Damned Lies!

by Dennis Liggio

  August, 1994 - On the Road Again

  Her name was Nancy. Technically Sister Nancy, but I liked the alliteration of Nun Nancy or Nancy the Nun. The latter made her sound like a gangster or someone I'd fence some goods at. "Take the jewels down to the wharf and down to the Crooked Anchor. Ask for Nancy the Nun, she'll give you a good deal. Though I tell yah it's a few dollars more for No Questions Asked." Alas, this Nancy would be a poor fence and an even worse thug.

  Sister Nancy was kind. There was something very good about her, motherly, even if she was not wizened and old like the hospital nun. Nancy was in her forties, maybe fifties. She smiled often, uncaring of the lines on her face that came with that smile. She wore simple glasses and she had a demeanor that reminded me of a friend's mother or a high school teacher - one of the good ones. Though she wore the black and white coif typical of nuns, she did not wear a frock or robes. She wore a plain dress that was once black, but had faded to a dark gray. She worked the pedals with a pair of white tennis shoes as we cruised down the road in an old beat-up station wagon.

  "Where are you headed?" she asked.

  I was of two emotions in that car. On the one hand, I was excited for a free ride and the prospect of getting closer to home. I knew that I had already seen enough adventure and I wanted to go home to the boring old life I knew. That part of me was happy just to be moving forward.

  The other part of me was leery. At that age, I thought of nuns as strict disciplinarians. While I was raised Catholic, I had never gone to Catholic school, so I didn't actually have any direct experience. But television and horror stories from friends who did go to Catholic school had me thinking that nuns were shrieking banshees of God's Law, their stern and shrill voices quieted only with the stark sound of a ruler striking a desk or a poor student's hand.

  "Home," I said simply.

  "Oh yes," she said with a nod and a smile. "Home is one of the best destinations to have. In all life's travels, none ever feel quite so relieving as going home."

  "Yeah, I guess it is pretty... relieving," I said. "I hadn't really thought about it." Which was true. Even standing by the road all day waiting for a ride I didn't think about how I felt about it, only how to get there. It seems feeling is an activity for a man of leisure.

  "Do you have family at home waiting for you?"

  "I have family there, yes," I said. "Not sure if waiting is right. They might not know I'm gone."

  "Oh that's terrible!" she said.

  "No, I mean, that's not what I mean..." I said. How to explain that they didn't notice my absence because I had a replacement? Would a nun believe that? Even if she did, should I tell her? I mean, she's a nun and married to God or something. I'm pretty sure cloning myself is some sort of affront to God. She might throw holy water in my face in absence of pepper spray.

  "It doesn't matter the reason," she said. "Home is still home, whether they knew you went or know you're coming back. If you can go back and still be accepted, then it's still home, no matter what other people think. Everything will be okay."

  I thought about it. Bruce would welcome me back, at least. And once my clone was out of the picture, everything would be good again. It would be home again.

  "Yeah," I said with a smile. "Everything should be okay."

  "Yes. That's the spirit! A positive attitude goes so far in life. Best to start early."

  "The power of positive thinking?" I asked. "Like what I see on TV in late night infomercials? If I keep a positive attitude, things will just go my way, right? That seems cheap and misleading, no offense to like, Jesus and stuff."

  She shook her head. "I apologize if I'm the first person to ever tell you this. But life's going to be hard. If it's not hard now, it will be. Life's going to break your heart. Doesn't matter who you are, what you do, where you come from. At some point, you'll get your heart broken. And nobody, not your parents, not the government, not even God can stop that. It's going to happen."

  "Are you sure you're a nun?" I said interrupting her.

  She smiled. "I wasn't finished. Everybody's going to get their heart broken. It's part of being here on this earth. It's what you do after it's broken that makes the difference."

  "What you do after it's broken? Cry?" I suggested.

  She laughed, a soft laugh. "I mean after that. Everybody does the crying part, but some never get past that. Some people will spend years wallowing in their pain. Others will never let it heal, and spend the rest of their lives trying to push that pain on others or just spend their days trying run away from pain. Some make themselves cold trying to never feel again."

  "So what should we do?"

  "That depends on who you are. But you need to have a positive attitude."

  "No offense..." I paused trying to think of the right title. Sister? Mother? Your eminence? Your highness? Your lofty penguin-coifedness? "...Nancy, but the whole 'be positive' thing feels like it's kind of trite and meaningless in the face of real pain." I was a teenager, so obviously I felt I knew the true nature of real pain far better than everyone else.

  "What you're thinking of is different," she said. "That's when people are using someone else's words, pretending something, or just lying to themselves. They say positive things, but they don't think it, they're just saying things, not even convinced themselves. That's not what I'm saying. Being positive needs to be honestly done, but it doesn't need to be as complicated as some people think. Sometimes it's just putting all your confidence in one simple thing: Everything's going to be okay."

  "Everything's going to be okay?" I asked.

  "Everything's going to be okay," she repeated.

  "It just... will?"

  "Of course you can't just let things happen," she clarified. "You can't just give up and let things happen around you. You need to participate, you need to try. But if you're trying, if you're trying to be a good person, if you're really trying to live life, then you can just be confident in it. Everything's going to be okay."

  "That seems... I'm not sure," I said. "Life has all these catastrophes, but just having faith in things being okay solves all problems? I just don't buy that. Sometimes the things that happen are too big, too scary."

  She nodded. "I understand where you're coming from. But one of the big secrets of life is that all pain looks bigger than it is. All the problems in your life look huge when you need to tackle them. It's because we take things so personally that we magnify everything. But they're usually only a big deal because we make them that way. They may be inconvenient, they may be painful, but they're not catastrophic. They're not going to ruin your life unless you let them. Life doesn't have to be taken so personally. If you're willing to just let that pain go, just let it go and go on living, you'll realize things get better. Life goes on. Everything's going to be okay. It always will be if you let it."

  "Everything's going to be okay," I repeated.

  "Everything's going to be okay," she said.

  "...though Jesus?" I suggested.

  She laughed. "If you and Jesus are cool, then sure. I'm not here to push religion on you. If you and Jesus are best buds, then you can put your faith in him. If you aren't, you're not abandoned. Whether you believe or whatever you believe, trust that everything's going to be okay. It doesn't seem like much, but sometimes it will be all you ever needed."

  I nodded. Her advice, unburdened by mentions of the J-word, made a reluctant sense to me, even in my teen arrogance and pain wallowing. Maybe it was her and whatever feel-good mojo she radiated, but I smiled and focused on that same mantra. Everything's going to be okay.

  We sat for a few minutes, feeling good, cruising down the road. I finally decided to start conversation again.

  "Where are you headed?" I asked.

  "To kill a vampire," she said.

  A Holy Mission

  "Vampires? I thought you hated vampires."

  Bruce was back again, bravely forcing himself to look past my nearly indecipherable scribbles to actually try to read my memoir.
He dropped by the hospital simply to ask how I was doing. There was no mention of his wife, no monetary matter that needed my attention (he was checking in on my apartment and making sure rent got paid while I was in here), or other real reason to be here. While he could have been here out of the kindness of his heart, that's not him. Knowing Bruce, I'd expect to see him right after the accident, right before I got out, but no other time unless I called him or he had something to talk about. He has never been one for random visits. So I was immediately suspicious of his reasonless visit.

  After some prodding, he admitted that Detective Stearne had come to see him, asking about me. From everything he heard, I wasn't in trouble with the law. Instead, Stearne was asking the same sort of questions he asked me: did he know anyone who would hit me with a car, did I have any enemies, how many people knew I would be at the restaurant at that time, etc. Bruce answered as best he could, but he was left with the same lingering uneasiness that I had.

  Neither of us mentioned the elephant in the room, the thing that we both suspected. That came later.

  Instead, he saw my pages on the side table and asked about them, changing the subject. That of course led to him being forced to read them and give his impressions. Then came vampires.

  "What gave you the impression I hate vampires?" I said.

  "Oh, I don't know, the whole Interview with a Vampire bit, the way you've frowned upon wimpy romantic vampires in the past, you general derisiveness towards Goths..."

  "Hey, the Goths know what they did," I said sternly. "But vampires... I think that vampires are overrated, yes. Maybe overrated is not the best word. I think they are overdone, and when they are done, they seem to be this strange analogy for sex marketed to fifteen year olds. They're monsters, not tortured teenagers. They are dead, they live by consuming blood, and they live for centuries. If living a really long time turns someone into a whiny bitch, I think I'd rather die young."

  "Maybe it's something in the blood that makes them whiny," he suggested.

  "Like blood to blood contact spreads Whiny Bitch RNA? Well, I guess it could be possible. But that would be like the worst communicable disease ever." I paused thoughtfully. "I think I know some people who have already caught it."

  "But they're not monsters," he said.

  "Well, they could be, if they ever got off their ass and did something. But yes, not real monsters. These modern vampires aren't monsters either. Sure, they're something, and people like them, but I don't. And I don't think I'm being unreasonable in wanting my monsters to be monsters. We don't always need to show that monsters and stuff have feelings and shit too, and they're just like us, but misunderstood. I don't want to see any dudebro creature from the Black Lagoon films. Let there be monsters. Inexcusably horrible monsters."

  August, 1994 - The Middle of Nowhere

  "So when do we kill the vampire?" I asked.

  The sun was going down and we were in the middle of nowhere. Sister Nancy said the vampire lived in an abandoned church a few dusty roads off the highway.

  "You don't have to help," she said again.

  "But I want to help," I said enthusiastically.

  She sighed, which I know some of you, My Dear Readers, are also doing.

  You're sitting here thinking, "Oh, he would never volunteer to help kill a vampire. I wouldn't." You'd think I would be too scared, too weirded out, or think the nun too crazy for me to help out. You'd think there would be reasons and excuses and nervousness, all in the name of somehow avoiding the task. And you would be wrong. Because of course I want to kill a vampire.

  Dear Reader, imagine if you will, that you were asked by a friend if you wanted to kill a vampire. Out of the blue, your friend rings at your door and quite seriously asks your help in ridding the world of a vicious creature of the night. And you might imagine your response to be a mere shake of the head. Maybe some mumbled excuse: "No, I think I am going to stay home, watch television, surf the internet, go on that website and down vote people I don't agree with, then go to bed early, safe in my own bed and away from vampires. Also, vampires don't exist." And in your imagination, you stay at home, allowing cognitive dissonance to do its work. You decide your friend is crazy. You decide you never would want to kill a vampire.

  And to you I say: Bullshit.

  You are a liar.

  For the moment, let's ignore the talk of whether vampires exist or not. Your friend has asked you to kill a vampire. He or she has got the sharpened wooden stakes, the various undead hunting tools, even the exact the location of the vamp. You are just requested to be a ride along. All the decisions are already made, you just have to decide whether you will accompany them. Are you going to just pass up an opportunity like this? Are you going to shake your head and have yet another uneventful and forgettable evening? Are you going to deny your soul as a reader, a dreamer, a fantasist, an escapist? Will you betray your imagination?

  You've read all those books of fights and fantasies, of epic journeys and twisted thrillers, of heroes and villains, of the light and the dark. And whether you admit it or not, you've wished for that adventure. You've wished that those things are at least partly real. Why would you keep reading them, why would you keep loving them, why would you keep injecting your imagination with such amazing stories, if you never, in some part of yourself, ever wanted them to be at least somewhat real?

  Dear Reader, are you telling me that if one night, a trusted friend showed up at your door, and called upon your trust to dispose of a vampire, you'd refuse the idea?

  No, you wouldn't.

  Not if you were honest with yourself. Let go of your weird feelings, your fear, any ideas of your friend being crazy. Let go of your inertia, your reluctance, and that little voice that always tells you that you can't do things. Forget that voice that gives you weak reasons for keeping to the status quo of your life. This is a unique moment, that voice does not apply. Your friend wants you to go kill a vampire.

  What do you say?

  You'd say, "Fuck yeah! I want to stab a motherfucking vampire in his motherfucking heart!"

  Because one day, you're going to be somewhere, whether it's in front of friends, your kids, a late night bar, or on your death bed, and the moment is going to happen. For once in your life, you'll have the rapt attention of everyone in the room. Everyone's going to be looking at you, waiting for whatever profound words you are willing to say. It's a fleeting moment. You open your mouth... and what do you say? What do you truly say to that group of people? You can't just give them another story about a fish you caught, a plane you missed, a lover that got away. That's not this moment.

  And in that moment, you'll have the story of how you sought to kill a vampire. It doesn't matter if they believe, it doesn't matter if the vampire ended up being real or fake. It doesn't matter if you followed your friend to the destination and discovered your friend was crazy and you needed to talk them through their breakdown. The actual story or its conclusion don't really matter for this. You'll have the story of how you killed a vampire (or tried to), and they'll all listen. Even those who think you're lying will still listen until the story ends.

  Because you killed a motherfucking vampire.

  Nancy didn't quite appreciate my unique form of enthusiasm. She also kept telling me to stop cursing. Repeatedly. Besides criticizing my language, she kept suggesting that I was not taking the task seriously, despite my assurances. It was when we arrived at our destination and she was retrieving gear from the trunk that she must have finally believed me. She gave me the duffle bag of tools and then handed me an axe. Nothing shows trust like handing someone a brutally lethal weapon.

  It wasn't quite a medieval battleaxe, but it wasn't just a cheap Home Depot hand axe either. It had a single blade and a fairly long haft. It wasn't a sharpened wooden stake as I expected, but as Nancy explained, in vampire hunting stakes are a necessary tool but hard to defend yourself with. They're short and take a lot of force to penetrate a ribcage, which is difficult if the vampire is a
ll up in your grill trying to kill you. Axes, on the other hand, can dismember, decapitate, and otherwise cause some serious damage. A vampire who loses his head is just as incapacitated as one stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake, so an axe is a good weapon of choice.

  I was also ready if some treants wanted to throw down.

  We had parked within view of the church, but not too close. The ground was barren and dusty, the occasional patch of dead weeds sticking up; kind of familiar for me that summer. The building was a crumbling ruin that wasn't bigger than a house, but to be fair, it looked like it never was a very big church to begin with. It was definitely old - it could have been an old missionary church or some other historical thing that I couldn't recognize due to neglectful years falling asleep during Social Studies class. There was technically a cemetery around the church, but at this point, it was just a bunch of worn out grave markers poking out of dead earth.

  The sun was going down, the sunlight becoming a stale yellow that would soon turn gold and then red. Time was running out if we wanted to take the vampire unaware.

  I had asked why we didn't wait until tomorrow. Nancy explained that she also would prefer more daylight, but she would not risk another innocent life taken due to her inaction. Churchly duty and all.

  Around the church there technically was a fence, which when new would have been about three feet tall and made of wrought iron. But, time had not been good to that fence. At best, the rods were fallen over, at worst they were twisted, rusted, or missing. Occasionally a lone twisted rod jutted up about a foot from the ground, but that was rare. We easily stepped over the fence to the church doors. The only risk would have been tetanus.