Dove looked at her fingernails, thinking about painting them red because red fingernails were sexy. She pictured running them through Johnson’s thick, luscious, pointy locks.
She tried to dissuade Duke. “A wolf will rip your face off. And they don’t sell wolves at Petco. They sell, like, hamsters and chipmunks.”
Duke looked perplexed and thoughtful until he released wet-sounding gas.
“And now I’m going to have to burn my couch.” Dove stood and headed for the door.
Duke hopped up, and there seemed to be an extra bounce in his step, causing the legs of his sweatpants to swing from side to side. Dove looked at the ceiling.
“Okay, fine, I’ll get a big fucking spider or a snake. Or both! And let them battle it out. Survival of the fittest. That would be awesome.”
Dove managed to corral him into the hallway. Steve the Cat walked with her to see him out.
“Guess what, Duke? If you get a pet, I’ll buy that Sam’s Club sausage I promised you and a plunger. And I will flush every piece down the crapper. And if it gets stuck? I’ll plunge it.” Dove leaned against her doorjamb and watched his reaction.
“Now you’re just being cruel. Not the sausage.” Duke’s eyes looked a little moist.
Apparently Steve the Cat didn’t like manly shows of emotion. He vaulted at Duke’s hairy leg. He dug his claws in deeply, like he was hanging on for dear life from a tree branch thirteen stories high. Dove recognized the C shape of the cat’s body from the counter top incident and watched as Steve suction-cupped his butt to Duke’s bare skin.
Duke hopped around, swatting at the cat. Dove let him jump around for a few seconds before she peeled her horrible cat away from her neighbor. She stepped into the hallway and tossed Steve back in her apartment and shut the door.
Duke was assessing the damage. “Look at my gams? Damn it, Dove, that cat’s crazy. I think he was sucking on me.”
Dove focused on the back of Duke’s thigh and saw a telltale bruise. She started to point and giggle.
“What? What!” Duke followed her pointing finger.
“Steve did that with his anus.” Dove slid down the door, laughing.
“Your cat gave me a hickey with his ass? That’s not even funny. That’s disgusting.” Duke was angry until he started laughing with her. “It’ll make the guys at the gym jealous when I tell them a pussy gave me a love bite.”
Dove gave him advice and direction. “See, sometimes you get a pet and it’s a jerk, like mine. You get a snake and it might squeeze your dick off. Now go get your plunger and get rid of your butt loaf in my bathroom, you fucking caveman.”
Duke trotted down the hall, bare-assed.
“And put the pants on, for the love of God!” Dove shouted after him.
She sat with her back against the door, waiting for her foul neighbor to clean his mess.
When the apartment building had a new resident, there was always an uproar. The quietest, most hushed murmur of an uproar possible. Ever since ol’ Mrs. Tushpants went to meet her maker and her relatives had a yard sale of her old, dead belongings, the landlord had been advertising in full swing. So when the advertisements had been taken down, it was time to speculate about who might be moving in.
Dove was leaving for work when Duke called from his lair of porn and sausage, “Hey Crappa Pants! Come check me out!”
Dove hated that he knew way too much about her now. He knew she had a big girl boner for Johnson, he knew she’d tried to remove her crotch hair and had crapped her pants. It was Shameful with a capital Shit.
She looked in and he was, predictably, on the couch. He was wrapped in about three blankets that looked more like maxi pads than bedding.
“Check this shit out! Ol’ Mrs. Tushpants had a pile of these Marriage Mender blankets.”
Dove figured they must have the capacity to vibrate or at least smother someone to death but, no.
“They filter farts! How fucking clever is that? Check it out.” Duke leaned a little and made a face. The resulting flatulence sounded like an angry squirrel getting tossed off a ten-story building with a water balloon tied around his neck.
“Now sniff, baby! Sniff.” Dove immediately covered her mouth. She still had stinkmares from when he clogged her toilet.
“I’m not sniffing anything that comes out of your body on purpose. I have work.” Dove shook her head and turned to leave.
“No, really. I’m worried. When was the last time you saw the Anastasias?” Duke’s voice had a tiny bit of serious concern, so Dove gave him another second of consideration.
“The last time I saw them was a week ago in the hallway. The night of my date with Johnson.” She took a few careful steps inside. “Debra Anastasia had convinced Mr. Anastasia to try to save some cat from a candy cane or something.”
Duke patted the seat next to his blanket-mummified form. She stupidly sat. He snaked an arm around her neck and held her tight. Soon enough, what sounded like machine gunfire erupted from under his comforter. “Sniff it! Sniff!”
She had no choice, she had to smell. He had her in a headlock for too long to go without breathing.
Surprisingly there was no smell.
“Clean as a baby’s ass, right?” Duke snorted.
Dove pounded him on his leg until he let her go. “I don’t think that’s the expression you’re looking for, Mt. AssVolcano.”
“These blankets are filters! I swear on my stash of Slim Jims that is the best invention ever. Besides Craigslist, of course.” Duke took his thick arm from around her neck.
“Of course,” Dove agreed.
“Mrs. Tushpants was dead under these blankets for three weeks and nobody smelled her rotting corpse. Powerful, huh?” Duke looked proud. “Her kids let me have these bastards for free at the yard sale. Can you believe it?”
“Yes. Yes, I can believe it. God, you’re vile.” Dove looked him up and down.
“There’s only one downfall. If you have to get up to take a piss…”
He flounced his blanket like a skirt, and the aroma the blankets had not had a chance to filter yet hit her right between her gag reflex and her repulsion.
“Duke, you cockbag. I better not smell like your ass crack all day.” Dove scurried for the door.
Duke waddled after her and hollered, “You owe my dick a hole, and when you get home, we’re going to look for the Anastasias!”
As Dove headed for the front glass doors there was a man on the other side who held the door open. Dove thanked him and gave a quick sniff of her shoulder to make sure she had left Duke’s fart behind. The man propped the door open behind her and headed for the Hertz truck that was parked awkwardly in front of the entrance to the building.
The new tenant!
And he’s a gentleman!
Dove noticed his left hand glistened with a gold band, and her interest dropped one hundred notches, but she was still nosy.
“So, are you moving in?” Dove tried to look like she was casually leaning against a lamppost. But there was no lamppost, so it looked more like she had injured her back or one of her legs was shorter than the other.
“No, I’m Josh. Preston needed a little help moving in. He has a huge rock collection that’s a bitch to move.” Josh nodded in the direction of the full truck bed.
Preston climbed from the bowels of the truck like a monkey running from a giant banana costume. “Le Fuck! Zat is da biggest le spider in the monde entire!”
The man’s hair was wild; it looked mostly like a wig. He jumped into Josh’s arms.
His friend shook his head and set the panicked Frenchman on his feet. “Preston’s such a kidder.”
Josh proceeded to lift the closest box. The weight was tremendous, judging from the bulging veins in his neck. The bottom gave out on the cardboard, and a rock the size of a tricycle fell out. Apparently “huge rock collection” was an extremely literal description. Preston fell to his knees and ran his hands over the surface like a mother with an injured child.
&
nbsp; Dove wished Josh luck and was thankful that she was not a friend of Preston’s freaky ass. She could swear he was the manager from Save-Mart, whom Duke had convinced to give Johnson his job back, but she didn’t think that man had had an accent.
Dove unlocked her door and started her car. She would be at least ten minutes late to open the carousel. Shannon appeared in her rear view mirror all 2009 Sopranos style, and Dove screamed from the depths of her soul. Shannon covered her mouth, and Dove had to try to pretend she was fine when the moving men showed concern while biting Shannon’s hand.
“Don’t move, Dove. Don’t move the car; don’t breathe. I can’t believe it.” Shannon put her head on the seat divider like a hopeless golden retriever. Dove followed the direction of Shannon’s attention to see that she was indeed watching the Frenchman with a look of longing on her face.
“Dove, turn up your music—just not too loud.”
Dove shrugged and did what she was told. The Ke$ha song that had melded with everyone’s DNA as they had heard it so much came alive.
Again.
Shannon leaned across and hit Pause on the music player. “Can you believe it? I can’t imagine a destiny more important than this one.”
Dove had no idea what Shannon was talking about but nodded like she understood. She would be twelve minutes late if she left right this second. Flower creepily got in the passenger seat and nodded at Dove. Like a hitchhiker with a broken thumb, Dove knew Flower wanted a ride to the park. Shannon continued as if no one else had entered the car.
“You’re not seeing it!” She slapped the back of Dove’s headrest. Another rock fell out of the box poor Josh had been lifting. This one was even bigger than the last. Preston gave his buddy a dirty look and started a very realistic impression of an angry chicken.
“He looks just like Mick Jagger! I don’t have to kick him to the curb!” Shannon bounced like she was on a trampoline and pointed at Preston.
Flower turned to Shannon. “Mick Jagger looks like a melted bicycle seat. You ass.”
Shannon pouted and jumped out of the car. It was a habit Dove couldn’t break now; she counted Flower’s words. Dove had no idea why she worried whenever Flower wasted all her words at once. Though she wasn’t certain the “a” counted. Maybe only words that would be capitalized in a title counted.
“I think Jagger is hot.” Dove shrugged, put her car in gear, and took a silent Flower to the park. They both got out, and Dove rushed to open the gates. There was a line of ten children with their annoyed mothers close at hand. Nearby, a picnic table was decorated with streamers, and her stomach fell. It was a planned party, and she was late. Her boss was going to kill her.
When the carousel had private parties, the kids got to ride nonstop for two hours or until they hurled. It was actually part of the contract the parents happily signed. A sad-faced clown sat nearby making the same tired balloon “animal” for any request a child could imagine. Mostly, it looked like a long penis with a set of plump balls. Kid asked for a robot? Got a dick. Kid asked for a bunny? A penisloon was the treat. The clown didn’t talk much. The first time she hosted a party with the fool, she thought he was a mime.
When she’d remembered that clowns and mimes were different, she’d asked him, “What animal is that?” and gestured to the ridiculously pink erect balloon.
The clown had taken a swig from his flask, mumbled, and pointed at his crotch. Dove had decided not to ask any more questions.
The food was provided by Wiener Wonderland, and Sal loved to tie one of the balloons to the front of his hot dog cart like a ship’s masthead. When one of the mothers wandered close, he would hump his cart and the balloon would press against the unsuspecting lady. His disgusting gruel always ensured there would be fewer kiddies toward the end of the party riding the horses.
Fucking wacko.
The worst part of the day was the music that was piped from the ticket booth. The fifteen-second theme song from Spongebob Squarepants was on a loop for the entire two hours allotted to the party. It was like the torture they used in war—except with balloons.
Dove set the full carousel to start and triple set the timer so the partying little soon-to-be-pukers would get their money’s worth.
She looked at her phone to check her Twitter. She had been a lot less sexy since her date with Johnson, and her follower numbers had dropped. She had one important tweet from the pharmacist.
Johnson Pharm (@06201984M358):
@Lotsa_Vampersex Are you working today? I can drop by for lunch.
Dove whooped and hollered happily. She looked up and saw the frowning mothers. They didn’t approve of her taking her attention from their precious monsters. Dove typed quickly before sliding her phone in her pocket:
Lotsa Vampersex (@Lotsa_Vampersex):
@06201984M358 Here all day
She didn’t dare take a peek at her phone until the pukers-to-be were stuffing Sal’s hot dogs and cake into their portable mess makers.
Johnson Pharm (@06201984M358):
@Lotsa_Vampersex Good news. I love the Twitter, easier than a phone!
Dove kept checking the parking lot and scanning the horizons, waiting for Johnson to turn up.
Duke passed Shannon twice as she spent the morning hiding behind a shrub that wasn’t exactly shielding her very well. She was watching the new neighbor.
Duke wandered into the parking lot in his underwear¸ munching on what looked like dog treats. He stood next to Shannon’s “hiding” place.
“Hey, Freak Show. Are you giving that bush some shrubilingus?” Duke scratched his balls lovingly.
“Shut up. I’m watching… him.” Shannon sighed.
Preston ambled back into their line of sight.
Duke shook his head. “No shit. That’s Prick-ston from Save-Mart. He’s a fucker.”
Duke walked right over to his new neighbor.
“So, from Save-Mart to my apartment building. Are you following me, Prick-ston?” Duke took his hand out of his underwear and held it out to Preston.
Preston made his best full-of-disgust face. Duke left his hand there like a dog load no one wanted to clean up.
“I vill not be shaking your de main.” Preston leaned down to pick up a box of rocks.
“Dude, why are you pretending to be French?” Duke put his hand back on his balls.
Shannon tsk-tsked unhappily from the landscaping.
Preston’s voice got deeper with his indignation. “I am le Français. Feel my French.”
Duke liked things properly labeled, and Preston was resisting any lasting title. “You wouldn’t shake my hand, so I’m feeling my own French, thank you very much.”
“Le Americans de suck ass.” Preston left in a huff.
Duke sat down on one of Preston’s boxes of rocks. When the Frenchman returned, Duke had come to a decision.
“I don’t like you. At Save-Mart, you didn’t have an accent. Now you’re here with the crappiest pretend French I’ve ever heard. I’m not sure I’ll be letting you move in.” He popped another snack in his mouth and chewed.
Shannon launched herself at Duke like a rabid bobcat. “You dumbass. Get back in your apartment and shut your crazy mouth.”
Duke caught her, ignoring her words. He was too busy wiggling his eyebrows at Preston as Shannon jumped around in his lap.
Preston shook his head at the scene and did a deep knee bend to pick up the last box that Duke wasn’t sitting on.
“You Americans—so inelegant.” Preston lifted the box. Duke was betting that all the heavy labor caused the loud, embarrassing gas Preston released.
Shannon grabbed Duke by the ear and dragged him back into the building. “Look what you did, you stupid fuck! You made him fart.”
Duke was already laughing too hard to talk back to her. Shannon closed Duke’s door as the slightly stinky, and possibly faux, Frenchman made his way up the stairs.
“Le fuck. Dis box is le lourd,” Duke heard the asshole through the door.
&nb
sp; When Duke opened his door to see if she was gone, Shannon sat on the stairs, looking as if love was enveloping her like a virus or a rash.
Dove kept checking the parking lot as she loaded the kids on the carousel again. Her phone vibrated with an update. After snapping the last belt in place, she clicked the ride on for the pre-set time, the shortest one. As much as it was likely one kid might hurl, she wanted to reduce the spinning for a little while.
The tweets were real-time updates on Johnson, and she smiled at them.
Johnson Pharm (@06201984M358):
@Lotsa_Vampersex pulling onto the main road.
Dove scrolled through three more.
Johnson Pharm (@06201984M358):
@Lotsa_Vampersex stopped at red light.
Johnson Pharm (@06201984M358):
@Lotsa_Vampersex turning into the parking lot.
She shook her head. He loved the Twitter. She tweeted back:
Lotsa Vampersex (@Lotsa_Vampersex):
@06201984M358 You aren’t supposed to drive and tweet, it’s not safe.
He returned her message quickly.
Johnson Pharm (@06201984M358):
@Lotsa_Vampersex No, it’s okay, I’m jogging.
With that Johnson jogged into view, his white coat flapping in the breeze. He slowed down to a walk as he saw her at the carousel and began his crazy gait with his wide-spaced, ginormous steps.
Dove leaned against the control panel so she could steady her shaking knees. She couldn’t believe a man that good-looking was coming to spend time with her. The auto switch kept trying to end the ride for the children, but Dove’s lovesick butt wouldn’t budge, so the children kept going around and around.
Finally, Johnson was next to her. She had to convince herself to look at his face.
Oh God, what if I have a pimple? What if the hair on my upper lip is visible in broad daylight?
Every panicky thought she’d ever had danced across her mind like a drunken old man at a Dave Matthews concert.
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