Alice & Dorothy

by Jw Schnarr

  “Why,” Dorothy said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it,” Alice said.

  Tell her, the Hater said. Tell her, then bite her throat open like a fuckin’ tiger. Look at her vanilla flesh. I bet it tastes as good as it looks.

  “Whatever,” Dorothy said. She popped her door open and went around to the driver’s side. She knocked impatiently on the window.

  Alice opened the door and looked up at her. In the cool evening air she seemed backlit by Heaven’s gaze. She had a rainbow halo around her head and her eyes sparkled like emerald jewels.

  “What the hell,” Dorothy said. “You want me to drive or not?”

  “You’re so beautiful right now,” Alice said. She reached out to touch Dorothy’s hand, but the girl pulled away.

  “Whatever,” Dorothy said, rolling her eyes. She looked away, shaking her head. She was fighting a smile and losing. She moved her hand back so Alice could touch it. “Just shut up and let me drive.”

  Alice got out of the car. She leaned into Dorothy’s body as the girl moved past her.

  “Get out of here,” Dorothy said playfully. “I’m mad, and you’re a huge icky jerk.”

  “I am,” Alice said. The air was cool and damp, and a few deep breaths seemed exactly what she needed.

  Dorothy sat behind the wheel and shut the door. Alice moved along the back of the car in a series of yellow Polaroid shots that left her dizzy and panting. She kept one hand on the car to keep her bearing, and when she got to the passenger side she dropped into the bucket seat. It was still warm. Dorothy’s warmth, and it felt good.

  “You alright?” Dorothy said.

  “Perfect,” Alice said. “Let’s get some cheeseburgers. And beer. I know a good place to crash. It’s cheap. They rent by the hour.”

  Dorothy laughed. “Oh baby. Sounds classy.”

  “They know me by name,” Alice said, smiling.

  “Slut,” Dorothy said. She slapped Alice’s leg. She drummed the steering wheel with both hands. “Okay! I have no effing idea where I’m going, so we’re probably gonna get way lost.”

  “Burger King!” Alice cried. “Take a left soon.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Dorothy said. “Soon hey?”

  Grab the wheel, the Hater said cheerfully. It’s not too late. You can still beat her at Windshield Longjump. Look at her face, it’s oozing blood already, you won’t even know the difference. If you love her, kill her. She’s going to betray you one day.

  Alice put her hand to her head and gritted her teeth.”We need music,” she said suddenly, reaching over and cranking on Rabbit’s stereo. A wall of angry, muddy guitars hit the girls mid-stroke as Korn lamented their fucked up lives. Dorothy banged her head and threw up her devil horns. Alice screamed and growled every word. If the Hater was saying anything now, Alice couldn’t hear him

  “Turn here!” Alice shouted over the music.

  “Okay!” Dorothy shouted back.

  Burger King gradually appeared on their left side slick and well lit and inviting among the dreary rows of commercial buildings, video stores, liquore shops, and gas stations. Alice pointed to the drive through. The girls screamed their orders over Metallica’s punishing guitar riffs and paid for their meals out of the rolled up ball of cash.

  They made a quick stop at the liquor store across the street, grabbed a case of beer and a forty-pounder of Vodka, and then Alice directed Dorothy toward the motel. A short time later they were pulling into a large empty parking lot. The sign over the office was a large crescent moon with the words BLUE MOON underneath, and Dorothy shook her head, smiling. Mudvayne screamed that they were everything and nothing, and Alice had to agree.

  Dorothy reached over and turned down the music. “I think I saw this place in a horror movie. A really bad one.”

  “You might have seen it in a porno, actually,” Alice said. “For serious.”

  “Eww!” Dorothy cried. She threw her hands up in front of her face as if to try and keep them clean.

  Alice laughed. “Yeah there’s a couple college guys who make movies down here with rentals. They drive hummers, so I guess they’re making money at it.”

  “Hummers,” Dorothy chuckled. “How fitting.”

  “I know, right?”

  The car squeaked as they pulled to a stop in front of the manager’s office. “I’ll just be a second,” Alice said. She started getting out of the car.

  “You want me to come with?” Dorothy said.

  “Umm...naww, I’ll get it. You keep the car warm.”

  “Okay, good luck!” Dorothy said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t get any porn rooms!” Dorothy shouted after Alice slammed the door. She turned and gave Dorothy a double thumbs up.

  The door chimed when Alice opened it. There was a skinny guy in a Charlie Brown shirt sitting behind a wall of yellow panel board and Plexiglas. The man had his feet up in front of a small television and was sucking the barbeque sauce off a chicken bone. A plate of greasy wings sat in front of him, and the smell made Alice’s mouth water.

  “Hey Steve,” Alice said, smiling. “Busy as always I see.”

  “Denise,” the man said, licking his lips. He grabbed a paper towel and began the monumental task of getting the barbeque sauce off his fingers.

  “The one and only,” Alice said. She was different people to different men. To this guy, in this place where she sometimes brought men when the weather was bad, she was Denise. Just another hooker looking for someplace warm and out of the rain for a few minutes.

  “Whatchu need, the usual?”

  The usual, for Denise, was one of the front rooms for an hour or so. Twenty bucks, cash, which went right into Steve’s pocket. A couple times he’d saved them up until he had sixty bucks and then handed them back to Denise. Then she’d fuck him, and pretend his weird, banana shaped penis was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.

  “Not tonight,” Alice said. “I actually need a room for the next couple days.”

  “Oh yeah?” Steve said. He eyed her from behind the Plexiglas and reached for a cigarette. His eyes darted across Alice’s bruises like a mosquito. “Anything special?”

  “No,” Alice said. “Well, actually, I just got out of the hospital. Had a bad party a couple nights ago, and my friend and I need a place to crash for a bit.”

  “Yeah, you look like shit,” Steve said. “I’m not just sayin’ that because I’m your friend.”

  Is that what we are? Alice thought, but didn’t say. A spider web had begun to creep along the edges of the glass, framing Steve in a delicate portrait frame. Black shadows skittered around the edges of her vision.

  I wonder if you could pull his face through that little slot in the glass, the Hater said. Think you could get at him if you offered to blow him?

  “So you need a room?” Steve said. “What, single?”

  “Umm…Double, I think,” Alice said.

  “Double hey?” Steve said, as though he didn’t believe his ears. “Alright then. It’s fifty bucks a night. How many you want?”

  “Better go three nights,” Alice said. She pulled the roll of cash and started counting tens and twenties off it, against the counter and out of sight from Steve. Fuzzy black pipe cleaner spiders danced across the money and onto her hands, and she shook them off only to watch them fall to the ground in lazy somersaults. They hit the floor with the sound of fat raindrops hitting a car windshield.

  “Hunnert and fitty bucks,” Steve said, and smiled. “Plus tip.”

  Alice looked up at him and regarded his predatory look with her best hooker’s smile. “Only the tip?”

  “Oh, you’re a bad bitch,” Steve said, molesting his cigarette. He blew hot ugly smoke against the Plexiglas and his smile widened, revealing teeth the colour of old ivory.

  “You have no idea,” Alice said. She slid the cash through the open slot where the glass met the table.

  Steve grabbed it up, gave it a quick count, and then gr
abbed a key from under the desk. “Room 108,” he said, sliding the key toward her. “Don’t wreck the place, and don’t fall asleep with a lit cigarette.”

  “No worries,” Alice said. “Thanks baby!”

  “Anytime, sexy,” Steve said as Alice turned and walked out the front door. It chimed as she passed. Steve’s eyes never left her ass until the door closed and he was alone again.

  Alice walked around to the passenger side of the car and hopped in. Immediately Dorothy reached over and turned the music down.

  “Got it,” Alice said. “Room One-oh-Eight.”

  “Was it a porn room?” Dorothy said, making a scared little girl face.

  Alice laughed. “Yeah. Big orgy in there this afternoon. Probably still smells like cocks and rubbers.”

  “Eww!” Dorothy chirped. “You’re so nasty!”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Alice said, and had a moment of Deja-vu.

  Dorothy pulled out of her spot, drove over to a spot marked 108, painted in yellow road paint on a short concrete divider and parked the car. Alice busied herself collecting their supplies. She grabbed the heroin off the floor last and stuffed it in her pocket. Dorothy laced their arms together and they walked to their room. Alice popped the key and flicked on the light, and held the door open for Dorothy so she could go first.

  “Wow,” Dorothy said, kicking off her shoes. “It’s like the seventies never ended for this place.”

  “Yeah, pretty awesome, hey?” Alice said.

  The room was a mix of cream and orange trim, with a heavy brown carpet. Two identical beds stood side by side in the middle of the room, their brown and orange top covers a perfect match. There were two small night tables beside each bed, sporting ashtrays, menus, and small bulbous lamps with orange covers. It had a vaguely sanitized feel to it, but Alice knew better. These rooms, especially the front rooms overlooking the parking lot, were anything but sanitized. She would be happy if the rooms had been cleaned in the past few weeks. From the stale smell of the air, though, she thought they might be out of luck with that.

  “You got a double,” Dorothy said, staring at the beds.

  “Yeah,” Alice said. “I didn’t know…what the sleeping arrangements would be.”

  Dorothy smiled and bit her lip. Stepping up onto her tiptoes she did a little ballerina spin and finished facing Alice. “I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we?”

  “Guess so,” Alice said. She tossed the food down on the closest bed, and then kicked the door shut with her foot.

  “Let’s eat!” Dorothy said.

  Chapter 19

  Rabbit didn’t hear the door the first time it banged. He was sound asleep on his couch, drifting in a warm opiate bath and dreaming about sparklers running up and down his arms and legs. The second time it banged the spell broke like a golden bubble around him, and he felt himself coming up out of his stupor. It was like standing up after being in a hot tub all afternoon, he could feel cold consciousness stroking his skin and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to sink back into the confines of warm sleep.

  “Yo Rabbit!”

  “Jesus—fuck is stinks in here—Holy shit!”

  Rabbit slowly opened one lazy eye and rested it on the two large dark figures standing in his living room.

  “Rabbit, what the fuck, niggah? You get jacked?”

  “Yeah,” Rabbit said slowly. “Bitch hit me in the mouf wif the fuckin’ thing...” he waved a hand, dismissing them, and drifted away from the conversation.

  “Torlet lid? Fuck man, a bitch did you like that?”

  “Yesh,” Rabbit said. He opened his eyes again. He knew the two men, he realized. Two regulars, Devon and Eazy. Big, strong, healthy looking black men. They were his friends. They’d never hurt him. They were his boys. They worked for him, and he paid well for their services. More often than not, he paid them in drugs. Especially Eazy.

  “Jesus man, look at his face,” Eazy said. “Hey Rabbit! Are all your teeth busted?”

  “I fink so,” Rabbit said. he brought his fingers to his lips. there was dried blood and tooth shards all over the lower half of his face, like broken M&M shells filled with gore and nerve endings. Or eggshells. They kinda felt like a mouth full of eggshells too. “Yesh, all da front onesh are gone.” He reached down into the ashtray and pulled his mangled, bloody gold tooth grill out of the ashes, holding it up for them to see.

  “That’s messed up,” Devon said. “Christ I think I’m gonna puke.”

  “It was Alish,” Rabbit said, tossing the dental appliance aside. It rattled on the coffee table and broken teeth came loose. They spilled out around ashes and gold wires, and when they stopped moving they were sitting in little pools of blood like white ants drowning in cherry syrup. “Her and her little bitch friend did it.”

  “That skinny bitch?” asked Eazy. “You sleepin’ or somet’in?”

  “I wash fighting with the other one. Didn’t she it comin’.”

  Rabbit took a couple deep breaths. He had to clear his head a bit more if he was going to figure this out. Now that Devon and Eazy were here he could get them to look for the girls. They were basically paid thugs anyway, and he knew he could have them if he promised some free junk.

  And he did have to get that brick back. Soon. If Alice started dipping into it she might overdose again, and with nobody to help her the best Rabbit could hope for was her death. At worst, she’d end up back in the hospital, and his dope ended up in some precinct lockup while they pushed on those girls about where the brick came from.

  Which would lead them to Rabbit’s grandma’s house.”We need to find thoshe bitches,” Rabbit said. He quickly rehashed the details of the past few hours, being careful not to mention exactly how much heroin the girls had stolen. No sense getting the dogs all worked up over something they couldn’t have. When he finished explaining everything, he picked up a cigarette, winced, and then slowly put it down again. “So you in?”

  Devon and Eazy looked at each other. “Yeah,” Eazy said. “Sure as Christ. Got any idea where you wanna start lookin’?”

  Rabbit thought about that. He didn’t really know where Alice went when she wasn’t at his house. He knew she fucked for money, so she must have had some regular hangouts, but Rabbit didn’t normally concern himself with where she went to make a buck. And to be honest, he kind of hadn’t wanted to know until today. He thought she might have mentioned a room somewhere before, but there was too much fog behind his eyes to recall the conversation exactly. Something about a moon? or the Fall? Full Moon? It made sense, for a flophouse to be named after being bare ass naked with your ass up. Should have called it the bicycle stand, he thought. Bury your head in the sand and stick your ass in the air so you can park your bike between the ass cheeks.

  No, that was stupid. It wasn’t the Full Moon. It was something like that though....

  “Hey!” Devon snapped his fingers in front of Rabbit’s face. “Yo, wake up man!”

  “I’m awake,” Rabbit said. Am I though? Maybe this is all some stupid dream. He rubbed his hands on his swollen face but stopped short of his mouth.

  “He’s Jesus Juiced,” Eazy said. “He needs to have a nappy nap.”

  “Naw,” Devon said. “You was mumblin’ something about bein’ bare assed. What the fuck are you talkin about?”

  And suddenly it came to Rabbit, like a lighthouse beam through the fog.

  “Shit!” he cried. “My shell phone!”

  He felt his pockets. It wasn’t there. He looked around his couch, in the cushions. He started to get up but his legs failed him and he crumpled back into his seat. He cursed his useless state and tried again.

  Alice had called him a couple times last week, and if they were lucky enough one of them might have been from her hotel. She went there when the weather was bad. Something Moon something.

  “Where the fuck is it?” He yelled, and lightning flared in his mouth. He grabbed the side of his face.

  “FAWK!”

  D
evon slapped Eazy’s chest.

  “Call it man,” he said.