Suck It Up

by Brian Meehl

  After returning to her apartment, Penny pulled all the curtains and posted Morning in the living room in front of the TV. She told him to call her when Drake broadcast his story and then retreated to her home office to brainstorm a new PR plan.

  Morning popped a Blood Lite and drained it. The mist CD had wiped him out. He opened a second can and nursed it as he watched the afternoon soaps.

  Shortly after four, Hound TV interrupted The Bitches of Brunch and aired Drake’s story.

  Morning called Penny out of her office. They watched the interview on the stoop, the taunting Mallozzis, the moment Morning seemed to disappear, him floating over the twins, then returning to human form and falling on them. The story cut to Drake standing on the sidewalk, looking solemn. “What this reporter and more than a dozen people just witnessed was the first vampire to come out of the casket.”

  As Drake began interviewing a wild-eyed onlooker, Morning glanced up at Penny. “What happens next?”

  “We wait for the spin.”

  “The spin? What do you mean?”

  “Did you literally ‘come out of a casket’?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “See, Drake’s already got the story wrong. Now it’s everyone else’s turn to do the same. That’s spin. After they’ve all gotten the story ass-backward, we’ll set it straight.”

  Penny was right. Over the next two hours, the story of a missing orphan turning into a misting vampire kept shape-shifting in the fog of news.

  During the five o’clock news, the local stations each twisted the “vampire story” in their own way. WABC reported it was a hoax concocted by special effects wizards at Hound TV. WNBC claimed it was a publicity stunt by an unknown magician making a grab for fame and fortune. And WCBS, after discovering that the street where it took place had been sealed off by the police, turned it into a story about freedom of the press and America’s slide toward authoritarian rule.

  The truth behind the WCBS story was less dramatic. Sister Flora had called in her markers at the local police station, and had the media circus in front of St. Giles swept off the street.

  By six o’clock, about the only person in the city who had not heard a version of the vampire story exited a viewing booth in the Paley Center For Media on Fifty-second Street. Having calculated that Morning would not emerge from his room until after sunset, Portia had gone to the museum after school to knock off some homework for her Twentieth-Century Television class.

  As she stopped at the security desk in the lobby, she jumped when she heard Morning McCobb’s name. She looked around. There was no one else in the lobby but the half-dozing guard and a bank of television sets. As she scribbled her name on the sign-out sheet, she went into worst-case-scenario mode. Either Morning was capable of some kind of voodoo ventriloquism, or she was having a Joan of Arc moment, or—and this was the worst possibility—the image of Morning that had danced through her mind all day was now talking.

  Hearing his name again, Portia spun toward the only source of sound in the lobby: the bank of TVs.

  All of the screens showed the same grim-faced anchorman delivering the network news. “Once again, the barrier protecting hard news from the flood of infomercials packaged by PR firms and sold as news was breached today.” The show cut away to footage of Morning a few seconds before he turned into a mist. “We’ve all seen the footage by now. Morning McCobb, the alleged vampire, supposedly shape-shifting into a mist.”

  Portia gawked as the anchorman droned on. “After conducting our own investigation, we learned that the collaborators behind this trumped-up story include Hound TV, a public relations firm known as Diamond Sky PR, and the Archdiocese of New York, which is about to launch a major fund-raising drive for the church’s foster care program.”

  Portia stopped listening. She felt like her brain had just been hit with a double-barreled stun gun. Assume the worst? This was surpassing all previous worsts. Not only was Morning’s geeky goth act just the tip of the iceberg, but her mother, the freak magnet, had finally gone too far. In the past, she’d always let her creepy clients do the TV time, but now there she was, front and center, part of the whole charade, part of a media scandal! At least the Greek child slayer, Medea, had the decency to kill her children quickly, Portia lamented. But her mother, Medea Dredful, was going to kill her with a thousand cuts of humiliation!

  On the bank of TVs, the anchorman continued. “But why quibble with the story?” he asked with a smirk. “Everyone’s a winner. Hound TV gets a ratings boost, the PR firm gets a fee, and Morning McCobb gets his fifteen minutes of fame.” His voice dropped to funereal. “The only loser is the truth. And everyone who still believes in reporting it.”

  Portia’s swelling rage over her mother’s infamy dashing all hopes of her getting into any film school, ever, careened in a new direction. The only way to recover from the curse of having a mother who was a whore in the temple of journalism was to do the Jesus thing: Clean out the temple! Her video essay wasn’t going to be a little 60 Minutes segment. It was going to be a kick-ass exposé of the media-industrial complex! A story of how two forces of blatant self-interest, Hound TV and her mother, had plucked Morning McCobb off the street and turned him into the newest fake of the month. It would be so Michael Moore!

  As Portia hurried out of the museum, she flashed on a title. Sucko.

  11

  Vanishing Act

  The same stone-faced anchorman filled Penny’s living room with his gravitas. Morning stood at a window and peeked through the crack in a closed curtain. Penny’s voice drifted out of her office. She had been on the phone for the last hour. He pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed a number.

  “Hello, Morning,” Birnam answered. “We’re off to a fine start.”

  “Fine start?” Morning stammered. “Everyone thinks I’m a fake.”

  “Of course they do. When they’ve logged billions of hours watching fictional vampires doing their thing on movie screens, one vampire playing misty for them on the news is not going to turn them into true believers.”

  “But there were eyewitnesses.”

  Birnam laughed. “UFOs have witnesses too. That doesn’t make everyone a believer.”

  Morning peeped through the curtain. “If they don’t believe me, then why does the street outside Penny’s apartment look like a media block party?”

  “Morning,” Birnam explained patiently, “they don’t even know you’re in there. They’re there for Penny.”

  “Why Penny?”

  “She’s the witch behind the ‘alleged vampire.’ And there’s nothing the masses like better than a witch-burning. Believe me, I’ve seen a few.”

  Morning was in no mood to appreciate Birnam’s little joke. And the fact that nobody believed him wasn’t the only thing on his mind. “How did Sister Flora hear a rumor about me becoming a vampire? Did you plant that?”

  “Very good, Morning. Yes, I did it to move things along.” Morning started to speak but Birnam cut him off. “But that’s water under the bridge. Or fog under the bridge. For now, just let things play out, and trust Penny. You’re the Leaguer, she’s the handler. Remember that.”

  Birnam hung up as Penny leaned into the room with her portable phone pressed to her chest. “Guess who I’m on hold with.”

  He shrugged. “Not a clue.”

  “Ally Alfamen.”

  “The host of Wake Up America?”

  “The one and only.” She gestured at the television. “We’ll give the spinners of spin city till morning to get it wrong, then, first thing tomorrow, we’ll set the record straight.” Hearing a voice on her phone, she disappeared into the office.

  Morning tried to absorb the latest development. From Drake Sanders to Wake Up America was a huge leap. His next appearance would have dozens of witnesses and millions of viewers. He had to plan it carefully. And there was one place he did his best thinking.

  The jam of news crews clogging her street didn’t surprise Portia. She was glad none of th
em had done enough homework to know what Penny Dredful’s daughter looked like. They didn’t fire up cameras and start barking questions until she walked up the stoop of the town house. She ignored them, making sure they didn’t see her face. If she stayed incognito she could return later with her own camera and interview some of the media jackals feeding America its daily dose of sensation.

  Moving down the hallway to the apartment door, she brimmed with excitement. Her video was getting more Michael Moore by the minute. And she was about to pounce on her two main targets: Penny Truly Dredful and Morning McFaker.

  She and her mother lived in the bottom two floors of the four-story town house. The top floors were occupied by an elderly couple who traveled a lot. They’d chosen a good time to be in Europe.

  Portia unlocked the door and moved into the kitchen, which looked out on the back garden. She dropped her backpack on the table and ran up the spiral staircase. On the way to her room, she noticed the guest room door was shut. She could burst in on Morning later. Right now it was more important to spring a trap on her mother. She grabbed her Handycam, went back downstairs, and was shooting by the time she entered her mother’s office.

  Penny looked up from her desk and saw the camera. “What are you doing?”

  “How much are they paying you for passing off a missing orphan as a vampire?”

  Penny stood up and started to shoo Portia out. “Okay, you think I’m crazy—again. But clients like this only come around once in a lifetime.” She managed to herd Portia, still shooting, into the living room. “Now go. I have a ton to do.”

  The door shut in Portia’s face. She turned the camera on herself and reported, “Obviously, Ms. Penny Dredful, of Diamond Sky PR, has drunk the Kool-Aid. Now, to find another Kool-Aid drinker: Mr. Morning McCobb.”

  She went upstairs, knocked on the guest room door, and made sure the camera was recording. There was no answer. She knocked again. No answer. She opened the door. He wasn’t there. She pointed the camera at the neatly made bed and added her commentary. “What do you know? A con artist who makes his bed. The nicer they are, the more dangerous they are, right?” She turned the camera on herself again. “Or have I, Portia Dredful, seen too many horror movies? Whatever the case, I may have reason to fear for my life. Not because he’s a”—she bugged her eyes in mock fear—“vampire, but because pathological liars ramp up to psychos when they get caught.” She pushed a little closer to camera and whispered ominously, “I hope you’re not watching this on America’s Bloodiest Home Videos.”

  As she turned off the camera, she got a creepy feeling from what she’d just said. She thought about deleting it. “Get over it,” she scolded herself. This was no time for editing. That’s what postproduction was about, after she got all the footage she could. Which reminded her, she didn’t have one frame of Morning yet. Sucko wouldn’t exactly work if she didn’t have footage of the kid con artist.

  After checking for him in the upstairs bathroom, she headed back downstairs. Coming down the spiral staircase, she stopped cold. The door to the back garden was slightly ajar. It was always locked. She raised her camera, got a shot, and whispered, “We have an intruder. Or one of those reporters has crossed the line.” Her stomach plunged at another thought. “Or Morning has flown the coop.”

  The possibility was devastating. If he was gone for good, she’d never get footage of him. She cursed herself for being a coward the night before, for not knocking on his door and getting the interview. She cursed herself for going to school, for missing the story of a lifetime. She cursed herself for not obeying her first rule of documentary film-making: Do it like the coolest newswoman to ever report from the hot spots of the world; do it like Christiane Amanpour. No way would she have scurried back to her room. Christiane would have battered down Morning’s door and done anything to get him to spill the story behind the story of his toddler death march on the Williams Bird Bridge.

  “The Williamsburg Bridge!” she blurted. If the bridge meant so much to him when he was three, maybe it still did.

  12

  Paper Boats

  Morning wore a Yankees baseball cap pulled down low and wraparound sunglasses he’d bought after escaping from Penny’s apartment through the back garden. He moved along Delancey Street, past stores with their wares spilling onto the sidewalk. Approaching the street St. Giles was on, he considered a detour to see if Sister Flora was all right. But two cops stood at the barricade blocking the street. Not wanting to be recognized, he gave them a wide berth.

  At the end of Delancey, rising in the sky like an invading robot was the towering Erector set of the Williamsburg Bridge. It was his favorite bridge in New York because it was no one’s favorite. It was the ugly duckling of bridges. And its last paint job made it even uglier. The super-structure was battleship gray, while the walkway running through the center of the bridge was pink. The bridge’s name plaque, dating from the time it was spelled “Williamsburgh,” said it all. Two letters had been stripped away so it read THE WILLIAMS U GH BRIDGE.

  As he headed onto the long walkway, he took off his sunglasses. The setting sun glazed the buildings and docks across the East River in burnt orange. For as long as he could remember, every time he’d left St. Giles for a new foster home, he’d gone to the middle of the bridge to say goodbye to the city. And with each return to St. Giles, he never considered himself home until he’d visited the same spot, and watched the river spill toward the Statue of Liberty. His latest homecoming wasn’t any different.

  Reaching the middle of the bridge, he closed his eyes and gripped the handrail. He felt the rumble of traffic from the roadway below vibrate into his legs and hands. He opened his eyes, looked beyond the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, and found the statue in the harbor. For Morning, she was never just the Statue of Liberty. She was the mother of New York, waving hello or goodbye to everyone who came or went. He returned her wave, and noticed she was wearing another garment to honor his return; the sunset wrapped her in a blood orange cape.

  His eyes dropped to the slate-colored water pushing under the bridge, and he began another ritual he always performed on the bridge.

  “Hey, Morning!”

  He snapped to the voice. A girl with dark curly hair loped along the walkway. She wore jeans and a baggy cargo jacket that flapped open with each step. She looked like a brown ostrich on a bad feather day. Then he recognized her. Portia Dredful. What’s she doing here? There’s no way it was coincidence. He told himself not to ask. From their brief encounter last night, he knew he couldn’t count on a straight answer.

  Portia joined him at the rail, tossing him a smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  He thought her smile looked forced. “Yeah, right.”

  She answered his frown with mock concern. “Hey, you didn’t come out here to jump, did you?”

  “That would be dumb.”

  “Well, yeah, jumping is always dumb.”

  “No, I mean totally dumb.” He pointed down.

  She glanced over the rail. Not far below, two lanes of traffic headed across the bridge.

  “If I wanted to make the river I’d have to start with a standing broad jump of twenty-five feet.”

  She recovered from him being right. “Okay, but vampires can do that, can’t they?”

  “Maybe, but whoever heard of a suicidal vampire?”

  She laughed. “Good point.” She reminded herself it was too early to talk about vampires. She would only end up challenging his claim to be one. That wouldn’t get her anywhere. She wanted to win his trust so she could pull out her camera. She closed her jacket against the breeze. “So, what are you doing here?”

  “That’s what I was about to ask you.”

  “I asked you first.”

  He paused.

  “Okay, I’ll go first,” she volunteered, hoping it might win her some trust points. “I thought you might be out here because I Googled you and found the story about how you tried to take back”—she did her single-digit air
-quote—“the Williams Bird Bridge for the pigeons.”

  Morning had forgotten about the story until Sister Flora had alluded to it earlier that day. “So you figured I came out here to rally the pigeons for another assault on the bridge?”

  “It’s that or jump, and we ruled out jump.” A subway rumbled under the walkway, launching a few pigeons into flight. She pointed at the birds and raised her voice over the subway. “See, your commandos are here, but they need a leader!”

  Morning let himself smile. He glanced at her as the subway rumbled on. She was the first girl he’d met in ten months who wasn’t a vampire, or drop-dead gorgeous. She didn’t make his heart race, his palms sweat, and his mouth say inane things he regretted a second later. She was a regular girl. She had some major attitude, but what girl worth talking to didn’t? “I came out here because whenever I come back to the city I do this stupid ritual.”

  “Most rituals are stupid,” she replied, “but that’s not the point. People do them because it makes them feel good. You wanna know my dumbest ritual?”

  “Sure.”

  “Before I take a test, I shake my pencil like a thermometer because I think it’ll knock the right answers down to the tip.”

  Morning nodded. “That’s pretty stupid.”

  “Exactly, but it makes me feel like the pencil is on my side. I bet you can’t top that for stupid.”

  “I bet I can.” He gazed out at the river. “I look for paper boats.”

  Portia chuckled. “Paper boats?”

  “See, I win the stupid bet.”

  “Maybe not,” she said with a straight face. “I mean, hey, everyone knows about the Annual Paper Boat Regatta. I go every year. And I’ve read about drug smugglers who use paper boats to bring marijuana to New York, one joint at a time.” Her eyes popped wide. “I even heard a rumor about a terrorist plot to use a paper boat to bring in a dirty firecracker.”

  As Morning laughed, she grinned in triumph. She was racking up trust points. “But none of those are your paper boats, right?”