Burn Down The Night (12 page)

"Uh, you said I
could have a bennie..."

"You'll get one if
you do me a favor."

"Uh, well, maybe I
don't really want—"

"It's my party,
right?" She's suddenly angry, fingers of one hand tightening against my face.

I don't
argue.

"Yeah.
Sure."

"I'm not asking
you to kill somebody or something," she says, looking around the room, "although that might be
fun. Just do something for me."

"Like
what?"

She takes her arms
off of me, eases one of her breasts out of her dress, pointing it at me. "See this."

How could I not
see it?

"Yeah."

She moves up
against me, rubbing it across my chest. She lets go of her breast, uses both hands to pull back
on my lips, looking at my teeth. "Lovely," she says.

"I'm, uh, too
screwed up for screwing. Kind of partied out, if you wanna know the truth. So maybe we just
better..." I start apologizing.

Jesus! It'd be
like climbing into a coffin to make love to the worms.

"I don't want
that."

Suddenly she grabs
my hair and slams my head forward, bending me over. My face collides with her exposed
breast.

Her arms wrap
around my back, her body arches tautly against me.

"Bite it until it
bleeds!" she shrieks.

I try to pull
free, but she's wrapped me up complete­ly and has the strength of a maniac.

I got no choice. I
get her breast in my mouth and bite down. She clutches me convulsively, moaning, "Harder!
Harder!"

Her hands push the
back of my head, drawing me tighter up against her.

My mouth is full,
I bite harder, tasting blood, gagging a little.

She screams in
ecstasy. I push against her stomach, trying to push free. She jerks convulsively, having an
orgasm.

I get loose, shove
her off me. She staggers back, com­ing against the wall, shuddering with delight.

I'm numb, shocked,
strung out like a cocained chicken.

I look at her. Her breast is all
bloody and I can feel blood dribbling down the comers of my mouth. I wipe my mouth off, staring
at the stains on the back of my hand. I tell myself, well, here you are, having just another
party night in bitch goddess L.A. and it could be worse. So you turned cannibal, that's not the
worst thing in the world, is it? It took you a little sudden is all, before you had a proper
chance to really get into it. But don't be depressed, 'cause there's still a few perversions you
haven't tried yet. There's still dogs, ducks and donkeys. And grandmother rape.

Okay, cannibalism
is no fun.

I look at the
chick, slowly coming off the wall, strapped up in a hideous rapture, face contorted with
pleasure-pain, one breast looking like a sacrifice to a lawn mower. A dead woman a vampire
wouldn't have claimed, or maybe once did.

Maybe I spoiled
the fun of being a cannibal by mixing in, considering the way she looks, too much
necrophilia.

The hell with
her!

I start marching
off. Green fingernails dig into my arm, spin me around.

"Don't you want
your up?"

"Uh,
well..."

She releases me,
digs into a small fur purse dangling by a long cord from one shoulder, comes out with a white
envelope.

"How many?" she
asks. "I got some good acid. Want some belladonna too? How about some M.D.A.?"

"Just an up," I
say, wiping the blood on the back of my hand off on my shirt.

She opens the
envelope, and I see inside. Must be fifty pills in there, all kinds, shapes, colors,
sizes.

"How can you tell
them apart?"

She digs her
fingers in and comes out with a fat white pill. "I got a good memory. I know what each pill
is."

"An up." She holds
it out to me, two-fingered, blood on her arm. A fat white pill, rectangular, the giant economy
size.

"You're really
bleeding. Maybe you ought..."

She smiles. "I
know. I love it. It really hurt: I got off." She looks at me longingly, licking her
lips.

"We could go into
the other room. I'd give you all the drugs I got if you'd whip..." Her teeth are black from her
lipstick.

I back away, not
even taking the pill.

"No!" Time to run.
This girl wants to have too much fun.

She shrugs, seeing
she's lost a customer.

"Okay. Here. Take
it." She pushes the pill at me. "A favor for a favor."

I take the pill,
turning it over in my hand, looking at it suspiciously. "You sure this is an up? I never seen
this big an upper in my life. Looks like an elephant tranquilizer."

"It's an up."
She's positive. "Hey, c'mon. You treated me nice. So swallow it."

I put it in my
mouth, nasty taste, struggle to swal­low it dry, finally get it down. My mouth still full of
blood, salty taste.

"Uh", thanks." I
nod at her.

"See you around,"
she says, massaging the torn skin around her breast, shuddering deliciously from the pain it
causes. She's absorbed in what she's doing, hurting herself. I back away, getting the hell away
from her.

I get halfway
across the room when she shouts something at me. I turn and look back at her, sitting on the
floor now, in a little puddle of her own blood.

"I lied!" she
yells at me, waving one bloody palm at me. "That wasn't an upper! I don't know what it
is!"

She laughs
hysterically, and begins licking the blood off the palm of her hand.

"Oh, shit! I'm
gonna die!" I shake my head. It's my fault. I'm too kind to people and they're always taking
advantage of me because of it. It's the nice, normal ones like that girl that always give me the
most trouble. It's the crazy ones that never bother you. Right?

I stagger off
through the wreckage, expecting at any moment that my head will explode with some kind of wonder
drug as yet unknown to science, turning me into a lightning bolt. I manage not to trip over
any­thing or step on anyone, almost a magic act in itself.

The cannibalism
number kinda woke me up. I head for the kitchen, with a little more energy than I came in with.
Terror is good methedrine.

I have to move a
girl's legs away from the kitchen door. The legs are attached to a body that has said a firm
goodbye to Saturday night in L.A. She's passed out with an ashtray on her forehead, and cigarette
butts all over her face. When you can't have any more fun, you can at least be useful.

Open the kitchen
door and find something new there. Morrison is under the kitchen table. Dead drunk. Or drugged
out. Or maybe just dead. Hard to tell.

Some girl in a
Mexican poncho is trying to take his jacket off. Having a difficult time of it with him sprawled
out under the table like a cold-cocked matador. He's just a dead weight in her arms and she's no
tow truck strength-wise.

I bend down and
watch her. She tugs the jacket off finally. I wonder if maybe I should applaud but don't because
persistence is its own reward.

Her head almost
bumps into mine.

I shake a finger
at her. "Naughty! Naughty! Shame on you!"

She sees me,
jumps, banging her head against the bottom of the table.

"Thou shalt not
steal. Unless you are white and have signed a treaty." I hold out my hand. "Gimme!"

"Screw you!" She
folds her arms protectively against her stomach.

I can see tracks
on both of her arms. Just another junkie chick trying to pick up some loose change. Probably went
through Morrison's pockets too.

She starts backing
out, trying to get away on the oth­er side of the table. I reach in, grab her by one arm and yank
her out from under the table.

She struggles
against me, slips and then falls forward on her face. She tries to crawl through my legs so I
grab her by one leg and hold on. She coils up in a ball, protecting the stolen coat with her
scrawny legs.

"My friend isn't
going to like waking up to find some little junkie's made off with his coat. So better let go of
it."

"Let me go, you
stupid bastard!"

She reaches up and
tries to jab me in the crotch with her fist. I lean back, knocking her hand away and letting go
of her leg. This one plays nasty, believes in dialing direct.

She tries again so
I grab her by the hair, holding her out at arm's length, protecting my lap. She tries to pull her
head away, wincing with pain.

"You're hurting
me."

"I'm not trying
to."

"Owwwww!" I give
her hair a little yank, so she knows I'm not kidding around.

"C'mon, play nice.
Give it up. It doesn't belong to you."

"Screw you! It
doesn't belong to you either," she says, looking around wildly as if looking for reinforce­ments.
She seems to be thinking, holds that pose a few seconds and then tries this one on me. "Hey,
look, he's dead. Okay? He don't need the coat no more. Okay?"

I don't believe
her, though this is the kind of party where it's not that unlikely. "That makes you a grave
robber and that's even worse."

She spits in my
face suddenly, taking me by surprise. The spittle is stinging my eyes and it makes me madder than
hell. I let go of her hair, put my arms un­der her armpits and drag her upright. She tries to
roll herself into a ball like a porcupine protecting its belly. I end up holding her in the air
'cause she won't put her legs down to support herself. The weight almost tum­bles me over
backwards on my ass. Jesus H. Christ!

I stumble forward,
can't support us both, and her back bangs hard against the edge of the table. It hurts and her
legs come down like aircraft landing gear. The coat drops out from under her poncho.

I smile at her
sarcastically, and with exaggerated politeness say, "Thank
you!"

I bend over to
pick up the coat and she kicks me in the face. Hard.

I fall over
backwards, my head slamming into the kitchen floor. She makes a dive for the coat and starts
scooting for the door. I have just enough presence of mind to reach out, grab her by one bony
ankle and yank it out from under her.

She falls over on
me and comes up yelling, kicking and going for my face with her fists. I slap her once, trying to
fend her off and hit her harder than I intended right across the eyes.

Stunned, she rolls
off me.

I get up slowly,
holding my nose, my hand getting sticky with my own blood. Think a couple of my teeth are
loose.

Feel my front
teeth. Think one is definitely loose. I tell her angrily, sincerely, "I ought to break both of
your goddamn legs."

"Bastard!" She
tries to slap me. I don't believe her. She must have seen too many John Wayne movies or
something. I catch her hand and twist it until she gasps with pain. Not trying to be cruel, just
trying to hold my own. I don't put on much pressure, just enough to make her feel like
quitting.

I let go and she
slumps to the floor.

She's crying now.
Probably not because I hurt her but because she's afraid she's not going to have enough money for
a fix. I don't understand how we do the things we do to each other and to ourselves.

I back off a few
steps, holding the coat, just watching the tears flowing down her half-starved cheeks. Her wrist
is turning purple. Guess I was a little too heavy-handed. Didn't mean to savage her. Christ! What
am I, a fucking cop?

Still I find
myself standing over her, holding my aching face, asking, "Is that all you took?"

"That's all, you
crummy bastard," she sobs, holding her wrist. Save me from junkie children who've slept in all
the rooms of hell.

She gets up slow,
starts to move around me. I see she's still got a suspicious bulge under her poncho, tucked down
behind her shirt. Not being no cop, I should let her go, but my face feels like raw meat and I
haven't wasted all my anger yet. I should let her go but I don't. I reach out and grab her by the
throat, but not trying to be too rough. I tilt her head back far enough that it hurts a little,
just a little. "I think you're lying."

I tap her stomach
with my other hand. Something hard under there.

"What's that? You
trying to give birth to a night bank deposit box?"

Her fingers come
up, sharp claws going for my eyes. This is my night to get ripped to shreds. Well, screw it! I
lose control. I turn away but not quick enough. Feel her nails go under my right eye, raking down
the side of my face. Feel the blood welling under the skin.

"Why, you bitch!"
I shake her like a dog shakes a dead rat, her head flopping back and forth like a broken doll's
head. Near feel like killing her but I see the madness in her eyes, the drugs dancing down deep
inside her and making her what she is, and you can't fight against that.