Charlie Huston - Already Dead

– So, like a week or two back we got a little beer bust going at a squat on C. You know, bunch a us pooled our change for some forties, and Fat Stinky Pete had a sack of hay and we were just getting all fucked up. So you know Yankee Dan, right?

– The skinny Cuban kid always has the Mets hat?

– Yeah, guy loves the Mets like life so we call him fucking Yankee. Pisses him off. Anyway, Yankee is kind of a weasel and nobody can really stand the fucking shit bag and now here he shows up un-in-fucking-vited and he's towing these fucking campers with him. I mean, they got all the right shit on and their hair is five different colors and their lips are pierced, but the clothes are from Urban Outfitters and their piercings are too clean and the dye jobs are two-hundred-fucking-dollar-a-pop deals from some Upper East Side fag salon. So we know what's up even if Yankee is a fucking retard. Like the standing policy on this shit for any self-respecting punk is to stomp these pieces of shit, but we're pretty fucked up and feeling all mellow and besides we're out of beer and campers all have cash. So we give Yankee and these turds a bunch a shit, but we let 'em stay after they go out and grab some more forties and another sack.

– The girl, Lep.

– Yeah, I'm fucking getting to her.

He feels at his pockets for cigarettes that we both know aren't there. I pull out my pack of Luckys, pass him one and we both light up.

– So Lep is feeling good. And one of these camper chicks, she's digging his vibe and starts rubbin' up against it and shit. Now, like I said, these sluts from Uptown are gluttons for the real thing. They want to fuck in the dirt and get come on and shit so they can go back to fucking prep school and tell their friends about all the freaky shit they got into. Like they can all buy whatever the fuck they want, so having the latest Britney Spears CD or this year's Porsche means shit. But fucking some scabby squatter in a basement with ten people watching, that's a fucking social coup. So Lep, he's not gonna give this bitch the satisfaction, but she's pretty hot and I ain't had it for a bit so I tell her she can suck it, and down she goes.

– I can't tell you how charming this is. Now how about the girl, was it her?

He shakes his head.

– No, not that slut, but maybe her friend.

– Her friend?

– Yeah. See she finishes her job and Leprosy does his business and she's still into it, but Leprosy is not, and I repeat, not going to stick it in this cunt. So she says, what if it's her and her friend. Well, Leprosy has been around, but this piques his curiosity. So I ask her what friend and she points to one of the other camper chicks in the room. Well I check out that chick and she's OK, but Leprosy has his principles and I let this slut know it and tell her if she wants to set up a three-way or pull a train there are other guys around who don't have Leprosy's moral fiber. But at the time I think to myself that the other chick, she looked familiar. And now you show me that picture, I'm thinking to myself that that might be it, that chick might be the one in your picture.

– Might.

– Well, the hitch here is that the chick in the squat, she didn't have any makeup on. Now the chick in the picture, I saw her last year no doubt, and she always had all that ghoul shit all over her. But this chick in the squat? Not even nail polish. So it might have been her, but you see my fucking problem.

I nod.

– If she's around and it's the girl from last year, there are people who would know, right?

– Sure.

– Find out, Lep.

He raises his eyebrows.

– How fucking much is it worth?

– It's worth a lot. It's worth saving me a lot of hassles. Which means it's worth keeping me happy and keeping you from getting hurt. So find out for sure if it was her and then call me at Evie's bar. Now go get your dog before it kills itself or eats someone.

I turn and walk away and Leprosy shouts after me.

– Sure thing, Pitt. Hey, me, I'm at your fucking beck and call, right, fuck face? Hey, I got an idea, why don't you go check out Realm? I hear all the hot young goths hang out there.

He laughs and I keep walking. Leprosy is a little fuck, but he'll do as I tell him. He'll do it because he owes me. He remembers the time his father came cruising in here from Long Island to get him. Comes rolling up in his stockbrokers' standard-issue Lincoln Continental and storms into the park like he owns it. Leprosy spots him and tries to run, but his dog gets off the leash and goes after the bastard. Dad doesn't even break stride, that dog runs up and he smashes the toe of his wingtip right into its nose, which is how Gristle lost his sense of smell. The dog drops, bleeding all over the concrete, and dad starts after Leprosy. Me, I'm sitting on a bench smoking, like I do, and maybe this is none of my business, but I got involved anyway. I beat the fuck out of the ass-raping son of a bitch, made his nose match the dog's. I did that for free, but it doesn't mean Leprosy doesn't owe me.

"Bela Lugosi's Dead." It's like their theme song. I'm hip-deep in Realm, watching crowds of black-garbed teenagers with pasty faces "dance" to Bauhaus. Back in my day goths were all these mopey, alienated, semi-suicidal kids. Pretty much your average teenagers, just dressed in black. Back then they were mostly hooked into the music: The Cure, The Smiths, Bauhaus, The Damned, a little Depeche Mode. Now it's gotten all tangled up in fetishism and S&M. So here's what it's like inside Realm. Over here you got your video screens showing clips from Nosferatu intercut with scenes from some tape of people getting their genitals pierced. Over there you got your brass chandeliers scavenged from junk shops around the Tri-State area, draped in black cheesecloth and illuminated with red lightbulbs. Along the walls you got your innumerable mirrors, brass framed and also draped in black cheesecloth. In point of fact, most everything here is draped in black cheesecloth, including half the patrons. Up on that stage you got your fetishist couple performing a rather tame S&M act. He's strapped to a big rusty steel X, wearing nothing but a black leather G-string. She's in the obligatory thigh-high boots and corset, and is sticking alligator clips connected to a car battery onto his nipples, shocking him when he fails to call her "mistress." Which is most of the time. Hot, right? Could be, except they're both middle-aged, seriously overweight and balding. Nonetheless, they're drawing a pretty big crowd, so who's to say their booking agent doesn't know what he's doing.

Over by the stage you got most of the new school goths favoring latex and studs. On the other side of the room, grooving on the music and the bootleg bottles of absinthe they scored from some guy that just got back from Brazil, are the old-school crowd. These folks lean more toward velvet and lace with a healthy dose of leather thrown in. And worn close to the heart of each, you'll no doubt find a treasured, autographed copy of Interview with the Vampire. This is the vampire crowd, the ones who really get into the whole undead experience. Half of them have their own coffins and the other half are saving up. These are the ones who think getting turned into a vampire will be just like The Hunger. Lots of hot sex with Catherine Denueve, Susan Sarandon and David Bowie followed by a centuries long, lingering, tragic, but ultimately poetic death, which is also filled with lots of hot sex with Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon and David Bowie. And that's what makes these people such easy pickings for your average bottom-feeding Vampyre, because so many of them dream of being turned. But they don't know shit about the Vampyre, and what a pain in the ass it is to be one.

I grab a beer and eyeball the crowd. If Lep is right, Amanda Horde may have dropped the goth look. I push away from the bar and take a pass through the room. A couple chicks in full goth