by Titus, Rose
“Hi.” What now?
“I don’t know why I came back. I really don’t. But you look like you’re going out.” She quickly turned to leave.
“No!” Don’t go. Be somewhere close so I can watch you and make sure you don’t… “You came right on time.” He searched his mind for any excuse.
“What?”
He thought a moment. “Right on time for your first lesson in laundry!”
At first she seemed confused, and then said, “Yes, you’re right. That’s one of the many things I can’t seem to figure out how to do right.” And she meant it. So far most of her expensive fine clothes were destroyed, shrunken or faded from her experiments.
“Well, come on then,” and he turned to gather a laundry basket and detergent.
She watched as he recklessly tossed all different colors and shades in together; he did not measure the soap powder, or seem to care if it was too much. He simply put the coins in the machine, shut the lid, and clicked the dial.
“That’s it?” she was confused, “I mean, aren’t you supposed to measure the soap, exactly, or something? And separate the colors from the white things? I saw all that on a TV commercial.”
“Naw. You’re supposed to sit in the plastic orange chairs they put in this place, the kind of ugly and uncomfortable chairs they have in all laundromats all over America, as is traditional, and then you watch the clothes go around and around and around in the big machine,” God lady, don’t take laundry so seriously.
“What?”
“Yeah, ’cause it takes your mind off stuff.”
“I thought you were going to teach me how to do my laundry correctly.”
“I am. So sit down.”
She sat beside him and sighed, “I’m twenty four and I can’t drive and I can’t cook and I can’t...”
Rick struggled to tune her out. No, but you can shut up, lady. It was no use.
“I mean, there are women who are sixteen who are married with children who run a household and hold jobs and can make things and balance budgets and fix things and cook and sew. Of course, I don’t know any of them, I don’t know anybody outside of who I grew up around, like the nanny and the maid and the girls at the private boarding schools I attended. I read all this in my sociology class in college.”
The vagrant sitting on the floor in the corner was gawking at them both, probably wondering why laundry was of such great importance to her. Rick gazed back at him, and noticed that his clothes smelled of pot and dried urine and liquor.
“I went back to the zoo again. But I didn’t try to do it this time. I thought about you. And then I couldn’t do it, again. I don’t know why.”
“That’s good. Don’t want you to be kitty food.”
“So? What do we do now? Just watch?”
“You are supposed to grab some of those dumb scandal papers that are all over the desk and read about the sex lives of all the movie stars. It makes the fabric shrink less.”
“What?”
“Watching the machine spin for longer than ten minutes will cause fading of the bright colors also.”
She grew confused and tensely silent.
“And,” he continued in his usual quiet soft monotone, “if you watch it spin less than five minutes, your socks could be lost. That’s what happens, you know, that’s why so many socks are missing in this world. If you don’t stare into the machine at least five to seven minutes it causes your socks to be flushed into the sewer system, and possibly eaten by the twenty foot long crocodiles that dwell below; or if not eaten, they might work their way into the ocean, eventually flowing in the direction of the fabled Bermuda Triangle.”
She finally realized he wasn’t serious. “God, I never knew a vampire could have a sense of humor.”
The vagrant did not change his expression, or seem to care. Instead Rick saw that he now seemed to be watching the scantily dressed blonde at the cashier desk as she yapped on the phone with someone called Trudy.
The girl at the desk giggled constantly as she talked on the phone; the vagrant appeared to be looking her over. She wore a halter top and tight shorts, with red spike heels, even though the night was too cool for such clothes.
She said it.
Rick suddenly realized it. And he snapped back into the cold reality.
Oh God, she said it. Thanks, Laura.
But it didn’t matter. No one important was nearby. Only the vagrant.
But vagrants can talk.
“You mind not shouting that, please, Laura?”
“I didn’t say it that loud, did I? Oh God, you’re right. What did I say? I really cannot do anything right.”
“Never mind. It’s okay. I don’t care. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what? Socks and alligators?”
“I dunno.”
“Talk to me, Rick. Keep my mind off stuff.”
“Yeah? What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know, anything.”
“Okay. Let’s see. Put new sparkplugs in my Catalina the night before you dropped in on me, greased it and changed the oil and filter. Then I went inside and back upstairs to watch a talk show about a woman who said she had been abducted by aliens from a place called Gamma Six. She said they implanted a fetus into her uterus, and when he was born he would grow up to be a galactic hero who would save the universe. Then I went out for a drink and saw some friends.”
“You went out for a—”
“Yeah. And saw some friends.”
The vagrant was watching them again.
“What’s it like?”
“What?”
“Does it taste okay?”
“Damn good. But, that’s just my opinion. I’m sure it’s not really for everybody.”
“I like herbal tea myself.”
“Uh-huh.” She definitely seemed like an herbal tea type of person. Herbal tea and biscuits.
“I think I’m glad you didn’t kill me the other night, Rick. I mean, that was dumb of me. But I’m so depressed all the time.”
“It’s okay, Laura. You can throw yourself at me anytime. It doesn’t bother me.”
She laughed slightly, very quietly, then stopped, and became serious again.
“I knew you could smile if I kept trying.”
“You’re such a nice guy. I mean, you’re not like what I thought you would be like.”
The vagrant was listening intently; with one eye half open he pretended to sleep.
“What did you expect? Bela Lugosi digging himself up to crawl out and look for an easy breakfast?”
“No. I don’t know. Well, you know, you don’t exactly dress the part.”
“Yeah, like, they issue us each a cape when we check in at the head office every night.”
“I just thought you would make it be over, painlessly, I hoped. I mean, it sounds easy, to go like that, but I don’t know. Is it?”
“Wouldn’t know myself. That’s just another myth. I’m not really dead.”
“Maybe I am.”
He didn’t reply or comment. Maybe she was dead. He listened: the girl at the desk was still gossiping on the phone, oblivious. And the vagrant? Who cares about him? He’s probably a dope head anyhow. In the morning he’ll think he imagined it all.
“Rick, keep talking to me. Just make me forget my horrible life.”
“Okay. So, like, how did you find out?”
“I saw things, in the alley way. Glass bottles fell off a truck and there was a big red puddle on the pavement, spilled all over. I saw other things too.”
“If you’re quiet about it, we won’t care. We won’t do anything, okay? Just stay out of the alley from now on.”
“Okay,” she sighed. There was no reason to watch the alley anymore. They refused to kill her, what use were they now? “Tell me about yourself, Rick. If you don’t mind.”
“Not much to tell. I’m really very dull.”
“Are you hundreds of centuries old?”
“No. Just s
eventy two.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Why?”
“Well, you only look twenty five or something. Most guys your age are, well, you know, old, and gray, losing hair, out of shape,” and she saw that Rick was in fine shape. She would not say so, but she enjoyed looking at him. His flesh was all evenly milky pale, his eyes were dark and strong.
“Oh well, it keeps me from getting a senior citizen’s discount.”
She smiled again, repressed a laugh. “Tell me more.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m bored, that’s why.”
“I really am not very interesting. I paint and sell my work, socialize with a few others like myself in town. That’s it. I’m dull.”
The vagrant in the corner shifted his position, moved closer against the wall, pulled the collar of his faded and worn denim jacket up as if to keep his neck warm.
“There must be something you can tell me that’s not dull.”
“Once upon a time there was a spoiled princess.”
“Oh stop it.”
“It’s a true story, you know.”
“I am not spoiled,” she whined.
“That’s still up for debate. But she certainly was.”
“Then it’s not about me?”
“No. This all happened in the year 1100 or so, in the Dark Ages.”
“Oh, a fairy tale, then,” her usually dull voice almost sounded mildly enthusiastic.
“No fairies in this story. And it’s all true.”
“If you’re not that ancient, then how would you know?”
“Because the story has been passed on through the centuries, only we remember it. It’s not in your history books.”
“Sounds almost intriguing.”
“This was in the Dark Ages.” He would tell it to keep her quiet. “Now, it wasn’t called that because they had no electricity, but because life really sucked then. Times were real tough. The economy was bad, and there were no jobs. Politics were corrupt, and the people who were the leaders just cared about fooling the people to keep them quiet and filling their own pockets. And disease and famine were everywhere, there was hunger, homelessness, and plagues. It was terrible. Life really sucked.”
The vagrant stirred, shifted in his pretended sleep.
“Lots of people were homeless. And there were wars all the time. The streets at night were filled with hooligans and armed bandits. Very few people could read well enough to spell out their own names.”
“Sounds like things don’t change much,” her voice was barely audible, she stared down at the floor and became stiffly silent again.
“So, anyway, people lived in mud huts, and dressed in ragged clothing, and stole chickens to survive. It wasn’t like King Arthur and his glorious Knights of the Round Table, like how you see on TV with pretty damsels in long dresses and everyone else on a white horse and all covered in shining armor, living happily in a castle, forever after, and so on. Basically, life sucked. Then they all just died, and usually they did that by age twenty nine. And so, back then, if you lived to be like two hundred fifty, that was considered magical, or something like that.”
“Dying at twenty nine sounds fine to me, but then I might have to wait a few years,” she mumbled.
“And, so anyway, there was this village.”
“And they all were miserable, then they died.”
“I’m telling this, okay?” he got up to toss his things into the dryer. “Now, these people in the village weren’t starving like most poor idiots, because,” he went to the change machine to get quarters, then put them in the machine to start it. “Very important, remember now, watch the socks.”
“Because why?” she demanded. She was finally interested in hearing about something besides her own problems.
“Because, they were all getting free food, leftovers, specifically venison, after the hunter was done with it. He would hunt in the moonlight, shoot a deer with a bow, drain it, use the blood, he had no need for the meat. There were not many of his kind nearby, only a few. Some of the local people were used to them, and had no problem with his being there. Not until...”
“What happened to the princess?”
“I’ll get to it, okay. Oh cripes. I forgot the fabric softener.”
Martin carried a single bag of groceries up the stairs to his apartment. He tried to hurry up the stairs, he did not want to run into her. She usually left for work at the time he returned home.
But there she was. He looked up; she was at the top of the stairs, looking down on him, ready to descend.
He kept going; he would try to ignore her.
But he couldn’t.
She brushed by as she quietly passed. “Wait,” he said, and he stopped when he reached the top. “Wait a minute. Is it okay if we talk?”
“I don’t have much time,” and she kept going.
“Alexandra, wait a minute. Look. I spoke to your brother the other night. Surely someone must be able to tell me something.”
“We have nothing to do with it!”
“Look,” he tried again.
“He saved your life, and this is how you treat him? We know nothing! And if we did, we wouldn’t tell you. Because people like you have no respect!” She stalked down the stairs, swiftly getting away from him.
“Why did you not finish your story?” she demanded as she began to walk away from the Chinese takeout window.
He paid for it, even though she had money, and she was surprised. “Because,” he began, “the teenage girl without any clothes on got off the phone and would hear what I was saying, that’s why. Now, the derelict, who would listen to him?”
They got into his Pontiac and headed down the crowded street back to the art gallery. “But you didn’t finish the part about the spoiled princess.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got to leave you hanging. It gets you to worry about something else besides the right way to do laundry.” And killing yourself.
But he couldn’t say that.
“Well?”
He guided the long convertible into the small yard behind the old Victorian house that served as both his home and art gallery. She followed him up the back steps, carrying her food, and into the total darkness of his home.
“Can I see some of your paintings some time?”
“Sure. Some time.” He paused to turn on a light for her as she entered.
“You can see in the dark, can’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered simply, as if it were nothing.
She watched as he went into his small kitchen. “You mind if I eat?”
“No.”
And so she sat down on his living room couch and began to eat with the plastic fork that came in the package. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah. So am I.”
“What?”
“Why do they always jump when we say that?” the bell on the microwave dinged and he came back into the living room with a large mug in his hand.
She stared at him as he took a sip. He picked up the newspaper that was on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Holy shit, Laura. Look at this. A homeless guy was butchered in an alley just a couple of blocks from here. Beaten to death. Neighborhood has just gone to hell.”
She continued to eat her egg roll.
“No suspects either. Jesus, some nut is on the loose in this neighborhood. Pretty damn scary.”
She swallowed quickly to avoid talking with food in her mouth. “It isn’t me, because I’m just a coward and I’m not even brave enough even to commit suicide without any help, and it can’t be you, because you won’t even kill me.”
He glared at her and answered back sarcastically. “Yeah, I know. I’m really useless,” and he took another sip from the mug he was holding.
“That is from an animal, right?” She kept eating and did not really care where it came from.
“Well, the neighbor’s kids were always stealing my hubcaps, so... Yes, of course it’s from an animal. Don’t worry.”
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br /> “I don’t care,” she insisted. “I mean, I really don’t.” She daintily wiped her mouth with her napkin. “It’s rather interesting, really.”
He continued to read the newspaper, struggling to ignore her, trying to gently shut her out.
He discovered that babysitting would not exactly be stress free after all. But what would the consequences be if he didn’t watch over her? She was intelligent, well educated, but extremely lost and alone. He could suggest that she see a psychiatrist, but when he was young he heard of how they treated patients with shock treatment and lobotomy, and wasn’t sure if the profession had evolved much over the decades.
“Can’t you tell me what happened?”
“Hmm?”
“The princess? You said you would tell me about the princess?”
“Oh.” What a pain in the— “Well, the feudal overlord,” he continued, “who was really a wealthy thug, as were most of them back then, found that someone was poaching his deer. And so he sent soldiers to harass the people in the village to find out who was taking the deer.”
Martin went in through the front door. If he did otherwise he would be swiftly removed. He knew that.
He looked around; the music was so intense it shot right through him and shook the floor as he walked on it. The lights—pink, purple, red, neon blue, flashed all around, pulsating with the overpowering music. He was surrounded: men with long purple hair, three inch black nails, some had rings in their noses, in their lips; women with shaved heads and only leather scraps and fishnets for clothing. On the dance floor they writhed and slithered like serpents.
With his clothes—jeans, T-shirt, old brown corduroy jacket—it was sickeningly obvious that he was a cop. Probably a dumb one, too.
But he needed to find Leon. He could get him in, maybe.
Leon was at the bar, where he usually was. Martin saw him through the dance club’s semi-darkness. He needed to get across the floor to see him, work his way through the crowd. It sounded easy enough, but he didn’t know which people were which. He did not know which people were simply just weird ugly punkers, and which just might be one of Them. Most likely the majority of the people on the dance floor were just freaks, and not vampires, he guessed. Probably because he remembered once hearing that vampires didn’t like loud music. He made his way carefully.