Uschi! (14 page)

Chapter Nine

H
e was over thirty years old, but the whine to his voice was pure ten-year-old being forced to do what he didn’t want to do.

“I’m not up to this. This isn’t my typical scene. Can we go home?”

“I promise you, you can do this.”

Denny had gotten as far as the end of his parked El Camino and then stopped. From there on he was having trouble making his legs take him any further. Fear had hold of him. Stern second thoughts on doing any of this crazily swirled through his worried brain. There was a part of him still gung-ho for doing this, but another half—the stronger and easier to fall in line with and obey half of him—was starting to throw its weight around and was about to get its way. He couldn’t do this. He should forget he ever considered doing such a thing. He was too ugly and pathetic for this.

He stood there, in the parking lot, blanch-faced and both hands holding securely to the tailgate of the El Camino. He had changed into a clean pair of blue jeans and a
Big Bad Mama
T-shirt that put a lot of Angie Dickinson across his chest. His Converse All Stars were washed and looking better than they had in a good stretch of time. Showered and shaved and smelling of Old Spice after-shave. Uschi insisted on a two-inch high cuff on his jeans’ legs, the shirt tucked snug inside his jeans, and she personally worked on his head of hair, greasing it down and combing it up with a heavy quantity of hair jelly pomade into this ultra cool psychobilly ducktail pompadour.

Uschi came up beside him, her railroad spike high heels crunchy of the parking lot’s gravel. Out of her Salvation Army and mail order wardrobe Denny had for her she had selected a glamorous zebra striped cocktail dress that’s daring neckline plunged to the navel and skirt slit ran up scandalously high on the leg. Her platinum blonde tresses were collected and amassed tall into a
Queen of Blood
outer space vampire beehive hairdo. Her jewelry was an imitation pearl necklace wrapped around the neck and big dangling rhinestone earrings.

“Hey, stay as cool as Mark Hamill in
Corvette Summer
with me, best thing. I got nothing but confidence in you. Prepare to have yourself a great time tonight. C’mon, let’s do this bitch up right.”

And she wrapped her arm around his and started to lead Denny out of the parking lot. He was trembling and ashamed at knowing Uschi could feel his trembling.

“I’m sorry I’m so afraid,” he said to her.

“Hush. Nothing to say you’re sorry for. Everybody gets a case of cold feet from time to time when they set out to do something new. Give me a smile and walk a strut like you’re proud to be out on the town with such a hot tamale of a dame like me. There you go, that’s an improvement. Yeah, look at my man go.”

This was a busy parking lot. There were lots of cars and trucks and people with scary tattoos and painful looking body piercings and black leather outfits.

The name of the establishment all were going to was Club Mutt. The Regal Beagle it was not. What we had here was a backwoods beer joint with warehouse cinderblock walls and a tin roof and no air-conditioning and the promise of live music every night. The front doors to the place were propped open, allowing the mercilessly loud thump and crash from tonight’s band already on stage to spill outside. The bass, heavy as the charging roar from a Tyrannosaurus Rex from one of those old Doug McClure dinosaur movies, passed through the air and went over Denny and made his sternum vibrate like a tuning fork struck against a chunk of bronze.

Tonight’s band was Feces from the Ass. Uschi had read about them this morning in the newspaper’s entertainment section; they were supposed to be like Black Sabbath meets Plasmatics with a distinct The Ghastly Ones horror-surf vibe undercurrent running through what they did. This sounded pretty ninja killing cool to her.

Denny and Uschi stepped in line and waited their turn to get in. The doorman who took their cash for the cover charge was as wide as he was tall. His XXXL “Darth Vader Lives” T-shirt hung over his feedsack of a gut like it was a maternity blouse. His melon round head was shaved bald and the stubbled scalp was the faded dirty blue shade of a week old bruise to the lip. His nametag read CHOPPED MEAT. Denny found it unlikely that was the name his Momma and Daddy gave him.

The hungry eyeballing Chopped Meat gave Uschi’s peanut butter and anti-freeze stuffed breasts as she and Denny stepped past him and entered clearly said he approved of their quantity and construction.

The air inside Club Mutt was smoky and crackling with excitement and frenzied activity. The tart BO of so many sweaty bodies together in such an enclosed space dwarfed any other odors and was the supreme sickening stink. So many goddamn people. Denny felt himself being swallowed by the mass of humanity as Uschi pulled him further inside the place. Strangers bounced and rubbed against him; faces all quickly morphed before his eyes together into an undistinguishable blur. Screaming voices united with the music’s thrash and became no different to his ears as the high decibel humming of some giant turbine engine.

They arrived at the bar. Good. It was solid, like the El Camino’s tailgate, something Denny could hold on to and brace himself against. Uschi called to the bartender and requested two shots of tequila.

That didn’t thrill Denny. Inches apart from one another, but still he had to lean in close to her ear and shout to be heard over the noise. “I’m not a drinker. I never developed a taste for any sort of alcohol. Thank you, but none for me.”

And she shot off this shit-eating grin at him that he immediately recognized as meaning she knew she was going to get her way no matter what. “A little won’t hurt. Try it. You might like it. You never tried pot until today, and now you’ve taken to it like Leatherface to a chainsaw.”

That was true, about the pot smoking. Denny had come right promptly to appreciate its effect. Just a taste of liquor shouldn’t harm him. And it would make his homemade zombie girlfriend happy.

The bartender, arms sleeved in colorful tattoos and upper lip pierced with a diaper’s safety pin (a nod, surmised Denny, to 1970s London punk fashion) and a Lou Costello stylish brown derby hat perched at a snappy angle on his head, sat two glasses down before them and put a hand out for the payment. Denny got out his wallet and handed over a few bills. Money was starting to slip away fast. That surely wasn’t good. His bank savings were for shit and what puny amount of cash remaining on him was hopefully enough to get a full tank of gas for the El Camino.

Uschi stopped the bartender before he could step away and leaned in to ask Denny, “Are any of those like the kind of tattoo you want to get?”

The bartender managed to hear enough of that to understand the question. He was proud of his body art and had no reservations on flaunting it, raising his arms and holding them out so Denny could get a better view.

Unaccustomed to people voluntarily putting themselves in such close proximity to him, Denny instinctively took a skittish step backwards. Uschi casually placed a hand on his back and didn’t let him scamper any further away. He took a moment to steady himself and stand in Uschi’s encouraging stare, then leaned in a little bit to examine the tattoos.

“Heavens to Mergatroid,” he remarked at what he found running all along the bartender’s arms.

He was expecting skulls and crossbones and raunchy naked ladies and perhaps one or two white supremacist symbols. None of that; instead Denny discovered quite the refreshing revelation.

“They’re
Wacky Packages
,” he said outloud. And just like that all the worry and fear that had pinched and cramped Denny’s face evaporated. He was now all smiles and positive attitude. “This is the original card series from the early seventies. I recognize some of them from my own collection. Honey, look at these, they’re fucking amazing.” He enthusiastically pointed out for his girlfriend specific skin illustrations. “There’s Kook-Aid, Dopey Whip, Quacker Oats and Jail-O. These are some of my all-time favorites. Hey, man, you have got the coolest fucking arms I’ve ever eyeballed. These are Sonny Chiba paying off my Discover card bill fantastic.”

The bartender was happy to see Denny’s approval. They spent the next few minutes in a conversation about favorite lowbrow art and tattooing and his aspirations of one-day having all
The Garbage Pail Kids
put on his back. Only after he had to return to bartending was when a shockingly loose and relaxed Denny suddenly realized he had just experienced a nice and friendly chat with a guy who didn’t seem to be bothered by his company. How about that?

Uschi picked up her shot of tequila and motioned for him to do likewise. She clicked her glass against his and toasted, “Hail Satan and may God always be watching out for the big-tittied women!”

She downed her drink in one macho head tossed back fast gulp. Immediately afterwards she dropped the shot glass in to follow, chewed it down to crunchy shards and swallowed. She opened her mouth to show Denny no lacerations and it was all gone as easy as if it were nothing less than a spoonful of warm applesauce.

“I’m not doing that,” he levelly informed her.

“I don’t expect you to, best thing. Just drink.”

He started to put the tequila to his lips, and then took it away. “I really don’t want to do this.”

Extra incentive was put into action when Uschi reached below the bar and searched out his groin. She unzipped his jeans with a flawless dexterity, her hand maneuvering through the piss hole, and laid siege upon his barbered private parts. Fingers manipulated the testicles while the thumb rubbed up against the head of his cock.

Denny performed a young Jerry Lewis animate convulsion; once he settled he could only open mouth stare at Uschi. Oh my. What brazenness, what daring. This was a public place. People could see what she was doing to him.

She leaned into him so she could brush his arm with her giant boobs. “I want to see you drink, best thing.” Looking up into his face and batting her milky dead eyes, her long eyelashes fanning her face. “Please.”

Well. Really. Denny hated the idea of disappointing the unholy returned from the dead love of his life. He’d give it a go. For her.

“You can do this,” she said, her hand remaining firmly entrenched inside his pants. “You’re strong as steel, best thing. It is an acquired taste, I admit, but it can become agreeable. The trick is don’t sip it. Sipping is for pussies and people who enjoy reading Robert Jordan fantasy novels. You’re no pussy. Shotgun it down. Open wide and toss your head back and allow gravity to take it through the throat and to the gut. That’s all it takes. Easy as pie. I know you can do it. Show me your strength.”

He followed her directions: open wide and tossing the head back. The tequila burned like a malicious communist asslicker as it made its way to the stomach, but at least it traveled quickly. He feared he was going to vomit it back up, but Uschi, sensing his trouble, used her non-genitals preoccupied hand to stroke his windpipe and cooed soothingly to him. That was sure good of her. Denny could feel the alcohol acting up inside him. Whoa, it was rough shit that definitely enjoyed being rowdy. It churned and bubbled like it were a corrosive acid, then out of nowhere suddenly decided to settle and become friendly and warming to his belly. The urge to hurl passed. He started feeling better.

He did it. Denny Gleeth had done what he had set out to accomplish. He blinked the tears from his eyes and looked to Uschi and exposed his uneven and nasty teeth when he smiled, proud of himself. He used the back of his hand to wipe at his runny nose.

“The time to dance is upon us,” informed Uschi.

Feces from the Ass were performing a freaky and crashing cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” as Uschi pulled Denny along by his dick and they joined the madness of jumping bodies on the dance floor. She got right to it, letting the rhythm take control and moving all fluid and supple with the music. The flashing strobe lights caused her beyond the grave moldering green complexion to glisten in a scrumptious gloss and her platinum
Queen of Blood
raised hair as radiant as a propane gas fireball. The fog from the smoke machine wrapped around her legs like kudzu vines. She was a Frazetta painting from the cover of a classic issue of
Eerie
or
Creepy
magazine made real—sensual and primal, gorgeously otherworldly. Quickly Uschi became the center of attention on the dance floor; everybody turning his or her head and watching the homemade zombie girlfriend go. And by association all eyes as well watched Denny.

He zipped up his fly and was painfully self-conscious his choreography wasn’t going to be nearly as nice as hers. He decided on a simple pogo. He just bounced up and down in place. That seemed safe enough.

The next number was a Reverend Horton Heat rockabilly piece, “It Hurts Your Daddy Bad.” The band took this one slow and raunchy. Put a real sleazy early ’60s titty joint grind behind it. This was meant for the slow dancing.

Uschi brought Denny in close to her and held on tight. He felt safe and loved inside her arms. They easy swayed from side to side. Now this was quality body on body action. Other couples surrounding them were doing likewise, going slow and holding on to one another. This deserved to continue for a good, long while.

It didn’t.

As with everything in Denny’s miserable life, it had to be spoiled sooner than later. Not even halfway through the song before a hand as wide as the business end of a shovel latched on to his shoulder and abruptly yanked on him, pulling him apart from his walking dead significant other.

“I’m gonna dance with your girl.” The tone to the voice was like a master speaking a command to a dog—complete obedience mandatory.

It was the morbidly obese doorman, Chopped Meat his ownself. He was all Baby Huey blubbery hard fat and a sweat-beaded bald head. He didn’t give Denny so much as a second look, putting his backside to him the moment following shoving him aside. Chopped Meat’s grotesque mass and casual willingness to use physical force leaving him super confident there would be no objection to what he was doing. This big boy always gets what he wants.