You Suck Read Free

like a toddler who has just discovered chocolate for the first time.
    She ran into his arms and kissed him. “I have so much to show you.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” Tommy asked.
    “How could I? Do you have words for what you’re hearing? For what you’re seeing?”
    Tommy let her go and looked around, took a deep breath through his nose, as if checking the bouquet of a wine. “No. I don’t know how to say these things.”
    “See, that’s why I had to share this with you.”
    Tommy nodded, but looked a little forlorn. “This part is good. But the other part…”
    “What other part?”
    “The foul, dead, blood-drinking part. I’m still starving.”
    “Don’t whine, Tommy. Nobody likes a whiner.”
    “Hungry,” he said.
    She knew how he felt, she was feeling some of it herself, but she didn’t know how to solve the feeding problem. Tommy had always been her go-to blood guy; now they were going to have to hunt. She could do it, she had done it, but she didn’t want to do it. “Come on, we’ll figure this out. Don’t pout. Let’s go watch people on Market Street. You’ll like it.” She took his hand and dragged him up the street toward Market, where rivers of tourists, shoppers, and freaks were flowing up and down the streets and sidewalks. Rivers of blood.
     
    E veryone smells like whiz and feet,” Tommy said, standing on the sidewalk in front of a Walgreens drugstore. It was still early in the evening and the convention crowd from the hotels was flowing down the sidewalks like a great migrating herd, looking for dinner or a watering hole. Out on the edges, hustlers, homeless, and hangers-on worked their angles, playing the secret path of eye contact to the pocket, while the herd defended itself by paying rapt attention to their companions, their cell phones, or a spot on the sidewalk twelve feet ahead.
    “Feet and pee,” Tommy continued.
    “You get used to it,” Jody said.
    “Is there a clean pair of underwear anywhere on this street?” Tommy shouted. “You people are disgusting!”
    “Would you settle down,” Jody said. “People are looking. They think you’re crazy.”
    “Which makes me different, how?”
    She looked up the street—for the three blocks she could see there were about three people per block shouting at passersby, wild-eyed and angry, and obviously bat shit. She nodded. He had a point, but then she snatched his shirt collar and pulled his ear down to lip level. “The difference is that you aren’t living anymore and it’s not a good idea to attract attention to yourself.”
    “Which is why you chose to wear that delightful ensemble from the skank-wear collection at Hoes-N-Thangs?”
    “You said you liked it.” Jody had become a little more provocative in her dress since becoming a vampire—but she saw it more as an expression of confidence, not a means to attract attention. Was it a predator thing? A power thing?
    “I did—do like it, but every guy who passes is staring at your cleavage. I can hear their heartbeats go up. Did you have to turn to mist to get into those jeans? You did, didn’t you?”
    A tap on Tommy’s shoulder. A young man in a white, short-sleeved dress shirt and a black tie had sidled up to him, holding out a pamphlet. “You sound troubled, brother.Maybe this will help.” The pamphlet proclaimed REJOICE ! on the cover in big green letters.
    Jody covered her mouth and turned away so the guy wouldn’t see her giggling.
    “What?!” Tommy said, turning on the guy. “What? What? What? Can’t you see I’m trying to discuss my girlfriend’s—uh—well, those.” Tommy gestured to Jody’s shoulder, which was now where those had just been. “Show him, Jody,” Tommy said.
    Jody shook her head and started to walk away, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
    “There’s a message here,” said the tie guy. “It can bring you comfort—and joy.”
    “Yeah, well, I was trying to show you some examples of that, but there she goes with