Tats Too

by Layce Gardner

  Who the hell ever heard of a one-armed security guard at at coffin factory?

  “Hi,” I mumble through the fence.

  He walks right up under me and tilts his head back. “What the hell’re you doing?” he asks.

  I drop back down to the ground just in time to hear Vivian answer, “This is Cushman Coffins, right?”

  “Yeah…” he says, looking her up and down then licking his lips at the sight of her tits.

  “And you’re Darrel?” she asks.

  “Yeah…”

  How the hell did she know his name? Oh. It’s on his name tag, pinned to his shirt.

  “Singing telegram,” she says.

  “Singing telegram?” he echoes.

  “We have a singing telegram for Darrel at Cushman Coffins,” she says. “The boys already paid for it.”

  “The boys sent it?” he asks, looking from me to her and back again.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” he asks, scratching the side of his head with the mag light.

  Vivian laughs. “Yeah, you caught us all right. Elvis and I are trying to break in and steal your fucking coffins and haul them off in our tiny car and we thought we’d sing to you first,” she says like he’s a dumbass. “You going to let us in or not? We have a bunch of telegrams to deliver today.”

  “You can sing it from there,” he says like he doesn’t believe her.

  “Honey,” Vivian replies, pushing her tits into the fence, “this is the type of telegram you can’t sing on the street. If you catch my drift.”

  The guard and I both look at her tits. They’re pressed into the fence and look like creamy flesh waffles. We both lick our lips.

  “Okay, okay,” he says, with a big grin, reaching across to his armless side and pulling a ring of keys off his belt.

  He does pretty good for a one-armed man because he has the lock off in about three seconds and the gate pushed open just far enough for me and Vivian to squeeze through.

  Vivian takes off walking fast toward the building and I have to hop-skip to catch up with her. Darrel is a good ten feet behind us when I whisper, “We’re not going to do the live sex show thing again, are we?”

  She looks at me out of the corner of her eye and whispers, “You wish.”

  “What exactly are we going to do?”

  Vivian grabs the doorknob and pulls it open, motioning for me to go first. I step inside and follow the dim light into an office while Vivian herds Darrel in right behind me. I turn around to face them just as Vivian grabs the flashlight out of his hand and konks him upside his head.

  His eyes bug out for a moment, then he crumples to a heap by her feet.

  “Oh,” I say. “That was a lot quicker than a sex show.”

  It has not escaped my attention that everywhere we go, we seem to leave a string of male bodies laid out cold behind us. However, I stopped feeling sorry for any of them a long time ago. So, we leave Darrel on the floor as is, step over his big belly and head back out to the hallway. We walk deeper into the innards of the building until we reach a set of double doors. Vivian pushes on the right one, I push the left and we swing them open at the same time.

  Holy mother of God.

  It’s my worst nightmare.

  There are hundreds and hundreds of caskets. Stacked one on top of the other, floor to ceiling. And every single one of them is white.

  I do some really quick math in my head. There’s six coffins stacked vertically and…forty vertical rows. That means there’s two hundred and forty coffins to unstack, open and check inside.

  “We’re going to need a little help,” I utter.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vivian whips her cell phone out of her tittage and punches speed dial. After a moment, she speaks into the phone, “Lu, this’s Vivian. We’re at the the coffin factory. When you get this message, round up all the girls and get here ASAP.”

  “Hands in the air! Don’t move!”

  Vivian and I spin toward the voice and—

  Okay, I was wrong. This is my worst nightmare. There’s three new Goodfellas, all with greasy paper napkins tucked into their collars, all holding guns, and all are pointing the guns at us.

  These Mafia types must procreate like amoebas. You kill two and three pop up in their place.

  “Well, well, well,” says the brightest of the three, “looks like we got Perelli’s wife right here in our little coffin factory.”

  I have really good peripheral vision from all my defensive motorcycle riding, so I look straight at the Goodfellas, but use my peripheral vision to look around the place.

  Stacks of money. There’s stacks of cellophane-wrapped, rubber-banded money on the floor. And some of the coffins are open and filled with more bills. The Mafia must be using this place to launder money. Or maybe even counterfeit money. That explains the fence and the security guard.

  “Let me pop ’em, Boss,” says the shortest Goodfella who looks a lot like a troll doll in a silk suit.

  “No,” says the Goodfella with the twisted mustache who looks like the villian in that Perils of Pauline silent movie. “Perelli said he wanted the redhead alive. We kill her after we get the diamond back.”

  “So let me pop the Elvis,” Troll says excitedly.

  Well, that’s all I need to hear. I do a forward dive, complete with somersault, into the nearest aisle of coffins. I’m getting pretty damn good at this cheerleading stuff if I do say so myself.

  I hear Vivian scream.

  I roll to my feet just in time to hear two quick gunshots and get splattered with white coffin splinters.

  Vivian screams again.

  I run.

  I head down another aisle, backtrack, down another aisle, up another aisle, I don’t know where the hell I’m going, I’m just going and dodging gunshots and white splinters and running down aisles, bouncing off coffins like a pinball and listening to Vivian’s screams, until I see a little opening—

  —I squeeze in between two caskets with a third on top, and hold my breath.

  Running footsteps slap on concrete all around me.

  I don’t dare breathe.

  Vivian’s not screaming anymore. God, I hope they didn’t shoot her.

  That’s when I see it. Right in front of me. Vivian’s layaway coffin. It has a big scratch on the side.

  I stick my nose out of my coffin cave and look both ways. The coast is clear.

  I jump out of my hidey-hole, lift the scratched coffin lid and throw myself inside, easing the lid back down.

  It’s dark in here.

  And it’s hard to breathe.

  Oh, damn, I didn’t even think about that. There’s a limited air supply. I can’t stay in here forever. I’ll suffocate.

  I need to quit thinking about dying. But that’s kind of hard to do when you’re laying on your back inside a coffin. It’s comfortable, though. Soft and pillowy.

  I could go to sleep if I weren’t worried about dying and about Vivian dying and—

  —I need to quit thinking negative thoughts. Think positive thoughts instead.

  Tits.

  I close my eyes and conjure up a mental image of Vivian’s tits. Once I have that picture, I bury my nose right between them and do the whole mmm mmm thang.

  Oh my God, Vivian’s right. I do make yummy noises. I even heard myself that time.

  I close my eyes again and stick my nose back into her imaginary cleavage. Okay. That’s better. I can feel my whole body relaxing. I’m back in control now.

  “Where the fuck is she?” says an oily voice.

  Oh shit, the Goodfellas are standing right beside my coffin.

  “Spread out. Work the place like how they do when there’s a missing person in the woods,” another smarmy Goodfella says.

  “But she could be in any one of these fuckin’ caskets,” replies oily voice.

  “Then we open every fucking casket!” Smarmy screams.

  I hear their shoes run
ning away.

  Not good. So not good.

  I wrench my arm around above my head and pat on the padding and, voila! I find something hard and about the size of an egg. At least if I’m going to die, I’m going to go out with the Devil’s Diamond.

  I hear some clackity-clack footsteps running toward me, so I hide the diamond as quick as I can and there’s a thump on top of the casket.

  Thump.

  Thump thump.

  What the sam hell is that thumping?

  “Mmphtpen Mmphtucking Mmphtoffin,” a voice that sounds like Vivian’s mumbles.

  I press both palms against the lid and open it a crack. I see a mess of rumpled, torn taffeta.

  I throw open the lid and Vivian’s standing there with her hair in a lopsided haystack, her mouth duct-taped and both her hands duct-taped behind her. I grab her around the waist, pull her inside with me and the lid slams down on both of us.

  I wiggle my hands up to her mouth and rip off the duct tape.

  “Shit,” she gasps. “That’s the longest I’ve ever kept my mouth shut.”

  “Ssshhhh,” I admonish. I work my hands down and feel her hands behind her back. I rip at the duct tape and little by little manage to work it off her wrists.

  She’s laying on top of me and her face is pressed into my neck and we’re both breathing way too hard. At this rate, we’re going to run out of air twice as fast.

  “Don’t breathe so hard,” I whisper. “We’ll run out of air.”

  “Lee…?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is this the end?”

  “I don’t wanna die, Viv.”

  “Me either. I want to see Georgia grow up.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  We’re both quiet for a long time. I can barely hear voices from somewhere far away.

  “I love you,” I whisper. “I know I don’t say it enough. But I just want you to know, before we die, that I love you and I wouldn’t take anything back.”

  “I love you, too, baby.”

  “You do? You really truly do?” I ask.

  “You doubt that?”

  “Sometimes.”

  She wiggles around and I feel her hand messing around in her tits. Then she puts something in my hand. “Know what that is?” she asks.

  I feel it between my fingers. It’s small and hard and a couple of inches long. “I dunno.”

  “It’s the lipstick I was wearing the first time we ever kissed,” she says. “I carry it with me all the time.”

  “You just carry it around in your tit purse?”

  “Yep,” she laughs. “Right next to my heart.”

  “But you weren’t wearing lipstick the first time we kissed. You weren’t wearing anything at all.”

  “That was the second time we kissed,” she whispers. “The very first time you kissed me was behind the bleachers at homecoming. When you professed your love for me.”

  Yeah, and she slapped the shit out of me if I remember right. But I’m not going to remind her of that right now.

  She picks out something else and puts it in my hand. It seems like paper. Like maybe wadded-up paper.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “A yellow happy face sticker from Walmart. I knew I was falling for you that night. Remember you stuck these damn things all over my body when I went to sleep?”

  I laugh. “I didn’t know you were falling for me back then.”

  “I didn’t really know it either. At the time.”

  “What else you got in there in that tittie scrapbook?”

  She pulls out something else, puts it in my other hand and wraps my fingers around it. It’s small and heavy and… “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yep,” she says. “It’s the bullet that was meant for me. When you jumped in front of this bullet, that was when I knew how much you loved me.”

  “How’d you get this?”

  She laughs softly. “Well, let’s just say that a really sexy red-headed woman with big tits waltzed into the O.R. and pilfered this little memento.”

  I laugh. “You don’t have to love me just because of this, you know.”

  “I don’t. I don’t love you just because you saved my life. You’re my best friend. You’re a part of me. The best part of me probably.”

  I put the mementos back into her dress front and pat them in place. “You think maybe we’re soul mates?”

  “I didn’t even know I had a soul, Lee, until you showed me that I did.”

  “Wow.”

  “I also happen to be obsessed with your ass. You have a great ass,” she says, slipping one hand under my butt and squeezing.

  “I do?”

  “And I love making love with you.”

  “You do?”

  “I can’t imagine it with anybody else. I don’t want to imagine it with anybody else.”

  “Me either, baby.”

  “Does that make me a lesbian?” she asks in all earnestness.

  “I dunno,” I admit.

  “I don’t know either. All I know is I love you and you’re my best friend and my lover and the mother of my child. That’s all I know.”

  “I guess that means you’re stuck with me,” I say.

  “Looks like.”

  “Can I play with your tits now?”

  “Only if I can play with your ass.”

  “Define play.”

  We both laugh lightly.

  “You know what, baby?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “I hope there’s more than the obvious way out of a coffin factory. ’Cause I’m not done loving you yet.”

  That sounds like the makings of a really good country ’n western song. If I can live my way out of this, I just might write it.

  “I’m going to do something I really hoped I’d never have to do,” she says. She pats on the coffin lining above my head.

  “It’s not there,” I say.

  “But this is the right coffin! I saw the scratch.”

  “Ssshhhh,” I urge. “I already found the diamond.”

  “Give it to me,” she whispers, “I’ll give it to them and try to talk our way out of this.”

  “Ummm…I kinda hid it already.”

  “Where?”

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “You didn’t,” she states flatly.

  “I did.”

  “There’s no string around it, is there?”

  “Nope. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought we’d worry about getting it out later.”

  “Do you think,” she begins, “you can do some kegels and push it down far enough for me to grab hold of?”

  “I dunno.”

  She leans to the side, sticks her hand down my jumpsuit and says, “Okay, start pushing.”

  I giggle.

  “No giggling, Lee Anne.” she scolds in her mother’s voice. “Giggling in a coffin with a diamond stuck up your hoo-ha is not appropriate.” She eases a couple of fingers a little higher.

  “I can’t help it,” I giggle more. “That kinda feels good.”

  “Fer chrissakes, Lee, don’t even think about orgasming right now. That would just make it go up in there higher.”

  “Then quit noodling me!” I whisper.

  “Noodling?” she snickers. “Is that what you call it?”

  “Oh my God…”

  “What?” she asks, alarmed.

  “That feels really good. Oh my God…”

  She pulls her hand away, saying, “This is so not working.”

  “It was working, it was working!” I whisper-plead.

  A voice outside our coffin screams, “Don’t make me put my purse down!!”

  “Lulu!” we both whisper-shout at the same time.

  “Get ’em, girls!” Lulu shouts again.

  Vivian and I roll to our sides and throw open the casket lid. We sit up like twin vampires rising from the dead and blink.

  The cavalry is here! Lulu has brought he
r Flame and is heading up the charge just like

  Custer.

  Well, okay, I hope she does a better job than Custer.

  Drag queens are everywhere! They’re throwing punches and kicking pointy-toes at the three Goodfellas. The three Goodfellas have their guns out, but are so confused they don’t know which way to point first.

  Vivian and I scramble out of the coffin just in time to see Tina grab Mustachioed Villian Goodfella in a winglock from behind. Lulu opens Viv’s red purse, pulls out Mr. Happy, twirls him around like a deadly nunchuck, and knocks Villian right on top of his head.

  He slumps to the floor and Tina daintily kicks his gun with her size 18 pumps, sending it flying across the room.

  Vivian jumps up and down on a closed casket like a deranged cheerleader, shouting instructions and throwing mock punches, “Bob and weave! Bob and weave!”

  Short Cher and fat Liza are giving Troll Goodfella what for. Troll swings his gun back and forth between the two, undecided on who to shoot first. Cher lands him a solid uppercut to the chin. His head snaps back and his gun flies into the air. Liza catches the gun, hot-potatoes it to Cher, and Cher tosses it into a nearby open coffin.

  Gunshots explode from the last Goodfella’s gun and bullets ping and caskets splinter right in front of my eyes. It’s like Apocalypse Now except with great big scary women fighting on the front lines.

  I grab Vivian by the hand and pull her off the coffin, saying, “Now would be a good time for us to get the hell out of here!”

  Vivian runs for the front door and I’m only a step or two behind when she suddenly cuts to the left. I follow. She cuts to the right. I follow. She cuts back left.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I scream.

  “Run serpentine! Run serpentine!” she hollers.

  Bullets spatter into the concrete only inches from our feet.

  “Forget that shit!” I scream, and we both run like hell in a straight line for the door.

  Blue seude shoes aren’t the best shoes for running, especially since leather soles act more like banana peels on a slick concrete surface. My right foot slips out from under me and I fall hard on my ass.