“Alice Cooper, shit, that was back when we was in high school.”
“Yeah, but it’s all the same shit.”
“They might have come from the Halloween thing at the Mirror,” said Heather. She called out, “You guys are doing that Halloween show tonight, aren’t you, Roni? It just started, right?”
Roni nodded yes, not wanting to speak. Heather kept looking her way, probably wanting to say more. Finish this cigarette and go.
The guy in the Deere cap stepped into the room from the hall in the back. He’d been in the men’s room. “What? Did I miss something?”
“No. Yes,” said Heather. “Roni, hon, was Shannon supposed to—”
“Girl, be still and mind your own business,” said Fred. Thank you, thought Roni. Heather clammed up and moved down to the far end of the bar, away from Fred. After a minute, he went into the back room again without saying more. The TV was showing a commercial for travel to the Holy Land.
“Well, that kinda broke up the monotony,” said one of the geeks, and the other smiled and winked. Heather sat down in Fred’s chair, scowling, glancing over at Roni again. Jaime was staring out the window fiercely, unmoving, as the sound came of a car door slamming, an engine starting up.
Shannon had been driving that stupid Todd Dewolf car for how long now? Whatever the drug was, it was Todd coming up with it. Again.
She found she was looking at her wedding ring. She tried to turn it on her finger, but it was stuck. She really was getting fat.
“They gone yet, Jaime?” said one of the geeks. He and the others laughed. Jaime didn’t respond, but turned and stared at her again. Jesus, take a picture. It occurred to her all at once that it might be her mark everybody was looking at, noticing how it was bigger than before.
Heather leaned forward and spoke something to John Deere, whispering, going on and on. He listened, nodding, and both of them looked over at her together. More whispering, but the guy shook his head, like maybe he didn’t want to hear more gossip. Heather shrugged, stepped into the back room.
Enough, can’t stand it. Roni stood, grabbed up her bag, and stepped quickly to the door to get out while Heather was out of the room and couldn’t call out, “Oh, you leavin’, hon?” She felt everyone’s eyes on her, but wasn’t going to look back.
The outside cold came briskly through the door when she pulled it open, but at least it was fresh. She hated walking home in this shitty neighborhood even in daytime. Streets without sidewalks, no decent streetlights, and cars whizzing past her, maybe those guys from the bar, maybe the Slasher himself. She would walk fast.
Cutting their hearts out. The mark, getting way worse, she knew it really was. Getting fat. And Shannon, dealing again. Fuck him. She pulled her coat together at her throat and hurried, tears brought on first by the cold, soon flooding her eyes and blurring what lights there were as she stepped hard, flooded with despair.
CHAPTER 2
SHANNON AND DEWEY ON THE ROAD
Dewey handed the joint over and decided to ask, “So, did Roni get a ride home after all?”
“Whaddaya mean?” said Shannon, keeping his eyes on the road while he took a hit.
“From the movie theater.”
“Oh, shit, you’re right. We were supposed to go back and get her at the Limbo. Shit.” Shannon put out the remaining inch of joint and left it in the ashtray. Dewey didn’t want any more anyway, he was feeling pretty stoned, like his head floated somewhere slightly above his inert body. They drove on, quiet.
Dewey broke the silence. “So, where are we going? To pick up Roni?”
“Naw. I’ll call her at the Limbo when we get to the club. We gotta meet those kids.”
“She’s gonna be mad, man.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“We wouldn’t be late if Todd had had the shit ready when he said he would.”
“Yeah, well, he’s distracted.”
“I wonder if he’s even making it right.”
“What, the worm? Sure he is. Customers are very satisfied. Why, you wanna test drive this batch, make sure it’s grade A?”
“Not really.” Dewey didn’t approve of selling it at all, after their own experience of it. He was surprised Todd didn’t feel that way about it, too, but maybe that was because he was so burned out about everything now. Anyway, Dewey wasn’t going to bring up that whole topic again. They were late because Todd had forgotten about them coming over to pick some up, or so he’d said, and had to finish the process of scraping the miserable stuff out of the frying pan and packaging it up, which took over an hour while Dewey and Shannon sat around watching a fairly gross and repetitious porn video Todd had playing on his VCR.
There was a pause. Cars went by, lights blooming and receding.
“Seriously though,” said Dewey, “shouldn’t we go get Roni home first? It wouldn’t take that long.”
“We’re already real late to meet the kids. They want their dope.”
“Okay, she’s your wife.”
“Yep, that she is.”
There was another lapse in the conversation. Shannon turned off an exit, surprising Dewey.
“Why we going this way?”
“To get to the place where we’re going.”
“The Morgue isn’t this way.”
“Why would we go there?”
Dewey sighed. He’d worked almost a double shift at the warehouse and didn’t get that much sleep the night before. “Isn’t that where the kid with the dreadlocks said we should meet him? That’s what you said.”
“No, no. The Grasso, not the Morgue. No way the Morgue.”
“The Grasso?” Dewey was sure this was wrong. The Grasso Villa was an old headbanger hangout that catered to an aging stoner crowd. “Shannon, you definitely said the Morgue, man.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Seriously, man, you did.”
“No I didn’t. I don’t think.”
“You don’t think? So you’re not sure.”
“I’m pretty sure. Naw, I’m sure.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I don’t wanna drive all the way over there.”
“But that’s where they are,” said Dewey. Christ, he doesn’t want to drive there.
“No it isn’t. You misunderstood.”
“Man, you did say the Morgue. I mean, why would those trendy ass little weasels want to go to the Grasso? To see fucking Beerflesh?” The kids who wanted to buy the dope, by Dewey’s judgment, were art student types dressed in fashionable rebellious-youth gear.
“They don’t play there every night.”
“Just about. They’re sort of the house band, aren’t they?”
“I dunno. All I know is that’s what he said, the Grasso.”
Dewey knew it was no use arguing with him, so why bother. They rode on in silence for a minute. Shannon broke it.
“Seriously, I wouldn’t do this shit again myself, but, whatever. I wouldn’t even be selling it if construction wasn’t so fucked around here.”
“I wouldn’t do it again, looking at what happened to Todd.” Hey, Shannon brought it up.
“Christ, man. That wasn’t ’cause of the stuff or anything. He’s all hung up about Clare,” said Shannon. “He needs to get back to having a life, instead of just being a wino and watching porn movies all day.”
“Yeah,” said Dewey. Like cooking up some weird street drug Hobie Lautenschlager hunted up so Shannon could make a few bucks. They’d talked about it too many times, and Dewey didn’t really want to argue. He decided to change the subject. “So are we gonna go see any movies at the thing, the marathon?”
“Is there anything that sounds good?” Shannon sounded unenthused.