Joe Vampire

by Steven Luna

  That just doesn’t sound right, though.

  I think I have Dracula confused with the Phantom of the Opera.

  Still, I’d love to be motivated enough to do something specific with them. At the moment, though, I’m just Vomiting Nonsense – literally, figuratively.

  Perpetually.

  Our next gig is coming up quickly, so we’ve been practicing every night. Since I rarely sleep anymore, it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. Lazer keeps talking about taking things to the next level. What would be the level above porn soundtrack for masturbating robots, I wonder? Probably everything. He may not be the best judge of where to take our music, but whatever he’s got planned I’m sure it’ll be noteworthy at the very least.

  So maybe some of you will be intrigued enough to make it to our concert. If I thought it would lend perspective, I’d post a link to our band page so you could listen to some samples and let you see what you might be getting yourself in for. But I’m guessing that would only drive away potential audience members. Plus: it’s on My Space, so I’m pretty sure you can’t even get to it anymore. (No offense, JT; you’re still the bomb.)

  I will keep you updated on the gig as details unfold.

  POST 15

  Hear Me, O Mighty Google

  I’ve always been curious about stupid, useless knowledge – song lyrics from the seventies, the accumulated net worth of celebrities, the early twentieth century tax laws of Micronesia and its surrounding islands. That kind of stuff. It’s almost a sickness, I think, this Need to Know the Needless, my Fascination with the Unfascinating. My favorite books when I was a kid were an almanac and a thesaurus, if that tells you anything – a book full of facts about what trees are best for dunking witches from in Salem circa 1650, and a book full of words you can use in place of other words.

  It doesn’t get more trivial than that.

  I don’t need this information for anything related to my job or my life, obviously. But the question of the average circumference of the North American female areola arises, and damned if I can think about anything else until I know. I’m sure there are others like me out there.

  And in more ways than just our trivia whoring.

  If so much of nothing can set me off on an informational fox hunt, you can imagine what something as important as becoming a vampire would do. And me, with so few real world resources to learn from.

  Just can’t seem to locate a Vampire Almanac in my local library no matter how I scour their freaking card catalog.

  I’ve made no bones about my reluctance to Live the Life, and it’s safe to say I was something of a cyberchondriac even before This. So I could hardly see how digging up more scary, arcane crap to trouble myself over was going to make things any easier to deal with. But if I can’t make it through a day not knowing David Letterman’s middle name (Michael) or how many drummers KISS has gone through in their illustrious, blood-spewing career (only three, though they’ve traded places seven times in forty years so it seems like way more), it wasn’t likely the vampire stuff would remain unresearched forever, if for no other reason than to give me some so-called facts that I could throw my experience up against for comparison. So in ignorance of my own better judgment – and because Don had been way less informed about vampires in general than I had hoped – I decided to consult the most fact-filled, data inclusive source I could think of: the Interweb.

  This is the part where angels would sing, if my budget were just a little larger.

  Of all the dazzling magical treasures offered by modern technology, this one is my favorite. More than car seats that warm your frozen mid-winter’s ass, more than extended swing-arm razors for man-scaping those hard-to-reach areas. Those are one-trick ponies, while the ‘net is all things to all people, all at once. It’s the television/cinema/library/record store/shopping mall/24 hour live nude girlie show we all dreamed of as kids, accessible from virtually anywhere on the planet via a circuit-filled slab of glass and metal the shape of a Pop Tart… which can also be used as a phone, if you’re into that kind of thing. This is the shit we were promised in the Bill of Rights, somewhere between guns and a fair trial, if memory serves. And the best of the best of this dream-stuff marvel for a seeker of the stupid and mundane?

  The Holy Google.

  Hands down.

  I rarely make a move in life without consulting it. It’s like a Magic 8-Ball with an infinity of answers. Ask, and ye shall learn; seek, and ye shall find.

  Google, and ye shall know.

  I do understand that not all knowledge bestowed by Google is fact-based, something I’m actively trying to teach my father. Separation of virtual fact from digital fiction eludes him. He still falls for e-mail scams that have been debunked for the past decade or longer. If he had a dime for every time he fronted money for displaced Nigerian princes or donated funds to sham charities like Knee Replacements for Retired Hookers, he’d probably have at least half of his money back.

  I’m working on this, though. For him, and everyone.

  I like to think after years of practice I have mastered the art of telling what’s what and who’s who out there in the cyberverse. It’s a simple equation, really, a formula I’ve derived after much trial and error. I think it may be a revolution in online data-mining, and it makes Search with a capital S far more dependable than just taking results at face value.

  It goes like this:

  [(Wikipedia entry + verification of Wiki source links)

  MINUS

  anything posted by Perez Hilton]

  DIVIDED BY

  a direct hit on Snopes

  ≈ 75% true

  I’m no economist, but I figure in today’s market – allowing for a twenty year inflationary model – approximately 75% true is as good as 100% true.

  Give or take.

  I figured it might be wise to arm myself with as much online knowledge as there might be on the subject of being a vampire. And I’ve ponied up way more than my pound of flesh in the last several weeks, so I know I’m deserving. So with great reservation about pissing off the Oracle of Approximate Knowledge, I laid my offering at the digital altar and plugged in the word vampirism.

  As expected, the oracle accepted my sacrifice.

  Wikipedia popped up first, as expected, but with so much folkloric detail about ancient European burial rituals – such as decapitating a corpse and shoving its head up its ass, essentially, to make sure it didn’t rise from the dead – it didn’t inform me as much as it made me want to go throw up and then cry myself to sleep cradling a bottle of Captain Morgan. So I scrolled through the other links, certain I’d find something devoted to true-ish factoids about the topic. Wrong. I knew when I started this blog that there might not be too much information floating around out there, but I had no idea that there would be so much garbage. Among the online gaming reference sites and pages devoted to the sexy blood eaters of the CW, one lonely site devoted to the tolerance of others filled in some of the blanks and confirmed much of what I had already learned. But it was cluttered with pop-ups, and my antivirus is about six months past expiration. So I backed off the whole fact-finding mission and flipped over to GirlsGoneNaked.com, where, since I visit there quite often whatever viruses that site has to offer have long ago infected my hard drive, the danger of new contamination was far less.

  Okay. That’s a lie. The part about my antivirus, anyway.

  It’s totally up-to-date.

  I didn’t stop searching because of the pop-ups. I stopped because I started thinking that maybe it doesn’t matter what’s in store for me and my vampireness. What’s going to happen is going to happen with or without my knowledge, and with or without my consent. And with Don being the only other vampire I have to compare to, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that my experience isn’t going to be the same as anyone else’s. It was good that he didn’t appear to be suffering much from it. From the crack use? Of course. But not from This. In his own warped way, he has his shit together. He h
as a means of income, however lacking in ethical righteousness it may be. At least he maintains a cycle of give-and-take, supply-and-demand, this-for-that. I can’t condone his form of currency, but he has thrown together a method of survival that makes sense for him. I just need to do the same. Let’s be real, people: I’ll never be down with biting on hobos, and there’s nothing I’m willing to sell in order to maintain my need for a blood fix – not even on eBay. And it’s proven possible for me to conceal my condition just by keeping quiet about it. But I’m building this bridge as I cross it, and so far I’m holding up pretty well with what little information I have. I may be addicted to learning myriad superfluous minutiae (and yes, I obviously still have that thesaurus), but I think for now this vampire is going to steer clear of Googling any unnecessary information that might make his life more complicated than it already is. Nobody has all the answers about their lives anyway, whether or not they’re undead. Why should I be any different?

  Ignorance may not be bliss forever, but I, for one, am willing to wallow in it as long as I can.

  How much money Shannen Doherty made in 2009 after signing off from 90210: The Geriatric Years, though? Well, I’ve already opened a second browser window so I can do a little digging.

  Some kinds of ignorance there is just no excuse for.

  POST 16

  Hooray for Sleeves

  It never ceases to amaze me that something as inconsequential as sleeves can change the course of your life. And just when you least expect it, too. That statement makes no sense at this point, I’m sure.

  Let’s see if I can connect the dots.

  As a vampire, my body seems to hold at one temperature only: cold. Not naked-ass-buried-in-the-snow cold, or tongue-frozen-to-a-lamppost cold; more like a middling, lacking-a-vital-human-essence cold. It was somewhat uncomfortable at first, but like everything else with this whacked-out vampire trip I’m getting used to it. Hoodies have been my cure-all, my fail-safe. I could throw one on and accomplish several goals at once; not only does it keep others from accidentally feeling my supernaturally chilled flesh, but being covered neck to wrist I don’t have to worry about any nasty Vampire Skin Bubble while in the sun. And it helps keep my milk-colored arms hidden from view. It’s fool-proof. Even summer wasn’t an obstacle for this little plan. If anyone asked why the hell I was wearing a jacket in August, I told them: after my run-in with That Crazy Virus, I’ve tended a little toward the cold side. The AC blows on me all day at work, so it was a genius way to cover up what no one was really noticing anyway. Made me feel better, at least.

  So hoodie sleeves = good.

  There’s dot number one.

  Late-year weather can’t come soon enough for my liking, but when autumn slammed down an early cold front, suddenly everyone was decked out in ugly sweaters and flannel. And hoodies. Having totally rocked the shit out of my hoodie up to this moment, I reached way outside of my box and grabbed something a little dressier, a little more fashionable. A little less me. Instead of hauling out a bunch of moth-eaten cardigans that even Mr. Rogers would have taken a pass on, I opted for some long-sleeved dress shirts to add a bit of aim to my game. Nothing fancy; I’m not posing for a Kohl’s ad or anything. Just wanted something that was slightly more presentable than what I wear on the regular, yet still serves to lend warmth and cover up my super-whiteness. And if it happens to sharpen my appearance, which is never not in desperate need of sharpening, then so much the better. Anything would be a step up from my brainless corporate uniform of wrinkled polos and faded khakis. So I grab a few lesser-worn items from the back of the closet, and suddenly I’m a brand new man… or vampire. Brand new man-pire.

  Man-pire.

  Whoa… I think like the sound of that. It’s sort of an okay compromise for the moment.

  So anyway, woohoo for shirtsleeves.

  That covers dot number two.

  Something about long sleeves in my office always sets off buzz. Not sure if it’s the visual impact of not being able to see someone’s arms anymore, or just the added formality of extra fabric. Whatever the reason, they never fail to stun. My first full-sleeves day drew way more attention than I wanted, and not from nearly the desired sources. At least three people asked me if I had an interview for another job. One asked me if I had run out of wrinkled polos and if this was the only clean shirt I had left.

  Asshole.

  But the overall impression I think people took away was that Joe had spiffed up a little, was standing up straighter and looking people in the eye instead of walking in his typical European field worker slump. Not that I’m trying to impress everyone there. There’s only one someone in that place whose opinion of my sleeves matters to me.

  Probably pretty obvious, but in case it isn’t: It’s Chloe.

  Boom. Dot number three also happens to be Girl No. 3.

  She always, always compliments me when I dress up, and in light of my new Just Do It attitude, I guess these sleeves were probably more than a little bit for her benefit.

  If only she had been here to see them.

  She’d been traveling back and forth for some big project recently, and this particular sleeve-worthy morning fell on the day she was supposed to finally be in the office again. We’d crossed paths in the hall once or twice over the past several weeks, I having slightly less anxiety about my vampire appearance with my hoodie sleeves in place, but she was always dashing off somewhere so I hadn’t had time to lay my moves on her. And I didn’t want to be rushed, so I just winked and smiled a hello. I did notice the last time I saw her she looked troubled, and it seemed to be more than just work stress. Where the sight of me used to make her a little happier, it really had no effect that time, and I got the impression that it might be more personal than professional in nature… not that I peeked at her thoughts to find out, anyway.

  That would just be rude.

  Plus: she was moving too fast for me to get a read.

  She was supposed to be back the morning of All Sleeves Day, but after my eighth trip to the copier we’d had no accidental-on purpose running-intos. So I grabbed a couple of random forms off my desk and loped around to her department, slyly “searching” for “someone” to help me with my “papers”. Passing her cube gave no sign of her, but her cubemate Delilah noticed me skulking. “Nice sleeves,” she said. “Do you have an interview?”

  For crying out loud.

  “No, I was just hoping for help with… ”

  “With your Sudoku? Is that it?” She could see right through me… and my papers, apparently.

  Busted.

  Topic change. “Isn’t Chloe supposed to be back today?”

  Delilah cocked an eyebrow. “From her presentation in Seattle? Yes. From her vacation? No… that’s just starting.”

  Vacation? Damn.

  “Is she going somewhere special to decompress? A cruise or something?” I tried to sound casually interested, not desperately obsessed.

  “Not really. She said something about she and the Tool being in two different places, and her needing to move out.” Holy crap. That was more than I was expecting. “I can pass on your Sudoku question if I talk to her. Might be a while, though… maybe you should move on to the Jumble or do a word search until she gets back.”

  Everyone’s a smart ass around this place.

  I did a quick shuffle back to my desk and dropped into my chair. Two different places. Moving out. So this is what renewed hope feels like. I tried to hold down my excitement, but I felt sort of giddy, which is rare in this man-pire’s emotional vocabulary. Not that I had much of it when I wasn’t undead. But it had been way too long since things had gone this much my way.

  And it was about to get even better.

  In the space left behind by my decoy documents there was, poking out from beneath all the other papers in the pile, a corner of orange. It lay there like a hoarder’s flattened cat, amid the pile that had collected when I was out struggling with This. Yeah, I know… it’s been a big while, and I’m s
till not quite caught up. What can I say? I’m very methodical, even when I’m behind the eight ball. But I’m almost through the whole stack now, so it made sense that I would have finally found something hidden there from those missing days. It felt kind of like the unearthing of a distinctly personal artifact on an archaeological dig of corporate America. After months of strange, life-altering rearrangements I was finally being thrown a bone of sorts. The find of a lifetime, really, in an orange Hallmark envelope with my name written on it.

  From Chloe.

  I tore into it, regretting my need to be so freaking anal about catching up work that amounted to useless crap anyway. I looked past the cartoon dog with the thermometer in its mouth, past the hokey “Hope you get well pretty doggone soon!” printed across the front. Inside was a note that made my standing-still heart miss a beat anyway. In perfect looping cursive that public education doesn’t teach anymore she had written, When you’re feeling better, we should talk…

  Dot. Dot.

  Dot.

  How had I missed this for so long? No wonder she hadn’t been thrilled at the sight of me when we last saw each other. She probably thought I’d blown her off. Hearing that she was spending her vacation ending things with the Tool, and knowing about her shit storm workload, she probably hadn’t had time to think about it too much. Maybe a little, though. But now that I knew that she wanted to talk, I actually let myself believe that my Just Do It plan was too big to fail. It sounded like we were both headed in the same direction after all. I must have looked like an idiot with my interview-worthy sleeves and my huge shit-eating grin when Hube swung by to pick me up for lunch. “Nice shirt, dude,” he commented. “All snazzed out like you’re moving on up around here.”