Disclaimer: This is very sketchy; some incomplete chapters just to give readers a sense of tone an voice. Honestly, I kind of abandoned this project until I reread it recently and said: “Hey, this doesn’t suck as much as I thought it did.”
Introduction: Are You a Vampire?
I am assuming that you picked up this little volume because the above question has been haunting you. This is not a rational question for the healthy of mind (and that is a drastic understatement). From my own experience, there is usually a stumbling pattern that resembles a band-aid slowly falling off a scab. That nasty wound under the band-aid couldn’t possibly be as bad as you remember it; or could it? I came to the conclusion that I was a vampire only after a deep (and Internet aided) process of elimination.
That really isn’t a snappy introduction, is it?
How’s this?
There simply hasn’t been a book like this before. That’s not my own deluded sense of self-promotion at work. That is simply the truth; the vast majority of us are too lazy and self-involved to pull something like this off. (I even have severe doubts about my own work ethic. I once took three weeks to clean a tiny bathroom in my hovel. My Zen like routine of only cleaning the sink and the toilet when I reached a peak of disgust delayed everything. I’m not telling you this so I can go into loving detail about how much crud can grow in a short period of time. I am simply relating this story to give you a portrait of my sloth like nature).
I’m writing this largely for the anonymous masses who have been deceived. We are absolutely real and there are multitudes of us. The guy you ride the treadmill next to at the gym is most likely one of us. There are several of us who work menial shelf stocking jobs. Why? Do you think anyone looks all that closely at a shelf stocker? Our life-style has an unfortunate amount of transient behavior. We also tend to frequent cheap apartments, extended stay motels, and your favorite all night greasy spoon. I would love to sell you on the romance of “living in the shadows.” I could point to decades of pop cultured infested misconceptions to back me up. What’s the problem with that, dear readers?
That wouldn’t be honest; this is a very honest book. Most writers fall into this racket so the story they always wanted to read will finally exist. I know how much heavy lifting you must be doing if you have found your way here. I would have liked to avoid some of that straining myself. I can only hope that this little manual will help those similarly in need.
Oh, wait, maybe I should do a short spiel about the benefits of reading this book. What might those be?
This is not going to be a particularly organized piece of writing. You might have guessed that by the scattershot arrangement of thoughts. I promise the armchair literary critics in the audience that I am not making an attempt at being stylistically daring. I might be the only person who has noted yet another unfortunate side effect (primarily physiological). If I don’t get what I need, my thoughts are scrambled. My attention span goes out the window.
After reading through this, the only thing that is hooking my interest is that last bullet I wrote. If I can remember that far back; how did we all met?
How We Met
My Own Humble Beginnings
Logline: This is the part of the story where our hero becomes self-aware. You might be asking: “Why the hell didn’t he start there?”
I was a very sick kid and no one knew why. This was not the sort of textbook sick that was accompanied by fevers, rashes, or the chills. There was never any kind of advanced warning about it. The problem was that it appeared to be a basic case of what any self-respecting medical doctor would term: “exhaustion.” That never made sense to my work a day suburban parents. What did I ever do to become so run down, exactly? I would be incapacitated to the point that my muscles would atrophy. When I was about four, my mother bought me a wagon to be escorted around in. People would assume that I was just a perfectly normal kid enjoying the ride. They had no idea how much of a crutch that wagon would develop into. (As I write this, I can still see every cherished detail about the Red Rider. The flaking red paint, the leaky tires, and even the char black handle my mother used to pull me around by. I am mourning for that little wagon like a war veteran might cry over a missing limb). If I wasn’t in the wagon, my father would often how to sling me over his shoulder and haul me around.
There were endless consultations with experts. My memories from that time are both very dim and disgustingly vivid. This is almost like looking at a spectacular painting that has had its edges eaten off by the moths. The holes are part of the cumulative effect; the missing puzzle pieces that are at large under the couch. I know that they exist, I can even point to them, but what exactly were they? I remember an abnormal blood test I had once. The blood only filled about half a vial and then the needle might as well have been sucking helium. The lab tech looked at the eight year old version of me and said: “What kind of kid doesn’t bleed ?” This was long before I had the knowledge of what a true rhetorical question could be. The best response I could think of was the last one this inattentive lab tech could expect.
“I’m bored.”
The abnormality of my bloodless state didn’t concern me.
1. “Mr. Blotchy”
Logline: This is a bit about what happens when a goal for feeding isn’t met. I could sit here and list off physical symptoms and side effects, but what fun would that be? Read the gory details below.
I couldn’t ignore the gray blotch that had started growing on the base of my neck any longer. The first temptation I had was to just laugh it off and name it: “Mr. Blotchy.” This was rapidly becoming a morning routine for me every time I had a chance to look into a mirror. Trust me; looking in a mirror is something I seldom do anyway. There had been even fewer opportunities to study myself because I had been without a home. (I will spare you the gory details. However, I will give you some friendly advice. If you are ever offered a couch in a near stranger’s basement, for God’s sake, don’t be a moron and accept the offer. That is doubly true if you show up at the house and find shackles nailed into the drywall.) The simple fact was that I couldn’t avoid looking at myself any longer.
The new place I had found through a series of connections (we’ll go into that later) had a luxury-sized bathroom. The toilet was even covered in faux marble that made me feel extremely insecure whenever I had to take a dump. (Have you ever seen a King get on his throne and crap? I didn’t feel right even referring to the toilet in this place as “the throne.”) The entire scenario with this place had seemed too good to be true. I was directed to it by my quasi-acquaintance Johnny (a.k.a The Dog Catcher) who informed me it belonged to his cousin. The cousin was loaded because he worked in the porno industry and this was a bit of a crash pad. Johnny had sanctimoniously lied to his Big Whig Porno Director cousin about “house sitting.” He passed the key on to me while he gave me one of his long-winded speeches about how I was now “in his debt.” (Johnny is a guy most of us don’t really enjoy much. I’ve always thought the guy was a dick. In fact, my nickname for him for many long months was “the little dick.” He is about five foot two and has a totally shaved head. I tower over this “little dick,” and yet still found myself intimidated by him. The curious contradiction is that he is the only one in my circle of acquaintances who goes by a real name).
Obviously, I have been worried on a daily basis about what happens if Porno Director Cousin shows up. Until that fateful day, I go to have just about every amenity of home a normal person could wish for. There is even a stereo with an old-fashioned radio antenna that I can fiddle with to get the college station.
This purple prose is all a way of avoiding the real story, isn’t it? Wasn’t I telling you about Mr. Blotchy?
The itching had started a few days before I got into my new place. My DeFacto roommate had come down into the basement and asked (to his credit, politely) if he could “borrow the space” for a bit. I had (equally politely) nodded my head and asked him if he had an idea of the time frame. The (very polite) reason I offered was that I had wanted to know how long I should stay gone. The real reason was that I knew the reason he had wanted to “borrow the space” was closely associated with the shackles on the wall. Look, I can be as liberal as anyone else, but the whips/chains/shackles lifestyle is a puzzle to me. Don’t get me wrong; I liked this guy about as much as I could to the extent that I knew him. He had let me move into the place without any kind of questions asked. (I knew that the reason he let me in had something to do with the freak show curiosity that has to do with the “V” word. There is a separate and not unrelated rant about why I am not a fan of the “V” word that I’ll spare you). I was even beginning to feel guilty about having over stayed my welcome. I had initially told him I was only going to be there for “two weeks…at the most…I promise.” I was now dive-bombing into week four and doing all the things I tried to avoid. I was eating his food, borrowing his clean clothes, and (most offensively) getting the way of his scheduled orgies. The whole thing was beginning to be off putting to me.
I wandered out into the night past my roommates scheduled guests. There was nothing too distinctive about them; just an ordinary group of folks. Still, I had the inkling that it was “them” as they wandered towards my current place to crash. The thought of them left my mind as I found myself focusing on an odd itch around my right shoulder blade. I tentatively picked at what I now assumed was a rash underneath my overcoat. The instant I had stepped out the door I realized that I had listened to weather broadcast on the radio earlier. The DJ had announced that it was supposed to be the “most freezing” night of the year. I had a bone to pick with the guy on that. Why the hell couldn’t he just have said “coldest” night of the year? I reconsidered that judgment as I continued to walk from suburbia into the city. The only terminology I could come up with was “balls ass cold.” That was another idiom I never quite understood until now. The cold literally caused your balls and your ass to freeze over with temperature related shock.
The cold also began to exasperate my rash and I decided to go somewhere to have it looked at professionally. There was a pharmacist (who was really just a frustrated doctor) at an all night drug store I knew. He had been kind enough about explaining all my symptoms in the past until I had drained that generosity dry.
I could only hope that until time had passed from the last time…
“I thought I told you not to come back,” Vincent, the pharmacist, said as I walked into the all-night drug store.
“This is quick,” I blurted out “Really quick. I promise.”
Vincent sighted heavily. I should probably tell you a bit about Vincent, too. The man always is hunched over seems perpetually put upon. I can never tell if my presence is truly an imposition or if Vincent is just like this. Vincent wears horn-rim glasses that are always sliding about halfway down his nose. I suppose he would be less intimidating if his eyes weren’t so exposed. There is something about his eyeballs that scream: “I am judging you…and your sentence is a harsh one.” The fact that he spends all his time behind a somewhat guarded medicine counter adds to this feeling. The counter makes Vincent look like a judge at the stand with a white coat instead of a robe.
Tonight, I decide that Vincent’s sentence for me is not as severe as it has been in the past. Trust me; I have an encyclopedic knowledge of human behavior. That is not a boast; I have had to cultivate this in the same way (I imagine) a tick has to know about spotting juicy veins.
“Vincent, I’m dying…”
“I doubt that’s true…”
“Will you just let me finish a sentence.”
Vincent had one of his rare moments of non-defensiveness as he pushed his glasses up.
“What is it this time?”
“I have this rash…”
I started to unbutton my shirt a bit. Vincent waved his hands violent in the air and made a scornful expression.
“Dude! I don’t need to see it.”
“You were alright with that contusion that was on my arm.”
“That’s because it didn’t require you to disrobe.”
I buttoned my shirt back up.
‘Then just tell me about rashes then…”
“Hold on a minute,” Vincent said.
He stepped out from behind the counter and rushed off to one of the aisles. A moment later, he returned with what appeared to be ointment in a suspiciously white tube. (The tube was suspicious to me because it didn’t have any kind of official text on it about the effectiveness of the product or daily use).
“This is the cheapest anti-itch cream I have.”
Vincent returned to his counter of judgment tossed the tube at me. I can only assume that he expected me to catch it. That was a little bit outside of the usual effort I was willing to exert. The tube still managed to land at my feet and Vincent nodded at it.
“I’m willing to let you have that for free. I’m even willing to let you go in our tiny, crapped out little bathroom and put some on. The only condition I’m placing on this wonderful little act of altruism is that you fucking leave after that.”
“What about when the rash spreads?”
Vincent began violently shaking his head.
“What about contagion? Can rashes catch on other people?”
“You have to…” Vincent began.
“I haven’t really had a rash before…”
“…fucking…”
“What about…?”
“…leave!”
I picked up the tube, mumbled unenthusiastic thanks, and went into the bathroom.
The bathroom was even worse than I had imagined. There was an ancient looking condom machine mounted on the wall. (I would wager a guess and say that it had been more than a few years since the last condom had been purchased). The toilet looked like it had more than a nodding acquaintance with cleaning products. I assumed it was very wasn’t a deep relationship. The most important thing to tell you about is the one thing I don’t want to talk about. The mirror was sitting directly in the center of the wall to my right as I walked into the bathroom. I was relieved to see that a vandal had scrawled a bit of profane poetry across the surface. That made me sincerely hope that I wouldn’t be able to see myself. However, the reflective surface was still in tact and my distorted visage stared back at me.
I saw myself in crystal clear detail; the horn rim glasses, the impossibly skinny frame, and the slight tilt forward that had occurred somewhere in high school. I am someone who spent far too many waking hours pondering my unfortunate appearance. That wasn’t what was concerning me (for once) at the moment. I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled down the cloth to take a good long look. The location of the scaly skin was not quite where I thought it would be. The dry spot was actually much higher on my neck but only started at my color bone. The skin was pure white (even white than my own natural skin tone) and was already starting to peel. The average person would tell you not to worry because it was only sunburn. I’m not the average person and would ask you how you thought I got sunburned in the middle of November. I would continue my flippant tone and say that I really should stop running around naked in the snow.
There are innumerable facetious answers I could provide to questions. They would all be at the service of avoiding the issue at hand. I was beginning what the people in my sad little corner of existence have coined: “the turning.” The clock was ticking until I might not even exist at all. I sat down on the toilet (unopened) toilet and put my head in my hands. There were numerous phrases that came into my mind. A few of them were very poetic, a couple of them were short, some of were quite long, but none of them had the collective power of the one I chose.
“I am totally fucked.”
There was a banging on the door. I wanted to ignore but knew that I couldn’t.
I stumbled out into peak time at the all night pharmacy. There were other diseased denizens of the night flocking the medicine counter. I estimated that roughly half of them were actually ill and picking up prescriptions. The rest of them were just like me. They had absolutely nowhere else to go and places like this were the only establishments that were flexible enough to have them. I realized that I had left the shitty off brand tube of itch cream in the bathroom. There was going to be little use for it now. I stumbled out into the “balls ass” cold and began to walk further into town. The first choice I made was strictly logistical. There was no need to return to the orgy house where I was over staying my welcome. I had everything that I valued the most on my back; my ancient leather jacket was the prize possession. The next most important thing to the jacket was a portable CD player I had for an untold number of years.
I imagined that there might be vague concern on the part of my unintentional roommate about where I went. That wouldn’t actually translate into some kind of effort to find me. As you might have imagined, I am not someone who is that capable of endearing himself to people. That said, I clearly was going to need somewhere else to go. I did have a makeshift collection of friends that had (more or less) recently imploded. I knew full well that our agreement hadn’t been to see each other again after a particularly unfortunate event. I had even been fine with that decision because I told myself it didn’t matter. I perhaps had even told myself that there was just too much “history” and it was more than time to end it all. What happened after that? I had found myself living on a couch in a strangers’ sex dungeon and realized how much I missed them. I decided to call the one person in a little group that I felt like I was still on solid ground with.
I ducked under a bridge, propped myself up on the wall, and fished out my cell phone. I looked up “Psychic” under contacts and hit “call.” (I need to mention is that my group of friends decided not to learn each other’s real names. We finally decided to start calling each other by appropriate nicknames after an ill-fated Reservoir Dogs homage. The statement that just about every guy wants to be “Mr. Black” is true). The dude I was calling was a gentleman who attempted to pass himself off as an “intuitive.” I can only assume that he was at least a bit successful because he had his own space. The place had every hallmark you might imagine; a neon sign reading “psychic” out front, a large table with a crystal ball, and walls covered with curtains (to make the space appear much darker than it was). The Psychic’s latest racket was to sell tickets to what he deemed as “authentic séances.”
The phone continued to ring and ring with a dim promise of going to voice mail. I had already mentally planned a very quick, panicked message when the Psychic answered.
“Pedo?” he bellowed.
Another word of explanation; my nickname had been the unfortunate “Pedophile” and had been shortened to “Pedo.” This began on one of the rare occurrences that we had been out in public. I happened to spot a particularly beautiful girl who was probably way too young to be legal (like sixteen). The Psychic (who is much older than me) caught this predatory stare and said: “Jesus, man, she’s a child.” I had been the last of the group to have a moniker. The Chess Player, another member of the group, had clearly been intrigued by this conversation. “You’re a pedophile,” the Psychic said, laughing. The Chess Player added: “Hey, man, maybe we should just call you Pedo.” The Psychic’s radio friendly baritone made this entire incident all the more humiliating. (For the curious, the guys always pronounced it: “Pete-O.”)
“Yeah, look…”
“I sensed it was you…”
“Oh, come on, Psychic. My number is programmed into your phone.”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“Perhaps,” said the Psychic.
“Look,” I began, “I know that we said no contact. But I’m in a tough spot…”
After a tense five-minute discussion, the Psychic told me to stay put under the bridge. About half an hour later, I saw the Psychic’s beaten up ’84 Chevy truck barreling towards me. In what would turn out to be a long night, there was the one spot of relief for several hours.
“Look,” the Psychic said as I got in “I’ve got customers. So just go in and play it cool until I’m done. No wisecracks.”
We both knew that the Psychic was speaking of a specific incident. I might have gotten drunk at his place and questioned his legitimacy to his clients.
“You haven’t let that shit go?” I asked.
“I’m going out on a limb for you, Pedo.”
I sighed heavily.
“Yeah, I know. Have you still had no contact?”
“None what so ever…at all.”
The two of us fell into a heavy silence as Psychic drove us along empty streets. I haven’t mentioned that the Psychic’s headquarters were located in a broken down, nearly abandoned part of town. I had thought that this had to do with the Psychic not having the financial gain to afford a nicer spot. The Psychic had later revealed that the thrill seekers who came to see him thought his remoteness added to the experience.
“Have you checked the chat room?” I asked.
“The chat room’s gone. I went looking for it last night.”
“Are you sure you looked in the right place?”
The Psychic nodded.
“How bad is it?”
I unbuttoned my shirt and tried to catch a glimpse of myself in the truck’s rearview mirror. The previously white skin had already started to mature to a sickening color of grey.
“Oh, Jesus, Pedo…How long has it been…?”
“Since when I noticed the skin? Or since I fed?”
“Since you fed…”
“A month.”
The Psychic squeaked the truck over to the side of the road.
“How the hell could you let this happen?”
“It did…”
“You’ve been living with sex maniacs for the last month. Are you saying they don’t let you touch them?”
“It’s not plural sex maniacs. It’s a single, male sex maniac. He’s pretty creepy, too.”
“You’re not one to judge.”
“Asshole!” I exclaimed.
The Psychic fished his cell phone out of his pocket.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“The Chess Player. I’m going to see if he’s still at the home.”
I had a momentary desire to argue but knew it wouldn’t do much good. The Psychic sighed heavily as the phone continued to ring. I finally heard the unmistakable nasal whine of the Chess Player on the other end.
“I thought we said no contact.”
“I know we said no contact,” said the Psychic, “But we’ve got a situation…”
2. Getting the Band Back Together
Logline: This chapter should give you a sense of what social dynamics among our kind look like. How interesting they aren’t…
The Chess Player (the moniker by which I knew him) had a night job doling medication in what is called a residential home. He had vaguely alluded to the fact that most of the people he dealt with heard and saw what wasn’t there. The Chess Player was a bit of a philosopher and had once gone to great lengths to explain what he saw as the fine line between sanity and insanity. He bestowed lofty titles on the residents such as “prophet” and “beautifully tortured soul.” The one time I had been to his tiny shit hole of an apartment I had seen an original work of art by one the “tortured.” I can speak to the merits of most visual art, but this one was excruciatingly simple. The entire painting consisted of a giant blue splotch at the center of a white canvas. Various trails of paint had been carried off from the center of the painting and they pooled at the edges.
There is where my perspective and the Chess Player’s vary wildly. I said it was the laziest painting I had ever had the displeasure of laying eyes on. This unfortunately timed comment triggered a massive rant by the Chess Player on the “limits” of my point of view. The Chess Player was quite fond out pointing out what he saw as everyone else’s central flaws. He was never amused when you would turn it back around on him. As the Psychic and I drove at break neck speed, I had already started to anticipate a lecture from the Chess Player. The last thing I needed in my current state of anxiety was a dose of his old fashioned self-righteousness. The Psychic sped towards the back entrance of the home and we saw the Chess Player. (I haven’t addressed why this man is called the Chess Player. That is yet another detail that I will get to soon).
The next thing I knew the Psychic and I had bolted out of the car towards the exit. The Chess Player propped the industrial strength door with his foot. The look of disdain on his face was exactly what I had expected to see. That said, the Chess Player’s next action genuinely surprised me. He grasped my shoulders and shook me while exclaiming: “Jesus, Pedo, what in the holy hell were you thinking?” There was even a tear in the corner of one of his eyes.
“You know you can’t go this long without feeding,” he continued.
I wanted to make a snarky remake and found myself bereft of my usual sarcasm.
“I couldn’t work up the nerve to, you know…”
I very rarely cry. The last time I remember tearing up was at the funeral of one my closest childhood friends. That had been a good decade ago, long before I had left home, and certainly before I stood in a hallway of a residential home. I supposed I should be embarrassed beginning to bawl in front of two men who I hardly knew. The reaction to my tears in the moment surprised me. Both of the guys allowed me to sob openly while they discussed what to do. The Chess Player ushered me into the office and closed the door. He unlocked a cabinet and pulled out a giant bottle of pills.
“Do I even want to know what those do?” I asked.
“They take the edge off,” the Chess Player “Better living through chemistry.”
I downed the pill without much of a hesitation.
“So what are we doing?” the Psychic asked the Chess Player.
“Aren’t you the one who supposed to see into the future?” asked the Psychic.
“Only when the price is right…”
That was also funny; and I found myself laughing as I nodded off.
The Chess Player punched my arm to wake me up a very short time later. I was still dazed and my nap felt like it lasted only a few minutes. The Chess Player and I have an odd history of this occurrence happening over and over again. I have nodded off multiple times under duress in the presence of this man. The dude always wakes me up in a somewhat unpleasant way and often lectures me about my “head not being in the game.” (The Chess Player goes to great lengths to utilize every awful game playing metaphor. He tries to attribute this to the giant stack of chess manuals that he carries around. I would probably attribute this loathsome habit to the fact that the man is bored.) There was no game related metaphor for me tonight.
“We’ve got a solution,” the Psychic said.
A moment later, I found myself following the Chess Player down a hallway way to a bedroom door. The Psychic trailed behind us, dragging his feet on the plush and dirty carpet. The Chess Player gingerly knocked on the door and then gently eased it open.
“Ginger?” he asked.
“Come in, darling!” a chipper but eerily voice said.
The Chess Player made a melodramatic gesture for me to enter into the room. Another thing the Chess Player is fond of; giant melodramatic gestures that over emphasize his the point. I had watched him place chess once in the park with a group of young wise-asses. He made a great show out of moving his pieces around, but the real piece-de-resistance came in capturing his opponent’s pieces. An ordinary person would discretely set the captured piece off to the side of the board. That is what is just the polite thing to do, right? That is the etiquette I was taught when I was in my junior high chess club. The Chess Player would make a huge show of setting the piece on its side as he moved his own chessman on the empty space. This was a boaster’s move that I found to be quite disgusting.
I mentally groaned as I went into the room. The Psychic had decided to cower in the hallway and was clearly going to be of little use. “Ginger” looked exactly how I would have imagined someone with that name to appear. She wore a straw hat decorated with flowers and a housedress. Her face was extremely elderly, but her blue eyes were almost otherworldly. I felt like she was examining me just a bit too closely as I stood over her. She sat in a dilapidated easy chair covered in flannel cloth. The rest of the room was a mess of doilies, antique dolls, and a strange collection of music boxes. There was no logic or arrangement to any of this bric-a-brac. The enormous antique TV Under different circumstances, this might really bother me. The enormous weight of my need had obviously started to crush my attention to detail.
The only thing I did notice was that the TV was on to a very boring press conference. The point where I had paid attention to anything on the national stage had long since past. That said, I did recognize the current president standing in front of some kind of council. The Psychic and The Chess Player had both eased out of my way as I sat on Ginger’s bed.
“He speaks to me, you know,” Ginger informed me.
“The President?”
“He’s not the President to me. We’re on more familiar terms.”
This was the sort of delusion that the Chess Player had told us about various times. I was incredibly tempted to shatter the illusion for Ginger, but I knew much better. Ginger abruptly got off her bed and shuffled towards the music boxes.
“Would you like to see my music boxes?”
“Of course,” I said, getting up off the bed.
I was now in full blown tactical assault mode. I was willing to play whatever game I needed to in order to get what I needed. The woman picked up a music box that was topped with a schmaltzy looking unicorn. Ginger demonstrated how it was wound up by twisting the Unicorn’s horn in a circle. I couldn’t recognize the tune that spewed out of the tinny speakers. Was there a way to grab her while she showed off the music box?
“May I take a closer look?” I said, reaching out my hand.
This didn’t go over big with Ginger at all. She snatched the music box closer to herself and shook her head violently.
“No, not this one.”
This was the first cue that I would have to play the waiting game. How much patience did I possibly have?
“Okay, well, is there another one you’d like to show me?”
Ginger shifted her attention to another music box; the antique kind that was also supposed to store jewelry. This time the song was instantly recognizable. The unfortunate opening bars of “The Candy Man” hummed out of the machine. I can only imagine how this particular music box was once someone’s pride and joy. That must have been before the lacquer had worn off and the paint had chipped. The picture of a seaside pavilion was still decipherable but far less glamorous than once had been. I was just about to ask if it was a real place when Ginger answered my question.
“I grew up a mile away from that pier. Now I want to tell yourself.”
Ginger drew closer to me as she picked up the box.
“This is where I keep my secrets.”
Ginger came even closer and I began to feel uncomfortable. This was a discomfort that I would have to push past.
“Would you like to hear my secrets?”
“More than anything else in the world.”
Ginger opened up the music box and I saw shreds of paper that had been scrawled on.
“I need to take a closer look,” I said.
This time, Ginger took the bait and met me halfway across the room. Ginger’s hands thrust the box at me and I grabbed her wrist. I could see the shock on her register as I grasped her arm.
“Don’t worry, Ginger, this will be over again…”
The music box feel to the floor and the secrets were scattered around the room.
“Am I dying?” Ginger asked.
I decided to leave that question unanswered as I watched the color began to drain out of Ginger’s face. This is one thing I want to make perfectly clear; I have only killed twice. These were both circumstantial and more or less mutually agreed upon. This wasn’t going to be one of those mercy killings. This was just a routine pit stop for a car that was dangerously close to empty. As I eased Ginger on the floor, I looked around the rest of the room. I also realized that I hadn’t noticed the dresser shoved off into the opposite corner of the room for the TV. The entire thing was covered with some kind of frilly cloth (akin to what they make wedding dresses out of). There was a single picture adjourning the top of the dresser. A young, strikingly beautiful woman in a ball gown and a hat beamed in a black and white picture. I would say that it wouldn’t take a genius to realize that this was Ginger at a younger age. How did she get here? What had led us into the same room?
I picked up Ginger and laid her on the bed. I already felt resolved; something resembling life was coursing through my veins. I felt under my shirt to find “Mr. Blotchy” and discovered the skin to be scaled over. As if by clockwork, there was a knock on the door and the Chess Player peered into the room.
“I take it you’re done?”
“Yeah…”
“Okay, you’ll need to go now.”
The three of us stood out in the parking lot fifteen minutes later.
“Jesus, Pedo,” said the Chess Player “Did you even check her for a pulse?”
“She was breathing, dude…what else do you want?”
“You realize that my job could be at stake?”
I sighed heavily.
“What are you going to say?” I asked.
“She’ll wake up tomorrow. She’ll come into our director with some story about a man in her room. Hopefully, no one will believe her. Paranoid schizophrenic; she’s always seeing and hearing things that aren’t there.”
“What if they believe her?”
“Then I’ll have to disappear again, won’t I, Pedo?”
“Look,” the Psychic said, “We both did you a giant favor tonight.”
“I know,” I said “Thank you. Really.”
The sun had started to come up.
“The other shift worker will be here said,” said the Chess Player.
“This is the last time, right? For all of us,” said the Physic.
“The last time,” I agreed.
“The last time,” agreed the Chess Player.
I thought about asking the Psychic for a ride and then changed my mind. I began to walk off into a bit of a familiar direction. The Chess Player and the Psychic were also heading in opposite directions. There was something that compelled me to turn around.
“I want you both to how little I say crap like this…”
They both turned around.
“I miss you guys…”
The Chess Player grunted his appreciation and the Psychic nodded.
“When everything happened,” I continued “It made me feel terrible.”
“It couldn’t be avoided,” said the Psychic.
“Remember the rulebook?” asked the Chess Player “We’ve not supposed to like each other.”
For a while, however, we did…
3. The “V-Word” or the Rules (Part One)
Logline: This chapter probably has a bit more of what you paid the money for. The dry facts of daily life that are mundane to me and only marginally interesting to you. I will also add that the nice little narrative I had going is about to be sidetracked. We’ll get back to that later…
You might have gathered by this point that my name is not “Pedo.” I have the marginally less desirable name of Oswald F. (I’ve decided at this moment not to disclose my last name, even if it’s far less exciting than “Oswald.”) When you don’t speak to your family for years (as I haven’t), the origins of important details in your life become both obscure and exotic. I realized about a year ago that I have no earthly clue how my parents landed on “Oswald.” The full reality of my given name had never really dawned on me until I stopped using it. I wasn’t ever called Oswald; for most of my growing years I was simply “Os.” “Os” never quite had the solid or damning quality of “Pedo.” I suppose that it never had the value of identity, either.
If you’ve gotten this far, you are probably hooked by the question of my identity. I have gone to great pains to not reveal the full intensity of the truth. I remember one of my high school teachers going to great lengths to convince his class that “mystery was the essence of good storytelling.” My air of mystery has less to do with wanting to be a good storyteller than it does with not wanting to acknowledge reality. I am what most common people would consider a mythological creature. The most misunderstood and widely glamorized creature that lurks in our public consciousness. This is the one and only time I will ever utter that cursed word.
I am a vampire.
This is not what I like to refer to myself as. Most of the shadowy people in my network are fonder of using the euphemism: “The V Word.” There are numerous reasons for this that makes sense when you think about them. Our conversations are instantly coded when we are out in public. (Most people probably look at us and assume that “V is for Virgin” because we are a rather unsightly bunch). I don’t know if the next reason is true for anyone outside of myself. However, I know that the “V Word” carries a wealth of symbolic baggage. I can write you an entire dissertation about what is not true. The best possible way I can think of how to approach this is to start with the smallest misconceptions and move up to the biggest. As I appear to be in a storytelling mood, I will weave some nice little anecdotes into my dissertation.
So…
I HAVE ABSOLUTLEY NO CHARISMA
I have only watched a movie about the “V Word” once in the last fifteen years. This was in what I thought would be in the relative safety of a repertory house. The film was in garish Technicolor and featured a chiseled square jawed man in a cape. The idiot went around for two hours staring at beautiful women until they fell into bed with him. He would stare intently at other men until they followed his exact directions. The filmmakers genuinely wanted the audience to believe that the other characters had no idea the dude was a “V Word.”
We all know how this story ends. One of the not so swift characters catches on, breaks into the crypt, and stabs our man with a wooden stake. I wish I could tell you that this is exactly what I saw and then left the theater in a daze. That’s not exactly what happened. Around the tenth seduction, I started to laugh as modestly as I could. One of the more serious film fanatics cast me a dirty look over his shoulder. The problem was that it was already way too late. Every roll in the sack started to have the spiraling affect of clowns slipping on a banana peel. My quiet snorts eventually escalated into full-blown hysterics before the credit reel. I don’t have much memory of what happened after that. I was forcefully ushered out into the streets and the door was locked behind me.
(I would eventually return to this theater, but that is another story.)
Why the hysteria? I’ve been treated with a mix of ignorance, fear, and just plain dismissal my whole life. This little curse of mine doesn’t come with any special privileges.
I AM PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF GOING OUT IN THE DAYLIGHT
The other standard scene that we have all come to expect follows this logic. The “V Word” can’t go into the glorious, golden world of sunshine. They are suddenly engulfed in flames or wither up into nothingness. I spend most of my time wondering outside aimlessly at the height of the noonday sun. There are a myriad of factors to consider; no transportation, steady unemployment, and abject boredom are among them. I might welcome a complete disintegration into dust at this point. I feel like my boredom has reached near lethal proportions. The most dangerous aspect of my life has nothing to do with stakes, Van Helsings, or the sunlight. I am profoundly bored; so much that I have doubted taking on a project of this nature. The truth of the matter is that I am not that compelling to read about in narrative form. (If you have gotten this far, you might find that point to be contradictory.)
I AM PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF LOOKING IN (AND BEING SEEN) IN A MIRROR
The astute reader will notice that this misconception has already been covered. I just told you the story about finding “Mr. Blotchy.” Still, it dawns on me that you might not be paying attention to another folk tale I need to derail. I can very easily be seen in a mirror. I’m sorry to defeat the entire storytelling device of how to recognize one of us. I’ve seen that scene in the movie where the hero flashes a mirror about the Nosferatu and receives nothing back. What that just for the convenience of the plot? I find it completely ludicrous.
I’ve had fun over the years by standing in front of the mirror and exclaiming loudly: “I can SEE MYSELF.” To be honest, there was a twinge of superstition when I first starting doing this. I had the latent fear that I would some how dissolve into nothingness if I stared at my own reflection. That is when I started doing everything that I could to indulge in this childish fear. I shut the lights in the bathroom off and light candles. I halfway closed my eyes so I could over stimulate my imagination. (Everything you can’t see is twice as frightening, right?) I managed to ratchet my heart rate and breathing up to an unimaginable rate. I had every kind of nightmarish imagination about sudden decomposition imaginable.
Here’s the thing: absolutely nothing happened to me. I was still completely visible in the mirror, had no physical transformation, and was totally fine. I don’t want to mislead my audience by telling them I am indestructible. Actually, my Achilles heel is well developed. The only reason I haven’t gotten to it is because I feel like it deserves its own section.
I DON’T HAVE ANY FANGS
Sadly, I am not able to open my mouth and so you my pearly and spiky whites. The true of my dental health is a rather sad one due to years of neglect. That finally brings to me to my most important point. As I keep you in suspense, I would encourage you to think about this: What is the practical purpose for the fangs we all expect?
I DON’T DRINK BLOOD
This is my final stake in the romantic heart of the “V-Word” myth. I will state this upfront; I think biting someone’s neck and sending them into a near orgasmic coma would be much easier. I will also tell you that vampirism is not a communicable disease. Being in my presence is not about to turn you into a vampire. I can tell you a story about a very needy girl I met once that followed me around for about a year.
Honestly, a better way of stating that would be to say she stalked me. I will give her the unimaginative pseudonym of “Donna.” I will complicate matters by stating (and this is true) that “Donna” preferred to be addressed as “Unicorn.” To this day, I have no idea how she figured out how I was a vampire or why she set her sights on me. I had an associate at the time named “the Lothario” who seemed to me to be the epitome of a male sex bomb. If she were looking for the prototypical vampire experience, wouldn’t she gravitate to him? The only selling point I could probably offer Unicorn was my honesty.
I was inebriated when I met and made the mistake of giving her the skinny on what my life was like. The constant hiding, the fear, long bouts of uncertain loneliness, the intense physical discomfort; look, does this sound like a travel brochure to you? This conversation was before the stalking began. Back when Unicorn was still striking me as adorably aimless and naïve. (This appearance of innocence had even started to appear to my desperate fantasies. I started falling into the “she’ll love me for me” fantasy that everyone likes to entertain. Unicorn/Donna had huge, flashing blue eyes that wore erroneously away at my defenses. That might have been the reason why I never felt afraid of her.
Even after the stalking began, we never had anything but civil conversations. She was about the nicest stalker a guy could have. She was pretty enough, polite, and would even eventually take no for an answer most of the time.
4. The “V-Word” or the Rules (Part Two)
Logline: This is absolutely the “main event” of any self-respecting vampire’s diagnosis.
SO IF I DON’T DRINK BLOOD, WHAT DO I DO?
We had all met each other in what most normal people would call a chat room. The giant difference between our “chat room” and every one else’s was that ours is in a very remote part of the Internet. I don’t want to give you the impression that what were we doing is illegal. Our Internet seclusion wasn’t quite that deep or suspect. That said, our kind enjoys its anonymity when we can find it. Friendship is not big among our set; and I still feel like I would be straining to call these gentleman my “friends.” The common bond is that we happen to be similarly afflicted. Each person has a journey to figure to the point where we figured out what was going on. I was reasonably lucky to have parents who were willing to search for a potential cure. There were others of us who were less lucky. I know that the Psychic spent most of his adult years trying to understand what was wrong.
The journey is probably less important than how it actually feels. Everyone is familiar with the pang of hunger and can find it easily and quickly solved. Most of the people I know stop and have a burger on the side of the road and it’s done. Our hunger is more permanent and potentially deadly. I remember once, after not feeding for a substantial time, I woke up in a state of complete paralysis. The night before had been full of terrible dreams; being lost on an endless beach (more terrifying than sounds), being stuck at the top of a Ferris Wheel, and even rushing full blast towards the edge of a tunnel. Each dream scenario had ended exactly the same way. I could never reach my destination and would wake up covered in sweat. The only thing that saved me that particular time was sitting uncomfortably close to an old lady on the bus.
There are details that I can probably fill in to be a better storyteller. How exactly did I get out of bed? Why exactly did I sit next to that old woman and how did I know she’d let me? That precisely the problem; when I haven’t been able to feed, my memory gets as splotchy as the spot on my neck. The chronology of basic events is jumbled out of anything resembling a linear story line. I often find myself awake and plunging the toilet of my psyche for memories. I know that I have a very vivid memory of leaving home in all its physical detail. I can tell you exactly what the suitcase looked like and how far I walked to the bus station. The irksome thing is, though, I can’t tell you anything else about the events of that day. How soon had that happened after the historical Thing with Mom? Was there any kind of altercation with Dad? Was I thrown out? What did the clothes on my back look like?
I mentioned the chat room at the beginning of this rambling. Still, I can’t tell you exactly how the Disciples decided to meet up. There are a few precious details left in my noggin about my own personal initiation into the club. I’ll spare you the entire gory story by skipping straight to the punch line. I somehow ended up in a near form of undress, covered in about three pints of stage blood, and stumbling drunkenly down our town’s main street proclaiming: “I’m a vampire!” Our fearless leader (the guy I told you about who we will never meet) has a paradoxical philosophy about the V-word. He says that in order to truly accept our unfortunate identity, we should over advertise it. No one will ever believe a raving lunatic who stumbles down the street at 3 a.m. Everything about my condition stands in start contrast to what people think they know. The Fearless Leader highly suggests that we should be camouflaging ourselves behind the veil of insanity.
I know full well how convoluted this logic might sound to you. After drinking half a bottle of whiskey by lonesome, I can tell you that logic was not on my mind that night. I remember waking up on a stranger’s couch, smelling suspiciously of vomit, and having the Chess Player lurking over me. He was laughing and shaking his head as he handed me a glass of water.