Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim 3)

“Of course. Is it working?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

She gets in front of me at the corner.

“Come on. Just have breakfast with me. We don’t have to talk about any of this.”

“No thanks.”

“Why do you have to make everything so hard? Let’s do something. Just us. We kissed that night at Avila and the timing has been so fucked between us trying to get to know each other ever since. But we’re here now and I don’t have to save Doc and you don’t have to save the world. Can we just try to be like normal people for an hour?”

“I thought not being normal people was why we got along. Monster solidarity.”

She puts a hand on my chest.

“Then we can pretend. A couple of wolves eating blueberry waffles among the sheep.”

“Keep your waffles. I need grease to kill this hangover. Lots of bacon or ham. Maybe a chickaybe a en-fried steak.”

“Anything you want.”

I take a step back from her.

“Let’s get one thing straight. You never play games like this or lie to me again. About anything.”

She nods.

“I promise.”

“Okay.”

She loops her arm in mine and pulls me down the street.

“Roscoe’s on Gower, then. They have fried chicken and waffles.”

Candy is a little shorter than me. I look down at her smiling in those stupid sunglasses. Sometimes just seeing a woman smile is like a knife in the heart. It hurts and it rattles your whole system, but against all your instincts you swallow the pain and keep looking. After a while you realize it doesn’t hurt as much as you thought it would.

“Okay. Roscoe’s.”

WE SIT IN a booth in the back of Roscoe’s, me with my back to the wall. It’s an old family habit after Wild Bill caught one in the spine back in Deadwood. Neither of us had to look at the menu to order. Roscoe’s specializes in fried chicken and waffles in a heroin-addictive gravy. You eat there because the food is great, and if you live in L.A. and aren’t going to flatline on a speed binge, you might as well check out with arteries the color and density of concrete.

I’ve been trying to ignore my arms all morning, but I can’t stand it anymore. I heal fast, but it’s just a fast-forward version of how everyone heals and that means almost-healed skin itches like hell. I lean back against the wall, scratch one arm and then the other. It feels great. I want to dig underneath the red skin and new scars and hack away at the nerves with my fingernails so they’ll shut up.

Candy says, “Have you been sleeping in pet-shop windows? You look like you have fleas.”

“A Gluttire demon made me his chew toy last night.”

“You have all the fun. I’ve never even seen one of those.”

“Unless you see it through binoculars from an air-conditioned bunker, you don’t want to. The bastard burned the hell out of my arms.”

“Let me see.”

I shrug off my coat and push my burned sleeves out of the way. (I really need to change clothes soon. It looks like I stole my clothes from a hobo arsonist.) I hope there aren’t any nice families looking over here riscrover heght now. They might have to bag up their chicken and finish it at home.

Candy leans across the table and pokes my raw red left arm.

“Hey. That hurts.”