Chapter 25 Crazy Beasts
Crazy Beasts
These days you didn’t even need a tracking device or anything. They posted their fucking locations for you. Blanca from Beauty and the Beast had checked in at a Joe & the Juice in SoHo. Bridge-and-tunnel girl movin’ on up!
They’d split up in twos ’cuz that made for better hunting, and Taz was with B-Roll, a way stronger team than Finn-Finn and Big Mikey. B-Roll had the look, the swagger, and the sweet rap.
By the time they got to SoHo, Blanca was gone but they just waited and watched her Insta story and sure enough she pinged a manicure selfie from a nail place around the corner: Rhinestone flowers, y’all!
Taz and B-Roll chilled outside till Blanca and her friend rolled out of the place, did a wide-arm singy hug thing, and split in opposite directions.
Blanca was super cute IRL, high cheekbones, them big dark eyes, wearing a crop top even in cold-ass February with baggy pants rolled twice at the waistband, showing off that tan flat belly. Dayum.
B-Roll lit up a pre-roll from the stash Mikey’s cousin had boosted last month in a home invasion, toked deep, and started over to Blanca. Taz gave him the usual lead, a ten-foot standoff, holding back to see how the sitch developed.
B-Roll sidled up next to her, joint dangling in the corner of his mouth the way he could do, like it was stapled to his bottom lip. “Hey, li’l girl.”
Her mouth got all pert and she looked up through curled lashes. “Who’s little?”
B-Roll shrugged at her. He was five years older, which was a lot older, and he was built, had that bad-boy lined-jaw beard the chicks dug. So, yeah, she was little. That was one of his moves, give ’em a smackdown and wait for them to crawl back.
“Look at you, just smokin’ a joint in the full light of day,” she said.
“You smoke, li’l girl?”
A lips-pooched smirk, tilt of the head. “Sometimes maybe I been known to.”
They walked side by side up the crowded sidewalk.
Taz held back but he could smell her perfume, something sugary, and her top eyelids and throat sparkled with that glittery lotion stuff.
But then his brain tweaked like before and he was back as a kid playing with Other Blanca.
She was so sweet and he—he was pretty sweet back then, too.
He remembered when he split his pinkie toe on the doorjamb and cried a little, how she put a Band-Aid on for him and didn’t even make fun, and—
“Hold up,” B-Roll said to Blanca up ahead. “Check this.” He crimped his tongue around the still-lit joint, popped it into his mouth, closed his lips, then Jack-in-the-Boxed that fucker back out. Long draw, dragon-smoke through his nose, no hands all the way.
B-Roll being B-Roll.
Blanca laughed. “Impressive.”
“Really?”
She shook her head. “Not really. Not impressive at all.”
“Hey,” B-Roll said. “Ain’t I seen you?”
“Can’t you do better than that?”
“No, no, I mean it. Wait!” He snapped his fingers, the epiphany hitting. “I saw you in Beauty and the Beast. Forest Hills, yeah?”
Even from a few steps behind, Taz could see her get all glowy. Tipping her head, that perky little chin jutting out at him, touching her hair, all that shit. “Really? You saw that?” Dismissive hand wave. “That was stoopid.”
She seemed so nice. Funny, too.
Taz’s stomach felt all knotted and the weirdest fantasy swept through him—that he should dart forward and grab her hand and run her away from B-Roll and it would just be the two of them and they could just laugh and joke and she’d talk with Taz and he could tell her stuff, thoughts and feelings and shit, and she could do the same and they’d actually, like, connect with each other and it could feel like it once felt when he was a little kid with Other Blanca. WTF was even going on with him?
A big guy stepped out of a souvenir shop and Taz made to pivot with the joystick, thumb twitching on the D-pad, L2 shoulder button for full-auto fire, but then he remembered he wasn’t playing Kings of Karnage but was outside in the real world and he thought, Dayum. Life was surreal.
“You were good for real,” B-Roll was telling her. “My kid sister wanted to go. I take care of her.”
“Aw, you do? How old?”
“She’s ten. Mom’s second marriage, you know how that goes.”
“Yeah, yeah, I do for sure. I got a little sister, too. Six. They can be a pain.”
“She’s a cutie, though. Luce. Know what she’s big-time into? Polly Pockets.”
“I remember those!”
“Right?” B-Roll said. “I just got her the koala purse playset.”
“No way! I had that.”
“I bet you had that. You look like a koala purse playset girl.”
“Do I, now? A koala purse playset little girl?”
“Well,” B-Roll said, and had her hanging on his every word. “Maybe not a little little girl.”
He held the joint out at his side, not looking over.
She took it, did a nervous little hit with her head ducked like anyone cared, gave a cough and a giggle. Another two delicate tiny coughs like hiccups. “Harsh, man. That shit is harsh.”
“Seriously, right?” B-Roll said. “It’s cool, though.
” He pinched the joint, took a deep-ass drag, held it as he flicked the joint into the gutter, where it tumbled and sparked.
“I know,” he said, in that drawn-in-breath-toke voice, “I’m a beast.” He blew out hard into the face of a passing gray suit, who scowled but kept walking, tail tucked.
“Wait,” B-Roll said, leaning in at her, “if I’m Beast, what’s that make you? ”
“Awright,” she laughed. “Awright. I see what you’re doing there.”
Lurking a few steps behind them, jostled by shoppers, Taz watched.
He had no idea how B-Roll could do it, man.
All that give-and-take. The words just came out like music.
Taz had plenty of words, just could never get them outta his head in any kind of decent order.
Again he thought about sweeping Blanca off somewhere but he could never get away with that with B-Roll around.
B-Roll grabbed Blanca’s arm, ducking them into an alcove at the Sephora store, the crowd sweeping past. Taz took a post across from them by the door, turned mostly away, pretending to check his phone. Blanca didn’t notice shit.
“What’s your name?” B-Roll asked.
“Blanca. You?”
“B-Roll.”
“B-Roll. B-Roll?” That giggle, man. Straight white teeth. “What kind of name’s B-Roll?”
“That’s my DJ name.”
“You’re a DJ?”
“Nah. Just messin’. It’s just my name. My boys, ya know? They’re crazy.”
“Crazy beasts like you?”
“Crazy beasts like me.” B-Roll gave that smile. He knew how to stand with his shoulders back, made his chest look even bigger than it was.
Taz had a sunken chest and no matter how much he lifted he couldn’t get pecs. His shoulders slumped, too. But still, he could work on standing better like B-Roll did.
B-Roll was about to make the move. After dozens of hunting expeditions, Taz could read it.
He had Manny’s number on speed dial on his phone.
One text and Manny would ping them an address they could use nearby, had crash pads all over the city for super-short-term rental.
Like a human Airbnb, Manny was. Once Taz Snapped Finn-Finn and Big Mikey the location they’d all meet up and party.
Taz just wished it didn’t have to be with Blanca.
“Wanna hang some?” B-Roll said.
“When?”
“When? When? Dunno. You know what they say. No time like the present.”
Blanca blushed. It was real fucking cute, reminded Taz of when Other Blanca’d get all demure when she shot a toy soldier off its perch.
Her hair always smelled like green apples.
Taz’s stomach hurt even more now. He didn’t know why.
He couldn’t remember if he’d taken his meds or if he’d eaten.
Didn’t know what day it was either. Couldn’t remember much of anything.
Blanca blushed. “Now?”
“When else? When better? Carpe muthafuckin’ diem.”
She ground the toe of her sneaker into the sidewalk. “Wish I could. But I gotta go.”
For the first time, Taz’s stomach unclenched. B-Roll caught him staring, gave him a hard glare, and Taz split focus back to his phone. The text to Manny was ready to send, his thumb hovering.
“I got homework,” Blanca said.
“Homework,” B-Roll said, in a lame voice. “Homework.”
“Yeah, well.” She brushed bangs out of her face. They wisped back across her big eyes.
B-Roll reached for her face, fixed them bangs for her, and she looked up at him like she was waiting to receive the communion wafer. “Maybe I could see you some other time.”
Taz lowered the phone. They needed cash and content so he was supposed to be pissed off that Blanca had pushed off the hookup. But he was feeling something instead. Relief. Relief? Why that?
“I don’t know,” Blanca said. “My parents are pretty strict.”
“I don’t blame them,” B-Roll said. “’F I had a daughter like you.”
She blushed. “They got marriage therapy Friday nights.”
“Marriage therapy, huh?”
Blanca rolled her eyes. “You know.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Friday night? I have Luce, gotta babysit. Hey, maybe we could watch a Disney movie together. Like, The Little Mermaid?”
“I love that movie. I wanted to be Ariel.”
“Wanna know a secret?” B-Roll said. “I still wanna be Ariel.”
A big laugh.
B-Roll took out his phone, swung it over to her. “I’ll hit you up.”
She shook her head like she couldn’t believe she was about to do something crazy, then took the phone and pecked in her digits.
She handed it back, all flirty. “See ya, Beast.”
B-Roll let his gaze linger on her and she let him let it. “See ya,” he said, “Beauty.”
“Stoopid.” She gave a little headshake but blushed deep and then she was gone.
B-Roll spun around to Taz.
They bumped fists.
They walked for a while, B-Roll whistling through his teeth.
Taz’s throat was dry. “Maybe…” He had to clear his throat. “Don’t you think maybe she’s wrong for us?” He gave a shrug he hoped was casual. “Too, dunno, wholesome and shit.”
“Wholesome’s what we’re looking for,” B-Roll said. “Wholesome sells.”
Taz flushed with—what? Embarrassment? Fear? Dread? He looked away quickly to hide his face. “You sure as shit know how to get ’em.”
B-Roll spit once on the sidewalk. “Fish in a barrel,” he said.