Kamikaze Lust Read Online Free Page A

bloody-cunted bitch for the rest of your life.” He put his face close to mine and whispered, “Blood cunt, blood cunt.…”
    I ran upstairs to my bedroom, locked the door behind me and waited for the pounding to stop. When I got my period a few years later, I knew that Neil had foretold it. By then he’d started his watching, too. I couldn’t insert a tampon or take a shit in the house without feeling his eyes on me. Even though Neil was gone now, living in Las Vegas, he was probably still drilling holes in some wall or door to scope out other unsuspecting women. I was as certain of this as I was then of those pink clouds in Brooklyn.

    We congregated across the street at The Corral to see the strike unfold as the rest of the world would see it, but soon found the top spot on every six o’clock broadcast devoted to Kaminsky and his dead protégés. Our fifteen minutes arrived after the Kaminsky story. Tony ordered pitchers of margaritas and tequila shots for everyone.
    “Look look, there I am!” Michael said, pointing to his face on the three television screens behind the bar.
    “You look like a longshoreman,” Tony said. “That’s why they used you.”
    It was true. Some of us may dress like lawyers or talk like street-corner philosophers or eat in trendy restaurants, but when the line is drawn, reporters fall on the side of labor. Working class was the look the TV cameras were going for.
    “Turn it up, I want to hear my sound bite,” Michael said.
    The curmudgeonly bartender obliged. He’d been working at The Corral long enough to know that a strike meant increased business.
    “Oh man they cut it,” Michael said. “They cut the part where I said seeing all of you run out to the picket line was like watching people march to the gallows.”
    “That was too literary, too dramatic,” I said.
    “Just you wait. Try Channel Seven, let’s see if superstar Kim Mathews gets all weepy.”
    “There was some survey recently,” Shade said, “I don’t remember where, but eight out of ten Americans said they would rather have dinner with Kim Mathews than the President.”
    “Seems reasonable,” Tony said and nobody argued.
    The bartender surfed the channels, but kept coming up with the same old story told through the same somber eyes of our TV brethren. There were the management spokesmodels spouting about generations of padded wage and benefit contracts that had made the paper a money pit; the union leaders swearing they would cripple the paper and force the Aussies out of town; and a few comments from strikers, mostly reporters, and, within that subgroup, mostly Michael. Who knew he was such a publicity whore?
    As stories of the strike tapered off, the bartender turned down the sound on the TV sets in favor of classic rock: The Doors. A table opened up, and we grabbed it. Tony ordered more shots. “What should we drink to?” he said.
    “Let’s drink to the dead couple,” Michael said. “What were their names?”
    “Ida and Marvin Salinger,” I said.
    “Here’s to Ida and Marvin.”
    “Cheers.”
    Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
    Everyone drank again—except for me. I’d already had two shots and couldn’t risk another. I hated getting drunk, though I’d learned not to make a big deal about it. If I had to I could quickly dump a shot on the floor, cover the glass with my whole hand and pop it back against my mouth while pretending to swallow. It worked every time.
    “We need more margaritas,” Tony said.
    “Don’t they come in any other color?” Shade asked, and the next time they came back blue. She grimaced. Eyeing each other across the table, I remembered the blue M&Ms. I’d never known anybody so affected by primary colors.
    The drinks kept coming, but we were tired of drinking to Ida and Marvin. “Anybody got a paper?” Michael said. “Get the obits. We’ll drink to every goddamn dead person in there.”
    Shade hurled a copy of The City News at him.
    “This is getting sick,”