Wind-whipped rain pelts Jon and me from every angle as we lug Hurl's dead weight past The Dahlia's guard shack.
My lungs scorch, hands and arms tingle, yearning for air and blood. "I can't believe I … don't have a job … "
"I know."
" … And my high school friend ... called me Butt Munch ..."
"I know. I know."
I chin wag towards Hurl and yell above the wind scream. "How do you think he--"
Jon's beady eyes glare. "--Smacked his uncle ned on da toilet."
Past the makeshift gym. I'll get that workout in tomorrow. I swear. "Or somebody … ah fuck it, let's stop."
We slump Hurl on the ground in front of the stairs. I lean in to tighten the Bintang singlet wrapped around his head to stanch the blood while Jon dials his cell phone. Another busy signal. "Arthur Bliss on me. Everything's all sixes and sevens."
"Really? Every hospital on the island?" Peering at the empty guard shack, I shake my hands for circulation. "Where's Armando?"
"Who?"
"The security guard."
Palm trees bend in the wind as we scour around the empty bog of a courtyard.
"Tom's tits!" Jon tries lighting a cig as he hunches over, leopard print shirt pulled over his head. "Well, I'm not standin' 'ere all night. Where's da keys?"
We look at each other, then down at Hurl. Well, crap. With a grimace, I reach down and root around in Hurl's Rhodesian bush shorts.
Jon stifles a snicker, watching me play pocket pool with a meat mannequin. "Careful in there."
"Yeah, whatever." Bingo. A key chain with a cartoon rat on it. We step back, scanning the room doors. As bad luck would have it, the rat room plaque is on the second floor, above the steep flight of slippery stairs.
Jon's smirk disappears. "Figures."
Open the door. Click on the faux tiki torch wall light. We totter past the coffee table and into a disaster of abundance: waist-high plate piles plastered with moldy ramen noodles. Jagged shards of crushed whiskey glasses dot the leaflitter floor. Stacks of opened condom boxes and broken Oriental massage balm bottles litter the bloodstained rug next to an upturned fern. Pure goblin mode.
Jon sneers as we dodge multi-colored helium sex balloons bobbing along the ceiling and heave Hurl face first onto the unkept bed, shoulder's length from a large Buddha statue wearing a lacey push-up bra and lime green dildo strapped to its noggin like a beer-bellied altar to an S & M sex cult.
I explore the periphery of the grime scene while Jon remains rooted in place, catatonic with disdain.
"Jesus. Fuck me dead." He glares at a giant poster of Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff dressed in red lifeguard swimwear in their Baywatch acting primes. Leaning forward, he reads the flashy ink-penned autograph. "To my number one fan in the whole world, Hurl. Signed David Hasselhof. Fuckin' fuck me dead."
I notice a constellation of ink stars on Hurl's lumbar region. "Check out the scamp stamp."
"A southern cross. Pointed straight to the crack of 'is ass." Jon shakes his head miserably, then glares at me. "Fuck me dead. What's all this?"
I'm caught, red-handed with fistfuls of shampoos and conditioners lifted from the bathroom. "Ah, uh … since I'm technically not an employee of the hotel anymore, I figured I might as well--"
"So, you're a reprobate?"
"Exactly." A shrug. "Want some?"
"No! No fuckhead, I'm not nickin' 'otel soap."
"Yeah, well ... there's shampoo and conditioners, too."
"Fuck off."
We stare down at Hurl snoring logs whilst ensconced in a sarcophagus of twisted sheets and soiled throw pillows. Suddenly, Jon's face bursts crabapple red. He kicks the mattress and flips Hurl the bird. "Sleep tight. Fuckface bogen cunt!"
Hurl lets loose a long, warbling fart, then continues snoring.
"Oh, fuck me death warmed over." Jon gags, covering his shirt collar over his mouth.
After shutting the front door, we're immediately re-drenched from the deluge threshing the second-floor terrace. Jon takes a step, then wheels at me with violence in his eyes. "Serves dat Fucksie Face right, right?"
"What?'
"Boffin' Anna."
"I never said--"
"Yer sick fuck face did."
"I'm not sick."
A pace disturbingly closer. The booze breath could melt brass balls. "Ya' don't pass my smell test."
Stand my ground. For once. "Paranoid much?"
"Paranoid the fuck." Jon takes a stride, then stops, spits, and turns to me with a clenched fist. "In the land of pigs, the butcher is king. So fuck you and fuck 'em all!" Hands quavering, his eyes dart like he's just noticed the thick blades of rain devouring us on all sides. "Sleep tight, Butt Munch." Satiated, Jon nods, then lurches down the nearby staircase and out the courtyard.