Tats Too (37 page)

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 bloody 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.

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.