The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

JEALOUS, BITTER, CYNICAL, HOSTILE AND PRETENTIOUS

Chev was getting in my ass.

– Give me a hand here.

– Just a sec, I wanna finish this.

– A sec my ass, get the fuck over here and give me a hand.

I got up and walked across the shop, the copy of Fangoria folded open to an article about a new wave of bootleg Eastern European ultrahorror DVDs.

– Put that down and hold this.

I lowered the magazine, looked at the girl lying frozen on the table, her shirt pulled up, one tit untucked from her bra, tension in every muscle of her body a thin stream of tears running from her eyes, flipped him off and took hold of the Glover Bulldog clamp locked on the tip of the girls nipple, stretching it taut for the needle.

The girl banged her heel on the table.

– Dont pull on it, dont pull on it.

– Im not pulling on it.

She squirmed.

– Youre sooo pulling.

– I am not, youre moving.

I looked at Chev.

– Did I pull on it or did she move?

Chev turned from his kit, a large needle between the fingers of his left hand.

– Just hold it steady, both of you.

The girl froze.

I looked back in my magazine and read about a scene in a movie called Amputee where a guy has his eyes gouged out and his toes are amputated by the bad guy and sewn into his empty eye sockets.

– Im holding steady.

The clamp vibrated slightly as Chev ran the needle through the girls nipple and she jerked.

I peeked at her over the top of the magazine.

– Not too bad, huh?

Part of a smile crossed her face and she shook her head.

– No, not too bad.

I nodded.

– Yeah, here comes the bit that really sucks.

Chev twisted the jewelry into the hole hed just put in her nipple, and gripped the ends of the open hoop of surgical steel with two pairs of needle-nose pliers, torqued until they lined up, popped a tiny bead between them and pinched them together so they held it tight. The girls mouth flew open and she made a long whining noise and a little urine stained the crotch of her way too fucking expensive for their own good jeans.

I looked at the photo spread in the magazine.

– See, hurts like a motherfucker.

Chev took the clamp from my fingers.

– Asshole. Get the fuck away.

– What? I was helping, you said I should come over here and help.

He released the clamp and the girls nipple snapped back.

– Just get out of here, will you? Go get me some smokes.

I twisted the magazine into a tube and stuffed it in my back pocket.

– Give me some cash.

Chev looked up from the blood he was swabbing off the girls tit.

– No.

– Fine, Ill tell them were not using money anymore, that weve moved beyond outdated concepts like commerce and that they should just give me your American Spirits because its a goodwill society now.

He placed a gauze pad over the girls nipple and had her hold it there while he taped the corners down.

– I gave you money for breakfast this morning and you never gave me the change. Use that in lieu of goodwill and go buy my smokes.

– Thought the change was a tip.

– It wasnt. Go. Get out.

He took a card full of cleaning instructions from his work table and handed it to the girl and started telling her how to care for the piercing, blotting her eyes for her with a Kleenex.

– Youre gonna want to take the bandage off in a couple hours, in the shower with water running over it so it doesnt stick to the dry blood. Then you gotta clean it, rotate the jewelry under the water.

She made a face and he stroked her hair and she leaned her head against his hand.

– Itll be cool. Itll hurt, but not bad. The hard part is over.

I leaned against the wall by the door.

– Until mom sees it and you have to explain why the hell you let some creepy tattoo artist poke a hole in your tit.

Chev stepped away from the girl.

– Go be useful. Now.

I slid my shades over my eyes.

– I am useful. I serve a constant reminder that youre not as cool as you think you are and that you used to run home early from school every day so you wouldnt miss Star Trek and it wasnt till you shaved your head and got inked and opened this shop that chicks like her would even look at you.

– Now, out, the fuck out!

I pushed the door open.

– And you have the whole original series on deluxe DVD and an autographed William Shatner picture that you got at a convention when you were fifteen and had chronic acne.

The door swung shut behind me as I walked into the sunlight, whatever Chev was saying to me muffled and lost.

I didnt need to hear it. Id heard it all before. Anything Chev has to say to me, Ive heard it. Most of it starts with asshole and ends with such a dick.

I dug in my pocket and found the six odd bucks left over from the breakfast run Id done over to the Dennys on Sunset. Id planned on using it for some tacos later.

– Crap.

I stuffed the money back in my pocket and headed out.

Mostly Chev is cool. Until a chick he thinks is hot comes around. Really, its not any different from our whole lives. Only difference is, back when we were kids, Chev turned into a worse stuttering dork around hot chicks than he already was and tried to make up for it by being a dick toward me. He doesnt get nervous anymore, mostly, but he still acts like a dick toward me. Which, sure, sometimes I deserve it, but mostly hes just trying to be cooler than he is. So whos the dick?

I walked up Mansfield, cut east and made for the big red Las Palmas Market. I could have just gone up Melrose from the shop and gotten the smokes from the gas station at La Brea, but everythings cheaper at the Market. Save some money on Chevs smokes and thered be enough for a soda and some gum. Chev cant ask for change I dont have.

Well, he can, but I cant give it to him. So that gets us both off the hook.

Coming back to Melrose with the smokes, I saw the girl coming out of the shop, Chev holding the door open, thumbing the digits of her phone number into his cell. I stood there and watched him watch her ass as she walked to the 2008 Z her mommy and daddy bought for her. She climbed in and waved and pulled into traffic and Chev held up his phone. Ill call.

I waved at her as I crossed the street and she punched it and almost ran me over.

Chev laughed and I walked past him and into the shop.

– Jailbait.

He let the door swing shut and caught the pack of smokes I tossed him.

– Asshole.

– Total jailbait.

He stripped the cellophane from the pack.

– Just turned eighteen. Her folks gave her the car as a birthday present.

– Bull. They gave her that car as a bribe to keep her from dropping out of high school and going up to the valley to become a porn star.

– Dude, shes eighteen. I carded her when she came in.

– Fake.

He dropped into one of the two old barber chairs customers sit in for easy arm and leg pieces.

– I know a fake when I see one. Shes eighteen. Legit. And smokin’ hot.

I unwrapped a piece of gum and stuck it in my mouth.

– Shes a spoiled piece of high-maintenance ass that thinks itll be cool to fuck a tattoo rocker because shes already taken it in the ass from every rich boy in Beverly Hills and variety is the spice of life and her familys money makes her life boring so she has to slum with losers like us.

He lit up and blew smoke at me.

– Losers like me, Web. Losers like me.

I took the magazine from my pocket and opened it back up.

– Well I hope you enjoy the fatal case of cockrot youre gonna get if you nail that chick. -Jealous.

– Gonna be like this movie Corrosion.

– Bitter.

– Your flesh being eaten away.

– Cynical.

– Consumed by the billions of infected sperm monkeys that have been pumped into her by the Beverly Hills High football team since she was thirteen.

– Hostile.

– Excoriated to a nubbin with a shriveled sack hanging off it.

– Excoriated?

– Look it up.

– I know what it means.

– No you dont.

– Pretentious.

I threw the magazine at him.

– I am not fucking pretentious.

He caught the magazine and rolled it tight and counted points off his fingers with it.

– Jealous, bitter, cynical, hostile and pretentious.

I got up and grabbed at the magazine.

– And Im not jealous, not of a rag like that.

He jerked the magazine away.

– Excoriate my ass.

– You wouldnt say that if you knew what it means.

I slapped the cigarette from his mouth into his lap and he jumped from the chair, whacking at the embers on his crotch with the magazine.

I shoved him.

– Cool it, thats a new issue.

He swatted the top of my head with it.

– You are such a dick.

– Fuck you.

I grabbed him around the middle and pushed him back into the chair and he smacked me across the ear with the magazine.

– Dick.

The string of bells hanging from the door jangled.

– Interrupting something intimate?

Chev shoved me away and got out of the chair and tossed my magazine on the couch against the wall.

I adjusted the tail of my shirt.

– Just trying to keep the romance in the relationship, man.

Po Sin stood in the doorway, using every bit of his huge roundness to blot out the sunlight behind him.

– Couple thats been together as long as you two, guess you must have to resort to the rough stuff. Me and the missus, we can mostly get by with a little dirty talk and Kama Sutra Oil.

I fell onto the couch, put my feet up on the arm and opened my magazine.

– Yeah, but you guys are pretty much newlyweds compared to us. I mean, me and Chev, weve been together like over twenty years, like since we were five or so. You guys been married how long?

– Hardly thirteen years, man. Like yesterday.

Chev lit a fresh cigarette.

– Dont listen to that fag, Po Sin, hes always creeping in my room at night, but he never gets any.

I turned a page.

– True, he is a bit of a tease.

Po Sin nodded and moved from the door, came to the middle of the shop and occupied it.

– Well, thats enough fagging around for me. You got your canister?

Chev started cleaning up the paper towels and bloody swabs from the nipple piercing, and jerked his head at me.

– Go get the can.

– Fuck you. ‘M I your slave?

He stuffed the garbage into a red biohazard bag and pulled the sealed plastic magazine from the sharps disposal on the wall.

– Youre my burden. Youre my cross. My goddamned albatross and you havent paid rent in two months and I fed you this morning, again, and you abused another one of my clients today and you can get off your ass and go get the can or get the fuck out and go look for a job.

I threw the magazine on the couch and pushed myself up and made for the back of the store.

– Your wife rag like this, Po Sin?

He shook his head.

– My lady, she beams messages to me through her eyes. She dont got to rag on me.

– Lucky man.

– So says you.

I went in the back of the shop and got the red biowaste canister and brought it out front. Chev handed me the bag he was holding. I went to drop it in the canister and a wad of bloody paper towels fell on the floor. I bent to pick them up.

– Not with your bare hands, not with your bare hands.

I looked at Po Sin.

– Its no big deal, its just dry blood.

I grabbed the wad and dropped it in the canister with the rest of the waste.

He pulled at the waistband of his navy blue Dickies.

– Could have been a needle in the middle of that.

I slid him the canister.

– There wasnt.

– And you never know whats growing in blood. Living in it.

I showed him my hands.

– Too late now.

He looked at Chev and Chev shrugged. He shook his head and lifted the canister and considered.

– Ten pounds.

Chev shook his head.

– Eight, man, at the most.

Po Sin set the canister down.

– Got a scale handy?

– A scale? It look like I got a scale around here?

– Well, in the absence of a scale, Im the expert. And the expert says this is ten pounds of biohazardous waste and at two bucks a pound you owe me twenty bucks.

Chev picked up the canister.

– Telling you, this is eight, tops. Sixteen bucks.

Po Sin adjusted his tiny oval wirerims with his thick stubby fingers.

– Chev, do we have a contract?

Chev scratched the stubble on the side of his head.

– No.

– So, I dont charge you a weekly rate, then, for picking this shit up, I dont charge you the same forty-nine fifty a week minimum I charge everyone else on my route. Is that right?

Chev looked at the ceiling. -Yeah.

– I charge you a pound rate that I usually charge only to people that bring their own shit by and drop it off themselves, right?

Chev reached for the big leather wallet attached to his belt by a dangling steel chain.

– OK, OK.

– I mean, if Im not doing you a solid here, if youd rather do business in the manner of most of my clients, we can draw up a contract and Ill be here rain or shine on my appointed rounds every week and you can pay the pickup rate whether you have waste or not.

Chev opened the wallet and started pulling out bills.

– Got it. My bad.

– If youd prefer that over, say, busting my balls for the sake of four bucks, I can go out to the van and get the paperwork right now. That suit you?

Chev held out two tens.

– No, man, no, here, here it is, its cool, my bad.

Po Sin reached out and pinched the bills between his thumb and forefinger and tugged them from Chevs hand.

– Why thank you for your prompt and courteous payment.

Chev stuffed the wallet back in his pocket and pointed at the koi tattooed on Po Sins forearm.

– Shit, man, not I like dont hit you with a discount on your ink.

Po Sin tucked the money into the breast pocket of his unbuttoned Clean Team Trauma work shirt.

– True. And its also not like I ever beef with you about what you charge when I get the bro rate.

Chev nodded his head, put out his hand.

– No, man, youre right, I was out of line.

Po Sin folded his hand around Chevs.

– Its cool, just the ways and means of business. Four bucks is just four bucks, but, then again, its four bucks. If you get me.

Chev looked at the number on the face of his vibrating cell.

– Yeah, dont got to tell me. Small business owners of the world unite.

He hooked a thumb at me where Id sprawled back on the couch with my magazine.

– Wish you could teach some economics to the freeloader over there.

I didnt look away from the magazine.

– Indentured servant is more like it.

He ignored me, answering the phone and flipping open the appointment book on the counter at the front of the shop.

– Yeah, what did you want?

He rolled his eyes.

– A dolphin? In the small of your back?

He stuck a finger in his open mouth.

– Yeah, no problem. How about tomorrow afternoon?

Po Sin came over and peeked at my magazine.

– That guy got toes for eyes? -Yeah. Cool, huh?

– He a monster?

– Nah, just a guy gets all fucked up by a psycho.

– What you see in that shit, man?

– I dont know.

– Doesnt bother you, all that gore?

– Why should it?

He looked at Chev.

– Why should it? He always been like that?

Chev put his hand over the phone.

– Actually, no. The taste for horror is kind of a new thing.

I looked up from the magazine.

– Hey is there a problem here Im unaware of? Am I not allowed to develop new interests and tastes? So I never really got into horror before, so its a new thing, is that supposed to mean something? I mean, fuck, its just fun is all.

Po Sin grunted.

– People getting hacked up and tortured and mutilated is fun. Shits disgusting.

I put the magazine in front of my face.

– Says the man with a van full of bloody rags and dirty needles and shit-stained sheets and used condoms and wads of tampons.

He pulled the magazine from my hands and flipped through it, looking at the pictures.

– Some nasty stuff in here.

– Doesnt bother me.

He looked at me, nodded, and kicked the side of the biohazard canister.

– Give me a hand with this. Come out and get the empty.

I rolled off the couch.

– Like Im everyones slave today.

Chev was scribbling in the appointment book, back on the phone.

– With a sunset behind it, yeah, sure.

I followed Po Sin out the door.

– Ask her if she wants the dolphin snagged in a gill net or drowning in an oil spill.

Chev showed me his middle finger.

Outside, Po Sin was at the back of the Clean Team van, opening the doors. I set the canister on the edge of the curb.

He waved me closer.

– Bring it here.

I picked it back up.

– Maaan.

I brought it over to him and caught a face-full of the reek pouring out of the sun-baked rear of the van.

– Holy Jesus! Motherfuck.

He took the canister from me and snugged it in with several others and snapped a bungee cord around them to keep them from shifting.

– Hows that for a gross-out?

I waved a hand in front of my face.

– Dude, thats some nasty shit.

He took an empty canister from a rack and passed it to me.

– Things are supposed to be airtight.

– Theyre not.

– No shit.

He slammed the doors closed and leaned his back against them, the polarized lenses of his glasses darkening.

– So. Still no work.

I lifted the empty canister.

– Working plenty.

Chev came out of the shop and lit up.

– Dont listen to him, he aint worked in over a year.

Po Sin looked up at the sky.

– Been that long?

I spat in the gutter.

– Its been awhile.

I pointed at Chev.

– And dont listen to his bullshit. I work all the time. I mean, whos been doing the laundry? Cleaning the dishes? Cooking? Whos been running all your errands and fetching lunch and taking your truck to be washed?

Chev knocked ash from his smoke.

– Yeah, and whos been paying your rent and covering the groceries and the PGE and the cable and the water and the gas and every other little thing that comes up?

– Ive been kicking in.

Chev watched a couple Korean girls in midi tank tops walk out of the French cafй up Melrose.

– Mean your moms been kicking in.

– Any of your business?

The girls disappeared into a shoe store and he looked back at me.

– Only that shes not gonna carry you forever and you need to get a fucking job because the IOUs are piling up on the fridge.

– Ill get a job.

Po Sin tugged the end of his thin drooping moustache.

– Cant believe you cant get a job the way the schools need teachers.

Chev flicked his butt.

– He can get a job, they call him all the time. He could sub five days a week. He could go full-time again whenever he wants.

– Only I dont want to, asshole.

– You want to make a couple bucks, I got some work for a guy with a strong stomach for messed up shit.

I looked at Po Sin and squinted.

– What kind of work?

He looked at Chev and pointed at me.

– Know why he doesnt have a job? Because hes the kind of guy you offer him one and he asks what the work is.

He started for the cab of the van.

– He dont want to work.

I followed him around the van.

– I didnt say I dont want to work, I just asked what the job is.

Asking what the job was, that was actually a really smart idea. If Id pursued that line of questioning a bit further, things would have been considerably less complicated. Dug a little deeper into that line of inquiry, and I might have avoided the whole Whos the Asshole in the Motel Room contest that would crop up later.

But Po Sin wasnt interested in filling in blanks.

He stopped and faced me.

– Its cleaning shit up, is what it is. We got a packrat gig and one of my sets of hands is flaking on me and theres a load of shit to haul.

I squinted again.

– You mean literal shit?

– I mean stuff. Ten bucks an hour for hauling stuff. You want or not?

Chev came around the front of the van.

– He wants.

– Hey!

Chev put a finger in my face.

– He wants because the fridge is empty and its his turn to fill it and Im gonna start eating all my meals out so theres nothing for him to graze on, so if he wants to eat this week hell take the job.

Po Sin took a notepad from his back pocket and started scribbling with a nub of pencil from behind his ear.

– Good. Heres the address.

He handed me the paper.

– Seven in the AM. NO later.

– No problem, just swing by and pick me up.

Midway pulling himself up behind the wheel, Po Sin stopped.

– Pick you up? My ass. Drive yourself.

Chev shook his head.

– He doesnt have a car.

– I have a car.

– No, you dont.

– Yes I do. I have a great car. I have a classic nineteen-seventy-two Dat-sun five-ten.

– You have car parts. You do not, in fact, have a car.

– Yes I do. I have parts in sufficient quantity and variety that when assembled in their proper order they will constitute a car. I have, de facto, a car.

– You have a de facto pile of scrap in the driveway is what you have, dude.

Po Sin turned the key and the van started up.

– The bus is a buck fifty. You got a buck fifty?

I stuffed my hands in my pockets, looked somewhere else.

– I dont ride the bus.

Po Sin pointed at the number 10 stop, up at the corner.

– Public transportation is a wonderful thing. Saves money, saves the environment. Gets you to a paying job. Take the bus.

I started to open my mouth and Chev stepped in.

– Hes not riding the bus, Po Sin. He doesnt like the bus.

Po Sin looked at him. Looked at me. Looked away.

– Right. My bad. Thought maybe that had changed.

He looked at his watch.

– OK, I got a guy on the job, he can pick you up on the way. Be out front at six thirty and hell grab you.

Chev butted me with his shoulder.

– Yeah, Ill get him up and make sure he has his sack lunch and everything.

Po Sin pulled the door closed and put the van in gear.

– So, see you tomorrow. And wear your boots, there tend to be sharps all over the floor on these jobs.

The van pulled from the curb and we walked back up to the front of the shop.

Chev put his arm around my shoulders.

– Your first real job. Me and your mom are so proud.

– Fuck you, Im not going. Ill call Po Sin later and tell him not to send the guy.

– Yes, you are going. And to celebrate, me and your mom are gonna fuck like bunnies tonight.

I shrugged his arm off.

– Dont, man, thats not cool.

– Gonna fuck and fuck and fuck all night long.

– Dude, youre grossing me out.

He stopped at the door, pumping his groin at me.

– Gonna git our fuck aaawwwnnn.

I walked past him into the shop and locked the door. He grabbed the handle and shook it.

– Let me in, dick.

On the counter, his phone began to buzz and I picked it up.

– Want me to get it?

He stuck his finger against the glass.

– Do not answer that.

I looked at the number.

– Caller unknown. Probably a customer. Let me get this for you.

– Do not pick that up.

I flipped the phone open.

– White Lightning Tattoo.

Chev jammed a hand in his pocket, going for his keys.

– Asshole!

I nodded my head, phone at my ear, backing from the door.

– A string of barbed wire? Around your biceps? Yeah, sure, we can do that.

Chev turned the key.

– Do not say another word.

I covered the mouthpiece with my hand.

– No, its cool, I can handle this.

He pushed the door open.

– Give me the phone.

I took my hand from the mouthpiece.

– Sure, sure, we can do that wire around your arm. We can also tattoo lameass foser wannabe on your forehead.

Chev came at me, grabbing for the phone.

I held it over my head, screaming.

– Or how about you just get a unicorn on your hip so people will know what a real man you are!

Chev snagged my wrist.

– Asshole.

I jerked my hand free, yelling at the phone.

– Or a rainbow on your ankle!

And it flew from my hand and hit the polished cement floor and cracked open and the screen shattered into five pieces.

We stood there and looked at the phone.

I toed one of the pieces.

– So, I guess I wont be blowing off Po Sin in the morning.