Tats Too: The Case of the Devil's Diamond

by Layce Gardner

  Vivian stops and turns to me. She runs back to get me, holding out her hand.

  I reach for her—

  Gunshot!

  —her fingertips brush mine and she freezes.

  The next five seconds take five hours to play out:

  I pull my hand back and swat at a bee that just stung my right ear. I look at my hand. Blood. I touch my ear again, and realize it wasn’t a bee at all, it was a bullet. It grazed my ear.

  I look to Vivian. She has an “oops” look on her face. She looks at her chest. She looks back at me. Her face softens and she opens her mouth. Her lips move without sound as she mouths, olive juice.

  No, not olive juice. I love you. She mouthed I love you.

  She sits down. Not hard. More like a fine British lady sitting down for a cup of tea.

  Then she crumples over like a wilted flower.

  I scramble over to her. I think I hear myself screaming, “Vivian! No, dammit! No, Vivian! Wake up!” But maybe I only think I screamed all that.

  I scoop her into my arms like she doesn’t weigh any more than one of those big dog food bags and straggle for the door. I’m crying and can’t hardly see where I’m going and I mash us both into the closed door.

  I fumble with the doorknob while more bullets ping off the metal and—

  —the door opens from the other side.

  It’s Mikey. She takes one look at Vivian in my arms and holds the door wide open for me.

  I stumble into the hallway and the whole gang is there with knives and guns and nunchucks.

  Mikey yells, “Bring those sonsabitches down!” and points her arm inside the factory like she’s General Patton directing his troops. The gang rushes inside ready for battle.

  I run down the hallway and out into the parking lot. I slide around in the gravel and lope for the front gate.

  There’s some cars and all the motorcycles and even the Shriner car, but I don’t have any keys and there’s no fucking time to waste getting any and all I know is that I’ve got to get Vivian to the hospital, so I run down the street with her limp in my arms, screaming “Help! Somebody, anybody, help!”

  I don’t know how far I’ve run, how far I am from the factory or even where the hospital is, and I trip and slam to my knees. I tuck Vivian into my chest even tighter and am struggling to get back upright when she says, “Lee?”

  Oh my God, she’s still alive, thank you God, she’s still alive.

  “What, baby?” I gasp.

  “What’re you doing?” she asks.

  “I’m getting you to a hospital, baby, you’re going to make it, I swear to God, I won’t let you die,” I gasp.

  “I think I’m okay,” she says.

  “You got shot, Viv. You got shot,” I say.

  “I know. But I think I’m okay,” she says, looking down at her chest.

  I look at her chest, too. There’s no blood or anything. I fumble with those tiny little buttons, can’t make my fingers work right, so I rip open her dress. There’s still no blood. Just tits and duct tape.

  But…

  Buried right in her cleavage is a bullet. I pick it up. And when I do, I notice another bullet, this one’s my smashed bullet, the one that shot me.

  Now there’s two bullets? “Wha…?”

  Vivian laughs.

  What the hell is so funny? I ask her without words.

  “Your bullet…stopped the other bullet.” She smiles.

  Oh my God. How crazy is that? How crazy, how wonderful and crazy and oh-my-God what a relief.

  I bury my face right between those gorgeous tits of hers and let loose with the tears.

  After a moment, she pulls my wet face back up and looks deep into my eyes. “It still hurts like a motherfucker, though, so I’d appreciate it if you could take it easy on my girls for a little while.”

  I laugh. I laugh and I cry and I’m just so goddamn happy. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s almost taken from you and I swear to God above, I’ll never ever let anything come between us again. “I love you, Viv,” I slobber. “I love you so much. I’ll do anything…I’ll eat only mayonnaise, I’ll put my socks and shoes on how you want me to, I won’t pee in the shower—”

  “You big goof,” she says, planting a wet kiss on my lips. She wraps her arms around my neck and we both go into this weird sort of crying/laughing jag that involves some tears and a lot of snorts and we don’t stop until I feel a hand on the back of my Elvis collar pulling me to my feet. Vivian slips out of my arms and rolls around all caught up in her dress and hair until she looks like an eggroll.

  I have pudding legs and start to fall, but a pair of hands catch me under the arms and holds me upright like I’m just a scarecrow full of hay.

  Oh, shit.

  Dillon.

  Not this bitch again.

  ***

  Dillon and Festus throw us into the backseat of that same damn Nissan.

  I’m feeling higher now than I ever have with drugs or alcohol or anything. I’m just feeling high on lucky, I guess. I figure Vivian not being dead, hell, not even being shot is about the luckiest thing ever, even luckier than winning a jackpot, so I decide to push the luck a little further. Well, I don’t exactly decide, it’s more like I just do.

  I leap over the front seat and grab Festus by the neck and pin him to his seat. His arms flap around, trying to hit me, but I don’t let go. I’m like one of those snapping turtles that don’t turn loose until it thunders.

  Vivian follows my lead and goes after Dillon in the passenger seat. They struggle, too, and Vivian is going after eyeballs and everything.

  The car lurches and Festus and I both stop beating on each other long enough to look out the front windshield. The Nissan veers up onto a sidewalk, tanks right over a fire hydrant and crashes into a brick wall.

  Airbags explode from both sides, water is waterfalling down on the car like we’re in a drive-through car wash and Viv and I are tossed into the backseat like we’re a couple of stuffed animals. The air bags pin Festus and Dillon into the front seat long enough that Vivian and I can get out of the backseat.

  Oh, wait, no we can’t.

  “The doors are locked!” I yell.

  “We can’t get out,” Vivian states the obvious, ramming her shoulder into the door like it’s just jammed or something.

  Damn friggin’ police cars don’t have workable handles from the inside.

  Dillon and Festus flail around in front, yelling and screaming, but all you can make out is their constant screams of dammits and fucks.

  I turn sideways with my back pressed up against Vivian and kick at my door with both feet, but it doesn’t give even an inch. I give up after three kicks, ’cause the only thing that’s going to accomplish is breaking my ankles.

  “I’m going to bust out the window,” Vivian pants. “Cover your face.”

  I bury my face in my Elvis collar and peek over just enough to watch Vivian cover her face with her left hand and lift her right arm up like she’s going to break through the window with her elbow. Just as she’s about to let loose—

  —A face looks through the window at us.

  It’s Mikey, getting drenched by the waterfall and you can tell by her face she doesn’t like it much.

  Viv and I start yelling at the same time, “Open the door! Let us out! Get us outta here!”

  Mikey opens the door from the outside and we tumble out and onto the asphalt. We scramble to our feet and Mikey grabs Vivian and me each by an arm and leads us over to her bike.

  She’s got her whole gang there on bikes with her, they’re filling up the narrow street with their exhaust and noisy pipes. (So they got all their fuel lines replaced.)

  Mikey gestures for Anything to get off her bike, looks at me and holds out a hand to it like a gentleman opening a door for a lady.

  “But this is your bike,” I say.

  “Get on,” she says. “We’ll follow.”

  Dillon and Festus pop out of their car with blo
ody faces and it even looks like Dillon is missing a couple of her front teeth.

  “Thtop!” Dillon lisps.

  Mikey and Anything hop on bikes behind some of the other gang. I waste no time saddling up on Mikey’s Harley with Vivian right behind me.

  I tear off down the street in the lead with twenty or so of the Hell’s Belles following.

  The last I see of Dillon is in the side mirror. She’s hopping mad, too. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen anyone hop up and down because they were mad, but, by God, she really is.

  I take us on side streets through Vegas until I hit Highway 15. I’ve never driven it before, but I know this is the road that goes all the way to Los Angeles. We’re only on the highway, doing maybe ninety, for a couple of miles when I see a few cars catch up to us. They keep pace with our bikes and seem content to not pass.

  I squint into the side mirror and laugh when I realize who they are.

  It’s Lulu and her entire Flame!

  They’re filling up a van and a couple of sedans and Lulu and Rachel are in the front in a convertible. The convertible’s top is down and Rachel is driving with Lulu and Tina sitting up on the backseat, their hair and dresses flowing in the wind like they’re the stars of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

  What do you know, we have our own little gay pride parade—dykes on bikes, drag queens and pussy galore—all the way to Hollywood.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If you were a bird and if you were flying low through the smog of Los Angeles, here’s what you’d see: a disheveled Elvis with dreads riding a big black Harley with a scrumptious red-headed babe behind her who looks like a drag queen after a big orgy. Behind this lead Harley are twenty other bikers, all women, all who look like the people your mother warned you about when you were growing up. Behind them is a convertible with two ultragorgeous women, too gorgeous to even be real, and behind them are a couple of carloads of drag queens in various stages of undress singing show tunes at the top of their lungs.

  In other words, it looks like either the beginning of a really bad movie or the end of a really good movie.

  By dusk I end up on the Hollywood freeway without much of an idea where I’m going or how to get there. I’m thinking about trying to exit and ask for directions, but then I see some big spotlights swooping through the air. There’s three big lights dancing around each other and I point all our noses in that direction. They mark the spot for me like that Bethlehem star shining over the manger.

  I exit the freeway behind a long line of cars and make a left and work slowly over on surface streets until I make a right on Hollywood Boulevard and end up right in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Those three monster spotlights are set up right in front and are doing an automatic swoopy swirly pattern braiding the dark sky overhead.

  I pull up to the curb, right in front of a red carpet and kill the engine. There must be a thousand people here. They have those gold braided ropes holding the throngs back from the red carpet, and people are snapping off photos faster than an army of AK-47s. There’s microphones and news reporters and fancy women in evening gowns interviewing people who must be movie stars because they’re wearing so much makeup.

  Oh my God! There’s Fake Drew and Fake Hilary right there! Fake Drew has red hair like Vivian and Fake Hilary’s got dreads that make mine look like a cat sucked on my hair. Fake Hilary is wearing a silky suit that must’ve cost a friggin’ fortune and she’s got a swagger to go along with it. Fake Drew is all sparkly and shining bright in an evening gown with her tits enhanced.

  It’s so weird looking at Fake Drew and Fake Hilary. Fake Drew looks like Vivian acting like Drew Barrymore acting like Vivian. And Fake Hilary looks like her playing me acting like her with some Hilary thrown in.

  Fake Drew must think the same thing about us because when she sees us her mouth drops open. She quickly catches herself and smiles a dazzling Hollywood smile meant just for us (and the cameras.) Completely aware of the cameras following her, Fake Drew approaches us, quartered to her audience with her best side showing, and holds her arms open to Vivian. They grab each other in a close, tit-smashing hug and flashbulbs pop like crazy.

  Fake Drew holds Viv back at arm’s length, peers at her hair and says, “You’re going to start a new fashion trend.”

  “Rule number one from the fashionista handbook,” Vivian says low, “never let them know you didn’t intend it to look that way.”

  They both laugh. Fake Hilary struts up to me with a crooked smile. I wipe my hand on my pants and offer it to her. We shake hands and get our own fair share of flashbulb pops.

  Suddenly, the cameras and microphones and looky-loos rush toward us, and just when I think we’re going to get swallowed up in one of those deadly Walmart-esque stampedes, they all part and flow around us four.

  I turn and see that the media is eating up the photo ops of Mikey and her crew and the thoroughly drunk Flame. Lulu steps grandly forward to meet the cameras head-on, and not being one to miss an opportunity, she winks into the nearest camera and says, “What’sa matter, honey, you’ve never seen a real woman before?”

  The crowd laughs and Lulu uses the heels of her hands to give her tits a boost forward, saying, “My hills are alive with the sound of music.”

  The crowd roars their approval. Lulu links arms with Tina and a Liza, saying, “Ready, girls?” On cue, the entire Flame links arms, faces the cameras and begins a well-rehearsed rendition of “One Singular Sensation” complete with showgirl high-kicks.

  Damn, the only thing this movie premiere is missing is the dancing ponies.

  Then I see the most amazing thing. Off to the side are the Winkle sisters. They’re all done up in fancy lace and high-necked gowns from another era and George Burns is puffing on his cigar with one scrawny arm wrapped around each sister.

  I’ll be double-damned.

  Fake Drew and Fake Hilary grab me and Vivian, and pull us to a bouquet of microphones strategically placed in front of some blazing lights. They push us nose to nose with the mics.

  “You ready?” Fake Hilary whisper-asks.

  “Ready for what?” I whisper back, blinking in the harsh lights.

  “The reporters,” she answers like I’m dumb. She turns to Vivian and asks, “Didn’t anybody tell you we were going to be interviewed before the movie starts?”

  “What kind of questions?” Vivian asks.

  “Be prepared for anything,” Fake Hilary warns with a smile that seems out of place. “And just smile a lot.”

  Fake Drew and Vivian add at the same time, “And show your tits.”

  They both laugh and hug each other. Fake Hilary and I look at them and roll our eyes at the same time, which makes us both laugh.

  “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”

  Holy shit. A whole gang of people dressed in rainbow colored T-shirts descend on us out of the sea of people like they’re invading Normandy or something.

  They drown out Lulu’s chorus girl routine with their constant chant of “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!” Some of them are slinging about signs and posters which read: Don’t tolerate intolerence and Get Out and Out is In. There must be a good one hundred of them and they all have angry, red faces. They point their angry faces and fists right at me and Vivian as they chant.

  What the hell have we done?

  Oops, I think I just said that out loud into a microphone.

  “It’s what you haven’t done!” yells a big woman with a flat-top hairdo. “You haven’t come out!”

  Everybody shushes and turns to look at us. The media, sensing a high-drama moment, pans cameras and mics back to us. It’s like I’m facing a firing squad. But without the blindfold.

  Flattop yells again, “You people in the closet are costing the rest of us! You’re lesbians and you won’t admit it!” The crowd of rainbow-wearers circles around me and Vivian like a school of piranha around a cow in a river.

  “You people?” Vivian shouts back at her,
shoving me out of the way.

  Uh-oh. Vivian looks pissed. F.T. obviously doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.

  “You people!” Vivian shouts again, even louder.

  F.T. moves in closer and crosses her meaty arms under her big boobs. She cocks her head at Vivian and asks, “You are a lesbian. Correct? Or do you deny it?”

  Vivian shakes her head sadly at the woman, “What is it with all the labels?”

  “Are you saying that you and Ms. Hammond are not lovers?”

  “No, I’m not saying that,” Vivian states, “Lee and I love on each other as often as we can.”

  F.T. holds both palms up in the air like she’s waiting for a bird to shit in them and says, “Then you are a lesbian? Can you look at the cameras and say that? Or can you not even bring yourself to say the word lesbian?”

  Accepting the dare, Vivian smiles sweetly at the closest camera and says, “I, Vivian Baxter, love and make love to another woman.”

  The rainbow crowd boos and flaps their hands at Vivian. F.T. shushes them with a wave of her own. “Doesn’t that make you a lesbian?” she shouts at Vivian.

  “I don’t like labels,” Vivian says simply. “I am a woman. I am a mother. I am a Native American. I am also a card-carrying member of the NRA.”

  She is? I think maybe she’s lying about that last one.

  She continues, “But I don’t feel the need to put those things on a T-shirt and accost other people.”

  “And why is that, Miss Baxter? What are you ashamed of?” F.T. asks.

  Vivian reaches out and grabs the nearest microphone out of a reporter’s hand. She aims her words to F.T., “Isn’t the whole idea to not put labels on people? Isn’t that what you’re fighting for? Equality? To live in a world without labels of any kind? To live side-by-side without drawing fences and lines around others?”

  “Ideally,” F.T. says, then adds, “but we’re not at that point yet. Gay people like myself and all the people standing behind me with these signs want that, yes. But we’re still fighting the good fight. The war isn’t over. And people like you, who are celebrities and standing on camera denying their homosexuality by omission are not helping us to win that war.”