Chapter 16: God Talk Radio

The freak we call God Talk Radio is standing outside. He’s shouting, as usual. Filling my hangover full of brimstone and jive.

PRAISE JAYSUS, OH MY BRUTHAS!

PRAISE JAYSUS, OH MY SISTAS!

REPENT YOUR SINS, OH MY BRUTHAS

OH MY SISTAS!

FOR GAWD SHALL BRING YOU INTO JUDGEMENT!

OH LAWD! OH HOLAY JAYSUS!

“I hate God Talk Radio,” Tabitha says.

“Amen,” I reply.

I raise the mini blinds and look out the window. God Talk Radio's down on the sidewalk, hands hidden in his coat pockets, ears hidden under his beanie cap. Breathing fog. Breathing fire.

REPENT YO SINS. PUT DOWN THAT CRACK PIPE. PUT DOWN THAT HUSTLA MAGAZINE. FOR THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT IZZA COMIN!

“In bed,” Tabitha adds, giggling.

Have you ever played the game where you add the words "in bed" to the end of your fortune cookie fortune? You know, like, if your fortune says, LOVE IS NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART, you read it, "When one door closes, another opens … in bed."

Tabitha and I do the same thing, but with God Talk Radio quotes. Every time God Talk Radio says something, we finish his sentence by saying, “In bed.”

YOU ARE ALL SINNERS … (in bed).

OPEN YOSELF TO GAWD … (in bed).

FEEL THE HOLAY HAND OF JAYSUS UPON YOU … (in bed).

Tabitha’s hunched in front of her computer, looking at autopsy photos. I’m sprawled out on her Nightmare Before Christmas sheets.

The Nightmare Before Christmas sheets are Tabitha’s favorite sheets. She contends that The Nightmare Before Christmas is the best movie ever made. Growing up, Tabitha loved two holidays above all others: Christmas and Halloween. When Tim Burton managed to successfully meld the two, she was hooked.

When Tabitha got the sheets, they were white with little Jack Skellingtons all over then. Now they are gray with faded little Jack Skellingtons all over them. She uses the sheets so often that they are slimed with a perpetual coat of some weird funk. Even after she washes them, they feel like greasy hair.

“When are you going to get rid of these?” I ask.

“Dude, you do not get rid of the Jack Skellington sheets. My mom bought those for me when I got my first double bed. They are classics!”

“They’re disgusting.”

“Go sleep in your own bed, then. I’m studying.”

Tabitha is always studying. Looking at autopsy photos. Reading biographies on John Wayne Gacy. On The Zodiac Killer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy. I wonder if the knowledge that Tabitha’s gleaning from all this studying will help our shooting.

I’m sure it will.

“All right,” I say. “I’m out.”

“See ya.”

Tabitha doesn’t even look up from the computer.

Chapter 17: Get Down with Zombies

I step outside and light a cigarette. The sky is full of sunshine — hard, blue sunshine that does nothing to chase the shivers out of my bones. A dead gray street surrounds me. Shadows skulk in the windows. Leftover Halloween decorations still haunt the building next door: Skeletons with paper bones taped to windows. Faded grins and dusty capers. Mush-mouthed jack-o’-lanterns mug from ledges. Witches on strings sweep cobwebs out of the sky.

The cold air makes me need to pee. I decide maybe I’ll find a bar, take a leak, and kill my hangover. I’m sick of being hung over. It’s been a week since I called Tabitha out of desperation, and I've been drunk every day since then. Tabitha likes to drink. It's her favorite pastime (aside from gluing cow faces onto the heads of Victoria's Secret models ... and studying crime-scene photos). Now that I'm back with Tabitha, that means I'm getting drunk every night. Fucking every night. Feeling hungover every morning. I may need a break.

Weirdly, I'm getting a little burned out on getting drunk and fucking Tabitha.

“She’s using you,” Craphole Joe says as I slam into this dark little pit called The Gold Standard.

“Yeah, you’re just serving as a dildo until something better comes along,” Jumper says.

“Shut up,” I say.

GET DOWN WITH GAWD BEFORE GAWD GET DOWN ON YOU, God Talk Radio says. In bed, I reply in my mind as the door slams shut behind me.

X

I stumble outside three hours later with my veins loaded full of beer. My thoughts are sloshing around in my skull and there’s no doubt this time that I’m drunk.

I turn to go up the street and hey … is that one of the zombies from Eli’s party? The one with the screwdriver in his neck?

He’s lurching toward me with his lips ripped back to show his teeth and his eyes bugged out and rolling around in his face. His hands thrust out of ripped-up sleeves, his nails rusty red and splintered from rending flesh. White earbuds plugged into his ears are feeding him thoughts.

“Sup,” he says, trying to play it cool as he closes the distance between us. Like he's just another guy.

I see through his ruse.

The bunnies, sensing danger, snarl and cluster around the zombie, driving him back until he gives up and shuffles away.

The bunnies are very protective of me. They may hate me — they may mock and ridicule and abuse me — but they respect the fact that I’m their only conduit to the world. Without me, they’d be nothing, which is probably the only reason they haven’t already killed me.

“Fucking zombies,” Dumper says.