Jules sensed Doodlebug standing next to him. His friend was dressed in a duplicate of Cyd Charisse’s fantasy gown. “They were beautiful together, weren’t they?” Doodlebug said.
“Yeah. They were.”
The younger vampire sorted through the costumes on one of the racks, looking for one in particular. “I’m going back up to the projectionist’s booth to rewind the film and run it again. While I’m up there, put these on.”
He handed Jules a white three-button shirt and a pair of black dancer’s pants. Jules checked the waist size listed on a tag inside the pants.Heh. They were a size thirty. Jules hadn’t been able to button a pair of size thirty pants around his waist since Calvin Coolidge was president.
He looked back at the screen. Gene Kelly, devastated by Cyd Charisse’s rejection, exited the casino with sagging shoulders. But outside, he ran into a green, young dancer, an overeager kid who reminded him of how he himself had been when he’d first hit the Great White Way. The kid’s spirit proved contagious. Before he even knew what he was doing, Gene Kelly was dancing across the screen again, just for the sheer, crazy joy of it. The spirit was contagious to those off the screen, too.
“Train set,” Jules said.
His flesh was clay, and Jules was Michelangelo. In less than a second, he had his thirty-inch waist. His well-muscled chest descended in a sharp V to his trim midsection. His legs were slender and sinewy. He slipped the shirt over his head, then slid into the size thirty pants. When he buttoned them, he still had half an inch to spare-he actually needed the belt that was hanging on the rack.
The film had stopped while he was getting dressed. Now it started up again. Doodlebug descended the stairs from the balcony, a fifteen-foot gauze cape trailing behind him. He gestured toward the large barrel-fan sitting in the wings of the floor area. Jules walked over and turned it on. The powerful wind ruffled his hair just as the opening bars of “Broadway Ballet” sounded from the speakers on either side of the screen.
Doodlebug joined Jules on the floor. The wind from the fan made his feathery cape soar into the air, reaching almost to the height of the balcony. They waited for the on-screen ballet to reach the fantasy sequence between Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse.
Then they danced.
Or, rather, Doodlebug did all the dancing, and Jules looked handsome and upright and a little awestruck.
As soon as the fantasy sequence was over, Jules attempted to extricate himself from the yards of white gauze his partner had wrapped around him. Doodlebug took advantage of Jules’s temporary captivity to rush over and hug him. The unexpected embrace completely shattered Jules’s concentration, and he burst out of his dancer’s clothing, swelling like a balloon attached to a fire hose. But it didn’t matter. He’d always remember that he’d been able to fit in a pair of size thirty pants. And he’d remember that his dreams, if given half a chance, could be stronger than his doubts.
When Doodlebug released him and stepped back, the younger vampire had tears in his eyes. “Oh, Jules, congratulations. You’vegraduated — you’ve achieved the rank of summa cum laude from Vampire U. My work here is finished.”
“What do you mean, ‘finished’?” Jules grabbed his cloak and wrapped it around his suddenly exposed flesh. “You still gotta teach me all that fancy kung-fu stuff you know. Finished? We’ve barely started. Besides, you’re my partner. We’ve gotta see this thing throughtogether.”
“Really, there’s nothing more you need to learn from me,” Doodlebug said, a hint of wistfulness in his voice. “Come on.” He gave Jules a comradely pat on the back, then unsnapped the beautiful but utterly impractical cape from the neck of his dress. “Let’s go back to the B-and-B and get some sleep.”
The next evening Jules awoke feeling completely refreshed. He checked his watch before opening the lid of his coffin. Eleven forty-twoP.M.? No wonder he felt refreshed-he’d overslept by a good three and a half hours. Why hadn’t his friend woken him up? No matter, though. He and Doodlebug could make this a strategy night. He’d perk up a big pot of coffee, and they could spend a relaxing evening brainstorming. It’d be fun.
He opened the lid of his coffin and sprang up like a robin eager for the first worm of the morning. The room was dark. In fact, the entire cottage was dark. “D.B.? You up yet?”
He climbed out of his coffin and flicked on the light switch. “Doodlebug?”
No answer. He stuck his head into the dark bedroom. “Hey, pal? Rise and shine, buddy!” He turned on the light. Doodlebug’s coffin wasn’t sitting on the four-poster bed. It wasn’t anywhere in the bedroom.
“What thehell-?”
He went into the kitchen. There was a handwritten note sitting on the table. He picked it up and read it.
Dear Jules,
By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way back to California. I know this is a strange way for us to part, but I felt it would be for the best. This is your time to shine, Jules. I feared that if I stayed any longer, I would get in the way of your full maturation. I have taught you everything that you need to know, and I trust completely in your ability to do what needs to be done. Even though I am not there with you, my thoughts and best wishes will be with you always. Just remember that you can have the things you’ve always wanted, but in order to acquire them, you might have to look at them in a new way.
I’ve left you an open line of credit so you can continue to stay in the cottage as long as you need to. Please don’t hesitate to call on me again if there is ever any other way I can be of some help, or if you just want some company. Consider coming out my way one of these Halloweens-my town’s Halloween parade is even wilder than the French Quarter’s. Great seeing you!
Love,
Rory
He read the note a second time, just to make sure he hadn’t misread. Nothing changed. It wasn’t a gag.
Jules turned a paler shade of white.
Like a dormant virus reactivated by a cold wind, the fear was back in the pit of his belly. All too suddenly, he was on his own again.
SIXTEEN
Erato.
Jules thought the name over and over as he drove toward the Trolley Stop Cafй. Erato was the last friend left whom Jules trusted. Erato could advise him, guide him through shark-strewn waters. He had a solid head on his shoulders-not much in the way of book learning, maybe, but reams of diplomas from the school of the streets. On top of that, Erato was a black man; he’dhave to have insights into Jules’s predicament that were beyond Jules’s reach. Jules had no choice but to finally play it straight with him-he’d have to take the risk of revealing to his friend the vampiric side of his nature that he’d kept secret for years.Erato can handle it, Jules told himself. He’d have to.
The notion of turning to Erato had come to him the previous night, after reading Doodlebug’s note had driven Jules into an almost mindless panic. He’d called Erato’s cell phone incessantly for three hours. But the frantic vampire had been continuously stymied by busy signals. Finally, exhausted by fear and frustration, he’d crawled back into his coffin and fallen into a sleep haunted by nightmares. Most of his evil dreams had Jules trapped on a sinking barge in the middle of the Mississippi, chained to the deck as hundreds of rats scurried across him to flee the sinking vessel.
Tonight Jules wouldn’t bother monkeying around with the telephone. He’d see Erato face-to-face. Jules turned onto the vestigial rump of Basin Street, a thoroughfare made famous by early jazz tunes, but nearly erased from existence by the creation of Armstrong Park thirty years ago. He passed the ugly concrete pile of Municipal Auditorium, site of wrestling matches, Mardi Gras balls, and Disney on Ice; recently it had been home to a minor-league hockey team and a failed casino. Just past the auditorium, a roadblock outside the First District police station blocked his progress.
Jules braked to a halt in front of a pair of police cruisers and stuck his head out his window. “What’s goin‘ on, Officers?”
A weary-looking cop motioned for him to turn around at the
intersection. “Basin’s blocked off from here to Iberville. No through traffic allowed. Some kinda Night Out Against Crime demonstration. Cut over to Rampart Street if you’ve gotta make Canal.”
“Thanks, Officer.”
Jules started to make a left turn across Basin when he spotted what looked like Erato’s cab, parked in a closed gas station. He pulled into the lot, which was crowded with other parked cars. Sure enough, itwas Erato’s cab-there was that dumb-looking pair of sun-faded, pink fuzzy dice hanging from his rearview mirror.
Jules backed out of the jam-packed parking lot and rounded the corner onto Rampart. He found an open space beneath a live oak next to Armstrong Park; not the safest stretch of asphalt in New Orleans by any means, but considering the terrors he’d recently lived through, Jules didn’t give the neighborhood’s dicey reputation a second thought.
He walked past the police station and crossed the line of barricades. At least the presence of so many cops would ensure that he’d be relatively safe from ambush until after he’d had a chance to find Erato and talk with him. Finding him might not be so easy, however. The street and the grassy neutral ground in its middle were occupied by several hundred tightly bunched demonstrators. Most of them were waving their hand-painted signs at the police station and the cordon of cops; smaller groups were giving interviews for the benefit of a large contingent of reporters and cameramen. Other attendees were purchasing hot dogs and soft drinks from vendors who’d set up carts on the sidewalk outside the St. Louis Cemetery.
Now that he was closer, Jules was able to read the protesters’ signs.EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL, several read. Others read,MURDER IS MURDER, RICH OR POOR, orJUSTICE FOR HOMELESS VICTIMS. One elderly black lady had loquaciously painted her sign in tiny, carefully formed capital letters,A PINT OF POOR BLACK WOMAN’S BLOOD IS WORTH THE SAME AS A PINT OF RICH WHITE MAN’S BLOOD. Actually, Jules could quibble with this last sentiment; in his experience, a pint of a poor black woman’s blood wasmuch tastier and more filling than a pint of a rich white man’s blood.
Any lighthearted quips immediately evaporated from his mind as soon as he saw the T-shirts the demonstrators were all wearing. They featured the same grainy, laser-copied photo of Bessie that he’d seen on posters in the French Quarter and on shirts in Central City. Only this time they were emblazoned with the captionBESSIE AGAR, GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.
Suddenly Jules heard a familiar voice calling him from the far side of the crowd. “Jules! Hey,Jules!
Whatchu doin‘ round here?“
Erato pushed his slightly pear-shaped form aggressively through the press of bodies, ducking beneath signs and barely avoiding collisions with sauerkraut-and-mustard-laden Lucky Dogs on his way to Jules’s side. “Man-oh-man, you are about thelast body I’d expect to see here,” he said, breathing a little hard after his dash across Basin Street. He grabbed Jules’s paw with both his hands. “You want a T-shirt to wear? Some of the ladies in the group are pretty big, y’know, so maybe I can find one in yo‘ size-”
Jules had the dizzying, unreal feeling that he was a contestant on a new TV game show, a mean-spirited amalgamation ofCandid Camera,This Is Your Life, andThe Twilight Zone. “Forget the T-shirt, Erato. I’m only here ‘cause I been lookin’ for you the last twenty-four hours. I was headin‘ over to the Trolley Stop when I saw your cab. What’s goin’ on here with all these people? And how come you’re involved?”
“It’s National Night Out Against Crime-you knew that, right? All over town, neighborhood associations, homeowners, are gettin‘ together and havin’ barbecues. Makin‘ it clear to the criminal element that the lights areon and somebody’s watchin’ the streets, y’know? But it’s not just people with homes that are the victims of crime, see. An awful lot of the victims of robbery and murder are those folks what don’thave a home-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jules said in a rush, “but what does this have to do withyou?”
“You know what it says in Scripture-‘There but for the grace of the Lord goes me’? Well, for a few years now I been a volunteer for this program sponsored by the cab companies and the Social Service Department. It’s called C.A.H.R.T., likego cart. Stands for ‘Cabbies Assisting Homeless Residents with Transportation.’ I pick up homeless folks from the shelters and give ‘em rides to jobs or services or the hospital, all for fifty cents a ride. So over the months I got to know a buncha them pretty well-you’re a cabbie yo’self, you know how folks talk when they’re in your backseat. Some of these folks, I’ll be pickin’ ‘em up for weeks and weeks, and then they’ll up and disappear without a trace. Happened often enough to start worryin’ me. So I decided to help organize this demonstration here, to make the cops pay attention to crime against the homeless.”
Jules felt himself reddening. How many of those “disappearances” had he been responsible for over the past few years? Dozens? He didn’t even want to venture a count. Hearing his buddy talk this way hurt worse than falling on his face from two stories up. He grabbed Erato by the shoulders. “But whyBessie? Why the T-shirts? Why the posters? Why have I been seeing that woman’s face all over town?”
Erato’s thick eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What? You knowed Bessie?”
Jules tried applying the brakes to his emotions. He hoped Erato hadn’t noticed him blushing. “Uh, a little. I gave her a few rides.”
“Oh yeah? Well, Bessie was-is,gotta remember to sayis — a very special lady. That woman had nothing, y’know? But every time I gave her a ride, all she could talk about was what she needed to be doin‘ for other folks. Walking donated groceries to old folks too sick to leave their homes. Watchin’ the kids of moms tryin‘ to work and get off the welfare.” His face darkened. “It just pisses me the fuckoff that the cops pay more attention to statues gettin’ stolen from cemeteries than when some homeless woman like Bessie Agar goes missin‘-like her life ain’t worthshit- ”
Jules felt as small and repulsive as a booger smeared on a dinner plate. Erato must’ve noticed the profoundly distressed look on his friend’s face, because he gripped Jules’s shoulder and said, “Aww, I’m sorry to bring you down like that, man. I shouldn’t have gone off on a tear. Hell, Bessie could still turn up, y’know. There’s still hope.”
“Yeah, she could still turn up,” Jules parroted in a flat, mechanical voice. In his mind’s eye, he saw Bessie’s rich red blood pooling on the plastic sheet covering the floor of his Cadillac, and her skin fading from a rich chocolate brown to a dull, lifeless gray. He saw the gun in his hand, and the neat little hole the small-caliber bullet made in the base of her skull, and how her body floated like a big pool toy before sinking into the murk of Manchac swamp.
A TV reporter standing on neutral ground motioned for Erato to come do an interview. Erato shouted that he’d be over in a minute, then turned back to Jules. “Say, buddy, you said before that you been tryin‘ to track me down. Sorry for bein’ hard to get a hold of-I been real busy makin‘ sure we’d have a good turnout tonight. What can I do for you? I gotta say, it’sgreat to see you up and around. You had me kinda worried with your lyin’-in-the-piano-box shtick. Gladthat nonsense is over and done with. So whatchu need?”
“Nothin‘, Erato. You’re a real busy man tonight.” Turning back in the direction of his car, he couldn’t even meet his friend’s eyes. “Forget about it. It was nothin’ at all. Have a good rally, huh?”
“Uh, sure thing!” Erato yelled after him, sounding more than a little confused. “Let’s get together next week at the Trolley Stop and talk about that C.A.H.R.T. program, okay? Maybe I can get you to volunteer with me?”
Jules didn’t even attempt a reply. He pretended not to have heard his friend, and concentrated on pushing through the crowd. Just six weeks ago, learning about the C.A.H.R.T. program, with its convenient supply of unsuspecting homeless victims, would’ve seemed like manna from heaven. Now the thought of what he would’ve done with that knowledge made his stomach churn.
Jules trudged toward Rampart Street, his feet hea
vy as concrete slabs. Although he was surrounded by hundreds of people, he felt achingly alone.
The big vampire drove aimlessly for a while, barely noticing things like stop signs, traffic lights, and pedestrians. Driving in the shadow of the elevated expressway grew uncomfortable-the massive steel buttresses looming above him reminded Jules of the relentless fate hanging over his head-so he turned off onto Tulane Avenue.
Too late, he realized where he was. “Jeezus, my life’s runnin‘ in a big fuckin’ circle,” he whispered harshly to himself. To his left, silhouetted in moonlight, loomed the Romanesque towers of St. Joseph’s Church. His childhood church, and the same house of worship he’d found himself drawn to the night he’d submerged Bessie’s body in the muddy waters of Manchac swamp.
The massive front doors were open, beckoning him inside. He parked on the other side of the street and walked across Tulane Avenue’s six lanes. A sign posted on the church’s front lawn announced that the church was conducting special evening Masses during the Night Out Against Crime.
Jules felt a desperate, burning need for-what? Forgiveness? Absolution? Redemption, maybe? Whatever this nebulous but powerful need was, he knew that he felt scared, abandoned, sick of being who he was, and terribly, terribly alone. More than anytime since he’d been a little boy, he wanted someone stronger and wiser than he was to tell him everything would be all right. Even if it wasn’t true.
He just wanted to hear it.
He squinted to avoid seeing the crucifixes outside and walked into St. Joseph’s. Almost immediately, he felt his skin begin broiling; it felt like the sunburns he used to suffer at Lake Pontchartrain at the start of summer, right after school had let out. He avoided the baptismal font like another man would avoid a pool of boiling lava. The big church was empty.Must be between Masses, Jules told himself. More surprising to him was the dull drabness of the tall stained-glass windows. After thinking about it a minute, he realized that in nearly all his memories of this church, the windows had been made radiant and beautiful by the sunlight streaming through them.
Fat White Vampire Blues Page 34
