The Vampire Henry

by Michael S. Walker

  No, I guess I don’t. OK

  So, dear reader…I live under the radar here. I have no ambition to make it in any other way, besides the way I am making it right now. None. There are the words. And there’s blood. The rest is quite superfluous as far as I am concerned.

  Besides, if you believe the Mayan calendar, it’s all going to come to a crashing halt in two years…

  Chapter Five

  It’s a couple of days after my triste with Marie, and I’m sleeping it off. I was up most of the night at the typer, symphony music coming out of the radio, poems coming out of me like sweat. It was good. I had a little bit of blood from my private reserves to keep me going, but I haven’t really fed since Marie. I don’t intend to for a week or so. It’s just too damn risky. And I’ll probably drive way out of town for that one, just to cover my ass.

  So, I’m lying here in the dark on my narrow bed. Kind of in a semi-conscious state. Dreaming about graceful women with pink pastel faces and long long Modigliani necks, when I hear the front doorbell start to buzz. Like Morse code, repeating the same thing over and over. Dot Dot Dot Dash. Pause. Dot Dot Dot Dash. Usually, when visitors come to my door in the daytime--and by visitors I really mean solicitors, city officials, and various representatives from religious organizations--they go away after a few earnest rings. Not this person. This person is on a mission from God or so it seems. Dot Dot Dot Dash. Pause. Dot Dot Dot Dash.

  Jesus Christ I think, as I lie there gritting my teeth. Nobody is home. Move the fuck on.

  And then I think, what if it’s the police?

  Maybe it’s your time, Henry.

  And it could be very bad if it is the police because, you see, I did a very stupid thing.

  Marie’s body is still in the house, propped up against the gas furnace in the basement. I don’t know, it just gave me a kind of peaceful feeling, looking at her naked body, at those eyes looking off into the ether, looking far off to where her soul had already gone. I went through all the other routines--got rid of her clothes, her shoes, her handbag (only ten dollars in it.) Drove her car out of the city to this wooded area where there are a few Amish farms. And then hauled ass back at top vampire speed. I dragged Marie’s naked body to the basement, was going to begin rubbing the flesh off her bones with lye, but I just couldn’t do it. It was those damned eyes: seeing nothing, seeing everything, seeing something maybe. I decided, rashly, to keep her with me for a few more days.

  Dot Dot Dot Dash. Dot Dot Dot Dash. Like the opening bars of Beeethoven’s Fifth or something. The hand of fate buzzing at my chamber door.

  “Ok,” I say, sighing. “If I’m gonna go out, I’m gonna go out in style.”

  I put on my boxers, pants, a long-sleeved shirt, socks, shoes, the bell downstairs still ringing with no let up. I think about putting a coat or a towel over my head to protect it from the sun, but in the end I just say fuck it. It’s not really going to matter anymore.

  Dot Dot Dot Dash…Dot Dot Dot Dash

  “Jesus Christ, I’m coming!” I bellow, stumbling down the stairs and towards the afternoon sun.

  I fling open the door and jump back as far as I can, expecting a SWAT team armed with stakes to rush into my living room.

  Instead, a timid voice from the other side.

  “Hello?”

  A girl’s voice. Young and black from the sound.

  “Yeah. What do you want?” I shout. I’m relieved and a little annoyed that it isn’t peace officers. I was all prepared to make my final stand here in my little clapboard house.

  “Mr. Lovell?”

  “Yes…What do you want?”

  I look at my watch. 5 o’clock. The sun is not bound to set for another three hours or so. Jesus.

  “Mr. Lovell…my name is Kaneesha Stevens. I’m from the U.S. census? I was wondering if I could axe you a few questions?”

  Census? Always something. Always someone somewhere who has to measure it all. Get it down in a form somewhere. Quantify. Qualify. The number of people in the U.S. The average size of a sperm whale’s penis. The number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. It’s really enough to make you go mad.

  “I’d rather not,” I say, brusquely. “Can’t you go away?”

  “Mr. Lovell, your response to the census is, I’m afraid, required by law. The forms were sent to you through the mail in January, and then several letters were sent, reminding you to fill them out. You did not reply. Sooo, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to axe you the questions in person.”

  Forms? In the mail? Could be. If it’s not a bill or a check from some mag publishing my stuff, I usually chuck it. So yeah. It’s entirely possible.

  “Mr. Lovell?” Kaneesha Stevens, U.S. census worker, calls again from the great bright outdoors.

  “OK. Ok.” I say, throwing up my arms and turning toward the chair where, just a few days before, Marie had been wiggling her sweet little toes at me. Aren’t you happy Marie? You no longer have to deal with this shit. “Get the hell in here then and close the door when you come.”

  “I’d rather you come out here if that’s O.K. Mr, Lovell? Mr. Lovell?”

  “Look Rasheeda or Candida…or whatever the HELL your name is…I’m not a well man. I have an allergic condition and I can’t expose my body to direct sunlight. It will burn like cigarette paper. Sooo…if you want me to answer your questions, get in here and close the fucking door. Otherwise, move on.”

  A pause. You can almost hear young mental machinery clicking and whirring on my porch. She’s probably checking to see if she still has a can of pepper spray in her purse. Just in case.

  “Ok,” she says softly. “I’m coming in.”

  And there she is, on the threshold of my living room, a little Plexiglas clipboard cradled in her arms like a baby. She is black, a high yellow actually, with ostentatiously gold hair and she’s really not much to look at in the face. But her body is something all right. A nice rack. An ass you could probably balance a few books on. I would say she’s twenty-three or so.

  “Mr. Lovell…?”

  “Yeah,” I say smiling. This is looking up. “You wanna close the door, please?”

  Another moment of hesitation.

  “OK”

  She shuts it and we are safe in the darkness of my domain. Henry the Vampire and Kaneesha Stephens, U.S. census worker.

  “Sorry to bother you Mr. Lovell,” she begins, eyeing my spartan living arrangements with suspicion, thinking how much time it would take to retrieve that pepper spray if the shit should go down. “But as you know, the 2010 Census, when completed, will provide vital demographic information to the U.S government, information that will be instrumental in shaping policies and social programs for years to come. So, your participation is really necessary.”

  It’s funny to hear these big words coming from such a young girl and it sounds like something she has been forced to memorize for a high school pageant or something. But she is still kind of easy on my vampire eyes.

  “Sure,” I say, fumbling around on the floor for a pack of cigarettes I could have sworn I threw there the night before. Of course, they aren’t there. Going to have to do this COLD TURKEY I guess.

  I motion her toward my dirty canvas chair.

  “Have a seat, Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I’d rather stand if that’s OK,” she says, valiantly.

  “OK. You wanna beer?” I have a few in the fridge, left over from my night with Marie.

  “Mr. Lovell…I’m not allowed to drink on the job.”

  I can sense that she is not all official business. Yeah, she would like a beer. That would be all right.

  “Oh c’mon. I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” I say, grinning, showing a hint of my canines. I would like a drink myself and watching the way this girl breathes, the way the pulse bubbles in her sweet neck, it’s making me thirsty for more. But no. I don’t drink in the daytime. Besides, this is a government worker here. Even if she’s only a temp, probably making about ten do
llars an hour or whatever, they would come looking for her if she should suddenly vanish. No. Stick it out Henry.

  “It’s gotta be hot out there. Have a beer.”

  She blinks, looks at the floor. “Well…”

  I take that as a yes and waltz out to the kitchen to get her one. It’s then that I notice you can actually smell Marie, her decomposing corpse. The smell is all over the house--that sweet sickly smell of the body cannibalizing itself.

  I wonder if I may have a problem.

  I get the beer and return with it to the living room. Kaneesha has a cell phone out, sending a text message to someone. Probably informing them that there appears to be some kind of serial killer on her census route. As soon as I return, she slides the phone into her front jean pocket.

  “Here ya go,” I say, handing her the cold bottle and returning to my chair. “Now ask away…”

  Kaneesha realizes that it is going to be impossible to stand, drink, and write down my census info. So as discretely as she can, she slides her delectable ass into my canvas chair and places the beer next to her on the floor.

  And we begin.

  “Name?” she asks.

  “Henry Wordsworth Lovell.”

  “This address is 1186 Lanehurst Avenue, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you own this residence or do you rent?”

  “I own it. It was actually my father and mother’s house…”

  She unscrews the cap on the beer, takes a long draw. I watch that sweet neck pulse again as the liquid flows down it. Damn, it really would be so easy to…

  “Mr. Lovell?” She is looking at me impatiently.

  “Sorry. I was thinking ‘bout dinner. What was the question?”

  “Your phone number is?”

  “My phone number is what?”

  “What is your phone number?”

  “Ummm…614-366 ummm…”

  It’s funny. I’ve forgotten my phone number. I rarely give it out to anyone, rarely have to use it for anything at all.

  “You don’t know your phone number?” Kaneesha says. She drops the polite government worker act for a second. She sounds like she’s talking to a kid who hasn’t learned to tie his shoelaces yet.

  “It’s 366-6…” I can’t really think or remember anything right now. The stench from Marie is in my nasal passages, my head, my very bones. And this girl…I want to jump on her so badly…want to stick my fangs into that sweet yellow neck.

  Instead I get up, exasperated.

  “Just hold on,” I say. “It’s here somewhere.”

  I go into the dining room, which is actually just a room connecting the living room to the kitchen. I don’t do any dining in there of course. There’s an old deal table there where the telephone is, a stack of bills by the telephone. I pick them up and rifle through them until I find my unpaid telephone bill. And there, at the top, is my number: 366-6311.

  I return in triumph to impart this info to Miss Kaneesha Stevens.

  “And what do you do for a living?” she asks.

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Oh yeah?’ This seems to impress her. I may not know my phone number, but at least I am literate.

  “Yeah.”

  “I just love to read. I probably read a book a week. You ever wrote anything I might have read?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Last book I read was The Passion of Jamie Amhearst by Ruby M. Jones. You ever read that book?”

  “Can’t say that I have.” Little motes, like water bugs or something, are gliding across my eyes. My throat is so dry. If only I had that cigarette, I might be all right.

  “That was a really good book. You ever read The Belle and The Capetbaggers? That was by Miss Ruby M. Jones too. She’s probably my favorite writer, though I like Charlaine Harris a lot too.”

  I’m kind of wishing that it HAD been a SWAT team armed with stakes at my door. This is excruciating. I have heard of Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck. But I have never heard of the decidedly prolific Ruby M. Jones.

  “I write stories and poems,” I say. “Mostly they get published in small magazines.

  “But no novels, huh? You know, I’ve often thought I should sit down and write me a book.”

  She whispers this last part as if it is a terrible secret or something, a thought she could be incarcerated for even considering. Well, she is not far from the mark.

  “Then do it,” I say. I check my watch again. It is now only 5:30. An eternity until nightfall.

  “Yeah. I have some stories,” she says, talking to me now as if we were close friends, brother and sister in the literary fraternity. “Like this job? You wouldn’t believe some of the crazy stuff that’s happened to me on this job. And I’ve only been working for the census like a month.”

  “Oh I can imagine.”

  If you only knew, Kaneesha. It could get a lot crazier. Any second now…

  “Yeah.” She takes a quick sip of her beer. It’s almost gone now. “Like there was this one guy? I had to go to his house on Quentin Street, you know, over by 615? Well, he was this old guy. Lived by hisself. Had to go axe him these questions, like I’m axing you now. Well I swear, that guy musta had like a thousand cats in that place. I was on the porch talking to him, so I only got a glimpse of the living room, but I could see in there and I tell you, you could not count the number of cats that was crawlin’ ‘round in there. I just couldn’t believe it. And the smell. Oh, my God. The SMELL was unbelievable. Someone shoulda reported that guy to the Board of Health or somethin’.”

  I think about Marie in the basement.

  “And just when I was finishing the questions, I looked down at his feet, and you know what was there?”

  I shake my head.

  “A skeleton. There was a skeleton of a little kitten just sittin’ there. Like it died right there, and he didn’t sweep it up or do nothin’ about it. You believe that?”

  “I can believe anything,” I say. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.”

  “What does that mean?” she asks, furrowing her brow.

  “The truth is stranger than fiction.”

  “Oh. It sure is. It sure the hell is. Oh, s’cuse me. Anyway, we should probably get back to these questions.”

  And we do. For a while. But it seems as if Kaneesha cannot leave the writing trade alone.

  “If I wanted to write somethin’, I mean, how would I go about it? Should I go to school or somethin’? How did you start?”

  Good question. How did I start? It always just seemed like a nice comfortable thing to do. And it remains a nice comfortable thing to do.

  “I wrote a story for my father one day,” I say. “A story about a World War 2 pilot.”

  “Ahhh, that’s nice. Did he like it?”

  “He tore it up. Told me to stop wasting my time.”

  “Ahhh, that’s really sad.”

  “Not really. Paper is cheap. Just made me want to go out and write some more.”

  Finally, about 6:30 or so, Kaneesha finishes with all her questions, both literary and demographic. She thanks me for my time, shakes my hand, wincing a little from the coldness of it. And she is out the door, and on to more adventures in the buzzing, diurnal world…

  And I sit there, in the dark, still wondering where the fuck my cigarettes are.

  Chapter Six

  Thoughts From A Dirty Old Vampire (On Death)

  I have been thinking about death a lot recently. Everyone and everything dies. Ages. Tires. Fades. And then…

  Except for me, of course.

  Actually, I’m not too sure about that. I may not be immortal. Maybe there’s a shelf life for vamps too. I’ve only known one other vampire, Emily, and she had been in that condition for ten years. I don’t know any vampires who were turned in the Middle Ages, or pacified Celts as Roman legionnaires. The notion that vamps are immortal could be a myth, like so much in the rest of the canon.

  Sooo�
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  And I am certainly not invulnerable. Hell, a nice summer day, the kind that people take for granted, the kind that kids run and frolic in, that is as deadly as e-bola to the likes of me.

  So yeah. And I am a poet too. Contemplating death is pretty much our stock and trade.

  Like contemplating summer days.

  I sit in the basement and look at Marie’s corpse, at those black pupils, like deep tunnels leading…leading…leading…

  WHERE?

  And then, I put my palm over my chest, feel where my heartbeat should be. I feel my wrist, where my pulse should be. I’ve done this a thousand times or so, marveling each time I do it.

  There’s nothing there.

  A doctor, say at the time of the Enlightenment, would say that’s dead right there. No heartbeat. No pulse. Put him in the ground. Play the Missa Solemnis. And walk away. Dead. Dead. Dead…

  Only problem is, I’m walking around like this. Putting gas in my truck. Typing up words.

  Drinking blood.

  So what am I? Am I really and honestly dead? Or am I something else?

  And I think about all those people in hospitals who are in deep deep comas--hooked up to a clutter of machines that keep their heart beating, their lungs expanding and contracting. If those machines were to be unplugged one by one, those people would certainly pass the threshold, go to where Marie is now dancing or enjoying an endless Vodka and 7. They say that there is a chance for those people. They say that their brains are still alive--that they are functioning, thinking, dreaming. And just WHAT are they thinking?

  If it was me--HEY PULL THE DAMN PLUG ALREADY AND LET ME GET OUT OF THIS SHITHOLE.

  My father, stern martinet of my formative years, had definite ideas about death, as he had definite ideas about everything else under the sun. They were not his ideas of course. I don’t think my dad had an original thought ever in his pointed head, in sixty-two years. My dad was a devout Catholic all his life, went to noon mass on Sunday without fail, served as an usher even. (Of course afterwards he would usually beat the living shit out of me for something I did or didn’t do.) All his ideas about death came from the Catholic Church and were pretty cut and dried. The body was the vessel for the immortal soul and when the body died, the soul left it. If that person had been a good Christian (i.e. Catholic) the soul would go to heaven, where angels played harps for all of eternity and there was peace and repose. If that person had been evil, then the soul would automatically go to hell, where the devil did trick-or-treat, and that soul would burn for all eternity, no hope for reprieve, no Get Out Of Jail Free Card.