I can see that there’re two cats perched up in the window next to her. They sit on either side of her like prison guards walking a ravin’ lunatic to a padded room. Kitties even look like twins. “Nice to meet you. I’m Marianne! Are you staying with Teddy?”
Ah, yep. That was his name. Forget it for a spell. Teddy. I gotta remember it this time or it might bungle things up. People start to doubt you’re meant to be someplace if you don’t know the names of the people that are actually meant to be there. If that makes any fuckin’ sense at all.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m just staying for a few days, though. Crazy weather we’re having, isn’t it?” I reply. People love to talk about the weather, that’s one of the first things you learn when you go wanderin’. Actually, you can learn that just sittin’ still, too. Just turn on the Weather Channel. Those chumps make a living out of it.
A bitchy gust o’ wind blows past Marianne’s face and she pulls into her house for a few seconds, then pokes her head back out, still smiling. Nothin’ breaks this bitch’s stride. She’s cheery as all get-out. She says to me then, “Storm of the century I’d say. I’ve been cooped up in this house for a week now. I swear to God I’d go crazy if I didn’t have all my cats.” She speaks as though she had hundreds of cats, which I reckon might be the case.
She doesn’t look too bad. Not top notch, but nothing to sneeze at either. A little older than I like, a little scabby looking, but she might do, especially if she has a lot of grub stashed in her house. I’m not so sure about the cats. I hate cats. Like hate as in—I would send all the cats in the world to them ovens they had in that Holocaust if I could. If I settle in and settle up with this broad, we’ll have to do something about them cats. Maybe I’ll just bury them all in this goddamned snow.
Meow, motherfuckers! Meow!
Then Marianne says, “How are you gentlemen for supplies? Food? Heat?”
“We’re okay for the time bein’, ma’am. I reckon we have enough to last a few more days at least. And how are you faring, if you don’t mind my asking? Anything I can assist with?” People like the word “assist” better than the word “help.” If you say, “help”, then people feel like they’re not involved. If you “assist”, then it’s a team effort. They’re a shitload more likely to respond. Tips from the road. Zing, zing, zing.
She doesn’t mind me asking apparently, cause she replies, “I just went food shopping right before the storm got too nasty. Lucky I guess, since they didn’t even predict this thing. I could last a couple more weeks. If you fine fellows get hungry, just come on over, you hear me?”
Yeah, I hear her.
You bet your ass I hear her. I won’t go over there right away, ‘cause that will look a little fishy and sorta desperate. Might get her askin’ questions she best not be askin’. I’ll wait until tomorrow, work up some kind of sob story about What’s His Nuts, and then I’ll move on in, kick my feet back and enjoy the storm from a new perspective. I don’t know how long I’ll keep her heart thumpin’ after I become the king of that place over yonder, but if she’s a nasty kind of lover that lets me do what I want (and when I want; that’s important too), then I’ll keep her as long as she keeps me smirkin’.
“How long have you two been together?” she asks now, getting real fuckin’ nosy if you ask me. I assume she’s talking about the dude that lived in the house, that one that picked me up on the side of the road. Polly Prissy Pants With The Shitty Paintings is what I think his boyfriends called him. Zing.
Nah, it’s Teddy. Like the graham crackers. I knew that. I put that in m’memory bank now. His name was Teddy and he made some killer stew. He’s dead now, and I’m glad for it.
“We just met, not too long ago,” I say, working together a story that I will have to stick to when I eventually go over there and take what’s mine from the crazy cat lady. “He’s a great guy,” I say. Sometimes bein’ so sweet makes my stomach slick with goo, like the time I ate a whole dozen glazed doughnuts on a dare. And for the record, Teddy wasn’t a great guy—in fact, he seemed like a real dickwad if you ask me. Anybody with such shitty paintings on the wall can’t be worth much to the world. I did the planet a favor. “I think I’m in love,” I say now, kind of acting like I’m embarrassed, which I sort of am. Oh man, am I selling the shit out of this one or what?
Even with a twenty-foot gap between the two windows, I can see her blushing. She is impressed by how sweet I am. Ain’t that precious? This is why I’m a good wanderer, because I know how to put on the charm when the time is right. I wander because people love my shit, no matter where I go. Even though she thinks I’m a little light in the loafers, that don’t mean I won’t be deliverin’ her the meat-man in record time, know what a’mean?
“Aren’t you a sweet dear?” she asks. I don’t know if I’m supposed to answer that question. That’s what they call re-tor-ikal. And yes, I am. I’m a sweet, sweet dear. I’m a peach. I’m a prince. Look at me, makin’ the world a better place. Punky Fuckin’ Brewster over here.
Another cat comes up to Marianne, rubbing against her arm, showing its ass in my direction. She looks at it, smiling and nuzzling her face against its fur. You have no idea how bad I want to tell her that I want to come over and touch her pussies. Zing. I don’t go saying that like I want to, since that will really fuck things up if I do. But a man can think whatever he wants, right? I’ve got a whole garage full of pussy jokes, just waitin’ on her to give me the opportunity. Life is grand sometimes.
Chapter Three
Marianne keeps trying to push these nasty hotdogs on me. The bull of it is—and man oh man am I biting my tongue as I explain this shit to her like a proper gentleman—they ain’t hotdogs at all. They ain’t even meat. She keeps hemmin’ and hawin’ about how delicious they are, and how healthy they are for my colon, and how they’ll spoil if we don’t eat all fifteen packages of them soon. I tell her there’s no worry in that, since it ain’t meat, so it has almost no chance of spoiling. She doesn’t believe me, but I know they won’t spoil. Them silly shits are made of plastic, I swear it.
They taste like a little baby’s mashed up fingers, and they kinda look like ’em too. I never eaten a baby’s mashed up fingers, but I bet they would taste better than her endless supply of “Happy Pups” hotdogs. They’re some fake-ass shit and Marianne’s a damn faker for eating them. I almost tell her that it’s been a long time since she had a real hot dog in her mouth and she might’n change her mind if I stuck my commander-in-beef in there and wiggled my hips around, just for a few minutes. I can make this shit-for-brains a meat eater again, and you just watch me. And there’s a big ol’ zing for ya’. Zing a ling.
This morning she keeps feeding them baby fingers to her cats. They chomp on ’em like they was made outta mouse meat or somethin’. Marianne keeps dippin’ them tasteless nubs in some sort of barbecue sauce, and that just about turns my stomach inside out. I love me some barbecue sauce, especially on a hot rack o’ ribs, but this hippie bitch has ruined that right there for me.
I force one of them into my throat, mostly because my stomach is growling like it’s pissed off at me and there’s not much else to eat in her fridge. Everything else is just as fucked up—some shit called Kim-Chee (I once banged a Korean tramp named Kim Chee, bet your buttons I did, zing zing zing), pickled cabbage that looks like it was dragged out some sewer grate, and some weird ass rubbery stuff called “temper.” I wanna tell her that my temper is risin’, especially if she tries to get me munchin’ on that deathly lookin’ shit. The temper (she keeps correctin’ me with temp-UH, temp-UH) has this bluish and gray tint to it. It’s more of that fake-ass meat she says. Ain’t nothin’ that’s pretending to be meat should be blue. Maybe brown, maybe red, but not blue. That’s some twisted shit right there.