Gypsy Blood

by Vernon, Steve

  “SHUT UP, POPPA!”

  Listen to him. You think he would never better. Even a crazy man knows better than to argue with the dead.

  Maya looked at him. “Are you done arguing with the air? Or your Poppa? Grab hold of yourself. We’ve got a body to move.”

  She was right. Poppa was right. No one had forced Carnival to kill. Maya bent and took the dead man by his shoulders. Carnival looked up in astonishment.

  “I thought you weren’t going to help.”

  “Now I am. Let’s throw him in a dumpster. There’s a quiet one just around the corner.”

  “I thought they were all quiet.”

  She didn’t answer. He started dragging again. Maya walked softly behind.

  “I thought you were going to help?”

  “I changed my mind.”

  Ha. Listen to her. A woman changes her mind like a wind changing direction. There is no reason, there is no rhyme.

  “Tell your Poppa to shut up. Being dead isn’t an excuse for sexism.”

  Carnival looked at her. He still couldn’t get used to someone else hearing what his Poppa was saying.

  “Shut up, Poppa,” Carnival said.

  Poppa made a rude whip sound. The sound tickled. Carnival kept dragging. It was hard work, getting harder. The night was cold but he’d worked up a sweat that made for a slippery grip.

  “I’ve got a bad back, you know,” he warned her.

  It was true. He’d thrown his back out loading Poppa’s truck when he was seventeen. He never found it since. The truth was he had never bothered looking.

  “It looks like a good one to me,” she said. “Wide and strong. Do you work out?”

  Carnival puffed up his chest like a pom-pom struck quarterback.

  Look at the rooster strut. Don’t you know she’s conning you?

  Carnival knew. He just didn’t care. Compliments were hard to find.

  “It’s just a little further,” she said.

  Little, like maybe a hundred miles. She is leading you by your seed sacks up a Calvary of your own creation.

  Carnival kept dragging. It seemed funny how the body didn’t seem to be cool. It was just as warm as ever, like it was ready to sit up.

  “This thing isn’t going to come back, is it? I don’t want any back-from-the-dead john coming after my blood.”

  “Don’t worry. He isn’t coming back.”

  She sounded certain but Carnival wasn’t sure.

  “I thought when you bit someone it made him a vampire.”

  And garlic will kill them. Why don’t you burp on her and see?

  “You watch too many movies,” Maya said. “Vampirism isn’t a virus. You don’t catch it like the cold.”

  “So how do you get it?”

  “Heredity. You get it through your blood. Through your roots.”

  That was news to Carnival. He wasn’t certain how much truth lay hidden beneath her words. You don’t grow to be three centuries old without telling a lie or two. He kept dragging. The body stayed warm. Maya kept walking, as if dragging a body through a darkened street wasn’t anything resembling unusual. Anger took over. It happened fast when his back pained him.

  “Look, damn it,” he said, with a stomp of his foot.

  Oh look, he’s going to dance.

  Carnival ignored Poppa. His anger was for Maya.

  “I killed this guy for you. I cut his throat.”

  Keep dancing. A little tantrum polka is good for the circulation. It will warm you up.

  “I killed for you,” he repeated.

  Maya stared at Carnival like he was talking Swahili.

  “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” he continued.

  She allowed him another shrug.

  “I murdered him!” he yelled.

  “Shh,” she warned. “Someone might hear us.”

  She is right. You should be quiet. The walls have rats, and rats have ears.

  “Listen to your Poppa.”

  “Ha. In this neighborhood we could set off a nuclear missile, and the rats would just turn up the volume on their stolen television sets. It still doesn’t change the facts. I murdered a man.”

  “Do you think I didn’t see? Look at it my way. To you it’s murder. To me it’s dinner.”

  She had a point and Carnival kept dragging.

  “We’re nearly there,” she reassured.

  It looked quiet and empty but he couldn’t be certain. It was too close to home. What if the police found the guy’s body? What if they canvassed the neighborhood?

  That only happens on television, which I should be home watching now. The Sopranos are on. You should watch it sometime. They know how to get rid of a body.

  “So why’d you do it?” She asked.

  It was a good question.

  “Your laugh, I guess.”

  “My laugh?”

  “When I heard it. It was like you suddenly became a person. Suddenly you were real, I guess,”

  He lapsed into silence. He stood there, hanging onto the guy’s dead wrists like he was checking for a pulse. He knew exactly how stupid he looked at that point in time. His back hurt. He ignored the pain and kept on dragging.

  “I don’t know. You know. I guess.”

  Listen to him speak. Now he’s a teapot, all spout and steam.

  “You guess what?” She asked.

  That was a good question.

  “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to save you. I wanted to show you Paris. Take you home to Momma? I don’t know. How the hell can I say a feeling I’ve never felt before?”

  He took two quick breaths.

  “Hell,” the words came out fast like they’d been pushed. “I love you, I guess.”

  Good words, Galahad. Good words to carve on a tombstone.

  Chapter 8

  Let Us Now Talk Of Love

  Love is a little like Hell.

  You either fall into it or sometimes you’re pushed.

  Sometimes it’s a little of both.

  Carnival was in love. He’d said so, hadn’t he? If it was a lie, Carnival wasn’t sure who he was telling it to. He was hooked and swimming in the deep end of big red pool. He hadn’t said words like that in a hell of a long time. He’d seen forty four summers and three kinds of I-love-you. Burned every time. He thought he was smarter than this.

  Smarter than love? There is no such thing. In matters like this, the older you grow, the more you don’t learn.

  “Love me?” Maya asked.

  At least she didn’t laugh. Something your mother taught you the first time she giggled over your freshly chocolated diapers. You never forget that giggle. You keep expecting women to laugh at you when you take off your pants.

  “Love is a big word,” she said.

  Carnival blew his breath through his teeth. He shrugged.

  “When it happens, it happens. I felt it. It’s real.”

  Please, swallow a burp and force feed me some honest bile. I may die of this sweetness.

  “It isn’t real. But it sure is cute.”

  Cute.

  God, Carnival hated that word, especially when it came out of the mouth of a woman. The only thing worse was “Let’s just be friends.”

  Let’s just be friends. Ha! That one is the kiss of death.

  Carnival’s neck itched.

  “Are you sure you didn’t bite me.”

  “I didn’t touch you. Not even close.”

  He scratched again. He couldn’t feel any kind of wound. Maybe it was just some kind of phantom itch. Like when you lose a limb. When you lose a life, does your body remember it? Is that what ghosts were? Remembered lives?

  The guy’s body felt a little heavier, like it agreed with Carnival.

  Do you know what they call that in a court of law? Silent consent.

  Carnival kept talking. He had his grave half-dug. He might as well keep shoveling.

  “It was your laugh,” he went on. “Hearing it let me know you were human.”

  Poppa laugh
ed, like he’d heard the funniest joke since eternity.

  You love her? Ha. That idea is so lame you ought to buy a wheelchair for it.

  Maya reached out and took hold of an arm of the corpse. They were nearly to the dumpster but Carnival appreciated the gesture. They dragged their way in silence through the long empty streets. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on this side of town. They came to a corner. Down Van Ness and just off Buford. Carnival didn’t know who Van Ness or Buford were. Maybe they were the same person - Buford Van Ness, two in one. Whoever they were, they’d once been someone important, he guessed. Important and dead, he guessed. Important enough to have streets named after them, yet dead long enough for the living to forget.

  They dragged the bodies down an unnamed alley and there was the dumpster.

  She’s right. It looks quiet.

  Carnival leaned against the side of the dumpster to catch his breath. It stank but no worse than any other dumpster he’d leaned against.

  “I’m not, you know,” she said in a real soft sort of voice.

  “Not what?”

  “Not human. I never will be.”

  She’s telling the truth, boy. That’s a bad sign. Ask any liar. Lies hide best behind the light of truth.

  “We’ll figure something out,” he said.

  He straightened up. The dumpster stank worse than the dead guy. A couple of rats ran out of it. He wondered how they found their way in. The dumpster was made of metal. It looked damned near impossible to climb. He guessed hunger knew no bounds.

  Like love. Or the plague.

  Maya took the dead guy by his arms.

  “Grab his feet,” she said. “We’ll throw him in.”

  “Like a sack of wheat?”

  Like a sack of meat.

  “Pretend it’s a golden hearse,” she said. “That we’re a pair of chubby winged seraphim ushering him into the gates of sweet eternity, if it makes it any easier.”

  Carnival took his legs. They swung him back and forth, gathering momentum. Then he let the body drop. He could have timed it better. Maya was in mid-swing and banged her arm hard against the side of the dumpster.

  “Damn!”

  She nursed her arm.

  What do you know? Vampires have funny bones. You learn something new every day.

  “What’d you let go for?” she asked.

  Carnival looked down at the body.

  “This isn’t right,” he said. “He’s human.”

  “He’s dead.”

  He looked at the body like it was the first time. He was a big guy but Carnival’s back already knew that. He’d also seen that the man was bald at the top and frayed at the edges. A comb-over, how pathetic was that? He looked like a middle class accountant. The whole package, maybe two kids, one mortgage, maybe a divorce. A pocketful of worry, a lifetime full of misery and a reasonable credit rating.

  He sure doesn’t have anything to worry about now, does he.

  Carnival wasn’t sure about anything right now. He still couldn’t believe he’d killed the man. It was like he hadn’t been at the wheel.

  “He used to be human,” Carnival said.

  “He’s still dead.”

  “He might have had a wife.”

  “If he had a wife he wasn’t thinking of her when he slowed his car down to hit on me. You can check his wallet, if you like.”

  He looked at her.

  “That’s personal property.”

  She shrugged, showing those nice shoulders again. He did his best not to drool.

  “He’s dead,” Maya said. “Dead’s way past personal. He might have money.”

  She was practical and she was right. Debt and death always stayed hungry, no matter how much you fed them. Gingerly, Carnival forced his fingers into the man’s pocket. It felt a little weird, like he was trying to cop a feel.

  “Ouch!”

  He yanked his hand out. There was blood on his third fingertip. He sucked at it quickly, before Maya caught the scent. He wasn’t certain how thirsty she really was.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He has a knife in his pocket.”

  “So did you.” She reached in, pulled out the wallet and threw it at Carnival. He caught it badly with his free hand.

  “Here! Open it up.”

  Keeping his thumb pushed hard against his wounded finger, Carnival picked through the wallet.

  “Find anything?”

  There was money. Three twenties and a handful of tens. The twenties were fresh, judging by their lack of wrinkles. He’d probably just hit the ATM.

  “A deed to an oil well. The secret formula for getting the caramel into a Caramilk bar. A signed confession from Professor Plum.”

  One of the twenties was spattered with a bit of blood. His or Carnival’s. Carnival couldn’t be certain.

  “I ought to get a band aid. This could get infected, rooting through garbage like this.”

  “Suck it up,” Maya advised. “Or would you like me to?”

  There was a fistful of credit cards. Carnival didn’t want them. He was a murderer, not a ghoul. The fact was he never used them. They weren’t the kind of cards he believed in. You were supposed to cross a gypsy’s palm with silver or gold.

  You bet your soul on that, boy. Plastic is good only for keeping sandwiches fresh. Nothing else.

  There was a driver’s license. It said his name was Olaf Richardson. Funny. He didn’t look like an Olaf. He looked more like a Bill or a Fred. Carnival said the man’s name out loud.

  “Olaf. Olaf.”

  “Are you going to sing a requiem? Or can we get out of here?” Maya asked.

  Carnival kept rooting. There were a couple of photographs. He didn’t look at them. Knowing Olaf’s name was bad enough. That was his plunder. Over one hundred dead presidents, with only one soul attached. He was rich. He didn’t feel it, though.

  “Do you want to split this?” He asked, offering her the money.

  Poppa made gagging sounds, like gargling rancid flesh.

  Maya shook her head.

  “I’ve got what I needed.”

  She sure did. Olaf was paler than bleached White-Out. Carnival tucked the bills in his pocket. He slid the wallet into back into the body’s shirt pocket. He didn’t want to touch the dead man’s cock again.

  “Now can we throw him in?”

  Carnival just nodded. This whole thing kept making him feel sicker and sicker. He took the body’s feet.

  One for the money, what else is there to count on?

  Carnival swung, once, twice, and then he let Olaf drop again.

  “Now what?” Maya and Poppa asked in unison.

  “We’re too close to my shop.”

  “So what?”

  “What if the police find him?”

  “You watch too much television.”

  Television is educational. Didn’t she ever watch Sesame Street? Such a classic. Watch Bert and Ernie once, and their wisdom will haunt you forever.

  “What if they knock on my door?”

  “Ask them if they want their fortune read. They might go for it. Cops are always thinking about the future.”

  Don’t count on it, boy. Policemen look only at the past. When it comes to the future they talk in long sentences.

  “I took the money,” Carnival said. “That makes me a thief.”

  That makes you a grave robber. Much easier than thieving, with fewer complaints.

  Poppa was right. The hundred plus dollars were beginning to feel like thirty pieces of radioactive silver.

  “Spend it,” Maya advised. “Money loses fingerprints fast.”

  Fingerprints. That was something he should have thought of.

  “We’ve got to wipe him down.”

  “With what?”

  Carnival yanked his shirt off. He tried to rub whatever he’d touched. It was hard to do, while trying to keep his stomach sucked in and his chest puffed manfully out.

  “You’re being stupid.”

  Did s
he just notice? I thought vampires were faster than that.

  “I don’t want to take chances.”

  Carnival kept rubbing.

  “Let’s throw him in.”

  “He’s too close.”

  “Then let’s drag him somewhere else.”

  Carnival bent to pick the body up. His back twinged like a broken banjo string.

  “He’s too heavy.”

  “We’ve got to do something.”

  She stared at him hard. He saw her lifeline spin, dark, like angry gypsy blood.

  “Let me think,” she commanded.

  He wanted to tell her they didn’t have time but something made him just shut up. Who was running this show, anyway?

  Not you, boy.

  Maya leaped up into the dumpster like a big cat. Way quicker than he thought she could move.

  “What are you doing?”

  She ignored him and rooted around. She bent and grunted. He heard her say “Perfect.”

  Then a chair flew out of the dumpster like it was possessed by the Red Baron. One of those office chairs typists use. It had the back ripped out of it. The seat cushion looked like it had been gnawed on. The chair landed on top of the guy’s corpse like a brick hitting a sofa. The wheels on the end of the cross barred base spun like freshly popped bingo balls.

  You see, I said you needed a wheelchair.

  “Watch it,” Maya called.

  She jumped down. It wasn’t a jump really. It was more like she floated down in half speed. Carnival took note. He was learning a lot. It helped to start at zero. Before meeting Maya the only thing he’d knew about vampires was from old books and movies. He’d talked with a gravedigger once who said he’d seen a pack of them dancing over a lawyer’s grave but he figured the gravedigger was full of shit. Everyone dances on lawyer’s graves and vampires hate crowds.

  “You nearly killed me,” he said.

  Did you just notice?

  “Set him up on that,” Maya instructed. “It’d be a lot easier rolling him.”

  They heaved the body up. Carnival was careful to keep his hands in his shirt sleeve cuffs, so he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints.

  “He’ll slip off.”

  “Tie him with his belt.”

  Carnival undid the man’s belt. The body’s belly was soft. He probably should have spent a little more time at the gym. Carnival guessed it didn’t matter now.