Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

The plain look of dismay on Jules’s face did not diminish Billy Mac’s smile one iota. “See anything you like?” he asked, beaming.

“Jesus Christ, Billy Mac! Is this all you’ve got?”

Billy Mac grinned even wider as he caressed the lumpy hood of the Gremlin. “Whas the matter with the selection, Jules? People gotta protect the environment, man. Small cars arein. Damn Arabs gonna jack up the price of gas to five dollars a gallon any day now, you’ll see.”

Jules scowled. “That’s a crock! Gas has been under a buck fifty a gallon for the last ten years.”

“So? It’ll go up again. Besides, I thought this was a life-or-death situation, right?”

Jules found himself backing down slightly. “Sure it is. But you can’t expect me to fit inside any of these kiddie carts. Don’t you have anything bigger on the lot? Some old Fleetwood or Sedan DeVille? I need the biggest trunk you got.”

Billy Mac crossed his arms belligerently, looking a bit like Chief Crazy Horse just before Little Big Horn. “Sure! Sure I’ve got other cars on the lot! But you didn’t gimme a chance to show them to you, did you? No-you wasted three minutes of my precious sleepin‘ time bitchin’ about the stock I got out front here!”

“Okay, look, I’m sorry. So where’re you hidin‘ these other cars?”

The mechanic’s angry frown turned back to a smile. “Behind the garage. Follow me!” Despite Billy Mac’s short legs, Jules found it hard to keep up with the little man. “I’m gonna show you the peach of the lot, Jules! You always been a Cadillac man, right? Well, this beauty I got back here, you take a drive in it and you’ll see why Cadillac’s called ‘The Standard of the World’! Just to sit in it, man-leather seats like butter, I mean, you sit down and you never want to get up again. It’s like pussy on wheels! Electric windows! Electric door locks! Electronic speed control! This baby’s got itall!”

The longer Billy Mac’s monologue rambled on, the higher Jules’s spirits rose. Sure, his house had burned down. Yeah, he was being chased out of his beloved hometown by a gang of homicidal vampires. And Billy Mac was certain to drive a hard bargain. But at least Jules was going to get his hands on a sweet chariot again.

Billy Mac abruptly stopped walking and spread his short arms as wide as they would go.“Taa-daah!”

Jules looked around confusedly. “Yeah? So where is it?”

“You’re standing right in front of it.”

Jules stared, dumbfounded, at the small gold-metallic sedan in front of him, barely wider than he was. “What’re you talkin‘ about? That’s a Chevy Cavalier.”

“Nope. That’s a Cadillac. A Cimmaron! Gets the best gas mileage of any Caddy ever made. A collector’s-item classic! They only made these for two or three years, y’know.”

Jules’s recently inflated spirit withered like a slug buried in salt. He wanted to scream. The only Cadillac on the lot, and it had to be the dinkiest, crummiest rip-off-mobile to ever wear the wreath and crest, a Chevy economy car with a Cadillac grille bolted on front. “No, no,no! Full sized! I need a full-sized car, with a big trunk! I’ll take a Buick, an Oldsmobile. I’ll even take a Pontiac. But it’s got to befull sized.”

Billy Mac looked thoughtful. “Oh. You mean you want abig car.”

“Yes. Big. That’s right.”

“But that Cimmaron’s awful nice.”

“Fuckthe Cimmaron! I couldn’t fit mydick in the goddamn Cimmaron!”

“Hey! No need to go postal on me, man. I think I got just the right car for you. I picked it up at auction late last week, so I haven’t had time to clean it up yet. But it’s cherry, man. Vintage cherry. Honestly, I didn’t show you this one yet ‘cause I was thinkin’ about makin‘ it my own personal car. But since you ain’t findin’ anything else to your likin‘, I’m willing to make a sacrifice. ’Cause that’s just the kinda guy I am.”

Jules sucked in a big breath. “Okay. Okay. Just show it to me.”

Jules followed Billy Mac to the corner of the mechanic’s property farthest away from the street. “There she is,” Billy Mac said, his eyes brimming with emotion. “A real beaut, ain’t she? It’s gonna smash my heart in little pieces to see you drive her off the lot.”

“A Lincoln,” Jules whispered, his voice etched with despair. “Ithadda be aLincoln…”

Three hours and eighteen hundred cash dollars later (Jules started negotiations at four hundred, but his bargaining position was weak), Jules climbed into his newly purchased 1974 Continental Mark IV. The car had once been silver. But a quarter century beneath the Louisiana sun had oxidized the paint nearly to the metal underneath, leaving the car a multitoned dull gray, mottled with dimples of brown rust. Its black vinyl roof had cracked and flaked so badly it appeared the car was suffering from terminal psoriasis. Jules walked slowly around the car’s massive hood. Its driver-side disappearing headlight assembly was permanently stuck in a half-open position. The battered coupe seemed to be winking at Jules, like the pathetic come-on of an elderly whore. The odometer read 37,256 miles. That could mean 137,256 miles, 237,256 miles, or maybe even 337,256 miles. Jules winced at the sight of the torn zebra-print upholstery, perfectly complemented by the sun-faded pair of red fuzzy dice that hung limply from the rearview mirror.

Billy Mac enthusiastically patted the car’s dull gray hood. “That inside trunk-release latch you had me install carries a seven-day warranty, so keep your receipts. You’ll love her, man! This li’l honey runs like a fuckin‘ Swiss watch!”

Reminded of the late hour, Jules checked his own watch. It was already three-thirty. Barely three hours to sunrise. He grabbed the keys from Billy Mac’s hand, mumbled his thanks, and shoved the Lincoln’s bench seat as far back as it would go.

Jules had read Jack Kerouac’sOn the Road when it first came out. The book hadn’t tempted him to leave New Orleans one tiny bit. Now, after thirty minutes of westerly highway travel, Jules had formulated an unshakable opinion of life on the road. It sucked. The Lincoln’s tranny was missing its third gear. Jules couldn’t go any faster than forty-five miles per hour without pitching his pistons through the hood. Other cars raced around him in a nonstop blur of red taillights, their angry horn blasts distorted into twisted bleats by a severe Doppler effect. Jules tried hard not to think about the royal screwing he’d just been subjected to, but he couldn’t help it. For a guy with no front teeth, that Billy Mac was the worst bloodsucker he’d ever crossed paths with. Jules had cleaned out his savings account to put money down on the car, and then financed the remaining six-hundred-dollar balance, three hundred dollars for the trunk release, and fifty dollars for a crummy, broken-down shovel, all at a usurious rate of twenty-four percent. As soon as Billy Mac had finished installing the trunk release, Jules had debated whether or not to fang him and save twenty-eight hundred dollars. He’d almost done it, too. But a good mechanic was just too hard to come by.

He’d used the fifty-dollar shovel to scoop soggy earth from the front yard of his destroyed house into the bottom of the Lincoln’s trunk, coating it with about six inches of mud. Jules wondered how accurate that old legend was about vampires needing to rest in soil from their birthplace. Would any dirt from anywhere work just as well? He’d never had to wonder about it before. If the legend was, in fact, factual, how strictly or loosely was the termbirthplace defined? Would dirt from Uptown New Orleans, City Park, or Baton Rouge (to go even farther afield) work just as well as earth from his own yard? Maybe he hadn’t needed to take the risk of returning to his neighborhood so soon after the fire? Well, that was a moot point now. Considering the way his luck had been running, he’d been smart sticking with the tried and true.