“What money?” asked Theodore.
“Oh man you are out there. Guys” she said, calling her friend’s attention, “you gotta meet this guy here, he’s really cool, like out there kinda cool.”
The other rabbits continued to stare idly and unaffected through their long fringes. The Smoking Girl took a cigarette from her packet and handed it to Theodore and took the three hundred dollars he gave her and pressed it between her bosoms.
“I’ve never had one before. What do I do?” Theodore asked.
“You just light it man. Hey what’s with the clothes? You goin to some fancy dress party” she asked.
Theodore looked down at his little fluffy toes popping through his slippers and wriggling away.
“I should have worn socks” he said.
“No that’s cool man. Real trippy but cool man. Hey do you wanna party with us?”
“Ok” said Theodore.
“You got any money though cause I don’t have any and we’ll have to get more smokes?”
Theodore checked his pocket but it was empty except for an envelope. He could have sworn that he had picked up some loose change before leaving but maybe he didn’t.
Probably he didn’t.
“Just this” he said handing over the envelope.
The Smoking Girl opened it swiftly with her cunning claw and smiled when she saw the gold card inside. She took it out and held it to the dim tunnel light to see if it was real or not, turning it over and over, flipping the card round and round and then pressing it firmly against her chest and smiling at Theodore.
“I love money” she said.
“Is that money” asked Theodore.
“The next best thing” she said.
“So can we do something?” he asked.
“With this” she said holding the card before her eyes, “we can do everything.”
Theodore fumbled with the lighter in his paws, unable to work with the child safety lock. His little gloved pads kept sliding off of the metal and the bright spark from the scratching flint was blinding him so that he could see three of everything and everyone and he didn’t know which one to concentrate on to not show that he was either losing his mind or blatantly blind.
He chose the middle light and the middle girl.
“Can you help me” he asked,
The Smoking Girl took the lighter from his hands and struck the flint below his trembling lip.
“Keep still” she said, referring to the cigarette that was bouncing up and down.
“It’s my first time” he said. “Am I doing it right?”
“Inhale” she said. “Like when you breathe. Just inhale really strong.”
“Like this?”
Theodore inhaled and the end of the cigarette glowed a terrific orange and a thick cloud of toxic smoke flooded into his mouth and with his breath down into his lungs and when he coughed, the cigarette flew from his mouth into a puddle on the ground and was followed by a round of perforated coughing and wheezing.
“Are you ok? You’ve never really smoked before?”
“No” he said between many brief gasps.
“Hey, there’s a first time for everything. So… You wanna party?” she asked.
Theodore reached into his pockets and they were empty. He wondered then where he had left his keys and did he leave them at home or did he lose them somewhere on the way or did he leave them in the door? It wouldn’t matter if he didn’t lock the door if he left the keys just hanging there.
“I dunno” he said.
But it was too late. He was already inside the taxi and they were already speeding through the tunnels. He was seated in the back between four large adolescent rabbits. Neither of them spoke to one another. They all looked cynically unimpressed with what was happening and stared idly out through their long fringes, their wobbling heads swaying every time the taxi wove in and out of traffic.
“Stop up there by the mall” said The Smoking Girl, she, sitting in the front seat.
The Smoking Girl turned and smiled at Theodore. She had an infectious manic grin and her eyes were so wide, the whites lit up the dark ambience of the dirty old taxi. She looked as if she might jump out of her skin at any moment and jump into his.
Theodore looked down at his robe and noticed a loose thread near his knee. He pulled on the thread trying to swiftly snap it away from the robe but it didn’t work. Instead, the thread pulled longer than it was before and now it was definitely visible. Someone was bound to notice and say something.
He had to think quick.
He looked to the adolescents beside him but luckily they hadn’t noticed anything, at least not yet. They were magnetized by some fraught thought in their minds; something deep and depressing that was keeping their attention stagnated. The Smoking Girl on the other hand was looking right at him, directly in his eyes and he thought to himself, “If she sees this thread, my night will be over.”
“What thread?” she asked.
Theodore put his paw over his mouth and felt his lips.
“They move” he thought, “when I speak.”
“Of course they do. They’re lips. Look mine move too” she said, not really mocking him as much as she was enjoying the way in which he was.
Theodore smiled.
A stupid smile.
A wide distracting smile.
While he held that makeshift grin, The Smoking Girl’s own widened and her eyes tuned unto his and there was no way in hell that she could see his paws, below their sight, busy twisting and turning the tiny bit of thread around his claw, over and over and over and extending his awkward but intoxicating smile every time he tried to yank the thread free of the fabric but every time he pulled his paw away, The Smoking Girl make some interesting flirting faces and he retracted his claws in giddy delight and the thread only pulled longer and longer and longer until there was no way he could keep a secret of this anymore.
“That’ll be fifty bucks” said the taxi driver.
They had pulled over by an entrance to a shopping mall.
“Do you take plastic?” asked The Smoking Girl.
“You have plastic? I don’t believe you” the taxi driver said.
The Smoking Girl pulled out the gold card and handed it to the driver.
“Yes mam” he said.
“Put fifty on there for yourself” she said.
“Thank you” he said.
“Tell you what. You wait for us here and take us to a club after and I’ll pay you another four hundred. Whatta you say? Wait, how much for the whole night? To rent your taxi for as long as we want?”
“Depends. Nobody has ever done that before.”
“Two thousand. I’ll pay you five hundred now and five hundred after every stop” she said.
The driver was shocked.
“Deal” he said.
“Don’t you try to pull one over on us or nothing either. My friend here in the yellow robe is crazy, just got out of the mental hospital. He’ll find out where you live and make soup out of everyone you know.”
The driver looked in his rear view mirror at Theodore whose eyes were glared as he fought to still secretly sever the now obvious hanging thread from the yellow robe.
“You can trust me. You don’t need to worry about me, that’s for sure. I’ll wait right here for. Look I’ll turn off my sign” the driver said, doing just that.
The Smoking Girl looked at Theodore and winked.
The adolescent rabbits exited the cab and entered the mall, still looking idly through their long fringes. The Smoking Girl exited after swiping the card with a feverish look in her eyes, pulling excitedly on the paw of Theodore who had a look of forfeiture in his own.
“Oh my god” she said, “I have dreamed about this for so long.”
“Excuse me madam” said a security guard, “you’re kind is not welcome here.”
“And what kind is that?”
“Poor. Now push off” he said.
The security guard was massi
ve. He blocked the entire entrance and he was standing in front of the four adolescent rabbits, standing with one hand on his hip and the other with his gigantic palm pressing forward.
“Relax. We’re with him” she said, wrapping her arms around Theodore.
The security guard looked at him strangely. He was dressed in nothing but a yellow bath robe, a pair of strange looking slippers and a pair of green woolen gloves.
“Are you Syd?” asked Theodore to the security guard.
“Who’s Syd? No I’m not Syd. You can call me sir” he said.
“I thought this was Syd’s” said Theodore.
The Smoking Girl put her arm around his shoulder and walked him to the security guard whose nose was puffing and his eyes were glowing red with rage and authority.
“Let us through or we’ll have you fired” she said.
The security guard scoffed.
“If you don’t move in ten seconds I will crush your long haired friends and eat the one in the robe. Now move!” he shouted.
The Smoking Girl took the gold card from her pocket and held it beside her cheeky smile. The Security Guard dropped his defense, bowed gratefully and welcomed the six of them into the shopping mall.
“How much do you earn?” she asked.
“Three fifty a shift.”
“What’s a shift? Four hours?”
“Eighteen hours” said The Security Guard.
“I’ll pay you eight grand to carry my bags” she said.
“What? You’re joking right? Is she joking?”
The Security Guard looked to the adolescent rabbits but they just shrugged their shoulders and continued to stare idly through their long fringes. He then looked at Theodore who had the most focused and determined look on his face, as if he were solving some quantum riddle and then he looked back at The Smoking Girl, who was now smoking inside of the mall and grinning hysterically.
“What do you say?” she asked with a salty wink.
“Eight grand?”
“Ok, nine grand.”
“Nine thousand dollars?”
“Ok, ten, but you gotta punch someone for me.”
“Wait a second. Ten grand and I carry some bags and punch someone? Punch who?”
“I dunno yet. We’ll see.”
“Deal.”
“One thing. Do you know who this is?” she asked pointing to Theodore.
“No” said The Security Guard.
“This is” she said, pausing as he turned over the card. “Theodore.”
“Ok, hello Theodore.”
“No you don’t get it. Theodore is royalty. He’s like a prince or a son of a prince or something. So if you try to pull a swifty or anything and this gets back to the king, you’ll be soup. Do you understand?”
“Sure. Hey, I’m legit, you can trust me. Prince Theodore. I haven’t heard…”
“Of course you haven’t. The real princes don’t gloat about on the magazines. Do you think the heir to the throne is gonna advertise himself, in the middle of a depression. Theodore is next in line to be king.”
The Security Guard looked at Theodore who still had his eyes locked somewhere in the distance trying intently to remain inconspicuous whilst attempting to sever the long thread from his yellow robe.
“What he doing?” whispered The Security Guard to The Smoking Girl.
“Stop looking! Don’t be rude. You’re not to look at Prince Theodore. In fact no one is. That’s also your job” she said.
“Sure thing. I’m sorry” said The Security Guard, fighting the urge to see what Theodore had so fixated in his twisting and turning gloved palms.
“Prince Theodore wants new shoes. Where can we buy the most expensive shoes?”
“This way” said The Security Guard now guiding them through the shopping mall, ushering seemingly less rich patrons out of their way and the five oddly dressed adolescents with the one bizarre looking adult rabbit, caught a wake of oohs and ahhs as they parted the partying crowds and moved into one of many stops on their spree; this time for shoes, for Theodore.
The Smoking Girl sat Theodore down on a small stool and a pretty rabbit came hopping over with surprised pleasantry glowing in her red eyes.
“What will it be today?” The Attendant asked.
“Shoes. Theodore needs shoes. Pretty shoes. The most expensive shoes that you have.”
“Oh my” said The Attendant.
She blushed somewhat looking at the obviously rich and admirable clients and at the rabbit in his yellow bath robe and her initial instinct was to rush away, to find herself a linen department and buy her own, one just like what he was wearing; exactly the same. And all the other female rabbits in the store, they all looked on with zealous want and desire and they were all thinking the same thing; catching their reflections in the wall of mirrors ad imagining themselves laced in a sunflower yellow bathrobe, with knee high boots or strapped stilettos and they all wondered if there was still time; to catch the fashion before it was gone, before it was too late.
“These are our most expensive pair of shoes. Diamond encrusted with golden trimmings. There’s only one pair in existence. But can I ask, do you…”
The Smoking Girl held up the gold card.
The Attendant smiled generously; a white tooth for every thousand they were about to spend.
“Would sir like to try them on?”
“Of course” said The Smoking Girl.
Theodore didn’t argue. His focus was on cutting that thread and without garnering any attention to what he was doing; playing uber cool and discreet.
The Attendant leaned down before his yellow robe and Theodore watched her strangely, keeping his two gloved paws pressing and hiding over the now increasingly long fugitive yellow thread. The Attendant ignored his eccentricity and pulled one of the slippers off his feet.
When she did, a potato peel fell to the floor and she turned her nose away to excuse the pong that rushed upwards with the fresh breeze in the mall.
“My apologies,” she said. “I didn’t mean any offence it’s just…”
“It’s ok, just fit the shoe.”
“Is that a potato?”
Everyone looked down on the ground and then back at Theodore who was clasping the length of yellow thread in his palms, feeling that at any second, his secret would come undone, just like that thread.
“The other one” said The Smoking Girl sternly.
The Attendant pulled off the other slipper and again a thinly sliced potato peel fell from the bottom of his foot onto the floor and again, everyone from the store attendants, to The Security Guard, to the adolescent rabbits to The Smoking Girl herself, all looked at Theodore sitting in a yellow bath robe, with green woolen gloves on his hands.
“It’s good for a fever” he said.
“You have a fever?” asked The Smoking Girl.
“I have a fever” he said.
“I thought you were on drugs” she said. “Do you like the shoes?”
“I don’t know. Do I?” he asked.
“You do” she said.
“I guess I do. Are you Syd?” he asked.
“No I’m not” she said. “Syd’s is a club. We’re going there now. We just have a few things to pick up first.”
The Smoking Girl put her palm against Theodore’s head. He was beyond burning up. It felt like his head was molten lava. They finalized the purchase and The Smoking Girl gave The Attendant a tip.
“How much do you earn in a month?” she asked. “Wait, don’t tell me” she said, “whatever the value is, whatever you earn in a month, triple it and that’s your tip.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just do one thing for me.”
“What?”
“Look in that mirror.”
“Ok”
“Now tell yourself that you’re an ugly whore.”
“What?”
“Look in the mirror and say; I am an ugly stinking whore.”
The Attendant did just that. Sh
e stared at her own reflection and cast the insult out into her own eyes.
“Now spit” said The Smoking Girl.
“What?”
“Spit on yourself. Spit on your reflection and call yourself an ugly poor whore.”
The Attendant didn’t think twice. Her eyes glared and glowed as rage boiled in her blood and she cast out the verse not once, not twice but a hundred times and she spat all over her reflection and then when she was done, she wept.
The Smoking Girl smiled and ran through fifty thousand dollars. Half for the shoes and half for the broken attendant, collapsed under the weight of her own fraudulent self-esteem.
The rest of the spree worked out much the same with Theodore stumbling oddly from space to space, not quite sure if he was in fact alive or in dream, feeling like his hands were two great balloons. The adolescent rabbits followed like trained and bored shadows, staring idly through their long fringes and saying very little, having now passed a spell of doldrums to a state of feigned cynicism.
The Smoking Girl stalked from store to store and she bought and she filled her bags which were carried by the massive Security Guard and she offered exorbitant tips and rewards but she asked so many torrid and wrong things in its favour and there was no wrong that wouldn’t be done, not for another penny and in the end, when the bags were neatly packed inside the taxi, she asked The Security Guard to punch himself to which he did and he followed the instruction and he did it with zealous and he did it with zest and he fell over onto the ground beside the taxi and he never opened his eyes again.
“What was that about?” asked The Driver.
“Money” said The Smoking Girl. “Drive” she said.
Theodore sat in the back seat picking at the long yellow thread with green gloved paw and the fur on his face was dampened from the swat that gushed from his forehead and by his brow.
“This is not how I am” he said, comfortably numb; but nobody was listening.
The adolescent rabbits continued to stare idly out from their long fringes and they seemed disconnected from their gangly bodies and the moon in which they found themselves.
The Smoking Girl on the other hand was in the front seat courting with disaster. Her desire to spend had her now shouting at The Driver and egging to flirt with her insanity. She screamed faster and he did just that. She yelled swerve and he did just that. She yelled hit him and The Driver did not stop. And she yelled faster and faster he went and with every command and she swiped her card across his machine and her face was orgiastic and her eyes were electric and she writhed in her chair without caution and without control and she screamed for more and more he gave her more and with every command she swiped the card; hundreds and thousands and then hundreds of thousands, so much money it could never be counted and never be spent and with every swipe, her body felt like it could explode and she gripped the handles by the door; panting and sweating.
Dark Side of the Moon by C. Sean McGee Page 5