8. Being the Chronicles of Abby Normal, in the Double-doomed Doghouse of Despair
Do the condemned in hell know the suffering that is a whole day of mom-guilt heaped like steaming piles of bat guano upon my spiky magenta coif? (I went with magenta spikes with electric violet tips to express my outrage at being dragged from my home and imprisoned with the cruel Mombot and my crapacious little sister, Ronnie.) Evidently, Mother feels that we were too young to move in together only a week after meeting, and live in a stolen apartment with two of the undead and their stupid amounts of cash. Although she doesn't really know about the undead or the cash parts, but she made her point.
'Kayso, I had like put on my red tartan wedding gown with the black veil and resolved myself to an all-day power-pout in the corner of the living room, coming up only to text Foo messages of my agony of missing him and change the channel and whatnot, when Jared called from the land-line at the love lair.
So I'm all, "Speak, corpse-fluffer."
And Jared is all, "OMFG! The Countess is out, and she was naked, but now she's not, and she totally got blood all over your leather corset, and you have to come right now because the rats are freaking out and we need a hacksaw and a file."
And I'm all, "Uh-oh."
And Jared is all, "I know. I know. OMG! OMG!"
And I'm all, "Is she pissed?" Sounding way more chill than I felt.
And Jared pauses for a second like he's thinking it over, then he's all, "She's wearing your clothes and there's blood running all down the front of her and she's nodding and showing her fangs and shit."
So I'm like getting some perspective now-like when you're a kid and you think it sucks that you have to eat hydrogenated peanut butter on your PBJ, and then you see one of those starving commercial kids with the flies in their eyes, who don't even have a sandwich-and you're all, "Well, that sucks." 'Kayso, I'm thinking that maybe being under restriction in the mother unit's Fillmore stronghold isn't so bad when compared to having the Countess busting out her wrath on you for imprisoning her in bronze.
So I'm like, "Sucks to be you, Jared. Byez." And I offed my phone.
So like five minutes go by, which I spend in my corner going, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," and whatnot, and the land-line rings. And Ronnie is all, "Are you going to get that?" from her room.
And I'm all, "I didn't even know it was hooked up."
And she was all, "It's probably Mom checking up on you, so you might as well get it."
And I'm all, "Ronnie, answer it or I will murder you in your sleep and dump your body in the Bay."
And she's all, "'Kay."
Then, "It's for you. It's some girl named Jody." And Ronnie is all standing there with her shaved head and her nonexistent hip thrown out, like "So there, ho."
And I'm all, "Fucksocks!" And I take the phone and I'm like, "Hi, I have amnesia and don't remember anything for the last two months!" Because what do you say to someone who you had bronzed?
And the Countess is all, "Abby, I'm not angry."
Which was a total lie, because I could hear that she was angry. She had that "I'm not angry" mom voice, even though she's only, like, twenty-six in real years.
"So you're not going to kill me?"
"We'll talk. Right now I need you to get a power drill and a hacksaw with extra blades and come to the loft."
And I'm all, "I don't know where to get stuff like that, and Foo's at work, and I'm on restriction, and I have to go to school tomorrow. I have a test, so I totally can't cut class, and besides, what do you need that stuff for?"
And she's all, "Find the tools and come now. Tommy is stuck in the statue and we need to get him out."
And I'm thinking, Oops. But I'm chill and I'm like, "Can't he get out the same way you did?"
And the Countess is all, "Tommy doesn't know how to turn to mist. That's how I escaped, but Tommy has been trapped in there for-how long, Abby?"
"Oh, like a couple of days. It's all so foggy, after the head trauma."
Then I hear her saying, like, "Jared, come over here. I want Abby to hear your neck snap."
"Okay, like five weeks. Fuck, Countess, overreact much?"
"Come now, Abby."
And she just clicks off.
So I text Foo: COUNTESS OUT, NEED HACKSAW PWRDRILL NOW
And he's all: WTF? WTF? WTF? OUT? WTF? ACE HARDWARE, CASTRO ST
(I know. Four WTFs! Foo has deep intellectual curiosity. Last week he quizzed me for twenty minutes on what it was like to have a clitoris. I just kept saying "nice." I know, I'm such a tard, I couldn't think of anything else. I so have to learn French. They have like thirty-seven words for clitoris. They're like snow to Eskimos, only you know, harder to build an igloo out of.)
'Kayso, I text him: KTXBYE ‹3
And I tell Ronnie to tell Mom that I think I got some anthrax on my toothbrush and I have to go to Walgreens to get a new one so I'll be right back. Then I put on my jacket with the sun warts, in case of vampyre kitties and whatnot, and I take the F car up to Castro Street and go to Ace Hardware. And I'm totally feeling the animosity coming off the Builder Bob guy in the red apron, and I'm like, "What? You've never seen a wedding dress?"
And he's all, "No, I love the dress, the jacket, the whole ensem is fabulous."
And I'm like, "Really? Thanks. Your apron rocks. I need a hacksaw and a power drill."
And he's all, "What's it for?"
And I'm all, "You want a note from my mom? A fucking hacksaw and a power drill. I'm on a schedule."
And he's all, "I asked because we have over thirty different kinds of power drills."
And I'm like, "Oh. I need to release my Dark Lord from the bronze shell in which I imprisoned him."
And he's, "Oh, you should have said so." And he leads me to the drill boutique and I picked out a red and black one that matched my dress, and Bob picked out a hacksaw which totally clashed, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I said it was tr��s beau, which is French for sweet.
'Kayso, as I'm paying for my stuff, I go, "So, why are you guys still open at midnight?"
And Bob goes, "Well, you know how it is, you never know when someone is going to need to free their dark lord in the middle of the night, or tie him up."
And I'm all, "Ewww." Because I do not go for that shit. I am only into S &M and bondage as it applies to wardrobe. I tried cutting myself to express my heartbreak over Tommy (Lord Flood) rejecting me, but OMFG it hurts like flaming fuck. I mean, I'm into self-mutilations as much as the next person-I have eight piercings and five tattoos, some that hurt like double flaming fuck to get, but that was professional, and you can blame someone. In fact, I know a guy in the Haight who will tattoo you for free if you're a girl and you keep yelling at him the whole time, which, it turns out, isn't that hard to do when someone is poking you with an electric needle. When he did my bat wings I screamed at him so much I lost my voice for two days.
'Kayso, I took the F car across town and the three blocks from Market to the loft, but like holding the button on my sun wart jacket in case I got ambushed by Chet and his vampyre kitty pals, because I totally can't run in my wedding dress because the buckles of my motocross platforms get caught in the lace, so it's like, stand and fight or die, bitches! But no vamp kitties came.
Anyway, I make it to the loft and I come in all, "Hey Countess, here's your drill!" All Carebear-on-crack-perky, although that might have been a mistake, because it's a proven fact that it's easier to murder the perky. And I'm sort of, WTF vampyress? Because she's not her normal self, which is like hemophiliac hawt, but she's like printer-paper pale. And I totally ignore the fact that she's wearing one of my long skirts and my black bustier without even asking, and it's bustiering her way more than it does me, which is kind of rude. And I'm all, "Countess, are you okay? You look kind of pale."
And Jared is all, "You should have seen her before she drank those blood bags."
And I'm suddenly feeling all poop on a stick, because it's obvious that she's all gone snowflake because she's been locked up without feeding. So I'm like, "Sorry. I just wanted you guys to be together for eternity, and it didn't sound like that's how it was going to happen."
And she's like, "Later, Abby." And she just takes the tools from me and goes over to the statue and starts drilling and sawing and whatnot.
So I'm like, "How did you get out?"
And she's all, "Rat boy was dancing and nicked the casting with his dagger."