Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

typewriter and clothes before they returned. His spirits lifted a little when he climbed down the narrow stairway for the last time, but Madame Natasha's words came back to dump on him again: " I don't see a woman in your near future ."
    It had been one of the reasons he had come to San Francisco – to find a girlfriend. Someone who would see him as an artist. Not like the girls back home, who saw him as a bookish freak. It was all part of the plan: live in the City, write stories, look at the bridge, ride cable cars, eat Rice-A-Roni, and have a girlfriend – someone he could tell his thoughts to, preferably after hours of godlike sex. He wasn't looking for perfection, just someone who made him feel secure enough to be insecure around. But not now. Now he was doomed.
    He looked up at the skyline and realized that he had navigated wrong, arriving in the financial district, several blocks from the Pyramid. He zigzagged from block to block, avoiding eye contact with the men and women in business suits, who avoided eye contact in turn by checking their watches every few steps. Sure, he thought, they can check their watches. They have a future.
    He arrived at the foot of the Pyramid a little breathless, his arms aching from carrying his belongings. He sat on a concrete bench at the edge of a fountain and watched people for a while.
    They were all so determined. They had places to go, people to see. Their hair was perfect. They smelled good. They wore nice shoes. He looked at his own worn leather sneakers. Fucked .
    Someone sat down next to him on the bench and he avoided looking up, thinking that it would just be another person who would make him feel inferior. He was staring at a spot on the concrete by his feet when a Boston terrier appeared on the spot and blew a jet stream of dog snot on his pant leg.
    "Bummer, that's rude," the Emperor said. "Can't you see that our friend is sulking?"
    Tommy looked up into the face of the Emperor. "Your Highness. Hello." The man had the wildest eyebrows Tommy had ever seen, as if two gray porcupines were perched on his brow.
    The Emperor tipped his crown, a fedora made of panels cut from beer cans and laced together with yellow yarn. "Did you get the job?"
    "Yes, they hired me that day. Thanks for the tip."
    "It's honest work," the Emperor said. "There's a certain grace in that. Not like this tragedy."
    "What tragedy?"
    "These poor souls. These poor pathetic souls." The Emperor gestured toward the passersby.
    "I don't understand," Tommy said.
    "Their time has passed and they don't know what to do. They were told what they wanted and they believed it. They can only keep their dream alive by being with others like themselves who will mirror their illusions."
    "They have really nice shoes," Tommy said.
    "They have to look right or their peers will turn on them like starving dogs. They are the fallen gods. The new gods are producers, creators, doers. The new gods are the chinless techno-children who would rather eat white sugar and watch science-fiction films than worry about what shoes they wear. And these poor souls desperately push papers around hoping that a mystical message will appear to save them from the new, awkward, brilliant gods and their silicon-chip reality. Some of them will survive, of course, but most will fall. Uncreative thinking is done better by machines. Poor souls, you can almost hear them sweating."
    Tommy looked at the well-dressed stream of business people, then at the Emperor's tattered overcoat, then at his own sneakers, then at the Emperor again. For some reason, he felt better than he had a few minutes before. "You really worry about these people, don't you?"
    "It is my lot."
    An attractive woman in a gray suit and heels approached the Emperor and handed him a five-dollar bill. She wore a silk camisole under her jacket and Tommy could make out the top of her lace bra when she bent over. He was mesmerized.
    "Your Highness," she said, "there's a Chinese chicken salad on special at the Cafe Suisse today. I think Bummer and Lazarus would love it."
    Lazarus wagged his tail. Bummer yapped at the mention of his name.
    "Very thoughtful of you, my child. The men will enjoy it."
    "Have a good day," she said, and walked away. Tommy watched her calves as she went.
    Two men who were passing by, embroiled in an argument about prices and earnings, stopped their conversation and nodded to the Emperor.
    "Go with God," the Emperor said. He turned back to Tommy. "Are you