Regulators, pt 2 (Potty Mouth Warning) July 1, 2008
Posted by Shawn in fiction.trackback
“Hey, God,” Smooth said into his collar-mic. “You wanna play a game?”
“What kind of game?” The voice was interested, but wary.
“It’s a drinking game. I pick something and you shoot it. If you miss, you drink. If you hit it, but someone sees you, you drink. But, if you hit it and no one sees it, then I drink. You in?”
“I don’t think Thor would be too happy with that. What the hell am I saying? Let’s do it.”
God ejected the magazine of .50 caliber rounds from his rifle and inserted .22’s. He wasn’t trying to stop a truck, after all.
The sound of a rifle being cocked came over the com-net. “What am I going for?” Smooth looked around the room.
“At the bar. The mango on the top of the fruit pile in that hideous silver bowl.” Smooth waited for a response, but nothing came over the mic. “Well? Are you going for it?”
“Look at the fruit again.” Smooth sauntered over to the fruit basket and looked at the mango. Well, where the mango used to be anyway. All that was remaining was a piece of the rind the size of a quarter.
“Damn you’re good. Maybe we should start calling you Smooth instead of me.” Another mango exploded. “Or maybe we’ll just stick with God.” A low chuckle came over the com-net.
“Take your drink. What’s next?” Smooth turned to the bartender and ordered a shot of Knob Creek. He tossed it down, wincing only a little bit, and slammed the shot glass on the bar. “That shit sucks. All right, next target. The guy in the khaki shorts and red polo shirt with the collar popped. He’s right on the edge of the dance floor. Smoking is bad for his health, so put it out for him.” Again, no response from God.
Smooth looked at the guy. The end of the cigarette disappeared in a haze of tobacco and sparks. “You’re scarily good at this, you know. But, unfortunately for you, his girlfriend saw the cigarette explode and cigarettes don’t often explode for no reason, now do they?”
“I already took my drink, so shut the hell up.”
“No can do, good buddy. Girlfriend’s throwing a fit over there.” The bleach-blonde woman was indeed throwing a fit. She was screaming for help, clawing at everyone around her. One woman, apparently mistaking the girlfriend’s panicked actions as an attempt to steal her man, punched the poor girl in the eye, threw her to the ground, then kicked her in the face.
“Move out of the way, I’m a doctor,” said Smooth, trying to push through the crowd that had gathered in anticipation of the cat-fight. “Give us some room.” Smooth pushed the attacking girl out of the way and knelt at the hysterical girl’s side. “She’s clearly been rolling on X. Someone call an ambulance.”
Three security guards and one hotel employee pushed through the departing crowd and walked up to the boyfriend. “What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know, we were talking and then she just started screaming. The doctor said she was on ecstasy, but I didn’t even know she did drugs.”
“Whoa, son, calm down. Where’s the doctor?”
“He’s right over there.” The security guard turned and looked, but Smooth had slipped off into the crowd.
Eros was the only one paying attention. He had wandered around the resort, trying to blend in. Not easy when you’re a six-foot tall albino with butterfingers. A trail of broken glass and cigarette butts littered the path he had taken. Eros stopped at one of the smaller side bars to get a drink to replace the one he had just dropped.
Fresh drink in hand, Eros wandered off again. He leaned against a lamppost, one ankle crossed over the other, scanning the resort over a newspaper he borrowed from the bartender. Inconspicuous. Through a gap in the crowd on the dance floor, Eros’s attention was caught by a bright red Hawaiian shirt and turquoise flight pants about twenty yards away.
“Guys, the mark is at the bar,” said Eros into his mic. “Looks like he’s been drinking for a while. Drink of choice is rum and coke. Too bad there’s only about two hundred guys trying to get a piece between him and Rosie.”
“Anyone with him?” asked Thor over the com-net.
“None that I see. Looks like Mr. Man is Han Solo tonight. Looking for some action, too, judging by the fact that he’s been hitting on anything that stops long enough. All we have to do is get him alone with Rosie. She can take it from there. That is, if she doesn’t knife him.”
Thor looked over at the bar. “We need a hole.”
Rosie had spent the evening sitting at the bar, looking bored. However, she was anything but bored. Hyper-vigilant would be a better way to describe her mood. Not out of nervousness or because of the mission, but in case someone tried to drug her drink. She had already caught two guys and nearly broke their fingers for it. One of them seemed to like the threat enough to try it again. She got his attention that time with a blade pressing his crotch and his fingers bent against the back of his hand.
“Don’t break anyone unless necessary. What kind of girl does Thor think I am?” she asked herself.
Rosie spent the time between each violation of her person sitting, demurely sipping her drink, and chatting with the bartender. She heard Eros say the mark was at the bar, but she couldn’t see him through all of her worshippers. “Need a hole?” she thought. A wicked glint came into her eyes. Rosie stood up and stretched over the bar to wave down the bartender. An oblivious guy slapped her ass and lingered for a pinch. The guy turned for his congratulations from his friends. Rosie turned around.
She tapped the offender on the shoulder. He turned around. “You want another one, sweetcheeks?”
“I want an apology, but since I can see I won’t be getting that, this’ll have to do.” She grabbed the guy by the shoulders and brought her knee sharply up into his groin. The guy screamed like a dying rabbit and fell over, bent in half. Rosie looked around at the other guys, her eyes daring them to do something. They ran.
“You wanted a hole, Thor. Well, a hole you got.”
“Shit, that makes me hurt.”
“What are you talking about, God” asked Thor.
“Rosie just took some guy out. Not many guys left between her and the mark.”
“Okay, I want everyone focused on the bar and ready to go in if Rosie needs help. I’m going over there.” Thor took off his shirt. With his looks and his pure-sex moves, Thor had no shortage of dance partners to flit through as he danced his way to the bar. Rosie didn’t have a corner on the hotness market after all.
Moving from shirtless, sweating stud to barely-dressed slut, Thor edged closer to the main bar. He stepped off the dance floor and assumed a stumbling, wavering walk to the bar.
“Another of these pink, umbrella-ey drinks,” he told the bartender, slurring a little. “And no coconut in this one.” He shot Rosie a look that said, “Are you all right? What the hell is going on?”
She looked back at him. Her eyes said, “Nothing I can’t handle.” Satisfied that she was all right for the moment, Thor took a seat at the end of the bar to wait.
Hmmm, I’m curious to see where this goes! I’m also curious as to why you said it was not received in a necessarily good way. I shouldn’t really comment until I’ve read the whole thing…
Unfortunately, for some reason, I read part 2 first, not seeing part 1. DUH. I was totally confused, of course, but part 1 does explain somewhat. I’m still not totally clear on what’s going on, but so far the writing shows strong setting and quite good attention to detail. Love the names of the characters, too!
There’re some things I would edit to tighten up the writing, for example, in part one, where you have the sentence describing the hotel lobby as almost gaudy. I’d take that right out (telling us) and use your following description to simply show us. I think, too, that you could take out phrases of self-talk, like the one in part one, driving dude (was it Eros?) says something like well, he wanted the drive to be over fifteen minutes. And here in part two, where Rosie says something about what kind of girl Thor thinks she is, you could say she muttered, but leave out anything that seems for our benefit (we’ll get it through her actions or whatever), and the “she said to herself.
Again, so far this is intriguing and I can’t wait till you post more! I’d like to read it all in one shot.
It wasn’t received well because it basically because of what it was about. I submitted genre fiction to the review board and some of them were actually offended. They thought I was trying to make a joke out of it.
I guess I can understand that when they receive 500 “literary” submissions and then this thing comes in. I, personally, would be relieved to see one writer stepping out of the norm with their submissions. It would be a break from the monotony at least.
Ah yes, genre fiction is generally looked down on. I’m not sure why. There’s some great genre writing out there.