You Suck Read Free Page A

them.”
    “But this is a joy that goes beyond physical—”
    “Yeah, like you’d know,” Tommy said, cupping his nose and mouth as if covering a sneeze. “Listen, I’d love to discuss this with you, buddy, but right now you have to GO HOME AND WASH YOUR ASS! You smell like you’re smuggling a stockyard back there!”
    Tommy turned and strode after Jody, leaving the tie guy blushing and crumpling his pamphlet.
    “It’s not funny,” Tommy said.
    Jody was trying so hard not to laugh, she snorted. “Yes, it is.”
    “Can’t they see we’re damned? You’d think they could tell. At least you. We are damned, aren’t we? “
    “No idea,” Jody said. She hadn’t really thought about it.
    “Didn’t cover that in your advanced vampire course with the old guy?”
    “Forgot to ask.”
    “No problem,” Tommy said, with no effort at all to suppress sarcasm. “Minor detail. Anything else you might have forgotten to ask?”
    “I thought I’d have more time, for follow-up,” Jody said. “I didn’t realize that the man I love was going to bronze us that first night.”
    “Yeah—well—okay. Sorry.”
    “Where’s the trust?” Jody said.
    “You killed me,” Tommy said.
    “Oh, there you go again.”
    “Please, folks. I need a dollar,” said a voice from the left. Jody looked down to see a guy sitting against the granite wall of a closed bank. He was dirty beyond age or race, sort of grimy to the point of shine, and on his lap was an enormous long-haired cat. There was a cup on the sidewalk in front of him and beside it a hand-printed sign that read I AM POOR AND MY CAT IS HUGE .
    Tommy, who was still fairly new to the city and hadn’t learned to look past this sort of thing, stopped and started digging in his pocket. “That is sure a huge cat.”
    “Yeah, he eats a lot. It’s all I can do to keep him fed.”
    Jody nudged Tommy, trying to get him back into the pedestrian flow. She liked that he was a nice guy, but it could really be irritating sometimes. Especially when shewas trying to teach him the profundities of being a creature of the night.
    “Mostly fur, though, right?” Tommy asked.
    “Mister, this cat weighs thirty-five pounds.”
    Tommy whistled and handed the guy a dollar. “Can I touch him?”
    “Sure,” the guy said. “He doesn’t care.”
    Tommy knelt down and poked the cat gently, then looked up at Jody. “This is a huge cat.”
    She smiled. “Huge. Let’s go.”
    “Touch him,” Tommy said.
    “No thanks.”
    “So,” Tommy said to the cat guy, “why don’t you give him to a shelter or something?”
    “Then how am I supposed to make a living?”
    “You could print up a sign that says ‘I’m poor and I lost my huge cat’? That would work on me.”
    “You may not be the best sample,” said the cat guy.
    “Look,” Tommy said, standing now and digging into his pocket. “I’ll buy the cat. I’ll give you, uh, forty—”
    The cat guy shook his head.
    “Sixty—”
    Furious head shaking…
    Tommy untangled bills from a wad he’d pulled out of his pocket, “One hundred—”
    “No.”
    “And thirty…two—”
    “No.”
    “And thirty-seven cents.”
    “No.”
    “And a paper clip.”
    “No.”
    “That’s a great offer,” Tommy insisted. “That’s like four bucks a pound!”
    “No.”
    “Well screw you, then,” Tommy said. “I don’t feel sorry for you and your huge cat.”
    “You can’t have your dollar back.”
    “Fine!” Tommy said.
    “Fine!” said the cat guy.
    Tommy took Jody by the arm and started to walk away. “That’s a huge cat,” he said.
    “Why were you trying to buy it? We’re not supposed to have pets in the loft.”
    “Duh,” Tommy said. “Dinner.”
    “Yuck.”
    “It’s a stopgap,” Tommy said. “You know that the Masai of Kenya drink the blood of their cattle with no apparent ill effect to the cow.”
    “Well, I’m sure it violates our lease if we get a cow.”
    “That’s it.”
    “What’s it?”
    “A