2008 - Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Format: epub
Published: 2008-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

17

Mr. 600

Player dude’s yakking on his cell phone when he goes ballistic. Player dude with his black hair combed, stretched back, and gelled to cover his bald spot, to show a forever space of tall, white forehead, he’s yakking stock options and sell prices and reserve margins when Sheila looks up from her clipboard she’s holding.

Sheila shepherds the crew of us and yells, “Gentlemen.” She yells, “Listen for your number, please. I need…”

Every ear turned to listen, tilted up to hear, dudes stop chewing their mouthful of taco chips. Dudes step out the bathroom doorway, their dick still in one hand. Eyes open, wide, looking for the words. Dudes hiss for silence, hold up hands, and pat the air to make other dudes quiet down.

Sheila drops each word heavy as a money shot right in your eye, saying, “…number 247…number 354…and number 72.” She waves a hand toward the stairs and says, “Would those gentlemen please follow me…”

Dude 72, Cassie’s maybe kid.

That’s when the cell-phone player dude goes ballistic. Dude flats his phone against his chest. Dude’s sporting a model shave, where you snap the number-one guard on your clippers and buzz all your chest hair down to the same quarter-inch long. Same as the International Male dudes in the catalogue, but minus the cut muscle. Dude tells his phone, “Hold on a sec.” He throws his head back and yells, “This is horseshit, lady!” Yelling after Sheila, dude says, “You think we’ll wait all day to drop a wad in some old bag?”

Climbed halfway up the stairs, Sheila stops. She looks back, one hand shading her eyes to see across the hairy ocean of dudes’ heads.

Above us on the TVs, the head of Scottish Yard or Interpol or some wop police dude’s eating out Cassie Wright in the back of a paddy wagon. His tongue comes across a diamond. Then he’s pulling the long string of a diamond necklace out her snatch. Diamonds being her best friend, Cassie is juicing up a storm.

Kid 72, dude with the roses, springs up next to my elbow, saying, “What do I do?”

Fuck her, I tell him.

Kid says, “No,” shaking his head. He says, “Not my mom.”

Player dude, his arms and legs sport a San Diego tan. Not the rich caramel color of a Mazatlan tan, or the smooth dry brown of a Vegas tan. On his face and neck, that’s not the even wipe of a box-bought tan, or deep and buttery, like dudes get in Cancun or Hawaii. Dude’s standing there in a cheap, beach-fried San Diego tan, and he’s got the nerve to yell, “I’m number 14, and I have places to be. I should’ve been out of here hours ago.”

The number ‘14’ inked on his beige-brown San Diego arm, the player dude says, “This bullshit is worse than the DMV…”

Every dude still playing statue, froze, waiting to see how this plays out. Now that the player’s said what’s on every dude’s mind, we’re primed for a revolution. Dudes ready to prison-riot, mount those stairs.

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