by L.C. Barlow
* * *
"A vampire! Wouldn't that be wonderful? Finally caught one in the cemetery, and we can come back at night and take it home."
"How ridiculous!"
"The best things don't make sense."
"Well, you do know about the best things Margaret. The best of the best."
"Indeed. I've been needing a pet. A vampire would fit the bill."
"Oh, you are ridiculous indeed."
Three voices? Four voices? I couldn't tell. Too many giggles. I moved slightly, trying to feel out where I was. Everything hurt, my joints popping shutters. I heard gasps.
"Shhhh!!! Your vampire is waking!" Someone else cleared her voice, and then, "Had a little bit too much fun last night, dear?"
I had enough sense to open my eyes. I was laying on my right side, staring at a flock of geese distorted in liquid. The first thought that entered my head was, "Too bright."
Someone patted my arm. "My dear," the same voice said, "Do you need some help getting out of there? I know it must be the most comfortable and lovely of places to fall down into drunk and disorderly, but really one must try different things now and again. Fresh air should be one of them." I felt a hand grab my own and tug gently. I lifted my head up and looked into the face of an older woman with auburn hair, dressed in a 1920s style Flapper dress with pearls and a Cloche hat. I peered round, and the other women beside her were dressed the same. One of them said, "What a very sturdy bed. I must try it once it's free."
I pushed myself up, was brought to my feet, and I sat against the edge of the tomb, rubbing my numb and sore face, trying to wake. My stomach felt like gravel, but my attention was drawn away by sounds of music, very distant, and I wondered why I should be hearing such in a graveyard.
The one that I soon knew to be Margaret, who had lifted me up, now spoke to me. "We came from the little church across the way," she said. "Beatrice's daughter was getting married, and while we were having a wonderful little gathering afterwards, the weather was so nice, and the peacocks so beautiful, that we went outside, sort-of chased them a little - or they thought we did - and then decided to have a little run through the graveyard. There really are some beautiful tombs and statues. And plus, it is interesting, don't you think? To go scampering off through the graveyard... birth and death, wedding and grave, oh I'm probably sounding crazy again. I do that."
I was not entirely sure where I was, what day it was, or who I was. I looked at her again and peered at her dress and the dress of the other women. "What's with...?" and I pointed up and down at them.
"Oh!" she said, "Yes! Well, the wedding was done in flapper style, 1920s. It really was a marvelous time. Simply loved the idea. I feel a nostalgia for that time period, though I didn't live then. Isn't that strange? How you can feel nostalgic for things that you've never experienced?" The other women giggled. "Have you ever felt that way?"
"I don't know," I said truthfully. "But it sounds nice..." Then, feeling nauseous and unaware, I muttered, "I need a cigarette."
"Oh yes," she said, "I think I see them right there." She bent down and grabbed the pack in the tomb, but as she did so, she paused, her hand just inches from a syringe, and as she stared at it, her head turned. She looked up at me.
I pursed my lips and looked at this stranger. "What can I say?" I asked in a whisper.
The other women did not notice us in this awkward and dramatic moment, and as they kept chattering behind her, she handed the syringe to me, and I placed it in my pocket. Her hand bent to the pack of cigarettes, grabbed it again, and she straightened.
She spoke as though the event had never happened. "Used to love the things, but I quit... oh, I think twenty years ago. Still enjoy the smell. Cloves! How wonderfully dark." She smiled at me and winked. The other two women were still in their own small discussion and chattered in the background. I lit the cigarette and had a good first draw.
Margaret handed me my pack and lighter back to me. She motioned towards the hill, over which I knew lay the church some yards off. "You know, I bet you haven't had anything to eat. Rachael - the woman getting married - she and her husband have tons of cake balls - chocolate, red velvet, vanilla - as well as hors d'oeuvres - vegetarian of course, she is like that - and tea and champagne and water. You should have some, and we'll introduce you to Rachael. She won't love you, but she'll pretend she does. She doesn't know half the guests here. It would be good for you, I think."
This woman never waited for a response. Having decided what I should do, she attempted to help me out of the tomb. I willingly stepped over the side and felt as if the Earth might spin. I gave another suck on the cigarette, and then steadied myself. "Do you do this for all the dead?" I asked her, joking with a monotone.
"I do whatever I please," she said.
She marched me forward, arm-in-arm per her preference, as the two women behind us followed. I thought to myself that this woman was insane, but I was in no position to judge a person so willing to feed me.
She told me, "My name's Margaret Wilhelm. That's Emily Harrow and Sarah Moulder. I am pleased to make your acquaintance..."
"Jack," I replied.
"Jack! That reminds me of London and Burton at the same time," she said. At that I smiled.
I had never taken the time to visit the little wooden church, and when I saw it I beheld it with wonder. It seemed more a park than religious building. There were peacocks, the feathers of them many different blues and greens and golds, and their tails brushed against the ground as though wearing their own dresses, long and thick and sweet. Out amidst the lawn there were little ponds with stone edges and bright green lily pads. A few had dark and spotted frogs on top. The water was covered in downy flakes of Cottonwood seeds landing from their journey in the air. Facing the back porch of the church, the double doors of which stood open, were white chairs in rows, and they had light blue ribbons tied in bows on each arm. They trailed to the ground and kissed it in the breeze, much like the peacock tails. There was an outline of trees around this lawn. Their leaves were dark. They swayed constantly, as though they loved the feel of the wind stirring.
All of the people were inside the church - where we were headed - and from within I could hear a familiar blues play behind the tinks and clinks of dinnerware. It was a fast blues song and echoed round the little church, which seemed to me in my uneven state to swing slowly to the rhythm. "What is this?" I wondered. "Blues at a wedding?" The idea seemed very strange. I thought to myself that perhaps I really had gone back in time, or gone crazy, or both.
The first room we entered, once we climbed three wooden steps, was completely empty, as was the room beside it. The brother rooms were only disconnected by one wall with a fireplace that opened to both. The floor of these rooms was a light brown, and the walls were bright white. I took a deep breath and was instantly reminded of the old houses I had visited on some of Cyrus's property - the odor of spicy wood.
Above us in both rooms were small and very complicated looking crystal chandeliers, with hundreds of tiny drops of stone dangling from six or so different gold arms. We did not linger here long, though, and eventually I was ushered by Margaret on my right to my left, and through that room we arrived at a hall, the other end of which held fruits and delicious looking foods and cakes. We passed through a couple of sets of Victorian doors and then arrived at the loaded and large table.
"Here, dear," Margaret said to me, handing me an antique china plate. "Pile it up. You're skinny, and it's a shame great enough to kill you if the hunger doesn't. Don't let the reputation of a fat America fall down, now. Eat. Eat. Let's see if we can put a pound on you." Out of confusion more than hunger, I let her choose for me a few pieces of piercingly orange cantaloupe, as well as honeydew, red grapes, vegetarian potstickers, cheese and spinach quiches, spanakopita, bruschetta, baby brie and crackers, and many other things.
Then she grabbed a china cup for me filled with cake balls. "You get to keep the cup," she whispered to me and winked. "I chose a goo
d one for you."
The room where everyone was eating had ten windows at least, and in this room the wooden floor was painted a nice blue. There were fifteen tables, with seven or so chairs at each one. Every table had a picture of the bride and groom, as well as a vase with peacock feathers and paper flowers, the petals of which were rolled pages of literature books. The table I was eventually led to supported a picture of the couple on the grass staring at each other adoringly. Rachael, I saw, was a blonde with a lily in her hair.
When we sat down at the table with the many guests wearing fedoras and pin-stripe suits and loose black dresses, they were conversing amongst themselves and did not look at me twice. Margaret sat across from me, sipped on a glass of champagne she had acquired, and watched me in silence. I ate.
As I did, my head cleared, and the sense of the surreal began lifting. I remember suddenly being able to see and hear again, and that a plague of questions and shock and guilt ran through me. I was at somebody's wedding - a person whom I did not know - I was eating their food, across from a strange woman who had found me in a grave and had seen my syringe. There was heroin in my pocket. There were tracks on my arms. I could not remove my jacket, not there, and I yelled to myself in the caverns of my mind to remember that.
And Roland was dead. Yes, he was gone. Cyrus had burned him, and I could never bring him back again. I could have cried right then.
Every time one of these realizations shot through my head, I looked up at Margaret. Each time I looked, she seemed all the more knowing.
When I was finally done eating, she asked, "Feeling better?"
I nodded my head, and I knew what was coming. The syringe. She would want to know.
But instead, she carried on cheerily as though something far more acceptable existed between us. "Jack, I know you must only be fifteen or sixteen, but have you ever experienced postmodern art?" She looked at me with inquisitive green eyes. After choking on this thought like I did the food, I said simply and softly, "No."
"Ah," she said, "Well some say it's shit." She paused and looked out across the guests. I wondered if she was seeking any in particular. "They say that it lacks the beauty of classic art and has no meaning. But there are others, people like me, who absolutely disagree with those assholes." She said 'assholes' lovingly, and it made me smirk. "I admit that the postmodern is repetitious and does not focus on beauty alone, but that is no reason to be so liberal with its destruction. What we believe postmodern art does is what all art is supposed to do: present what cannot be presented. The vastness of space, for instance, cannot be told." She swung her arm out and slammed it down on the table. It was startling. "If you even try to grasp it, your mind starts to get dizzy. But art is supposed to present it. And that is what the postmodern does. Do you understand?"
I shook my head carefully in acknowledgement.
"Wonderful," she said, with a flick of her wrist, "Now now. There is a poet by the name of Anis Mojgani, whom I heard one day. It really was a wonderful retreat, that whole week. But yes, Mr. Mojgani. He has captured this idea of art quite well. 'I want you,' he said in his poem that he read to us that marvelous night, 'to draw me a picture of what smoking a cigarette feels like.' Well, now. What a great example! Presenting that which cannot be caught or bound! Purifying into a drop the complicated amalgam of the human condition. And I, my dear Jack, have a question for you like Anis Mojgani. What, pray tell, would you choose to represent the soul? Of all the things in the world, what would you choose?"
This woman, in one simple question, had opened up worlds for me She was like a smelling salt. And somehow, I sensed within my very skull the blooming of hundreds of red roses. I felt their petals brush against the roof and walls within. And in this simple moment, I suddenly began to wonder if perhaps we shake hands with God in agreement to the lives we live, before we are even born. And then I wondered what I might have agreed to.
"For me," Margaret said, "as an example, I picture a lung. A healthy, working lung. Just a few years back - oh, perhaps ten or so - a doctor friend of mine gave me interesting pictures of cancerous, black lungs as well as pictures of healthy, pink ones, to show me how they compared. He thought I might like them. He was right. For some reason or another, the healthy one stuck with me, and then, when I thought of the soul one day, I just... associated it. I am still not sure why, but there it is, my dear. The soul is a lung for me - a healthy, vital, living lung. As for you, though, what do you look at that screams 'soul'? What do you picture to present what can't be presented?"
It was dinoflagellates. It was "diphenyl oxalate." It was, yes it was, "luciferin." But I did not know these complicated words then. What I imagined in my head was a liquid sapphire plasma, and that is exactly what I told her. "When I was in middle school... a girl in my class had a pen with a clear sphere on the top. In that sphere was a blue liquid that, when shaken or swirled, glowed. I loved watching that pen," I admitted to her. "I've never seen one since. But that would be the soul for me. The liquid. I mean... you ask yourself, 'What does the blood of a soul look like?' It would have to be something brilliant, you know? It would have to be a glowing cobalt blue plasma."
I thought to myself that the only reason I could admit this was because we were so anonymous, because she did not know me, nor I her. Had we been closer, I would not have replied a thing.
"That is very beautiful, Jack," Margaret replied. "Very beautiful, indeed. You surprised me. Most people don't say anything. They never think about these things. Why not, I do not know. Have you thought about this sort of thing often? Are you a philosopher already?"
"I have never," I said, "thought of anything like this in my life."
"You should." She smiled. "These questions are life itself. Art is life itself."
"I have been fond of poetry," I confessed.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "What kind?"
I shook my head and looked away. "Not the kind you read."
Margaret lifted her champagne and took another swig. The laughter and tinks of plates surrounded us, which made it all the more noticeable we were in a glass globe of our own making. The snow had gone aswirl.
"I did not see a syringe down there in that tomb with you," Margaret said with a lower, but still kind, tone, "but if I had, why might it be there?" She pursed her lips and winked.
I looked into her blue eyes, and I wasn't sure just how far the safety of anonymity would cloak me.
"Has the glowing plasma run out for you, Jack?" she asked.
I looked round the room at those in 1920s garb, I thought of Cyrus. "I don't understand this world, anymore," I told her. "That's why you didn't see such a syringe."
She nodded her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she asked, "In what way?"
I shrugged and moved my hand as though I were pouring the meaning out on the table to dissect. "I don't think there are any souls, except in things, like you said. The idea of them."
Her eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know what that means."
"The world's evil," I said. "There's nothing redeeming about it. Nobody meaningful is human."
"Oh?" she said, and her eyebrows raised. She almost smirked, but she did not. "Have you been to Venice and seen monsters there?" she asked.
I raised my eyebrows questioningly, but she did not elaborate. "No," I replied.
"Then did you go to Paris and see the vampires on the streets draining the blood of the innocent?"
I shook my head, and her example made me smile. "I've never been to Paris."
"Well then, have you gone to Japan and seen the witches harvesting children?"
"Of course not."
"Then what have you seen?"
"Worse things than that."
"Oh? Where are these worse things?"
"Home."
This gave her pause. "When it gets that bad, then that's not home," she said.
I rubbed my face and felt the capillaries in my cheeks and eyes liven. I shook my head, not knowing what to say in response. "I'
m so tired."
"You look it."
Another silence stiffened between us, me and this stranger.
"What is so bad about where you live?" she asked.
"That is one item not up for discussion," I said, and I shook my head at her.
"Oh, really? It's enough to risk an overdose to wash away, but not enough to ask for help, hm?"
That made me smile. "You can't help me."
"Why not?"
"The world won't let you."
Margaret smiled broadly. "But I thought we just agreed that you don't know the world. You know your 'home'." She used air quotations. "That's all."
I bit my lip hard and thought on this.
"You are fifteen? Sixteen? I do apologize for being so blunt, but you don't know a damn thing about what's out there." She grinned, and I saw her perfectly straight, white teeth. "What you think you know... it might be true for this one square inch of where you are, but there are millions of miles out there to explore, and trust me. What's true for one isn't true for another. Whatever or whoever's king or queen of the castle at 'home' can't be everywhere. What if all you needed to do was take a step out of the kingdom? Just one. To the left. Hm?"
"I would trip," I said quietly, but there was an edge of uncertainty underlying my words.
"And you would still land further away from where you started. And you'd dust yourself off. And you'd keep walking." She planted her hand on the table and tapped it with every word. "Just. Like. Everybody. Else."
She threw her hands in the air and shook her head. "I do not know your position or problems, but I guarantee you, there exists a portion of the world out there where they will disappear. Poof!" she said. She waved her hands about as though thrusting glitter and dust. "Well, maybe not disappear. Some might stick with you. We all have our scars, after all." And she touched the upper right side of her face, just above her right eye, where a horizontal scar wandered within her eyebrow. "But people and things are often tied to locations, and when you leave those scenes, they more than likely will never follow. They don't know how, because they don't normally tread that far."
"Fuck," I whispered, and she did not bat an eye at my curse. Inside myself, I felt something propelling fast. Tumbling, bouncing, and running again.
"Who are you?" I asked.
She shook her head and looked round the wedding guests. "Just your average person, Jack." She smiled at me again with all of her teeth. "I like to think I'm special," she laughed. "But really, I'm like most."
"Really?" I said smartly. "Noone's ever pulled me out of a grave before."
She nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders. "And most teenagers don't literally fall into graves.
"But good isn't that sparse, Jack. You should know this. In my one square inch of the world, at least, it has free reign. I would dare say you might find a whole square foot out there filled with it. Maybe it flickers occasionally, like a light bulb not screwed in too tight, but it's there."
"Why wasn't I born in it?" I asked, and I saw her cock her head to the side in wonder. "Like everyone else. Why wasn't it meant for me?"
She reached across the table then, and grabbed my hands in hers, and the look of utter compassion was both refreshing and unfamiliar. The skin of her fingers felt thin and washed, soft like lotion had been massaged in. With one hand she held my wrist gently, and with the other she pushed my sleeve up to my elbow, and she inspected the bruises. I did not pull away.
"I can't tell you why you are where you are," she said, like a gypsy analyzing the lines of my palm. "All I can tell you is that where you begin does not make you what you are. That, if things are so bad, you should leave. To know that there's something better for you, in the unknown. Not more of the same." She tapped the bend of my elbow. "Not more of this."
"Do you swear that's true?" I asked.
I saw just a little resistance there, behind her eyes. An internal conflict. A questioning. If she had said 'no,' I'm not sure what I would have done. But she did not say 'no.'
She said, with the weight of an anvil, "I do." And then, "But don't worry, Jack. Don't worry about where you start off or why. Life is all about breaking habits, getting away from your origins, no matter what they are - breaking ties to things that you love, but hold you down and back, sometimes simply because they are what once was, rather than what will be. Trust me, the more habits you can break, the better off you are."
"There's no loyalty," I said, "in that."
"No, I suppose there's not. But maybe that is for the best." She shook her shoulders questioningly. "Loyalty is tricky. It's often the last thread. That which we fall back on when all else goes. It is only needed when no reasons are left. Sometimes it's necessary to just cut that away."
I'm good at cutting, I thought to myself.
Margaret frowned, thinking hard, still looking at my arm, and said, "At some point, you realize that there are things in the world that make you more you than your origins. And it's a powerful thing. You're just so young," and she smiled, "you have yet to experience it. But I hope you do.
"I hope you drop the needle and ask for some help."
I didn't bat an eye. "Did you have anything to run from... when you were my age?"
She paused and shook her head, the pin in her hat reflecting the light bulbs above us. "No, I did not. I mean, nothing terrible. I had a good home. A bad husband, later on, but a good home."
I looked down and pulled my sleeve back over my track marks. "What did your husband do?" I asked.
She smiled at me. "He was abusive."
"How?" And the quickness in which I asked this made me wonder if she would dare answer, but she did.
"Oh, in all the ways. Verbally. Physically." She sighed, her eyes darkening ever-so-slightly. "The problem is, you don't see it at first, and by the time you do, the connection is so strong, it's hard to let go. Of the loyalty." She smiled at me. "You're not dropped into boiling water. You're dropped into a lukewarm pot, and the temperature slowly rises. Sometimes it takes a while to notice you're cooking, and then, well, it's still hard."
"I understand," I said, and I avoided her eyes, for such a connection made me uncomfortable. "I just wonder why it is."
"Learned helplessness," she replied. "You forget how strong you are. You're blind to the proof. And then you become attached, loyal beyond reason, because it's easier, a habit, a beautifully automatic thing you dare not touch. But, of course, you're dying inside all the while. The last thread is strong, so strong, until finally... finally..."
"Snip," I replied.
"Snip."
