Read Online Somebody Up There Hates You by Hollis Seamon - Free Book Online Page A

centuries. Archaeologists come along, they’re going to find ancient bits of whale-blubber puke or something. Sailors from the olden days, Hudson was their favorite port town, you know? Famous for booze and whores and some very nice opium, I read somewhere. That’s what the sailors found in Hudson.”
    He gets me back onto the street, heading for a bar three doors down. Funky sign over the door says FAT FRED FEATHERS and there’s a picture of a dove or something landing on a fat man’s shoulder. “Great,” Phil says. “The old FFF is still around. Very cool.” There’s lots of loud music and people spilling out the door, some of them in masks and capes and all sorts of stuff. Women in sexy vampire makeup and fishnet stockings. One girl all dressed up in this pink gown, huge skirt and tight-laced top, boobs falling out the front, and a white-wigged head under her arm. Guy in full firefighter gear. Mad scene. “Hasn’t changed a bit,” Phil says. “Thank the Lord.” And he starts to shout, “Make way, peasants. Make way for King Richard in his royal chariot, coming through. The king is thirsty, long live the king.” The crowd laughs and they actually do make a big wide space, and my chair just fits through the doorway. Even the bouncer, huge dude in a Darth Vader mask, kind of shrugs and lets us through.
    I have to admit, I’ve never been inside a bar. My mom doesn’t drink, and my high school friends and I, we just didn’t come even close to looking old enough to stroll on in and order ourselves a beer. So this is a whole new experience, and it’s making me kind of nervous. It’s dark, for one thing. And it smells. Lots of hot sweaty people and lots of spilled beer, I’m guessing. What I once heard a Brit exchange student call a real pong. Always liked that word. People are about five deep at the bar and standing everywhere else. Lots in costume. A big green frog next to Osama bin Laden. Witch drinking with a nun. That kind of neat weirdness, all around. Everybody yelling above the music. So loud my head is pounding, and for a minute I feel like I’m going to puke again. But then the girl in the pink gown is bending down and my face is, like, right up against those breasts spilling out of that dress, and I can smell perfume instead of pong, and right away, I feel better.
    Until she plunks a head into my lap. It’s got red goop all over the neck and blue blank eyes, and its white wig is falling off. I take a deep breath. The girl is laughing. I don’t want to seem dumb or wimpy or anything. So I poke my finger into one of the blue eyes and I say, cool as can be, “Marie Antoinette, I presume?”
    And the girl puts both hands on her hips and then she dips down into a curtsy kind of bow, then wobbles back up. “ Mais oui, my lord,” she yells. “You really are royalty, I can tell. None of the other bozos here got my costume. And I worked for days on it.”
    I look into her real face. It’s round and plain, but she’s got her hair all spiked up, dyed pink to match the dress, and she’s wearing this necklace—a silver chain with a little miniature guillotine hanging down—and I’ve got to admire her creativity. And her chest. She’s short and she’s chubby and she’s friendly and she seems sort of smart and she’s talking to me ? That about says it all.
    Phil comes over, elbowing people out of his way. He’s got two bottles of beer in his hands and he’s grinning all over his face, looking at me and this sweet pink chick talking. He hands me one of the bottles—Blue Moon—and bows. “My liege,” he says. “I leave you to your conquest.” And then, with an even deeper bow, he hands the other bottle to the girl. “Mademoiselle,” he says, “compliments of His Royal Highness.”
    She takes the bottle and curtsies at him. Then