Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [9]
“Yeah,” said DO ME. Her hand rubbed his chest, and when the keep disappeared in back, she smoothly rubbed his crotch. “Ever had a doubleheader?”
Hudson was taken aback. “Uh, well—”
GAG’S breath smelled like Juicy Fruit. “Ask anyone. Me’n Jeanie do the best doubleheaders. We know all the right stuff guys like—”
Hudson opened his mouth . . .
They both flashed their bare breasts right in Hudson’s face. Four pink, plucked nipples looked back at him. Hudson got drunk just from the sight. A side-glance showed him Fu Manchu and the bald guy both grinning at him, and nodding approval.
The T-shirts came back down when the keep returned. GAG’S lips touched his ear when she whispered, “And it’s only fifty bucks each, plus ya gotta give the—”
“Ten to the bartender.” Hudson finally said something coherent. “Yes.” He felt flushed, prickly. Here goes. Monsignor Halford better be right . . . He looked in his wallet. “I only have sixty dollars on me. Is there—”
“An ATM?” DO ME finished his question. “At the bank—”
“—right across the street,” the other hot, wet whisper brushed his ear. “You could be back in five minutes.”
Hudson felt disconnected from himself when he stood up. “I’ll be right back . . .”
GAG gave his buttocks a squeeze when Hudson rushed out. He crossed the parking lot with a drone in his head. Darkness had arrived like an oil spill; the old sodium lights painted glowing yellow lines across the cracked asphalt. His anticipation revved his heart. I’m going to be in the seminary soon, but in about five minutes I’m going to be standing in a dump bar’s bathroom with my pants down in front of two hookers. Oh, God . . .
He quickstepped past a dollar store, then crossed the street to the bank. Six people stood in line before him at the ATM, mostly half-broken rednecks or old people. Come on, come on, he thought, tapping his foot. When he glanced across the street, he saw GAG and DO ME watching him through the glass door. With my luck someone else’ll pick them up while I’m waiting in this line!
Finally Hudson got his turn and withdrew five twenties. He grimaced at the receipt where it read AVAILABLE BALANCE: $6.00.
“Damn it,” he sputtered, and then he stood there for a time, spacing out. Put the money back in the bank and go home! his alter ego yelled at him. You don’t need to do this! Look at yourself! You’re a scumbag! You’re a whoremonger!
But he could, couldn’t he? He looked at the cash. He could redeposit it right now, save it for the things he needed rather than wasting it on this experiment in lust. But—
Instead he put it in his pocket and left the machine.
On his way back his mind was clogged with the lewdest images. Even as the block letters flashed behind his eyes—DON’T BE A CRUMMY PERSON BY PURSUING YOUR TEMPTATIONS. DON’T LIVE A CHUMP-CHANGE LIFE—Hudson couldn’t see them.
The drone dragged him on. He had no awareness of making the mental decision to stop, but when he realized he had, he found himself several yards from the dollar store where a skinny woman in a dirty sundress and lanky hair was having a conniption at the front door. A pair of scrawny little kids with dead eyes stood next to her. “Fuckin’ bullshit! I can’t fuckin’ believe it!” she was yelling at herself. “It’s not supposed to be this fuckin’ hard!”
Hudson wanted to move on, to the tacky delights that awaited. Instead, he said, “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah! Everything’s wrong! I got two fuckin’ kids to feed so I go in there to buy food”—she held up a plastic card with an American flag on it—“and the machine says my food credits are all used up. My fuckin’ husband maxed out the card out before he split yesterday. Instead of paying the power bill, he spent the money on crack; then he maxes out the card and leaves town! Fucker leaves me with two kids and no food, and even if I had food, I can’t cook it ’cos I got no power, so I gotta buy Pop-Tarts and canned spaghetti, but I can’t even buy that ’cos my fuckin’ piece of shit husband MAXED OUT MY CARD!”
The woman looked close to a psychotic break. Meanwhile, her two children looked