So You Might Be a Vampire

by Rodney V. Smith

  Mind you now, the Priest was one hell of a drinker, and if I hadn't been a vampire, I would already have been passed out in the back somewhere. Claude was barely keeping up, but that's because he was cheating.

  “Why do we even celebrate Christmas anyway? We're both atheists?”

  “Habit I suppose,” I answered Claude, but I currently had my eye on a drunk looking chick at the corner table. She had bent over a minute ago, and I swear I had spotted a tattoo on her lower back and a thong. I was currently dying for a close look at the tattoo, but she was there with her boyfriend and a bunch of other people.

  I focused on Claude for a second. “We've been doing it so long with family and friends that it's just part of the holiday.”

  “But that's my point exactly. We shouldn't be celebrating the holiday since neither of us believes in the structure of the organized religion or in the actual existence of god and or gods, plural.”

  “Says the man in the Santa suit. Isn't that a little ironic?” The Priest spoke up then, and he was bemused by us both. His name was Father Davis, and while he wasn't Irish, he certainly drank like he was. He'd mentioned earlier that he'd always wanted to be Irish and lamented the fact that being Irish wasn't like the church where you could just join and convert and voila: you're Irish.

  “Santa is the commercial embodiment of Christmas. He's just a way to make us buy more stuff. There are no religious connotations with Jolly Old St Nicolas... except the whole Saint thing, but that part is just made up.”

  I love Christmas. It's the only time of the year you'll find a Priest arguing with a Santa Claus about the meaning of the season.

  “I think I need another drink...” I said, my eye firmly on the cute blonde who had just gone to the bar. I started to get up, and Claude reached out and whapped me on the nose. I sat down, more in surprise than anything else. I burst out laughing. “What the hell was that for?”

  “Eyes off the blonde.”

  “She's wearing a thong and has a tattoo. I just want a closer look.”

  “Dude, seriously: behave. You're supposed to be trying.”

  “I am trying, but she looks so delicious.”

  Father Davis took a look and shook his head solemnly. “You're an abomination.”

  Claude and I looked at each other, then at Father Davis. “Me or him?” we asked at the same time.

  “You're both abominations.”

  “And we both don't exist eh? There's a mind bender for you.” I was feeling particularly witty and full of myself.

  “I'm going to regret drinking so much in the morning. Look, you're not even real--”

  “Let's be clear about this,” I said. “Are you talking about me or him?”

  “Him. He's not even a real Santa. He's just playing at it. And as for you, I'm just supposed to believe you're a vampire?”

  “Well, you believe in God, so believing in vampires should come very naturally don't you think?”

  “It's not even the same thing!”

  “Why not? One requires an act of faith and the other is supposed to be a complete fabrication, a mythical derivation--”

  “It's Christmas Eve. Why are we having this conversation?”

  I tuned them out at this point and fixed my eyes on the blonde at the bar. It had been at least two weeks since I'd had any blood, and I was finding that it wasn't the blood I was missing. It was similar to when I quit smoking, being that it wasn't the effects of smoking that I'd missed, so much as it was the act of it, the suck and draw, inhale and hold... and then the release. Smoking was something that I did to pass the time, to help me think and when I quit I'd thought it was the hardest thing I'd had to do. Of course, that was before I discovered heroin, or I might never have quit at all. Now I was finding myself going through the same withdrawal symptoms as I did when I was smoking, and it was driving me crazy...

  I was dying to see what the blonde's tattoo was...

  There is no way to describe the intimacy of taking blood, not unless you're hooked on it like I was. The ordinary person reading this wouldn't get it, but those who are vampires can understand completely. The effect that the blood has on us, on me, is like an all body orgasm, going on and on. When we drink the blood, we share an intimacy with the donors and somehow they seem to get it and share in it with us all the while it lasts... It's amazing, and it's giving me a chubby just thinking about it....

  I was willing the blonde to turn around now and notice me, focusing all of my non-psychic powers on her, what you laymen would call “staring”, and maybe I did have some kind of psychic powers after all, because here she was turning now...

  Claude whapped me on the nose again, and I jumped, startled.

  “Quit staring, Dude, or this is the last time I'm taking you out in public.”

  “But--”

  “You're not even trying.”

  “But--”

  “Be a good vampire now and drink your tequila.” Claude filled my glass, and I watched it forlornly, wishing the glass had a tattoo on its back and looked just like the blonde. She was probably back at her table now being all sexy with her seductive tattoo back in hiding for the while. I sighed and picked up my glass.

  “Bottoms up.”

  I downed the whole thing. The alcohol fired up my taste buds like it always did, my synapses firing and fizzling, the alcohol warming me as it went down, giving me a slight buzz and making me wish for the days when I could still get properly drunk without my body messing with my alcohol content. I knew that in twenty minutes I'd just be pissing the alcohol away and then have to start all over again, but in the meantime I was determined to enjoy it while it lasted. It was just one of my so few super-powers, one that nobody had ever wished for as a kid, but as an adult, it was an incredibly useful one when somebody else is paying the tab.

  I miss smoking sometimes you know. It's been years since I last had a cigarette, but the urge is still there sometimes. I just choose not to smoke, and that makes the difference. There are no ex-smokers, just smokers who don't. Smoke, that is. I wondered then if the whole blood thing would be just like that. That it would eventually be a choice to not drink blood and nothing more. That I would still yearn for it on occasion and then just not give in to that desire... It would be fucked up if it was like that. Especially with so many yummy blondes with tattoos on their asses that I was dying to see.

  “You're staring again,” Claude said, and he was right. I snapped myself out of staring at the blonde's ass and looked back to our table which Father Davis was about to slip under.

  “I can't help it dude. If she wasn't such a hottie, it wouldn't be so bad.”

  “So what you're saying is that we need to take you to a bar with ugly chicks, or not take you out at all...”

  I was cautious about this stream of logic. My own logic determined that I should proceed with care. “That's not what I said,” I finally said. I thought about it for a second. “Or is it?”

  “Look dude, we're getting you off of it one way or the other. Just keep remembering that you owe it to yourself. You can be better than your instincts.”

  “I need a support group.”

  I went to the bathroom and while I pissed the alcohol out of my system I wondered if Gina really did know how to show you a good time and if she charged for that. Also, did friends not let friends take ugly people home? And how much dick could Sandy take? And more importantly, why was I reading this crap?

  “You should stop staring at my girl.”

  I zipped up and turned around to find the blonde girl's boyfriend had entered the toilet behind me. He was looking irritated. I just shook my head. I knew what was coming.

  “You're looking for a fight, and you're just psyching yourself up to do it, but ask yourself if it's really worth it dude. It isn't, so chill out.”

  “Don't tell me to chill out man.”

  What an idiot. He obviously wasn't going to take option “A”, which avoided any sort of pain. Option “B” however, did not, and since I h
ad already made the offer of option “A” and had been soundly refused, this was only going one direction...

  When his eyes stopped watering, and he was able to look up at me from his position on the floor, I knelt down in front of him, still keeping my distance.

  “I think we should call this whole thing off. Let it end right here and go home. I personally like to avoid any pain, and I think you do too, but now we're here. Apologize to your girlfriend for me for creeping her out or whatever, but let's just end this right here, right now.”

  Jackass looked up at me, still cradling his balls.

  “Or what?” he wanted to know.

  “There is no 'or what'.”

  I returned to the table, where Claude was paying the bill. Father Davis was barely sober and very happy about it. Claude looked up to me, and I could see the look on his face. He could always smell trouble coming from a mile away.

  “Who hit whom?”

  “He wouldn't take option 'A,'” I said.

  “Which was?”

  “Painless.”

  “Face or stomach?”

  “Groin.”

  “Ow. Dirty.”

  “He wasn't interested in talking.”

  “We should go now.”

  “I'm already halfway out the door.” I’d already grabbed my coat and threw a twenty down onto the table.

  “Don't turn around.” Claude grimaced.

  I froze in my tracks, heart pounding, getting myself ready for anything. “Him?”

  “Her.”

  That was a surprise. Against Claude's advice, I turned around. He was right you know. The blonde was heading right for me, and she looked pissed. I could see Jackass at the table behind her, still holding his balls, so obviously he'd told some kind of lie or at least his own version of the truth. Either way the result was the same and I was now officially labeled as “the bad guy”. Just my luck.

  It was like a vision out of a fantasy that I was making up on the spot, her coming towards me like that, and I could see her carefully delineated neck, just asking for a bite. She was gorgeous, and she was pissed, but she was coming my way, and that was good.

  What wasn't so good was what she had in her hand and in a way it was a bit of fucked up karma coming round the bend to run over my dogma.

  Bitch had pepper spray.

  ***

  I wished that I had never stopped smoking.

  Recovering from addiction to blood would probably have been a lot easier if I'd at least had something to fall back on besides alcohol and trying to beat Claude on whatever Xbox games he'd managed to dig up.

  Christmas went by with no sign of Santa Claus, although Claude insisted on waiting up for the jolly old fat guy. He had a pretty good theory that since vampires weren't supposed to exist while in fact they quite clearly did, then maybe a few other legends weren't quite as legendary as we had thought. Christmas was coming, and Santa had made Claude's hit list.

  “I think Santa is a vampire,” he'd announced on Christmas Eve. I barely looked up from the counter as I finished wrapping up a small gift for Sammy. She was coming in just to pick up the gift and drink Eggnog with me and Claude, and was going to be there any minute.

  “Okay, I bite. Why do you think Santa is a vampire?”

  “Well, he lives at the North Pole, right? That's like famous for its lack of sunshine. Hell some times of the year there is no sun at all, so it's the perfect place for a vampire to live. “

  “What about the other times of the year when the sun is out for 24 hours? What does he do then? Move to Florida?”

  “I hadn't given that much thought. I'm still building on this theory, so stop poking holes in it before I'm done. But yeah... Florida sounds nice.”

  “Fine. Why else do you think Santa is a vampire?”

  “Well, this whole discussion is probably moot, since we have no empirical evidence of Santa. I mean besides little kids thinking that their gifts are from Santa and then figuring out the truth later, but apart from that, nada, zero, zip.”

  “Then why are we even having this discussion?”

  “Because if the fat man exists, then he's something else entirely. I'm thinking vampire.”

  “Maybe a fat drunken Russian in a sweatshop somewhere?”

  We went on like this for a while. It had been like this for the past few weeks with Claude determined to get me back on the path of the narrow and crooked, and it was killing me.

  He had managed to win his case by somehow emerging as the victim of a brutal police state (despite the fact the car was stolen from the house he had just robbed, and had a few valuable items in the back, and he had led the cops on a three hour long car chase), so dude had a lot of spare time on his hands.

  Lucky me.

  Sammy had been thrilled when Claude started to come to work with me, mainly to keep an eye on me. The boss didn't care, as long as we didn't steal from him, and the customers didn't know any different. As long as they got their porn, and abuse from Sammy, they were happy.

  “It's at around this time of year that I really wish I hadn't screwed things up with Jaime you know.”

  “She's a good Catholic girl dude. It wouldn't have worked anyway.”

  “Maybe. But I still wish I hadn't fucked it up like I did.”

  “Shut up and drink your rum-nog.”

  Sammy showed up, and we had our little Christmas party in the store. I tried to enjoy it as much as I could, even while I was jonesing for just a little drop of blood that would have been way too much. There were no Christmas miracles, and nobody tried to kill me, not even Santa Claus.

  ***

  Later when we got back to my new place which Claude had leased for me, I sat and watched the sun almost come up and stared into my egg-nog which Claude had christened “rum-nog” since it contained more Barbados rum than anything else, and I thought to myself that things weren't so bad, and got a little comfort from the fact that I had my friend to help me through this rough patch. All things considered it could have been much, much worse. I could be Daemien for instance.

  I finished my drink and went back inside before the sun got all the way up. Claude was playing some new game on the Xbox system he had brought over, and I settled into the couch to watch for a while. Sammy had come back with us and had passed out on the other side of the couch, leaning against Claude. We'd found out that she wasn't able to fly out to see her family in Virginia and had invited her back to hang out with us. She'd jumped on the offer while I was thinking of how to mention to her not to open the curtains.

  “Think she knows?”

  “Who knows what?” Claude wanted to know. He remembered Sammy and looked at her next to him. “Sammy? What is she supposed to know again?”

  “That I'm a bloodsucking bastard.”

  “You going to bite her?”

  “I don't bite people you know-“

  “Yeah, I know. You told me about the knife thing, but the principle is the same. Plus it sounds better to say biting than 'cutting people and sucking their blood'. Shorter too.”

  “No I'm not gonna bite her.”

  “Why would you bite me?” Sammy didn't even open her eyes. She just readjusted her position on the couch and snuggled into Claude’s arm.

  I froze and stared at Claude. He just shrugged and continued to play his game.

  “Sorry dude, I got nothing.”

  Sammy opened her eyes then and smiled tiredly at me.

  “I already know you're a vampire, so chill the fuck out man. As long as you don't go around trying to suck on my blood, then we can still be friends.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now shut up and let me go to sleep.”

  “She loves you dude.”

  “Merry Christmas. Now fuck off.” With that, Sammy pulled the blanket over her head.

  I went to bed feeling much better about myself than I had in months.

  Merry fucking Christmas to me.

  ***

  The next three months were pure hell. />
  END OF INTERLUDE

  -3-

  DEATH IS THE OTHER BLUE

  Hello me ...

  Meet the real me

  And my misfit’s way of life

  A dark, black past is my

  Most valued possession

  Hindsight is always 20-20

  But looking back, it's still a bit fuzzy

  Speak of mutually assured destruction?

  Nice story ... Tell it to Reader's Digest

  -Megadeth, Sweating Bullets

  -3-

  DEATH IS THE OTHER BLUE

  That which doesn't kill you just hurts like a sonofabitch. True story, I swear.

  Sobriety sucks. I just want you to know that. If anything, the first month when I really started to get over the habit, I was just grumpy as hell. My life had gone straight into the toilet, but it was a toilet where someone had left a floater and hadn't bothered to flush. So you can imagine the state that I was in. Not for the first time I wished that I had at least not stopped smoking. Just so I could at least have something to suck on.

  Now you can call it an oral fixation, you can call it oral masturbation, or you can call it Doris if you want. I don't care what you call it. You can call it whatever the hell you wanted, and you'd still be wrong because you wouldn't be calling it by its true name.

  Life sucked, and it was sucking at the speed of sound.