Let the Good Times Roll

Posted on by
Old Gregg enlists the help of his old man, the Hitcher, to reunite with his beloved Howard. When Howard goes missing on their trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, Vince once again has to save Howard in every way possible.

Category:

Characters: , ,

Pairing: ,

Genre:

Rating:

Warning: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Status:

Length: words

Chapter 10

Contents

Chapter 10

Vince soon realized Sally had been right about him needing a translator. Sally’s non-regional, TV-ready accent must have come with her doctorate in environmental science. When she spoke to Lil’ Wayne, her accent was as thick as his. He couldn’t understand either of them. It was clear Sally was a fan, her normally placid expression was gone and she was giggling like a school girl.

“I’m sorry, Vince,” she said, as though sensing his thoughts, “I was just telling him how I’ve loved him since the Hot Boy$. I used to sneak out to see them at the Bounce clubs…”

“Bounce?” Vince asked.

Sally laughed and demonstrated by doing a dance that made her ample bottom vibrate at an alarming rate.

Vince tried to imitate her causing Sally to burst into a fit of hysterical laughter but Vince thought he saw a little respect in Lil’ Wayne’s eyes.

“He says you’ve got a lot of ass for a white girl,” Sally explained before turning back to Weezy and explaining Vince was a man. Vince didn’t understand the words but the accompanying hand gesture was hard to misread.

Vince smiled at the confused- looking rapper and urged Sally to get to the point. He only understood a few words of what she said but he heard “funky merman” and saw the way Lil’ Wayne cringed at the words. He got the distinct impression Weezy wasn’t going to help them find Howard.

“He says he doesn’t want anything to do with that funky merman voodoo but he knows who can help us,” Sally explained after a brief conversation, “We need to talk to Old Gregg’s old boyfriend, Slash.”

xxx

“You don’t know me but my name is Dr. Sally Blanc and I need to track down a merman named Old Gregg. I know you’ve had troubles with him in the past and Bryan Ferry and Lil’ Wayne…” Vince could see Sally was losing her confidence, Vince gave her free hand a squeeze, “They said you could help. We need your help. Please, our friend has been missing for a few days now and… I don’t need to tell you how worried we are. Please. Please help us.”

Vince’s eyes welled up a little at Sally’s plea for someone she’d never met. He’d seen a sweetness in her even as she’d threatened him with pepper spray the first time he approached her. Vince didn’t have a head for math or science or poetry but he could spot a well-hidden, kind heart from a mile away.

Sally closed her phone and shrugged, “I guess we just have to wait.”

Vince gave her a quick hug before they started walking back to his hotel.

Sally roughly wiped a tear from her eye, “So tell me more. You said you tried to make Howard hate you.”

Vince felt his cheeks darkening at the mention of “the five months”. That’s what they called it on the rare occasions Vince and Howard talked about that time. “The five months” between the death of Vince’s parents and his sixteenth birthday.

“I was fifteen and a half, so I only needed a guardian ‘til I turned sixteen…”

“You were on your own at sixteen?” Sally asked with surprise, “I was still doing laundry at my mom’s house when I got my Ph.D.”

“I wasn’t ever really on my own, but at sixteen I didn’t need a guardian,” Vince explained, feeling a bit queasy, “So Bryan and Howard worked it out that Howard would just move into my house and keep an eye on me and make sure I passed my exams and Bryan would take care of the money and legal stuff.”

Sally nodded, clearly seeing how it was a good plan and young Vince should have been grateful to have people looking out for him.

“I went mental. I stopped going to school, started staying out all night. Drinking, sleeping around… I got a venereal disease and everything…” Vince laughed out of habit, “I wouldn’t even take the antibiotics when I was supposed to, I fought Howard on every little thing. I brought people to the house once but he walked in and said, ‘This is a fifteen-year-old child whose parents just died. Anyone with a scrap of humanity left should leave now. As for the rest of you, I’m calling the police,’ and that cleared the room.”

Vince tried to laugh it off but Sally was looking at him with her big, understanding eyes.

“He got me a part time job at the zoo and even though I loved it… I still wouldn’t show up half the time. He’d end up having to cover for me. He’d come out to the clubs and find me, literally dragging me home. He was only twenty at the time but everyone thought he was me dad cause he was…” Vince blinked back tears. Howard had been an adult since he was in short pants; he never really had a childhood.

“It’s all right, Vince. Lots of kids act out. I was such a punk-ass at that age, I don’t know why my parents didn’t just feed me to the alligators.” Sally’s voice was so full of kindness, Vince wanted to wear it like a cape.

“I came home all pissed one day and…” Vince cringed at the memory.

“You made another move on him?” Sally offered.

“C’mon, Howard. I know you wanna fuck me. Everyone wants to fuck me.”

“By then, he was just disgusted with me. It was horrible but I couldn’t stop. I’d think that the next day I’d wake up and go back to being normal but…”

“You were testing Howard, seeing if he really cared.”

Vince grabbed his head, trying to push the memories back, “He kept trying to talk to me about what I was going to do with my life and I kept thinkin’ how I was gonna be so alone when he was gone… The morning I turned sixteen, he baked me a cake and…”

Vince started crying. He could see the little cake with its blue and white frosting. A cake that Howard made, even though he hated cakes.

“I went out and spent all the money Bryan sent me for my birthday on drugs – I just wanted to come home with my pockets stuffed full of drugs so that when he searched me…”

Sally’s face was filled with dread and she whispered, “Oh, no.”

“I just wanted him to hate me and sure enough, as soon as I come home, he’s rootin’ through my pockets and… he went all pale and I was laughin’ and sayin’ we should use it to bake up another cake since I threw the one he made in the garbage an’ it would be like old times for him…”

Sally was physically holding her mouth shut at that point.

“And he opened a bag of X and dumped it in his mouth.”

Sally gasped, “I’m so sorry, Vince, please continue.”

“I was well scared. I tried pulling them out of his mouth and he started choking… I got most of them back but he was pretty messed up. I did my best to take care of him, makin’ him drink water and playing the kind of music he liked. At one point, we was on the sofa an’ he was lookin’ at me and tellin’ me how beautiful I was and how much he loved me and I knew I could… I knew he wouldn’t say no if I tried it on.”

Sally waited patiently for him to continue, simply holding his hand as they walked.

“I really fancied him, I always did. I thought about him when I was getting off with other people.”

“You’ve been in love with him for so long.”

Vince turned, buried his face in Sally’s shoulder and wept in the middle of Bourbon Street where no one paid them any mind.

xxx

“Howard never gave up on you and we’re never going to give up on him,” Sally murmured into Vince’s ear.

Sally knew that if they didn’t find Howard, she was going to have to pack up and move to England. She’d go work in a boutique and forget everything she knew about chemistry because there was no way she could ever leave Vince alone.

xxx

Howard opened his eyes and was greeted by a watercolor of himself getting raped by the Hitcher. He debated between laughing and crying and decided he was too tired for either.

“G’mornin’, sleepin’ beauty,” drawled the Hitcher, “Are ya feelin’ convalesced yet?”

Howard pulled his blanket up to his chin and looked for clothing. There was little point in being modest when he was surrounded by nude paintings of himself but he still didn’t care for the feeling of being naked. The Hitcher was nursing a sizeable gut wound, but he didn’t seem like the type who learned lessons from such experiences.

“Where’s Old Gregg?” Howard asked, hating the timidity in his voice.

The Hitcher grinned, “Don’t you worry, your husband ain’t gone far. I’ll bet you’re lookin’ forward to the weddin’ night. I know I am.”

Howard closed his eyes and thought of Vince. Vince giggling as Bollo groomed his ridiculous hair, Vince gasping for breath after his first porpoise race, Vince spending hours personalizing his zoo uniform…

“You ever had kids, Moon?” the Hitcher asked, in an almost conversational tone.

Howard thought of “the five months”, his big opportunity to prove he was nothing like his own parents. His chance to step up and do something important and a small chance to repay the kindness of the Noir family. The five months in which he turned the sweetest kid he’d ever met into an unrecognizable monster.

“No. I don’t think I’m suited for parenthood,” Howard admitted. It felt good to say it out loud, even to a homicidal maniac.

“Children are right fuckin’ bastards. You better pray Old Greggory can’t get knocked up or you are in for a right treat.”

Howard reached for a bottle of water and a packet of crisps. He was getting stronger. He had no idea how long he’d been in the cave. It could be days or months. He was getting more and more confused about what was a dream and what was reality. It seemed that reality involved him marrying a merman and having children.

That couldn’t be right.

xxx

Howard tried to fall asleep with Old Gregg spooning him but for the first time since eating the rancid fish, he was wide awake.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to imagine Vince, but the image wouldn’t come. He thought of all the times Vince had reached out to him; inarticulately asking for love, comfort or friendship – and being turned away. Vince didn’t belong in the cave, Howard did. His misanthropic life was coming to its logical conclusion.

“What would you say to me, if I was there?” Vince asked, improbably perched at the foot of Howard’s mattress.

Howard couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I don’t know what to say, Vince. I don’t know if you’re real.”

“Don’t matter. I’m not sure ‘bout all this either. It’s well strange. I’d still like an answer. What would you say to me?”

“I’d say that I love you and I’m sorry for all the times I let you down,” Howard answered, “And that if I don’t make it…”

“Don’t say that,” Vince clutched the sides of his head.

“That you oughtn’t feel bad and I want you to be happy and enjoy your life.”

“I’m going to find you,” Vince promised. “I got a sexy sidekick an’ everything. I’m so close now.”

Old Gregg’s hand started moving down Howard’s chest and below his waist.

“Help me, Vince,” Howard whispered. Vince pressed a finger to his lips.

“I always will, Howard. We’re a team, right? You’n’me, forever.”