The first of my rented friends showed up, a gorgeous blonde with expensive jewelry. I winked at her, but she was fully into the role and ignored me.
“I'll miss you--”
“Bob,” I hissed at her.
“--Bob, so very much.”
And then she was gone, replaced by two of the guys who were sobbing inconsolably. This went on for about a full minute, probably because Vera was directing everyone from out of sight somewhere, and the rented friends were gone. The last one kissed me, smelling of some expensive perfume and slipped me her number, so it wasn't all bad and almost made up for the weirdness of the whole situation.
The priest was a bit of a surprise. He was a vampire, the last thing I would have expected, and just winked at me and grinned.
It was the shortest ceremony I had ever been through.
“You were dead, now you're not, be blessed under God, ashes to ashes, dust to dust and welcome back.” He held out a hand. “Need a hand outta there son?”
I took his hand and pulled myself out of the coffin. As I did, I noticed Vera looking very sad and crying, actually crying, as if this was all for real, and my heart went out to her. The rented friends were already filing out, and the cute brunette waved to me as she went out the door. I made a note definitely to call her later.
“Thank you father,” I said and he smiled at me.
Vera came over and slipped her arm through mine and once again I was in love as she leaned into me, her smell wafting over me. It was instant woody time all over again. Damn she was sexy.
“Thank you father,” she sobbed. “That was a lovely service.” Vera started to guide me away, and I waved to the priest as she swept me away again down a different set of corridors.
“That was not so bad,” I said and she smiled.
“Oh, course not. It's a very healing ceremony, an acceptance of our lives after death, despite death in our cases and it allows us understand our very place in the world. We're vampires, and we should be proud to honor that.”
We'd reached a door now, and I was guided outside, feeling thankful for having met this wonderfully sexy woman.
“I can never repay you for this Vera.”
She smiled, total benevolence and I wanted to jump her bones right there and then.
“Don't be silly Robert. Of course, you can. Here's your bill.”
The door slammed very solidly in my face.
***
“Where in the hell am I going to come up with twelve thousand dollars?”
Harry just looked at me and shook his head.
“See now, there's a reason we just don't allow anyone at all to become one of us. We prefer the trust fund babies, that way they're pretty much set for life. Dying is an expensive proposition you see, and Vera simply provides a service. You took full advantage of that service, and now you have to pay for that service.”
“I can't even pay for rent and you're asking me to pay for twelve thousand dollars for overpriced shit?”
“I'm not asking you anything Bobby. In fact, I don't even know why you're even here in my office yelling at me, apart from the fact that Vera requested that I talk to you. As it was, you made it extremely difficult to locate you.”
I had no idea what Harry was talking about. Any pervert on the street knew exactly where to find me, down at the porn shop on the late night shifts. Apparently looking for me at work was so obvious it had been overlooked.
Vern had shown up and thrown me rather bodily off the property because I was “giving the mistress a headache, what with all the banging at the windows and the like."
Vera had been kind enough to call a cab for me, and it was waiting for me at the gate, so getting to work was the easy part. The cab had already been paid for, and no doubt added to my already exorbitant bills, but in for a penny, might as well take the whole damn pound. I had time on the ride over there to concoct the wildest story with six foot ferrets and Mack trucks, but when I walked in, the boss just gave me a look and the story kind of went away.
“Just shut up and get behind the counter.”
“Don't you wanna hear my story? It's a really good one.”
“Does it have big titties, beaches and hot young things ready to do the nasty with me?”
“Well no...”
“Then I don't wanna hear it. Get behind the counter. I'm taking off for a week like I own the fucking place. You're working twelve-hour shifts for the next two weeks, all through the fucking night.”
He left me to try to figure out what the hell I was going to do.
A very large and mostly silent man showed up around midnight and just stared at me through the front window. I got the feeling he was waiting for me. It may have been the fact that his eyes glowed in the dark like a cat's eyes that tipped me off that he might be a vampire. I stared right back at him for a while, but he won, so I eventually just piled a bunch of stuff in front of me on the counter so I wouldn't have to look at him.
I was still marveling at the huge bill Vera had given to me by the time Sammy came to work. It was an itemized bill and gave me a headache even to look at it. I had been billed for my three days use of the “Recovery Module” as well as for cable access during my three days inside. I think it was the listing for “Anal Assventures with Mandy Lovegood Volume Seven” that pissed me off. Apparently they had pay-per-view, and I had been billed for something I hadn't watched. Why would they even have porn in there anyway? Was there even room to masturbate in there, and if there was, then that was just totally gross.
My rental friends had cost $300 a piece for a half hour's work. Some friends they were. I threw out the card that one chick had given me. Then I retrieved it and burned it without reading what she had written on the back of it. That would teach her to cost me $300!
“I heard you were dead,” Sammy said as she came in, looking over her shoulder at the vampire outside.
“Whoever told you that is a fucking liar. Is that dude still there? He's been there all night.”
“You mean Lurch? Yeah, he's still there.” She looked again and nodded. “I dropped by your place yesterday since you weren't picking up your phone. Some dude said you got shot by a dealer three nights ago. What the fuck dude? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine. You missed the funeral though.”
“How was it?”
“Expensive.”
“I swear when I die, just cremate me and put my ashes in a ziplock container and throw it onto the first garbage truck you see. The price of a burial urn these days is horrible.”
“You got it.”
“So you going to tell me what the hell's going on with you or not?”
I could never tell when Sammy was being genuine or not, no matter how many times I tried to find out. She turned the sweetness off and on so quickly that there never was a chance to read her. This time she actually looked concerned, maybe even a little scared for me, and that was an entirely new emotion for her.
I considered telling her that I'd just been shot in the head three days ago and had just been to my own funeral as a guest of honor, and while I was still trying to deal with that, I'd been hit with an enormous bill and was now freaking the hell out. Oh and, by the way, there was now an oversized evolutionary throwback lurking outside the store, possibly waiting to pound me to a pulp.
I snuck a peek and Sammy glared at me.
“Yes he's still there. Now you going to talk to me or not?”
“It's nothing, really. I just owe some people some money.”
“This whole thing is about money? That's what Encino Man is out there about?” She took another look and grimaced, impressed. “Must be a lot.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You take a look at his coat and his shoes? How much you owe and why?”
“It's crap, total extortion.”
Apparently someone hadn't agreed with me. The big Gorilla just grabbed me when I got off of work and dragged me up to Harry’s office.
“What am
I going to do with you Bobby? You're a complete fuck up. You're not even good vampire material.” Harry honestly looked sad at this.
“So you gonna break my kneecaps or not?”
“No Bobby. I'm not in the kneecap breaking business.”
That was a relief. I felt like I'd managed to dodge a rather sizable bullet there and let out a sigh of relief. That relief was short lived and effectively murdered when Harry reached for the phone.
“But I know a couple of guys who do a great job with kneecaps. They're offering a deal right now, two for one kind of deal.”
“Could we not go through any bodily harm right now? I just got back from the dead, and I'd like at least to have a chance for that to fuck me in the head, before somebody else comes to apply additional pain. Gimme a night alone in my own head and I can assure you that I'd do more damage to me than any kneecap professional can do.”
Harry and I both drank in those words for a moment. Damn I get loquacious when I'm desperate. Harry looked a tiny bit impressed at this display.
“You’re still full of shit, you know that, don't you?”
“It's a habit. I'm a shameless recidivist.”
Harry laughed genially and put his arm around my shoulder, a little too friendly for me. What was it with sharks hunting me out recently? Did they all smell chum and head directly for me, do not pass go, collect all of the money that I do not have? I just rolled my eyes and went with it. Maybe I would bruise less if I didn't resist.
Harry put his arm around my neck and pulled me into a headlock under his gigantic armpit.
“We’ll figure out some arrangement with Madame Vera, and it won’t hurt you too much. You’ll just have to do some off the books work for me is all.”
I was suspicious. “Off the books sounds highly illegal, and possibly dangerous.”
“But Bobby, you’re not going to say no… so does it even matter?”
He had a point there. I accepted defeat, and he just patted me on the shoulder rather magnanimously.
“Tell me something Bobby: have you had a taste of blood yet?”
***
While being full of shit was one of my better qualities, it was also one that got me into the one place that I never wanted to go. If I had known now what I had known then, I would have at least put up some kind of token resistance.
As it was, it was my first trip to the club, and I got swept up in the bonhomie of the night. Being escorted as a guest if not a prisoner of Harry's made it even more surreal, since as soon as we got out of Harry's town car, we were treated like celebrities. Or at least Harry was. Everyone knew who Harry was; from the huge bouncers at the door, to the people stumbling out of the club, since it was around 4:30 AM by this point, they all knew Harry. Drunk or not they all knew Harry.
“How do all these people know you?”
Harry just puffed on his cigar and looked at me long and hard. He gestured to a nearby Bouncer.
“Otis. Tell Numbnuts here why these people all know me.”
Otis sneered at me like I was a total dumbass. “They know him 'cuz he's fucking Harry.”
“I'm fucking Harry.”
It was out of my mouth before I would even think to hold it back, and as we all know, once loose, it can't be taken back.
“Who're you fucking again?”
Harry didn't hesitate. He reared back and punched my lights out.
***
There was a huge, expensive steak on my eye, and I was seriously considering having it grilled for breakfast. The steak was still in a Ziplock bag, and since it was now on my eye, helping tremendously with the swelling, I considered that it was now my steak. Harry had vanished into one of the back rooms and had left me in Otis' tender loving care. Poor Otis had been appointed my personal handler for the rest of the night and was now watching me.
“Yo, that was a good one though. Nice smartass move. Nobody has the guts to do that.”
“News for you Otis: neither do I. I'm a coward by nature.”
“Must have been worth it though.”
I considered my eye and how my day had been so far. I shook my head no.
“I can't quite have the same enthusiasm for it as I used to. Harry packs one hell of a punch.”
“Well, he is fucking Harry.”
Otis tried to hold it and cracked up. After a minute, I began to crack up too. It was pretty funny after all, despite Harry's reaction, or maybe because of Harry's reaction. So we just sat there laughing in the middle of the biggest club in the city, while the staff cleaned up around us, and late night partiers straggled out in singles, pairs and groups.
It was the first time I'd seen so many vampires in one place, apart from Harry's office. It was also the first time I really began to understand exactly how many of us there were and that I didn't really have to feel so alone anymore. Out there, were other people who were going through exactly what I was going through every day. They were waking up to the existence of anther day without the sun, but privy to the absolute beauty of the sky after sunsets. They all understood and appreciated it as much as I did because we were looking with identical eyes, or at least from an identical place. They all got the fact that we were all different, that we'd been remade better and maybe even just a little more slightly insane than normal human beings.
If I were a wolf, I would have gotten to my feet and howled, imploring them all to join the howl and reinforce that simple fact that here we all were and dammit, we are not alone. But I didn't of course. I would have just looked like a fucking idiot, and nobody would have joined in.
Besides, some smart-ass other than me would probably have chimed in that “Lycanthropes aren't allowed in this bar,” and then I would have really been up shit creek and paddling desperately with both hands, fuck the paddles.
See, while I could appreciate the fact that I wasn't alone anymore, I could see the fallacy in that belief, the total lie that would unravel it before me like the poorly spun web that it was. There were subtle little clues hidden here and there with the other vampires that I could immediately spot. Things like a diamond here, a designer label there, a haughty rich girl glare over there and maybe even a Mercedes Key Tag on every single one of their fucking keys. What the hell? Were vampires sponsored by Mercedes Benz, or did they just own a shitload of stock in it?
The plain fact was that they all seemed to be fucking rich and for once, Harry's point about Trust Fund kiddies was hitting home. Even Vera's extortionist fees were beginning to make sense in a really fucked up way. Being a vampire was something that only very rich people could afford and if you weren't rich, then a big fuck you was coming your way very, very fast.
I looked down at myself, at the very expensive suit that Vera had provided and billed me for ever so discreetly, and wondered how long I could fool them all. How long could I fake being one of them? How long before Harry exposed me for what I was?
“Don't look so glum man. It ain't all that bad.”
“You know I don't have the first clue about what I am.”
“You're a vampire man. That's all you need to know.”
“But what does that mean? What does it really mean when you get down to it? Does it mean anything at all?”
“It means that you my friend are one of us. What else do you need?”
“Do we live forever?”
“Nobody lives forever. Some of us just last longer than others is all.”
“I don't know any of this. I don't know how to be a good vampire, and I'm afraid of just fucking it up. I fuck everything up. I always just fuck everything up, and I can't stop myself.”
“Sounds like you need to be talking to your mentor, man.”
“I can't. She's dead. She's dead, and it's all my fault...”
Otis was looking more than a little uncomfortable at this point. I had developed a thousand-yard stare now and was looking into a deep spiraling pit of despair that only I could see, and I almost welcomed it. I wanted to dive in headfirst and just lose myself for a
while.
Harry may have returned then. I know I heard his voice, but I wasn't paying much attention. Hands, female hands, ran through my hair, and I may have looked up to see the lips of a gorgeous redhead with tattoos, running her hands through my hair and smiling down at me.
It must have been a dream because I don't remember much after that.
What I do remember is that someone handed her a knife, and she cut herself on the arm. I watched as the blood began to pour, wanting to ask her why she'd done that... but then the smell hit me, and I knew everything that I needed to know.
When she pressed the wound to my lips, I sucked willingly.
It hit my veins and it was sweet and rich and heady, and it filled me with absolute euphoria, spreading through my body slowly and instantly. It was just like heroin, but so much better. Oh, so much better...
It's in the name you know. It's all in the name of the beast, and I am the beast.
We suck blood because we are vampires.
We drink blood.
We share the blood.
We are the blood.
Drink deeply and know your name...
I know my name now, and it is oblivion.
***
What is the point that you know you are completely lost? Did I even know what that point was anymore? Could I recognize it in myself if I saw it?
I looked up at Frankie and Ben, and I knew from the identical looks on their faces that I was blinding myself to the absolute truth, and they wanted to tell me. For the first time, I could see it in their faces, and I wondered how I had missed it all along. Maybe it was because I had wanted to miss it, to not see it in them.
They were addicts just like me, and they were afraid what it was doing to them.
Or something like that. I'm only good at reading people sometimes. Other times I'm just dead wrong.
“So about this support group thing...”
Ben looked suspicious.
“Yeah? What about it?”
I plunged in head first. No going back now.
So You Might Be a Vampire Page 14