Suck It Up

by Brian Meehl

  “My boats aren’t as funny as yours.”

  “I hope not,” she said playfully. “But I still want to hear about ’em.”

  His eyes returned to the water sliding toward the harbor. “When I was about seven, I got sent to a foster family in Poughkeepsie, way up the Hudson River. I didn’t like the family, and pretty soon they didn’t like me. So, whenever I got the chance, I’d sneak down to the riverbank and launch a paper boat with a message on it.”

  “Who was the message for?”

  “Sister Flora at St. Giles. I figured the message would float down the river, she’d get it and come rescue me. Then one day, she called to check on me. I asked her if she’d gotten my messages. She told me that if I wanted to send her a message on a paper boat, I had to start putting rudders on ’em because a boat had to go down the Hudson, take a left at the Harlem River, and then a right at the East River to reach her on the Lower East Side.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell her on the phone you wanted to be rescued?”

  “My foster parents were in the kitchen, listening, and they liked using a belt. Anyway, after that, I launched a bunch of paper boats with rudders. But Sister Flora still didn’t get the message to rescue me. So, one day, I stole a canoe and paddled a mile down the river before I got caught. But some kind of message got through because Sister Flora showed up the next day and took me back to St. Giles.”

  “So you come out here to see if one of your paper boats finally made it down the river?”

  Morning shrugged. “Yeah, something like that.”

  She smiled. “That’s nice.”

  He didn’t think her smile looked forced this time. “And stupid,” he added.

  Portia wanted to say, No, what’s stupid is that I didn’t catch one frame of your story on camera! She kicked herself for not having a secret camera. Suddenly something else gnawed at her. The same thing that bugged her when she realized he had made his bed. What kind of con artist goes out on a river and looks for paper boats? Either he wasn’t a con artist or he was such a good one he could con a mother out of her firstborn child. She kicked herself again for the triple sin of doubting whom she was dealing with, not staying on task, and not being more like Christiane Amanpour. It was time to change tactics. Being friendly had only drawn her into his web. It was time to go hardnose. “I’ve got another question.”

  Morning had enjoyed the long silence. He liked the feeling that, for a moment, he’d forgotten she was even there when he knew she was. “About paper boats?”

  “No. I’m doing a school video project on my mom’s business and her clients. Kind of a take-your-daughter-to-work thing. Can I tape your answer to my next question?”

  Morning tensed. “I didn’t know I was being interviewed.”

  She regretted her new tact, but it was too late: You don’t go hardnose, then ask for a nose job. “My documentary teacher says even small talk is an ‘interview,’” she said, air-quoting again. “And everything is ‘on camera.’ Some cameras roll tape”—she pointed at her eyes—“some cameras roll memory.”

  Morning couldn’t stand it anymore; he had to ask. “Why do you air-quote with single fingers? Is that the latest thing?”

  “Hardly.” She jumped at the chance to change the subject until he was more receptive. “When Americans write a sentence with quotation marks, we start with double quotes, then go to single quotes. But the British start with single quotes, than go to doubles. I think going from single to double makes more sense ’cause it’s a more natural build. But if I did it like the Brits on my homework, my teachers would totally freak. So I do it the Brit way whenever I air-quote.” She demonstrated with single fingers, then noticed his glazed look. “And after hearing that you probably do wanna jump.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never met someone who thought so much about punctuation.”

  She suddenly realized the light was perfect: the “golden light” filmmakers called it. The golden light didn’t wait for the right moment, it was the right moment. “And I bet you never met someone who was so pushy about sticking a camera in your face.”

  Her persistence made him remember that in about twelve hours he was going to be interviewed by Ally Alfamen in front of millions of people. If he was going come across as the relaxed, polite, honest vampire Birnam wanted him to be, he needed practice. Besides, there was something about the way Portia looked at him that he liked. He couldn’t remember the last time a pair of girl eyes had looked at him with real interest.

  “Okay,” he said. “Lights, camera, whatev.”

  13

  The Williams Bird Bridge

  Portia yanked out her Handycam before he changed his mind. She framed him in the flip-out screen and hit record. “It seems like you have a thing for this bridge.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Last night, when I read the article about you trying to take back the Williams Bird Bridge for the pigeons, it never told the nun’s bedtime story that made you do it. Do you remember the story?”

  “I don’t remember it, or even running onto the bridge and the cop rescuing me.”

  She deflated. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “But Sister Flora told me the story countless times.”

  Portia perked back up. “Cool.”

  He dove in. “The night before the bridge thing, Sister was tucking me in, and for some reason she told me the name of the Williamsburg Bridge. When I asked, ‘Why are cars on the Williams Bird Bridge?’ my messing up the name gave her an idea for a story.”

  “What did she call it?”

  “‘Why Pigeons Fly.’

  Morning felt his chest tighten with anxiety. He ignored it. If he couldn’t tell a story to a regular girl with a camera, he’d never be able to talk to Ally Alfamen, much less flirt with the next Rachel Capilarus that came along.

  “Once upon a time, before pigeons knew how to fly, all the pigeons in Manhattan lived on the other side of the river, in Brooklyn. To get to Manhattan every day, the pigeons walked across their own private bridge, the Williams Bird Bridge. This was fine until the traffic on the other bridges got so bad that the cars and trucks started using the Williams Bird Bridge too. This led to a war between the pigeons and the cars. The pigeons lost the war when the mayor banned pigeons from using their own bridge and ordered them to get to Manhattan by learning to fly like the other birds, or taking the subway. Since the pigeons didn’t have money for the subway, they had to learn how to fly.

  “Now, according to Sister, when she got to this point in the story I wasn’t convinced. So she told me that we know the story is true because every time a pigeon hits a car or a person with bird poop, they’re letting us know how they feel about losing their bridge. Well, that was all the proof I needed. It made me mad that the pigeons had lost their bridge. So the next morning, I tried to be a superhero and take it back for them.”

  Portia zoomed in tight. “After the cop rescued you, did Sister Flora tell you the story wasn’t true?”

  His eyes shone with pleasure. “No. She’s smarter than that. She told me that taking back the bridge wasn’t a good idea because if the pigeons ever got it back, they’d forget how to fly. And wouldn’t it be terrible if pigeons didn’t know how to fly.”

  “And that was the end of it?”

  “Yeah. Except for the expression me and Sister have.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Whenever we want to say something is impossible, we say, ‘Yeah, right—when the pigeons take back the Williams Bird Bridge.’”

  Portia didn’t have any more questions, and widened the shot.

  The silence made him uneasy. It was broken by a tune bursting from Portia’s jacket.

  She turned off the camera, dug out her cell phone, checked the ID, and flipped it open. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Where are you?” Penny demanded.

  “On a bridge.”

  “What bridge?”

  “The bridge Morning is standin
g on.”

  “Thank God! Is he all right?”

  Portia’s eyes darted to Morning. “Are you all right?” He nodded. “He’s all right.”

  Penny’s voice dropped an octave. “I want both of you home, this instant.”

  Portia chuckled. “Yeah, right—when the pigeons take back the Williams Bird Bridge.”

  Morning grinned and heard Penny’s voice on the phone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll explain when we get home.”

  As the two of them walked off the bridge toward the darkening skyline, the silence belied their tumbling thoughts.

  Morning was preoccupied with the wordless tether that seemed to connect them. It felt like a weave of two silences: the one of being alone, and the one of being with someone who didn’t require talk. But there was also part of him that distrusted it. Being so laid-back with someone was too soon, too easy. And, for all he knew, the connection he was imagining only flowed one way. After all, she’d been crystal clear. She wanted his story for her video project. She was the interviewer, he the interviewee. Nothing more. It reminded him of a lame joke he’d heard back at the Academy. What happened to the vampire who fell for the first mortal girl he met? She turned him into a sucker.

  Portia was trying to untangle her own snarl of thoughts. Yeah, she’d gotten some incredible footage of the faux vampire, but she was haunted by the feeling that her exposé of the media-industrial complex had taken a wrong turn. It was turning into a sympathetic portrait of a con guy. But that’s not what disturbed her the most. She had totally believed his tales of paper boats and bedtime stories. She was even charmed by them. If that was the case, she was being sucked into his lair. Her guy credo—assume the worst—was flirting dangerously with the romantic abyss so many daffy girls threw themselves into: Assume the best. She hated that in women. One minute you’re young, vivacious, got a career on cruise control, then bam!—you have a head-on with some guy who knocks your brain into the backseat, and the next thing you know you’re pregnant and being towed off to the junkyard of domestic life. Just like her mother.

  Just like her mother. The words blared in her head like an alarm, yanking her back to the only thing that mattered: the video essay that was going to get her into film school. But she was right, it had taken a turn. From a Michael Moore rant against the powers that be, to a documentary with no ax to grind. An intimate profile of a troubled and tragic teenager. That was it, she thought. It was so In Cold Blood. She even had a new title. Portrait of the Con Artist as a Young Man.

  14

  The Loner

  Several hours later, on the West Coast, the sunset lowered its red curtain into San Francisco Bay. Then, just as April showers push worms out of the ground, the sinking sun pushed another species to the surface.

  Loners.

  A lean young man in a charcoal gray jogging suit ran effortlessly through Golden Gate Park. His shiny black hair unfurled in his wake. Despite his long strides, he didn’t breathe any harder than the walkers he passed in the gathering dusk. While his smooth, chiseled face made him look nineteen, his gray eyes seemed older. No wonder, they had been drinking in the world for over a thousand years.

  Ikor DeThanatos ran out of the park and slowed to a silky walk. His full mouth stretched into a smile as he spotted his destination: a “refreshment stand” he often visited because of its ample supply of young blood laced with dreams. The Fog City Cybercafé.

  A couple minutes later, he leaned against the counter near the window, pretending to drink a latte. He surveyed the room and the wide selection of human vessels warming their faces before glowing laptops. He spotted a pink young woman whose head nodded toward her screen, then bobbed back up. Either she had found something on the Internet worth worshipping or she was the kind of sleep-deprived, caution-deprived young thing who could be tapped for a few pints. Or, if her ambrosia was exceptional, the full five quarts.

  To get a closer look at the drowsy feast arousing pressure in his gums, DeThanatos glided across the room with the pretense of fetching something from the reading rack. Halfway there, an image on a laptop caught his eye. He thought he’d seen a falling cloud of mist erupt into human form. He halted behind the shaggy young man sitting at the laptop, which now framed the image of a skinny boy in a black bodysuit.

  The young man turned and threw a grin at his curious onlooker. “Did you see it?”

  “Just the end.” DeThanatos’s voice veiled his concern. “What was it?”

  “News clip. Totally cool. Wanna see it?”

  “Sure.”

  The young man swept the cursor to the play button on the screen. “Check it out.”

  As DeThanatos watched the clip of Morning taking the form of a Drifter and then exploding back into human shape, his eyes seethed like small thunderheads. He squeezed his latte so hard the top blew off. Hot coffee cascaded over his hand.

  By the time the young man turned and saw the coffee spill on the floor, DeThanatos was almost out the door. “Hey, dude, chillax,” the young man shouted. “It’s not like it’s real, it’s Hound TV.”

  Back in Golden Gate Park, DeThanatos raced through the darkness. Reaching a giant eucalyptus tree, he pressed his back against the sinewy trunk and dug his long fingers into the smooth bark. He had to inform the others. He had to convene a Rendezvous. He tilted his head against the tree, shut his eyes, and focused the power gathering within him.

  Back in the Cybercafé, a young woman in an apron lifted a mop to clean up the coffee puddle on the floor. Before she could drop the mop, the puddle ruffled. The woman’s eyes snapped up. Heads jerked out of computer hypnosis. Frightened faces found others, confirming the vibration coming through the floor.

  “Tremor!” she shouted. “Everyone out!”

  By the time they all reached the street, it was over.

  The call for a Rendezvous had been sent.

  And Ikor DeThanatos was on his way to the Mother Forest.

  * * *

  THE OLD COMMANDMENTS

  The International Vampire League no longer believes in the Old Commandments. We have reinterpreted them so that we can live peacefully among Lifers. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, here are the Old Commandments of the few Loner vampires who still roam the earth.:

  1. Thou shalt not age.

  2. Thou shalt not crave anything but blood.

  3. Thou shalt not leave a mortal with memory of thy darkest powers.

  4. Thou shalt not destroy thy maker.

  5. Thou shalt not destroy thy blood child.

  We leave it to vampire historians to tell the full story of how we transformed the Old Commandments into the New Commandments. But here’s a hint. We consider “blood” to be a metaphor for the lifeblood of every civilization: culture.

  * * *

  15

  Odd Bedfellows

  After Morning and Portia returned to the apartment through the back garden, Penny told him to never wander off again and sent him to his room. Not to punish him. She wanted him to get plenty of sleep. They had to be at the Wake Up America studio before dawn.

  When Portia learned about their appearance on the most popular morning show in the country, she was angry at her mother for not telling her sooner, but even more POed at Morning. They’d just spent an hour hanging out, getting to know each other, and he’d never mentioned he was about to be on Wake Up America. But she didn’t bang on his door and let him have it. His little oversight only confirmed her fears as they had walked off the bridge. Con guy was quick to tell charming stories that painted him as the poor little orphan, but not so quick to share the facts that could make or break her video essay. And the horrifying fact was, if Ally Alfamen played Barbara Walters to Morning she would totally steal Portia’s Portrait of the Con Artist as a Young Man idea.

  Portia took a calming breath, and asked herself what she often asked when teetering on the brink of panic. What would Christiane do?

  (1) She wouldn’t pan
ic. (2) She’d tell herself there was no point in trying to compete with Ally Alfamen and Wake Up America.

  (3) She would ask, What do I have on this story that nobody else does?

  The answer came in a flash. Access! Intimate access to the two main players in a trumped-up story that was about to unravel on national television.

  Portia fired up her camera, hit record, and threw open the door to her mother’s office. “Mom, we need to talk.”

  “C’mon in,” her mother said calmly. “Have a seat.”

  Portia got over the shock of not being kicked out, and, still shooting, slid into the chair facing the desk. “You know, I’ve been trying to zero in on a subject for my college video essay.”

  Penny went back to tapping on her laptop. “Something tells me you’ve found it.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Great. What’s the logline?”

  “A behind-the-scenes, uncensored look at a PR agent and her client.”

  Penny glanced up with an encouraging smile. “Sounds terrific.”

  Portia wondered if her mother had taken a ditz pill. “Mom, it’s about you and Morning.”

  Penny went back to her computer. “I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t.”

  “It’s not going to be a valentine to you, or to PR.”

  “Whatever gets you into film school, dear. Preferably with a scholarship.”

  Portia plunged on before the drugs her mother had to be on wore off. “To do it right I need to go with you to Wake Up America.”

  “I was counting on it.”

  Portia waggled her head in disbelief. “You were?”

  Her mother shut down her laptop. “You can go on one condition.”

  Portia tensed, but was relieved that her mother was beginning to sound like her mother again. “What’s that?”

  “You sleep in my bed tonight.”