The Tommyknockers

Chapter 1

Sissy

“I hope you enjoyed the flight,” the stewardess by the hatch told the fortyish woman who left Delta's flight 230 with a trickle of other passengers who had stuck it out all the way to Bangor, 230's terminating point.

Bobbi Anderson's sister A

“Well, I'll tell you, babe,” she said. “I'm hot. My pits stink because the plane was late leaving La Garbage and even later leaving Logan. The air was bumpy and I hate to fly. The trainee they sent back to Livestock Class spilled someone's screwdriver all over me and I've got orange juice drying to a fine crack-glaze all over my arm. My panties are sticking in the crack of my ass and this little town looks like a pimple on the cock of New England. Other questions?”

“No,” the stew managed. Her eyes had gone glassy, and she felt as if she had suddenly gone about three quick rounds with Boom-Boom Mancini on a day when Mancini was pissed at the world. This was an effect A

“Good for you, dear.” A

Only, the flight attendant thought, if that babe has got a True Love stashed anywhere, I hope to God he knows about the mating habits of the trapdoor spider.

The Avis clerk told A

This was a mistake on the part of the clerk. A bad one.

A

A

By the time the clerk had been eaten, it was going on three o'clock. A

There was a cop at the X-shaped intersection of Hammond and Union Streets-a streetlight was out, which she thought typical of this little ru

Cityscape Hotel was full.

That was no trouble for sister A

She got herself a double, then bullied the harried manager into giving her another because the air-conditioner in the first rattled and because the color on the TV was so bad, she said, that all the actors looked like they had just eaten shit and would soon die.

She unpacked, masturbated to a grim and cheerless climax with a vibrator nearly the size of one of the mutant carrots in Bobbi's garden (the only climaxes she had were of the grim and cheerless type; she'd never been with a man in bed and never intended to), showered, napped, then went to di

“Bring me a bunch of vegetables. Raw, leafy vegetables.”

“Madame wants a sal-”

“Madame wants a bunch of raw, leafy vegetables. I don't give a shit what you call them. Just wash them first to get the bugpiss off. And bring me a sombrero right now.”

“Yes, madame,” the waiter said, licking his lips. People were looking at them. A few smiled… but those who got a look at A

“A sombrero,” she said, “has Kahlua and cream in it. Cream. If you bring me a sombrero with milk in it, chum, you're going to be shampooing with the motherfucker.”

The waiter's Adam's apple went up and down like a monkey on a stick. He tried to summon the sort of aristocratic, pitying smile which is a good waiter's chief weapon against vulgar customers. To do him full credit, he got a pretty good start on that smile-then A

“I mean it, chum,” sister A