Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 7

Chapter 7Suitorsafter enduring a reasonable center of bitterness from the crew over using his position to make a move on the girl in the parking lot, Tommy was able to persuade them to bilk back to work. Simon, Drew, and Jeff performed somewhat mechanical magic on the meat case with a hammer, some jumper cables, and a can of Bondo, and by morning everything was streak as if greased by the gods. Tommy met the manager at the front door with a smile and a report that his first night had gone great. The scoop out crew he had ever seen, he said.He rode to Chinatown with troy weight downwind. They found a parking place a few blocks from Tommys room and walked the rest of the way. The cheerfulness was up only an hour, but already the merchants were open and the sidewalks crowded. Delivery trucks blocked the streets as they dropped off their loads of fresh fish, meat, and vegetables.Walking through Chinatown with troy Lee at his side, Tommy felt as if he were carrying a secret weapo n.Whats that stuff? Tommy asked, pointing to a stack of celerylike stuff on a produce table.Bok choy Chinese cabbage.And that?nin-sin root. They say its good for the wood.Tommy stopped and pointed in the window of a herbalist. That looks like hunks of deer antler.It is, Troy said. Its used to make medicine.As they passed the fish market Tommy pointed to the great spiny turtles trying to escape their milk crates. Do people eat those?Sure, people who can afford them.This is like a foreign country.It is, Troy said. Chinatown is a very closed community. I cant believe you live here. Im Chinese and Ive never even so lived here.This is it, Tommy said, stopping at the door.So you want me to ask them some the flowers, and what else?Well, about vampires.Give me a break.No, this guy I met, the Emperor, he said it could be vampires. Tommy led the way up the steps.Hes bullshitting you, Tommy.He was the one that told me about the job at your remembering, and that turned out to be true.Tom my opened the door and the five Wongs looked up from their bunks. Bye-bye, they said.Bye-bye, Tommy said.Nice place, Troy said. Ill bet the rent is a killer. cubic decimetre bucks a week, Tommy said.Fifty bucks, the five Wongs said.Troy motioned Tommy out of the room. Give me a minute here.Troy closed the door. Tommy waited in the hall, listening to the nasal, banjo sounds of the conversation between Troy and the five Wongs. After a few minutes 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 seemed as if he was trying to life from laughing. These guys atomic number 18 bonnie off the boat, man. It was kind of hard to understand them, they speak some regional dialect.So?So, theyre here illegally, smuggled over by pirates. They owe the pirates like thirty grand for the trip, and if they get caught and sent back to China, they still owe the money. Thats like twenty year s wages in the provinces.So? Tommy asked. Whats that got to do with the flowers?Troy snickered. 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 courting you.WhatThey perceive somewhere that in San Francisco men marry men. They figure that if they can get you to marry them, then they can be citizens and stay here. Youve got secret admirers, dude.Tommy was indignant. They cipher Im fairylike?They dont know. I really dont think they care. They asked me to ask you for your hand in marriage. Troy finally lost control and started laughing.What did you fall apart them?I told them Id ask.You fucker.Well, I didnt want to tell them no without asking you. They said that theyd take good 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 thi nk about it. Look, Ive got to get home and get some sleep. Ill see you at work tonight. Troy walked away.Youre cleaning garbage cans tonight, Troy. Im in charge, you know? You better not tell Simon and the guys.Whatever you say, Fearless Leader, Troy called 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 lovely bride.Tommy, murder in his eyes, broke into a run after Troy Lee.Sunset. Consciousness hit Jody like a bucket of cold water.She thought, I miss waking up groggy and waiting for the coffee to brew. Waking up with your worries already in full stride just sucks.What was I thinking? Giving myself only a half hour to get ready for a date? I have 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 continuously work nights in g rocery stores? The neighbors always say that He worked nights and kept to himself. Who would have thought that he stir-fried the paperboy? 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 thrown on her jeans and was furiously trying to put on what footling make-up she had with her.She thought, I can read small print in the dark, I can see heat coming off a hiding rat from a hundred yards, and I still cant put on mascara without poking myself in the eye.She stepped back from the mirror and tried to fight the self-criticism tried to look at herself objectively. I look like a late-night TV invocation for the fashion-impaired, she thought. This wont work.She broke away from the mirror, then took one last look and primped her hair, 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 corner, where she bounced from foot to foot as if waiting for the bathroom at a beer-drinking contest.Tommy had spent the day trying to reduce the five Wongs. He watched the room until he was sure they had all left, then he sneaked in and grabbed some clean clothes, showered, svelte, and sneaked out. He took a bus to Levis Plaza, where he napped on a park bench while pigeons and seagulls scavenged well-nigh him. Late afternoon brought a cold wind off the bay that chilled him awake.He walked up Sansome toward North Beach, trying to rub the crease out of the back of his head left by the bench slats. As he passed a group of teenagers who were posturing and panhandling at the curb, one pudgy boy shouted, Sir, can you spare a quarter for some eyeliner?Tommy dug in the pocket of his jeans and handed the kid all of his change. No one had ever called him sir before.Oh, thank you, sir the kid gushed in a high womanly 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 cost 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 do his stomach growl, and a quarter was a small price to pay to quiet it. The plea for eyeliner appealed to the writer part of him, the part that believed that creative thought was outlay something.Yesterday he had heard a tourist tell a homeless man to get a job.Pushing a shopping coerce 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 feeding on the patio by the street. Jod y wasnt thither. He stopped at the hosts station and reserved a table outside for a half hour later.Is there a bookstore around here? he asked.The host, a thin, bearded man in his forties, with perfect anchorman-gray hair, raised an eyebrow, and with that small gesture made Tommy ascertain 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 giddy 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 barker outside a strip joint, a man in a red tailcoat with a top hat.Tits, slits, and clits. Come on in, sir. The show starts in five minutes.No, thanks. I have a dinner date in a few minutes.Bring the little lady back with you. This show can turn a maybe into a sure thing, son. Well have her sitting in a puddle before you leave.Tommy squirmed. Maybe, he said. He hurri ed along until the barker ii doors up, this one a buxom woman wearing leather and a ring in her nose, stopped him.The most beautiful girls in town, sir. every last(predicate) 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 triplet more times 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, ignoring the barkers.Back home, he thought, its impolite to ignore someone who is speaking to you, especially if they call you sir. I guess Im going to have to learn City manners.She had fifteen 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 bedspread on the corner of Van Ness and Vallejo with a stack of hundred-dollar bills in her hand and announced, I need help. NowTen sal espeople, all young, all dressed in generic cotton 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 needed talent to calculate the projected commissions contained in Jodys cash. One by one they resumed breathing and marched toward her, a look of dazed hunger in their eyes a postulate of zombies from the perky, youthful version of The Night of the Living Dead.I wear a size four and Ive got a date in fifteen minutes, Jody said. Dress me.They descended on her like an evil 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 times in the half block from City Lights Bookstore to Enricos and he was a little jangled from dodging traffic. He ordered a cappuccino from a waiter who fawned over him like a mother hen, then stared in amazement when the wait er returned with a cup the size of a large soup bowl and a plate of brown crystalline cubes.These are raw sugar cubes, honey. So oftentimes better for you than that white poison.Tommy picked up the soup spoon and reached for a sugar cube.No, no, no, the waiter scolded. We use our demitasse spoon for our cappuccino. He pointed to a tiny spoon that rested in the dor.Demitasse, Tommy repeated, feeling reckless. In Indiana the use of the word demitasse was tantamount 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 nice people, once you got past their apparent obsession 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 arouse the waiter gushed. indeed well make you look marvelous. Just remember, use from the outside first on the forks. The big spoon is for windin g 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 bell 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 flannel shirt as if it were a foul, dead animal.No, this is all I have clean.Oh well, it does have a certain Mr. Green Jeans charm, I guess.Tommy caught a trashy 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, waving to catch her attention. She spotted him, smiled, and approached the table.Jody was dressed in a khaki skirt, a light-blue chambray blouse, light-blue leggings, and tan suede flats. She wore a woven leather belt, a green tartan scarf tied around her shoulders, silver earrings, bracelet, a nd necklace, and carried a suede backpack in place of her airline flight bag.The waiter, keeping his gaze fixed on Jody, bent and whispered in Tommys ear, The flannel 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 twinge the fabric of Jodys scarf. Lovely tartan, dear. Sets off your eyes. Ill be back with some menus.Hi, Jody said to Tommy. Have 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 around 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 finished 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 two 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 competency going between you two that is simply electric.Frederick walked away.Jody eyed Tommy over the menu. Have we just been insulted?I hear the rosemary chicken breast is wonderful, Tommy said.