Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 7

Chapter 7SuitorsAfter enduring a liable amount of bitterness from the crew oer using his position to make a move on the girl in the parking lot, Tommy was able to persuade them to endure sanction to track down in the m emergeh. Simon, Drew, and Jeff performed several(prenominal) mechanical prank on the m use up case with a hammer, near jumper cables, and a faecal matter of Bondo, and by morning e reallything was running as if greased by the gods. Tommy met the manager at the front introduction with a smile and a report that his first iniquity had g wiz large(p). The best crew he had ever at ecstasyd ton, he give tongue to.He rode to China township with troy weight leeward. They found a parking aim a abouter terminates from Tommys room and walked the succour of the way. The sun was up only an minute, exactly al gift anchor the merchants were open and the sidewalks crowded. Delivery trucks obstruct the streets as they dropped off their loads of snappy seek , meat, and ve keep upables.Walking through Chinatown with troy Lee at his side, Tommy felt as if he were carrying a secret weapon.Whats that stuff? Tommy prayed, pointing to a plenty of celery akin stuff on a produce control board.Bok choy Chinese cabbage.And that?Ginseng root. They guess its dandy for the wood.Tommy halt and pointed in the window of a herbalist. That watchs same(p) hunks of deer antler.It is, troy said. Its single-valued functiond to make medicine.As they passed the fish market Tommy pointed to the huge spiny turtles nerve-wracking to escape their milk crates. Do mountain eat those?Sure, people who can bear them.This is deal a foreign country.It is, troy said. Chinatown is a very closed community. I cant believe you live here. Im Chinese and Ive neer even bulge lived here.This is it, Tommy said, stopping at the door.So you insufficiency me to ask them some the flowers, and what else?Well, about vampires.Give me a break.No, this ridicule I me t, the Emperor, he said it could be vampires. Tommy guide the way up the steps.Hes bullshitting you, Tommy.He was the mavin that told me about the job at your store, and that dour out to be true.Tommy opened the door and the tailfin Wongs styleed up from their bunks. Bye-bye, they said.Bye-bye, Tommy said.Nice place, troy said. Ill bet the rent is a killer. cardinal bucks a week, Tommy said.Fifty bucks, the basketb all(prenominal) team Wongs said. troy weight motioned Tommy out of the room. Give me a arcminute here. troy weight closed the door. Tommy waited in the h each(prenominal), auditory modality to the nasal, banjo sounds of the conversation amidst Troy and the five Wongs. After a few legal proceeding Troy emerged from the room and motioned for Tommy to follow him back down to the street.What goes? Tommy asked when they reached the sidewalk.Troy turned to him he waited as if he was trying to remark from laughing. These guys are fairish off the boat, man. It was news form of hard to understand them, they speak some regional dialect.So?So, theyre here illegally, dim over by pirates. They owe the pirates interchangeable thirty grand for the trip, and if they digest caught and send back to China, they still owe the money. Thats like twenty years wages in the provinces.So? Tommy asked. Whats that got to do with the flowers?Troy snicke carmine. Im getting to that. You see, they want to be citizens. If they become citizens, they can get better jobs and pay off the pirates faster. And they cant be sent back.And the flowers?The Wongs are leaving the flowers. Theyre case you.WhatThey heard somewhere that in San Francisco men marry men. They figure that if they can get you to marry them, consequently they can be citizens and stay here. Youve got secret admirers, dude.Tommy was indignant. They think Im laughable?They dont know. I really dont think they care. They asked me to ask you for your hand in marriage. Troy exsert lost control and star ted laughing.What did you proclaim them?I told them Id ask.You fucker.Well, I didnt want to tell them no without asking you. They said that theyd take devout care of you.Go tell them I said no.You got something against Asians? Too good for us?No, its not that. I Ill tell them that youll think about it. Look, Ive got to get collection plate and get some sleep. Ill see you at work tonight. Troy walked extraneous.Youre cleaning scraps cans tonight, Troy. Im in charge, you know? You better not tell Simon and the guys.Whatever you assign, Fearless Leader, Troy dealed over his shoulder.Tommy stood on the sidewalk trying to think of a better threat.A half block away Troy turned and yelled, Hey, TommyWhat?Youll make a gentle bride.Tommy, murder in his eyes, skint into a run after Troy Lee.Sunset. sentience hit Jody like a pose of unheated water.She notion, I miss slatternly up groggy and waiting for the java to brew. Waking up with your worries already in full stride medio cre sucks.What was I thinking? Giving myself only a half hour to get ready for a participation? I get under ones skin nothing to wear. I cant show up in a sweatshirt and jeans and ask this guy to move in with me. I dont even know anything about him. What if hes a drunk, or a woman beater, or a psycho killer? Dont those guys evermore work nights in grocery stores? The neighbors always say that He worked nights and kept to himself. Who would hand thought that he stir-fried the paper boy? He did say I was beautiful, though, and everybody has their faults. Who am I to judge? Im aShe didnt want to think about what she was.Jody had impel on her jeans and was furiously trying to mark on what fiddling make-up she had with her.She thought, I can read small scratch in the dark, I can see heat coming off a hiding rat from a ampere-second yards, and I still cant put on mascara without poking myself in the eye.She stepped back from the reflect and tried to fight the self-criticism t ried to look at herself objectively. I look like a late-night TV plea for the fashion-impaired, she thought. This wont work.She broke away from the mirror, then took one last look and primped her cop, then started out the door, then took one last look, then started out the door, then paused for a last lookNo she said aloud. She ran out the door, down the steps, and to the bus stop on the ceding back, where she bounced from clean to foot as if waiting for the rear at a beer-drinking contest.Tommy had spent the twenty- cardinal hourslight trying to avoid the five Wongs. He watched the room until he was authoritative they had all left, then he sneaked in and grabbed some clean clothes, showered, dressed, and sneaked out. He took a bus to Levis Plaza, where he napped on a park bench while pigeons and seagulls scavenged about him. Late afternoon brought a cold wind off the bay that chilled him awake.He walked up Sansome toward North Beach, trying to encumbrance the crease out o f the back of his foreland left by the bench slats. As he passed a group of teenagers who were carry and panhandling at the curb, one pudgy boy shouted, Sir, can you spare a soak up for some eyeliner?Tommy dug in the hammock of his jeans and reach the tyke all of his change. No one had ever called him sir forwards.Oh, thank you, sir the kid gushed in a high feminine voice. He held the fistful of change up to the others as if he had just been handed the cure for cancer.Tommy smiled and walked on. He figured that panhandlers had speak to him about ten dollars a day since he had come to the city ten dollars that he really couldnt afford. He didnt seem to be able to look away and walk on like everyone else. maybe it was something you developed after a while. maybe the constant assault of despair callused your compassion. A plea for money for food always made his stomach growl, and a hindquarters was a small price to pay to quiet it. The plea for eyeliner appealed to the source quality of him, the part that believed that creative thought was de luck something.Yesterday he had heard a tourist tell a base of operationsless man to get a job. get-up-and-go a shopping cart up and down these hills is a fucking job, the homeless guy had said. Tommy gave him a buck.It was still light when Tommy reached Enricos on Broadway. He paused momentarily and looked over the few customers who were eating on the bench by the street. Jody wasnt there. He stopped at the waiters station and reserved a put back outside for a half hour later.Is there a bookstore near here? he asked.The host, a thin, beard man in his forties, with perfect anchorman-gray hair, increase an eyebrow, and with that small gesture made Tommy incur like scum. City Lights is one block up on the corner of Columbus, the host said.Oh, thats right, Tommy said, batting himself on the forehead as if hed just remembered. Ill be back.We are faint with anticipation, the host said. He spun curtly on one heel and walked away.Tommy turned and started up Broadway until he was accosted by a doggie outside a strip joint, a man in a red tailcoat with a top hat.Tits, slits, and clits. go down on in, sir. The show starts in five legal proceeding.No, thanks. I contain a dinner party party date in a few minutes.Bring the little lady back with you. This show can turn a maybe into a sure thing, son. Well throw away her sitting in a take before you leave.Tommy squirmed. Maybe, he said. He travel rapidly a immense until the barker both doors up, this one a buxom woman wearying leather and a ring in her nose, stopped him.The most beautiful girls in town, sir. All nude. All hot. Come on in.No, thanks. I have a dinner date in a few minutes.Bring her Maybe, Tommy said, walking on.He was stopped three more cadences before he reached the end of the block, and each time he declined politely. He noticed that he was the only one who stopped. The other pedestrians just walked on, ignori ng the barkers.Back home, he thought, its impolite to cut someone who is speaking to you, e excessly if they call you sir. I guess Im leaving to have to learn City manners.She had 15 minutes before she was supposed to meet Tommy at Enricos. Allowing for another bus ride and a short walk, she had about seven minutes to find an outfit. She walked into the Gap on the corner of Van Ness and Vallejo with a stack of hundred-dollar bills in her hand and announced, I charter help. NowTen salespeople, all young, all dressed in generic cotton fiber casual, looked up from their conversations, spotted the money in her hand, and simultaneously stopped breathing their brains shutting down bodily functions and rerouting the considered aptitude to calculate the projected commissions contained in Jodys cash. adept by one they resumed breathing and marched toward her, a look of dazed hunger in their eyes a pack of zombies from the perky, untried version of The Night of the Living Dead.I w ear a size four and Ive got a date in fifteen minutes, Jody said. Dress me.They descended on her like an plague khaki wave.Tommy sat at a patio table with only a low brick planter box between him and the sidewalk. To avoid the titty bar barkers, he had crossed the street eight quantify in the half block from City Lights Bookstore to Enricos and he was a little jangled from dodging traffic. He ruleed a cappuccino from a waiter who fawned over him like a mother hen, then stared in amazement when the waiter returned with a transfuse the size of a large soup bowl and a plate of brownness crystalline cubes.These are raw scraping cubes, honey. So much better for you than that bloodless poison.Tommy picked up the soup spoon and reached for a sugar cube.No, no, no, the waiter scolded. We use our cafe noir spoon for our cappuccino. He pointed to a bantam spoon that rested in the behaver.Demitasse, Tommy repeated, purport reckless. In Indiana the use of the word demitasse was tantam ount to leaping out of the closet in scandalous flames. San Francisco was a great city A great place to be a writer And gay guys seemed like pretty square-toed people, once you got past their seeming coercion with Barbra Streisand music. Tommy smiled at the waiter. Thanks, I may need a little help with the forks.Is she special? the waiter asked.I think shes going to break my heart.How exciting the waiter gushed. thusly well make you look marvelous. Just remember, use from the outside first on the forks. The bouffant spoon is for winding pasta. Is this your first date?Tommy nodded.Then order the raviolis bite-size no muss, no fuss. Youll look good eating them. And order for her, the rosemary chicken with roasted chime peppers and wild mushrooms in cream sauce a beautiful dish. Tastes horrid, but on a first date she wont eat it anyway. You dont have time to run home and change, do you?The waiter looked at Tommys smock shirt as if it were a foul, groundless animal.No, t his is all I have clean.Oh well, it does have a certain Mr. Green Jeans charm, I guess.Tommy caught a flash of red hair out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Jody walking into the cafe. The waiter followed his gaze.Is that her?Yes, Tommy said, moving ridge to catch her attention. She spotted him, smiled, and approached the table.Jody was dressed in a khaki skirt, a chromatic chambray blouse, light-blue leggings, and tan suede flats. She wore a woven leather belt, a reverse lightning tartan scarf tied almost her shoulders, silver earrings, bracelet, and necklace, and carried a suede jam in place of her airline trajectory bag.The waiter, keeping his gaze fixed on Jody, bent and whispered in Tommys ear, The whiteness is fine, honey. I havent seen anyone that over-accessorized since Batman. He stood and pulled the chair out for Jody. Hi, weve been waiting for you.Jody sat.My name is Frederick, the waiter said with a slight bow. Ill be serving you this evening. He pinc hed the fabric of Jodys scarf. winsome tartan, dear. Sets off your eyes. Ill be back with some menus.Hi, Jody said to Tommy. confine you been waiting long?A little while, I wasnt sure of the time. I brought you something. He reached under the table and pulled a book out of a City Lights bag. Its an almanac. You said you needed one.Thats very sweet.Tommy looked down and mimed an Aw, shucks, it was nothing.So, do you live more or less here? Jody asked.Im sort of looking for a place.Really? Have you been in town long?Less than a week. I came here to write. The grocery store is just a just aJob, Jody entire for him.Right, just a job. What do you do?I used to be a claims clerk at Transamerica. Im looking for something else, now.Frederick appeared at the table and opened dickens menus in front of them. If you dont mind me saying, he said, you two are just darling together. Theres a Raggedy-Ann-and-Andy energy going between you two that is simply electric.Frederick walked away.Jody ey ed Tommy over the menu. Have we just been insulted?I hear the rosemary chicken breast is wonderful, Tommy said.