He got his carpet cutter out, honed the edge. The Guards stopped you, you went, “Hey man, I’m a carpet layer, tools of the trade.” That he’d never laid anything but broads was beside the point.
He left a note for Angie, after handcuffing her to the bed. Went:
Babe
T.C.B.
El.
In the car, the thought struck him, Would she know that El was the King and that T.C.B. was, like, his mantra?
Sure, for fook’s sake. She was a Yank, had to know all that shit.
He got to the River Inn and sure enough, a punk at the counter, sneer in place.
Slide asked, “Got a room, mate?” Using his English accent.
Slide knew if you wanted to make them record books, you better have a shiteload of talents, mimicry for one. The Brit was simple, just act like you had a lump of coal in yer mouth and act like a complete prick. Piece of cake, or rather, piece of crumpet. Jolly fooking hockey sticks.
That Slide was shite at accents never occurred to him.
The counter guy stared at him, as if thinking, What’s with this wanker? Asked with a smirk, “You got twenty Euro?”
Slide was delighted. The guy was even better than he hoped-he was giving mouth.
Deciding to fuck with him, Slide adopted a timid voice, went, “Why?”
The guy, not hiding his disdain at all now, said, “You got twenty Euro, I might have a room.”
Slide took a quick look around. Coast was clear and, best, no CTTV. What’d you expect, the place was a kip.
He plopped a wad of crumpled notes onto the counter, mumbled, “Is that enough for ya?”
The guy sighed-he could have sighed for Ireland-and leaned down to sort the notes.
Slide grabbed the mother by his lanky hair, going, “Jeez, you ever hear of shampoo?” and then slit his throat from left to right. He stepped back, there was always a geyser. Sure enough, here it came-fucking fountain of the red stuff, whoosh, there she blew. Slide never ceased to be struck with admiration by the pure power of the splurt.
The guy was gargling, emitting strangled moans, and Slide said, “Was gonna let it slide, know what I mean? Running yer mouth there, mate. Well, let’s fix that. You think?”
He took off the guy’s lips. It took a while-harder than you’d think to slice evenly. Sometimes you got gum-not chewing gum, the other kind. Though sometimes you got chewing gum too.
Slide took the fuck’s wallet. It had, like, fifteen Euro and a photo of a dark-haired woman. Slide kept that. Figured he’d show it to some chick sometime, say the girl in the photo was his childhood sweetheart who broke his heart. Always good for a pity fuck, right?
He was outa there, the lips in his jacket. For a moment, he imagined the lips talking, giving it large. He had such a hard-on, couldn’t wait to ride Angela with the handcuffs. Then, mid-orgasm, hers, he’d kiss her with the guy’s lips, go, “No lip from you now.”
She’d get a kick outa that.
Six
It started as kind of a joke, and then it wasn’t funny anymore because money became involved. Deep down, nothing about money is funny.
CHARLES WILLEFORD, The Shark-Infested Custard
Angela tried to open her eyes, couldn’t see, and thought, Jaysus, have I gone blind? Or, wait, it was the mascara glued solid. She knew she always overdid the goo, an echo back to her brief stint as a goth chick. But no, this was, like, what, her eyes were covered?
And what the hell was up with her right hand, like it was suspended, and when she pulled, she felt metal grate on her wrist. She managed to sit up and, with her left hand, tore off the covering on her eyes. A blindfold? What the fuck? Then it came flooding back.
Slide, the demented bastard, telling her blindfolds were a huge kick and pouring vast amounts of Jameson down her throat, not like she was fighting it. A year of near poverty in Dublin, was she going to turn down some decent hooch? Yeah, right.
But, Jesus, she needed to pee and now.
Then she saw that the handcuff on her right wrist was attached to the bar above the bed. She yanked at it and it chaffed her wrist, probably tore off some skin. She didn’t remember agreeing to that kink.
Or had she?
She did remember, after the first time, when he took her fast, doggy-style-that was nice-they did shots of Jameson. Then he suggested another go and, Jaysus, it was even better the second time-hot, heavy, fevered and wild. It had been a while since she’d lost control like that-not since her old boyfriend, Dillon. Dillon had turned out to be a raging psycho but, boy, he knew how to screw.
Slide, it seemed, had a little Dillon in him. She vaguely recall him shouting, “Ride me yah bitch, go on yah wild thing!”
The Irish male-they might not be subtle but, Christ, they sure were vocal. When he came, she felt a delicious frisson, and then he roared, as if he was dying, “Ah sweet mother ah fook me!…Yah hoor’s ghost!…Aw bollix, I love yah!…Yah filthy cunt!” Celtic terms of endearment, right?
And the other thing, every one of them, when they had an orgasm, screamed not blue murder but green mothers. Angela shuddered, realizing that the Irish matriarch wasn’t exactly what she wanted to think about in the throes of a ferocious hangover.
She roared, “Slide, I want to be released now! Joke’s over and goddamn it, I need to pee. You hear me?”
She listened but, nope, no sign of the Irish fucker.
Then she had an epiphany-she no longer thought of her own self as Irish. How did that happen? She’d been raised in New York, in a Greek-Irish home where the Irish influence was the dominant theme. She knew more about the Boyos than the Yankees, and had bodhrans, spoons, accordions, all around the house. Oh, there’d been plenty of melancholy. Everything, we’re talking every single thing, was a tragedy. Her dad had always said, Give a mick lots of grief, pain, sorrow and he was as happy as a pig in shite. Maybe all that rain had something to do with it. They had to occupy themselves somehow so they spent their time pissing and moaning. And Jesus, could they moan.
“Slide, you fookin cunt bastard, I’ll have your eyes out, ye demented fool!”
Yep, her year in Dublin had literally robbed her of her Irish-ness all right. And she wasn’t the only one losing it-the whole fookin country wasn’t Irish anymore. Everybody spoke in bad American accents, wore Harvard or Knicks sweatshirts and watched The OC, The Sopranos, Deadwood, and The Simpsons. And, get this, on Sundays, Sky TV showed baseball! Irish guys who wouldn’t know their Mantle from their Aaron were talking about stepping up to the base, second innings, pitchers, catchers and the World Series. How fucked is that?
At a pub one night, Angela asked a baseball fan, “What happened to hurling and shillelaghs?” and the guy went, “Shut yer mouth, woman. Jeter’s batting.”
And, sin of sins, the guy was drinking Coors Light, for God’s sake, with a glass of water as a chaser, as if the shite wasn’t watered down enough already.
Truth was, Angela missed America. She wanted a real goddamn sandwich. In Ireland, they gave you slices of thin white bread. No rye, no whole wheat, no fookin pumpernickel. Then they added a shaving of something called ham and some sort of dead leaf they claimed was lettuce. Lettuce pray for fucking patience! She wanted to go home, get some meatballs and mashed potatoes, where you didn’t have to pay for a second shot of coffee, where a hero was a real sandwich and where people spoke real English.
“Slide, you cunt bastard!”