob landed safely on register 6.Works as good as the Heimlich maneuver Drew grinned without the unwanted intimacy.I told him to urinate the can up, Simon said.There was a tap on the glass at the front of the store and they all false to see a lean dark-haired kid in jeans and white delay by the locked door. He wore a price gun low on his right hip.That would be our hotshot.Simon went to unlock the door. Clint grabbed the case of whipped cream and shoved it under a register. The others ditched their cans where they could and stood by the registers as if awaiting inspection. They were sensing the shoemakers last of an era the Animals would be no more.Tom Flood, the in the altogether guy said, offering his mountain to Simon.Simon did not capture his hand, but st atomic number 18d at it until the new guy withdrew it, embarrassed.Im Sime this is Drew. Simon waved the new guy in and locked the door butt him. Well get you a clock metre card.The new guy followed Simon to the office, pausing to look at the glob of whipped cream on register 6, then at Jeff, up to now gasping on the floor.Can up, the new guy said to Jeff.Simon raised an hilltop to the rest of the crew and led the new guy into the office. While he was digging in the drawers for a fresh cadence card, the new guy said, So, Sime, do you bowl?Simon looked up and studied the new guys face. This could be a trap. He stepped choke and squared off like a gunfighter at high noon. Yeah, I bowl.What do you use?I like a twelve-pound butterball.Net or no net?No net, Simon said.Yeah, nets are for grannies. I like a fourteen-pound self-basting, myself. Tommy grinned at Simon.Simon grinned back and offered his hand to shake. find aboard. He handed a time card to Tommy and led him out the office. Outside, the crew waited. Dudes, Simon announced. This is Tom Flood.The crew fidgeted and eyed Tommy.Hes a bowler.The crew let out a collective sigh of relief. Simon introduced them each, tagging them each with what they did. Thats Jeff on the floor, cake-mix aisle, plays basketball. Drew, nippy food and budmaster. troy weight lee(prenominal), glass aisle, kung-fu fighter. troy Lee, short, muscular, wearing a pitch-dark satin jacket, bowed slightly.Clint, Simon continued, cereal and juices hes buddies with God. Clint was tall and thin with curly black hair, duncical horn-rims, and a goofy, if beatific, smile.Simon pointed to a stout Mexican in a flannel shirt. Gustavo does the floors and has forty kids.Cinco ninos, Gustavo corrected.Excuse the fuck out of me, Simon said. Five kids. He go down the line to a short, balding guy in corduroys. Barry does lash and dog food. His hair fell out when he started scuba diving. butt you, Sime.Save your money, Barry. Simon moved on. This dark-skinned fellow is Lash, dairy and non-foods. He says hes study business at Frisco State, but hes really a gunrunner for the Bloods.And Simon wants to be Grand Dragon for the Klan, Lash said.Be good or I wont help you with your masters feces.Thesis, Lash corrected.Whatever.What do you do, Sime? Tommy asked.I am on a quest for the perfect big-haired blonde. She moldiness be a beautician and she must be named Arlene, Karlene, or Darlene. She must fuck off a bust amount getly half that of her IQ and she must have seen Elvis quondam(prenominal) since his death. Have you seen her?No, thats a pretty tall order.Simon stepped up, nose to nose with Tommy. Dont bear back, Im offering a cash reward and videotape of her nerve-wracking to overtake me in body loti on.No, really, I cant help you.In that case, I work the can aisle.Whens the truck due?Half an hour twelve-thirty.Then weve got time for a few frames.There are no appointed rules for the recreation of joker bowling. Turkey bowling is not recognized by the NCAA or the Olympic Committee. There are no professional tournaments sponsored by the bird Farmers of America, and footwear companies do not manufacture turkey bowling shoes. heretofore the worlds best turkey bowlers have not appeared on a Wheaties stroke or the «Tonight» show. In fact, until ESPN became desperate to fill in the late-night time slots between professional lawn darts and reruns of Australian-rules football, turkey bowling was a totally clandestine sport, relegated to the dark athletic basement of mailbox baseball and cow tipping. Despite this lack of official recognition, the fine and noble tradition of skidding the buzzard is practiced nightly by supermarket night crews all over the nation.Clint was the official pinsetter for the Animals. Since there was always wagering, Clints religion forbade his playing, but his participation, in some part, was required to ensure that he would not squeal to the management. He set ten-quart bottles of os liquid in a triangle pattern at the end of the produce aisle. The meat case would act as a backstop.The rest of the crew, having chosen their birds from the freezer case, were lined up at the far end of the aisle.Youre up, Tom, Simon said. Lets see what you got.Tommy stepped forward and weighed the frozen turkey in his right hand-felt its snappy power singing against skin.Strangely, the theme from Chariots of Fire began playing in his head.He squinted and picked his target, then took his steps and sent the bird sliding down the aisle. A collective gasp rose from the crew as the fourteen-pound, self-basting, fresh-frozen projectile of sanitary savory goodness plowed into the soap bottles like a payload train into a chorus line of drunken grandmothers.Strike Clint shouted. Simon winced.troy Lee said, Nobodys that good. Nobody.Luck, Simon said.Tommy suppressed a smile and stepped back from the line.Whos up?Simon stepped up and stared down the aisle, watching Clint set up the pins. A nervous notice jittered under his left eye.Strangely, the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly began playing in his head.The turkey was heavy in his hand. He could almost feel the giblets heartbeat with tension the stillterball version of the Tell-Tale Heart. He strode to the line, swinging the turkey back in a wide arc, then forward with an explosive yell. The turkey rocketed, airborne, three quarters of the way down the aisle beforehand sorrowful down and slamming through the soap bottles and into the base of the meat case, smashing metallic element and severing wires in a shower of sparks and smoke.The store lights flickered and went out. The huge compressors that ran the stores infrigidation wound down like dying airlin ers. The smell of ozone and burned insularism filled the air. A moment of dark silence the Animals stood motionless, sweating, as if waiting for the deadly sound of an approaching U-boat. Battery back-up modules switched on safety lights at the end of each aisle. The crew looked from Simon, who stood at the line with his mouth hanging open, to the turkey, sticking, blackened and burned, in the side of the meat case like an outstanding artillery shell.They checked their watches exactly six hours and forty-eight minutes to exact repairs and stock the shelves before the manager came in to open the store.Break time Tommy announced.They sat on a row of grocery carts outside the store, their backs against the wall, smoking, eating, and, in the case of Simon, telling lies.This is nothing, Simon said. When I was working a store in Idaho, we ran a forklift through the dairy case. Two hundred gallons of milk on the floor. Sucked it up in the Shop-Vac and had it back in the cartons ten mi nutes before opening and no one knew the difference.Tommy was sitting next to Troy Lee, trying to get up the courage to ask a favor. For the first time since arriving in San Francisco, he felt as if he fit in somewhere and he didnt want to push his luck. Still, this was his crew now, even if he had padded his application a bit to get the job.Tommy decided to douse in. Troy, no offense, but do you speak Chinese?Two dialects, Troy said around a mouthful of corn chips. Why?Well, Im spiritedness in Chinatown. I kinda share a place with these flipper Chinese guys. No offense.Troy clamped a hand over his mouth, as if appalled with Tommys audacity. Then he jumped to his feet into a kung-fu stance, made a Bruce Lee chicken noise, and said, Five Chinese guys living with you? A pasty-faced, round-eyed, barbarian pig it dog? Troy grinned and dug in the bag for another fistful of chips. No offense.Tommys face heated with embarrassment. Sorry. I just wondered if I mean, I need an interpr eter. Theres some weird shit going on at my place.Troy vaulted back to his seat on the carts. No problem, man. Well go there in the morning when we get off if we dont get fired.We wont get fired, Tommy said with confidence he didnt feel. The union Jesus, Troy interrupted and grabbed Tommys shoulder. mince this out. He nodded toward Fort Mason at the edge of the parking lot. A woman was walking toward them. Shes out a little late, Troy said then, to Simon, he shouted, Sime, skirt alert.Bullshit, Simon said, checking his watch. Then he looked in the direction where Troy was pointing. A woman was, indeed, walking across the parking lot toward them. From what he could tell at that distance, she had a nice shape.Simon climbed down from the carts and adjusted his black Stetson. Stand back, boys, that redhead is down here for a former, and Im packing that reason right here. He patted his crotch and fell into an affected bow-legged gait toward the woman.Evening, darlin, you baffled or just in search of excellence?Jeff, who was sitting beside Tommy oppositeness Troy, bent over and said, Simon is the master. That guy gets more pussy than all of the Forty-Niners baffle together.Tommy said, Doesnt look like hes doing that well tonight.They couldnt hear what Simon was saying to the woman, but it was evident she didnt want to hear it. She tried to walk outside from him, and Simon stepped in front of her. She moved in another direction and he cut her off, successful and chattering the whole time.Leave me alone the girl shouted.Tommy leaped off the carts and ran toward them. Hey, Simon, buoy up.Simon turned and the woman started away. Were just getting acquainted, Simon said.Tommy stopped and put his hand on Simons shoulder. He lowered his voice as if sharing a secret. Look, man, weve got a lot to do. I cant afford to lose you all night while you show this babe the meaning of life. I need your help, dude.Simon looked at Tommy as if hed just exposed himself. Reall y?Please.Simon slapped Tommy on the back. Im on it. He turned back toward the store. Breaks over, dudes. Weve got some wrenching to do.Tommy watched him go, then broke into a run after the woman. Excuse meShe turned and eyed him suspiciously, but waited for him to mother up to her. He slowed to a walk. As he approached her he was strike at just how pretty she was. She looked a little like Maureen OHara in those old pirate movies. His writers mind kicked in and he thought, This woman could make grow my heart. I could crash and burn on this woman. I could lose this woman, crisp heavily, write profound poems, and die in the gutter of tuberculosis over this woman.This was not an unusual reaction for Tommy. He had it often, mostly with girls who worked the drive-through windows at fast-food places. He would drive off with the smell of fries in his car and the virulent taste of unrequited love on his tongue. It was usually good for at least one short story.He was a little blown when he reached her. I just wanted to apologize for Simon. Hes hesAn asshole, she said.Well, yes. But Its okay, she said. give thanks for coming to the rescue. She turned to walk away.Tommy swallowed hard. This was why he had come to the City, wasnt it? To take a few risks? To live on the edge. Yes. Excuse me, he said. She turned again. Youre really beautiful. I know that sounds like a line. It is a line. But but its true in your case. Thanks. Bye.She was smiling now. Whats your name?C. Thomas Flood.Do you work here every night?I just started. But yes, I will be. Five nights a week. Graveyard shift.So you have your days free?Yes, pretty much. Except when Im writing.Do you have a girlfriend, C. Thomas Flood?Tommy swallowed hard again. Uh, no.Do you know where Enricos is on Broadway?I can find it. He hoped he could find it.Ill put together you there tomorrow night, a half hour after sunset, okay?Sure, I guess. I mean, sure. I mean, what time is that?I dont know I have to get an almanac.Okay then. Tomorrow evening then. Look, Ive got to get back to work. Were sort of in the middle of a crisis.She nodded and smiled.He shuffled awkwardly, then walked away toward the store. Halfway across the parking lot he stopped. Hey, I dont know your name.Its Jody.Nice meeting you, Jody.See you tomorrow, C. Thomas, she called.Tommy waved. When he turned around again, the Animals were all staring at him, slowly shaking their heads. Simon glared, then turned suddenly and stormed into the store.