Free Futureproof by N Frank Daniels Page B

“I’m not fat,” she says.
    â€œNot fat, fucked . You’re fucked! You’re FUCKED!”
    We’re laughing again. Our asses are on the floor. Marvel Girl runs off to find the real security, the non-victimizing kind.
    Minutes later real security shows up. They hold flashlights in front of their crotches in that threatening, tapping-the-palms kind of way. I ignore them at first, finish a blistering diatribe directed at an asshole wearing Birkenstock sandals. Then I redirect my yelling at real Security. They don’t understand that this must be done. This is Reality Check.
    â€œWhat, you couldn’t get on with the real cops?” I yell at them. “Hiring practices too stringent?”
    â€œSir, if you yell at me through that thing again I’m going to be forced to eject you from the premises,” the black guy says.
    â€œIs it because I’m black?” I say through the rolled-up poster.
    He glares at me. I can tell he wants to bust that flashlight across my skull, but at the same time, I don’t really give a good goddam.
    Splinter laughs on. Then Sinead comes to the table with Trizden. She says her name is Michelle.
    As I look at her I’m reminded of my incredible failures. She is wholly representative of failure. She is my shortcoming. She is my end. Transferred from one woman to another, of course. To all women.
    â€œThis is what it feels like to be destroyed, ruined for all intents and purposes,” I proclaim through my makeshift megaphone. “Fucked in the ass without even the goddam common courtesy of a reach-around!”
    â€œYou and the fucking Full Metal Jacket ,” Splinter says.
    The two guards come up behind the table and they each grab me under an armpit and I keep yelling through the poster and now everyone is watching so I ask them what is so fucking funny and then I realize nobody else is laughing.
    And then the plug is pulled.
    One of the guards yanks the poster out of my hands. It sounds so strange, to go from magnified and sort of godly sounding, the man behind the curtain, to just some guy yelling indiscriminately at whoever catches his eye.
    I suddenly feel penitent. I ask to be let go. I’m much better now. I’ve just been up too long.
    The guards say nothing, place me neatly on the sidewalk outside the front door of the hotel.
    I had expected to be thrown, like in the movies.

TRANSMISSION 07:
acts of desperation
    June
    I’ve been staying with Animal Mother since Dragon*Con. He thinks he needs to protect me from myself. After a couple of weeks I decide I’m ready to see Michelle again but she doesn’t show at Rocky . I’m kind of relieved that she doesn’t, actually, but find myself asking Trizden if he’ll run us by Waffle House in case she turns up there.
    I can see her through the window as we pull into the parking lot. She’s sitting in a booth with Rat and 8-Ball. Everything looks yellow.
    I stay in the car. I can’t face her in there with those two snarling fucks sitting next to her. On the other side of the window Rat points at me, sneering. Michelle slips out of the booth and comes outside. She has such a great walk.
    â€œWhere’ve you been?” she says.

    â€œWhere have I been?”
    â€œYeah, I’ve been trying to call you at your mom’s house since Dragon*Con and she doesn’t know where you are. She’s really kind of frantic. You should call her.”
    â€œWhat happened at Dragon*Con?” I say. “Why did you disappear?”
    She looks down at the sidewalk for a long while.
    â€œYou fucking bitch.”
    Her eyes leap to meet mine. “Why are you talking to me like that?”
    â€œBecause you fucking betrayed me! You screwed those two assholes. I mean, of all people! You knew I hated them!”
    She doesn’t say anything, only looks at me with tears in her eyes, tries to touch my face. I pull away.
    â€œAnd now you’re sitting