What We Do Is Secret by Thorn Kief Hillsbery Read Free Book Online

at Oki’s starts jabbering in when you try ordering anything else.
    I can smell it already, I haven’t macked on anything but a jumbo box of Mike and Ikes since yesterday, early yesterday, so I’ve got these drool icicles forming at the corners of my mouth like a fuckin St. Bernard. And they don’t just bring me fries, they bring me curly fries, and they don’t just bring me curly fries, they bring me an Oki Dog, that’s two hot dogs, a piece of American cheese, chili, and pastrami, rolled up steaming in a tearing tortilla, greasy, gluey, goopy, garlicky, paper-wrapped, a feast for the least, $1.49, fit for a spring in your step, jumping up to meet and greet. And food for the thoughtless besides, because whatever you ask for there, a teriyaki burrito, a pepperoni rice bowl, the answer’s always the same.
    “No! Punk rock! Oki Dog and fries!”
    Siouxsie one-two sniffs loud and long, handing it over, like she’s doing a couple of Vitamin S bumps.
    “Clove cigarettes,” she says. “How trendy.”
    And that gets them going while I skarf the dog, on such a high-speed round of How Trendy I’m thinking Vitamin S for real, they must have made a meth connect at Oki’s, it wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the swirled.
    “Be a punk—how trendy.”
    “Wear buttons—how trendy.”
    “Wear pointy boots—how trendy.”
    “Wear safety pins—how trendy.”
    “Spike your hair—how trendy.”
    “Dye your hair—how trendy.”
    “Have a fanzine—how trendy.”
    “Only go to major punk shows—how trendy.”
    “Be in a band—how trendy.”
    “Hate newcomers—how trendy.”
    “Try not to be trendy—how trendy.”
    So I’m all, “Slam crystal—how trendy” as soon as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, but no no no, they deny everything, no deals went down at Oki’s this time around the block, no other customers besides three skanky heshers in barber pole spandex, and heat in the parking lot besides.
    “What kind of heat?”
    They both laugh.
    “A couple of hot dyke sheriff’s detectives on their dinner break,” Siouxsie says.
    “Dickless Tracys,” Squid says.
    Then they say they introduced themselves, they swear on the stack of Jehovah’s Witness Bible tracts that Squid carries in her Girl from U.N.C.L.E. lunch-box purse that Siouxsie told the cops her name was Clit Westwood, and Squid’s was Fox Twat, and before you could say titties and teriyaki the four of them were all in a line like adult books, wolfing down wieners at one of the picnic tables underneath the potted palms while Squid and Siouxsie plot-checked these hardcore porno flicks they always talk about making,
Lesbian Welders,
parts one and two.
    And they start running down helpful ideas the snatch-bandit sheriffs supposedly came up with, like for example having a Joe Sixpack type wander into this so-called welding school advertised on matchbook covers that’s actually a front for all the local dyke action, thinking it’s for real, and stripping him and gagging him and tying him to a chair that’s like inches away from all the muff diving, fisting, and crazy flippin’ Flipper action in this big lesbo orgy on a workbench where they’re all wearing hard hats and utility belts and nothing else, so he’s forced to watch every move with Hugh Jardon for company but can’t so much as lend a hand to make him stand for the right to jerk, never mind work.
    And I’m all, “No fuckin way do uniformed sheriffs talk shit like that in public, and probably not in private either, with anybody, dykes or no dykes.”
    “Say
lesbians,
” Siouxsie says. “Don’t say
dykes
.”
    “You say it.”
    “It’s different.”
    Why it’s different, I don’t know. Stickboy calls me
faggot,
I don’t mind. It’s better than
gay
. I hate that word
gay
.
    It’s so gay.
    But cops.
    Fuck.
    Gay cops.
    Double fuck.
    My fingers do the walking for me, on their own almost, bruise check, bruise check, our connection, our connection, our PCP