Joe Vampire

by Steven Luna

  I had never thought about it that way. Honestly, I had never thought about two vampires becoming a couple at all. That seemed like overkill.

  And frictionless sex would just be a total waste of an erection.

  Then, as I figured would happen, it was her turn to ask. “Who changed you?” It was only fair that I tell her, since her story was way worse than mine. So I told her about Don, and the date, and sake. And the humping. And how he had been reduced to pushing dope and sucking blood out of homeless dudes behind a nightclub to survive. “Not surprising,” she said. “Not everyone can assimilate as well as we have.”

  Assimilate? I was holed up in an office every night to avoid people and sunlight, with no friends to speak of and no life beyond pushing a button every two hours and web cruising in between. “I wouldn’t say I’ve assimilated. I’ve just learned to hide my business from the world at large.”

  “What do you think assimilation is? People do what they have to do to survive, hopefully in as harmless a manner as possible. We’re trying not to hurt others with our weird existence, in the same way that others have hurt us with theirs. But we haven’t let it ruin us, either; we have some semblance of a normal life, like the life we had before we changed. Even with my knitting and Latin dancing, it isn’t a perfect life by any stretch. But whose is?” She had a feel-good answer to counter every defeatist comment I came up with. “We’re out in the world, even if it’s only at night. We have jobs, and interests, and intellectual pursuits – you with your internet, me with my books. We’re making do with what we have. I think we’re doing a pretty okay job, all things considered. Don’t you?”

  She keeps saying it, again and again.

  Maybe I’m starting to believe it.

  That doesn’t mean I’m ready to let my guard down all the way. But I’ve said more to her about my vampiring than to anyone since Hube. At this point, opening up a little is as good as opening up a lot. It’s been helpful for me getting to know someone who hasn’t let the whole raw deal of This cave her head in. Louise has found a middle ground that works for her, which is exactly what I want for myself: if not a totally happy path, at least clear road to walk through it all among the broken glass and discarded needles littering the streets of Vampire Shit Town. That stuff about her husband is some major garbage, though – glass and needles all the way. But she seems peaceful about it. I’m still hoping she’ll tell me there’s a way to have some kind of normal relationship with someone – anyone – especially now that I’ve learned about the uselessness of frozen boners and ice-ginas.

  Maybe I’ll have to come up with my own path to that one.

  There was one more thing I wanted to ask Louise about, something stupid that had been bugging me since my urge to crawl under the coffee table had returned. “So, do you sleep in… a coffin?” She looked at me like my ass was hanging out of my pants.

  She laughed like it was, too.

  “Geez, Joe. No… so morbid. That would kill my back. I have a Sleep Number bed. I’m a seventy three.” That was a relief.

  This whole thing has been a relief, actually. It’s like I’ve found a Vampire Godmother, a giver of good and true knowledge about all things Undead and Yet Unliving.

  Not something I would have thought was possible.

  I’ve been thinking there might be someone else who could benefit from some of this newfound knowledge. He may be totally beyond help by now, what with the drug addiction stacked on top of the vampire trip. Still, I can’t help but feel something of an obligation to help him, as sick as that sounds, knowing I wouldn’t even need to help myself if it wasn’t for him. But maybe that’s how the chain is broken in something like This. Instead of just trying to end the insanity for myself, maybe I have to turn around and give someone a leg up to help them end their own insanity. Sort of like Paying It Backward to go with the Paying It Forward.

  So I figure I’ll pay Don a little return visit and pass on to him what Louise has passed on to me. What have I got to lose?

  I just hope he’s wearing a shirt this time.

  POST 26

  Outreach

  It took a while to put all my new vampire factoids on paper so I could deliver them to Don. I wanted to make sure I had it all straight first. It’s not like I’m the expert on this stuff; that’s Louise. I’m just transcribing everything that fell out of her mouth and landed in my ears. If she ever decides to write a how-to guide for being a civilized night-living freak, I’m guessing it’d go best-seller. Among vampires, I mean.

  Everyone else would probably think it was some kind of satire.

  I flip-flopped pretty wildly about whether or not this was the right thing to do, me handing down someone else’s vampire gospel to the ignorant heathen with the blood cravings. Being one of those heathens myself, it felt snobbish, like I was some yuppie crusader for community service whose “helping” almost always comes across as an attempt to earn a better cloud in whatever heaven they think pitying others will get them into. Even if they’re just delivering used books to the library, you never see them without Gucci shades and a venti Starbucks drip of the day steaming up their expensive gloves, like they want to make sure they don’t get any pitiful on their hands. It made me question my own intentions for wanting to help a brother out… especially a brother who knocked the legs out from under my life. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite.

  So I made sure I’d be going in gloves-off.

  And definitely no Guccis.

  There was a solid chance that this wouldn’t go over well at all, that he’d take my outreach as a huge kick in the nards of his chosen lifestyle. We weren’t exactly buds; we had spoken – lucidly – little more than one full hour in our whole lives, and he hadn’t shown any signs of wanting help with anything. He hadn’t even seemed overly bothered that he’d taken to jonesing for blood in addition to everything else he used to get cranked. For all I knew he’d tear up my paper, or use it to wipe his ass. Or roll joints with it. It didn’t matter. I wanted to show him there might be another way to live this life, one that didn’t require biting vagabonds in the parking lot behind Pomme just to get a fix.

  And I really think I needed to close the loop with this dude, once and for all.

  I’m not even sure I was doing this because I care about the guy. Prior to our encounter, he was nobody to me, an incredible zero who just happened to shit-stain my world at the exact point where it was all coming back together. One poorly-advised drink choice on my part and he’s suddenly had the single-largest influence on my life – and in the worst possible way. Our Venn diagrams have intersected in a permanent, fucked-up, football-shaped slice. So maybe now that I’m full-on vamping I can empathize with him in some roundabout manner, knowing how difficult it is to suppress This. Or maybe I don’t like to see other people pay for their afflictions by being devoid of true purpose for the remainder of their lives.

  I know I don’t want to pay for mine forever.

  So I typed up Twenty Things I’ve Learned from Louise, bullet-pointed in a Word document for ease of reading. I was careful to leave off any reference to vampires, just in case he’s not advertising it beyond his clientele. I even printed an extra copy in the event that he spilled bong water on one of them. And though I’m sure I didn’t succeed, I tried to do this in the right spirit, to leave the superior bullshit out as much as I could. But after seeing it all on paper, I felt even more like the people who bother me most in the world: the ones who love to tell everyone else how much better their lives could be if only they were living right. That is definitely not my thing; I think the example of my own upside-down existence is proof enough of that. My life was a ball of knots and boogers before I even knew vampires were real. Now? The knots are tighter, and the boogers just keep coming. So who the hell am I to judge what’s right for anyone else? This put a definite crimp in the outreach plans.

  But I kept thinking about the unlucky recipient of Don’s next change. And the one after that.

  And the endle
ss line of others behind them.

  It struck me: this isn’t about who might be inferior or superior. It’s not even entirely about helping the one who victimized me in the first place.

  It’s about making sure no one has to go through the same crap I’m going through.

  I really wish I would have been able to follow through on that.

  At least I know I tried.

  I made my approach at sunset, figuring Don would be waking up at about that hour to do… what – stalk bums? Prey on the homeless? Cut up his coke? Whatever it is that he does when night falls. I buzzed and buzzed, finally held the buzzer down for a solid minute before letting go. No one ever came to the door. A voice crackled over my shoulder. “He’s not in there.”

  “I’m getting that impression.” I turned to find an older man standing behind me. He smelled of toilet and dumpster. His clothes hung on him, and he kept shaking and scratching his face the whole time we were talking. His skin was chalky; his neck was scarred with at least thirty ragged craters, some of them open and weeping. I don’t think Don’s feedings were always as voluntary as he’d made them sound. “Do you know where he is?”

  The man shook his head. “I really wish he’d come back soon though… he has something I need.” His s sounds whistled.

  “Has he been gone long?”

  “A week or two. Maybe more. I don’t have a calendar on me.” He laughed, I think. I could see very plainly that while his two front teeth may have been missing, his eyeteeth more than made up for the absence with their large pointiness. “Do you have… ?” The man had nothing but a tattered flannel, a pair of filthy Dickies and a craving for chemicals that wouldn’t be satisfied anytime soon. The end of his question could have been filled in with almost anything. “I have this,” I told him, and I gave him what I had in my wallet without checking the denomination. “Use it as you see fit.” He didn’t thank me for it, and I didn’t tell him to buy food, or not to buy whiskey.

  It wasn’t my place.

  He asked me if Don was a friend of mine, and I told him he was as much my friend as he was anyone’s. “If you see him,” he told me, “let him know we miss him down here.”

  I didn’t want my trip to be a total waste, so I handed him one of my lists. “This might be helpful to you.” I slipped the other one under Don’s door.

  He took it from me and glanced at it for a second before stuffing it in his pocket. “Fucking do-gooder,” he muttered. Then he walked away.

  I wanted to think snarky thoughts about him, to separate the two of us with at least three layers of sarcasm and biting wit. But I couldn’t do it. His neck was just a sloppier version of my neck; his life was just an alternate universe version of mine, one of the many that didn’t result in a happy ending with Chloe, or anyone.

  He was me, and I was him.

  And we are Don.

  I think I’ve done my part to bring about closure with my Vampire Maker. I won’t be going back to check up on him again. I went; he wasn’t there. I left my words where he could find them, if he comes back. I get the feeling Don has moved on, though, and maybe not for the better. I know it’s likely that he’s still laying his trap, hooking junkies in exchange for their blood sacrifices. But in an uncharacteristic move for me, I’m choosing to hope he’s found greener pastures instead – not like ganja green, or dollar bill green. More like the recycling green, the green that tells you life is going to find way, even for the undead. And that you don’t have to take down others in the struggle to keep your own demons under control.

  If he hasn’t figured how to do that yet, I sure hope he does sooner or later.

  Sooner would be best, for all parties concerned.

  POST 27

  Me and the Misses

  It appears that, after having its way with me for longer than I care to recount, the vampirility is finally leveling out. It’s still here in full effect, mind you. But it doesn’t seem to be advancing in leaps and bounds like it had been for a while. I’m looking at this – as well as many other aspects of my new life – as something good. Must be all the Louise rubbing off on me.

  Not rubbing up on me. Rubbing off on me.

  They’re not the same thing.

  I’ve been keeping up with my coconut water and my bloody beef, which doesn’t sound any less gross no matter how many times I say it. But it has made my mood much more even, and I almost don’t mind the taste anymore, thanks to a liberal inclusion of Mrs. Dash. No new features have appeared as of late, though some of the old ones have intensified just a tetch. Here’s what’s shaking now:

  • Fangs – They’ve started coming back quicker in the last few weeks, but since I’m house bound most of the day I only grind them down before I leave for work. Fits in nicely with the rest of my in-house dress code of nothing but briefs and a bowl of Apple Jacks. Perfect.

  • Toenails – Those things have me replacing my work socks every other week, which trumps my pre-vampire average of once every four years. I’m not complaining.

  • Pupils – I tried contacts to put the color back in my eyes and block some of the glare, but they sting like a son of a bitch and I hate touching my own eyeballs. So I just stick with the California-legal tinted shades 24/7. Lends an air of mystery, like I’m a movie star, or Secret Service. Or an ashy Ray Charles. Good stuff.

  • Ear points – Can’t do much to stave off this one, short of clipping them. They’re wicked noticeable now, so I’ve opted to let my ordinarily clean cut Buzz with Top Spikes grow out into more of a Short Mop with Curled Edges to see if I can cover them up a little… which, I don’t mind saying, has gotten me more than a few complements from the lady folk around the block – and not just the prostitutes, either. You won’t hear me griping about that.

  The coolest out of everything? I think all the extra protein consumption has helped thicken my thinning spots a bit – total bonus! If only I’d been in on that little secret before, I’d have eaten like Dr. Atkins years ago. Back then, though, the cholesterol would’ve kicked my younger self’s illness-obsessed ass. But now? No heartbeat means no need to worry about arterial plaque build-up. Sweet, eh?

  See how I am now? Silver linings all over the place these days.

  Not to say I’m not noticing the things that are missing. I’m just trying to keep them in their place.

  It’s hard sometimes, though.

  Despite the fact that it’s a thousand times easier than the alternative, I’ve been wondering how long I’ll have to work nights. Louise has never heard of any sort of a cure for being a vampire, so I’m guessing it’ll be close to forever. Even if I change jobs, it’s likely I’d opt for something nocturnal. The hours, the solitude, the lack of sun exposure – it really does make more sense. Louise has been on nights for five years and seven months. That’s a lot of moonlight. I’ve been on for two months, and I will say that having my days free to do whatever I want is convenient. Having to stay inside most of the time during those days in order to avoid being sun-fried makes it a little less so, since, in addition to the other stuff, the sensitivity of my skin has cranked up a bit. Even double-shirting with the UV-safe fabrics like Louise suggested lets through some burn. I can see why the woman wears wool. But sweaters aren’t me.

  I have to draw the line somewhere.

  When I was a daytime dweller, Hube and I made it a point to work the beach as much as possible. We used to hit the boardwalk and loiter on the pier every weekend – sometimes we’d try picking up women we knew were way out of our league, just to see how far we could get (hint: mostly nowhere), and sometimes we’d take our synths and busk for change to generate interest for the band. Most times we’d just wander around talking shit and dreaming big, like young dudes will do… even the older young dudes such as ourselves. I know now how much I took it for granted. Not just the good times, and not just Hube.

  The sun, too.

  I liked the heat-baked feeling of spending a handful of hours combing the beach, just kicking the waves and bein
g stupid. It’s not like I’m a kid anymore, but something about having a golden star above you warming your blood while you walk makes you feel young no matter how old you get – or, in my case, how old you don’t get. Plants know it; Superman knows it. Everything on the freaking planet knows it, including vampires, apparently. Sun is strength. Sun equals life.

  No sun equals… something less than life.

  It can’t be only me feeling like this.

  I brought it up to Louise. “I miss day life. Do you ever miss it?”

  She spoke and crafted a nifty ski hat at the same time. It was amazing; she’s like a female Yoda with knee socks and knitting needles. “You know, I do miss it – especially in the fall. I miss farmers markets, and yard sales, and apple picking. And craft fairs – I think I miss craft fairs the most.”

  Yeah. That’s what I was thinking, too…

  “What do you miss about it, Joe?”

  No question. “I miss the ocean.”

  “Is that where you used to hang, as you kids say these days?”

  Nice, Louise! Way to hit up on the lingo of the twentieth century, now that we’re well into the twenty-first. “I do – I did – hang there. Not nearly enough, though. I think now I’d be there every day if I could.” With Chloe.