You Suck: A Love Story

strong, the Animals. Nine men, all under the age of twenty-five, left alone in a grocery store for eight hours with only Tommy to supervise them. They’d been given their name by the day manager, who had come in one morning to find them drunk, hanging from the giant Safeway letters on the front of store, pelting one another with marshmallows. Tommy had recruited them to fight the old vampire. They’d found the vampire, sleeping inside a vault on his yacht, and they had also found his art collection. After selling it for ten cents on the dollar, each of them had netted a hundred thousand dollars.
    Tommy went home with Jody, Clint went home to pray for the vampire’s soul. Simon had been killed.
    The rest of the Animals headed for Vegas.
    Clint hung up the phone, then sat down hard in the manager’s chair. It was too much responsibility. The weight of it would drive him over the edge. Even now he could hear dogs barking in his head.
    “Front door,” the temp night porter called over the half wall of the office.
    Clint stood up to see the Emperor and his dogs at the double electric doors. He grabbed the keys, disarmed the alarm, and opened the door. The Boston terrier shot by him, heading for the beef-jerky display.
    “Your Majesty,” Clint said. “You’re out of breath.”
    The big man held his chest as he panted. “Gather the troops, young man. C. Thomas Flood has been turned to a bloodsucking fiend. Gather your weapons, we must charge again into the breach.”
    “It’s just me and noobs,” Clint said. “Did you say that Tommy’s a vampire?”
    “Indeed. I saw him not two hours ago. As pale as death.”
    “Well, that’s not good.”
    “Your talent for stating the obvious is unprecedented, young man.”
    “Come in.” Clint stepped away from the door. “We are going to need to pray on this.”
    “Well, there’s a start,” said the Emperor.
    “Then I need to call Tommy and tell him to never mind about coming to work,” Clint said.
    “Splendid,” said the Emperor, without a hint of sarcasm. “I believe we’ve achieved a new level of doomed.”
    Y ou’ve always been good to me,” Jody said.
    “Well, I try,” Tommy said.
    He was going up the narrow stairway to their loft. She was slung over his shoulder, her forehead
    bounced off his belt with every step. She seemed so light. Tommy was still amazed at his newfound strength. He’d carried her ten blocks already and he wasn’t even feeling it. Well, he was a little tired of listening to her, but physically he wasn’t fatigued at all.
    “I can be such a bitch sometimes.”
    “That’s not true,” Tommy said. Yes, it was.
    “Yes it is, yes it is. Yes I am. I am a total bitch sometimes.”
    Tommy stopped at the top of the steps and dug in his pocket for his keys.
    “Well, maybe a little, but-”
    “So I am a bitch? You’re saying I’m a bitch?”
    “Oh my God, is the sun never going to come up?”
    “Listen, you’re lucky to have me, you wuss.”
    “Yes I am,” Tommy said.
    “You are?”
    He swung her over to her feet, then caught her before she went over backwards into the wall. She had a big goofy smile on her face. Sometime during the evening, blood had dripped down the front of her blouse and there was some smeared on her lip. She looked a little like she’d been punched out. Tommy tried to rub away the blood with his thumb. The cloud of alcohol breath she let go on him made him wince.
    “I love you, Tommy.” She fell into his arms.
    “Right back at you, Jody.”
    “I’m sorry I gave you noogies. I’m still learning to harness my powers, you know.”
    “That’s okay.”
    “And called you a wuss.”
    “No problem.”
    She licked the side of his neck, nipped at him. “Let’s make love before the sun comes up.”
    Tommy looked over her shoulder at the destruction they had wrought on the loft the last time they’d done it, and he said something he never thought he would hear coming out of his own mouth. “I think I’ve had enough for to night. Maybe we should just lock down.”
    “You think I’m fat, don’t you?”
    “No, you’re perfect.”
    “It’s because I’m fat.” She pushed him away and stumbled into the bedroom, then tripped and tumbled face-first into the shredded remains of their bed. “And old,” she added, although it was only through his acute vampire hearing that Tommy understood this, since she was speaking directly into the mattress.
    “Fat and old,” she said.
    “You’re going to