Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

“I–I was stuck in Baton Rouge, baby. It was… it washell. Everything I ever owned got taken away from me. Everybody hated me. The whole world was out to get me-”

“Hush. You just hush yourself now, baby.” She smiled and stroked his hair, letting her fingers glide down his cheek and neck to play with the tufts of hair on his bare chest. “You just let little ol‘ Maureen make it all better now.”

She slowly slid her big body over his. “Mmmm, I’ll bet I know a way to get you to fall back asleep…” Her creamy skin felt like satin against his legs and belly and chest. She let her full weight settle on him, and every cell in his body was engulfed with pleasure.

Her breath smelled of peppermint and fresh blood. “Mmmm, give Mama a big fat kiss…” Her lips were a feast, an endless repast that both perfectly satisfied his hunger and made him ravenous for more. She plunged her tongue into his mouth, sucking his teeth in a deliciously erotic fashion. He felt himself stirring, stiffening, growing proudly immense beneath her skillful ministrations.

And then she unzipped the back of her head.

“Hiya, Jules! Didn’t think I’d forgotten about ya, had ya?”

“Aaahhhhhhh!”

Malice X’s hot, garlicky breath filled Jules’s nostrils as he licked Jules’s face. “Mm, mm,good! Me, I always did prefer white meat.”

“Nn-nooo!” Jules tried to hurl the other vampire off him, but powerful black hands shackled his wrists and ankles. Jules’s heart beat like a trip-hammer. “Wha-what do you want with me?” he spluttered. “Haven’t you done enough to me already?”

Malice X smiled maliciously, letting his long fangs hang over his lower lip. “Why, Mistuh Jules, you an‘ me, we’ve barelybegun.” He shifted his right hand from behind his back, revealing a wooden stake shaped like a twisted ram’s horn. Clutching it in both fists, he raised it high above his head. Then, snickering softly, he plunged it into Jules’s spasming heart.

“Nooooo!”

Jules’s eyes snapped open. He was engulfed in darkness. His hands flew to his chest, above where his heart beat painfully fast. There was no stake there, twisted or otherwise. All his fingers felt were the soggy lapels of his sport coat, his heaving chest, and granules of dirt. He smelled drying mud and his own sour, frightened sweat. He stretched his arms out, exploring his lightless environment. Before he could reach very far, his hands bumped against the familiar, faintly comforting contours of the inside of the Lincoln’s trunk.

Shifting position so that he was leaning against the left rear tire hump, he pressed the glow button on the side of his watch. The blue digital numerals read 7:52P.M. The sun had been down for a good twenty minutes. He was free to leave the cramped chamber of horrors that was the Lincoln’s trunk.

He pulled on the wire that Billy Mac had rigged up. The trunk creaked slowly open, letting in the humid, petroleum-scented evening air. He glanced around the nearly empty garage. He had to make a plan. For the past nineteen hours, the only thing on his mind had been getting out of New Orleans. Now that he had escaped, he had to figure out what the heck to do with the rest of his undead existence.

Hrmmm…After his uncomfortable day’s sleep in the trunk, the effort of so much thinking made his head pound. Using the Lincoln as a taxi was out of the question. It was a two-door, and besides, nobody in their right mind would pay a dime to be driven around in that heap. So he’d have to buy another car (preferably another Fleetwood… a late- 1960s model in good condition, one of those beauties with the stacked quad headlights, some little old grandmother’s car with ridiculously low mileage, would be ideal).

He’d have to find some entry-level night-shift job, at least until he’d stashed enough away to clean himself up. Somewhere downtown there had to be a twenty-four-hour diner or coffee shop. Those kinds of places were always looking for dishwashers. Washing dishes was beneath him, of course, but he’d only be stuck at the bottom for a little while, until he was able to afford some new clothes. Then, thanks to his first-rate talent for servicing the public, he’d be promoted to wait staff, or maybe night manager.

And hey, the kinds of folks who patronized all-night diners usually made the easiest, most convenient victims, too.

Now that he had a plan, Jules felt one hundred percent better about his prospects.Plan your work, then work your plan-that’s what Mother always said. I’m like a crafty ol‘ tomcat, he told himself, brushing some of the mud from the front of his pants.Throw me off the roof a hundred times, I’ll always land on my feet.

He marched assertively down the parking ramp, his stiff neck stuck at a thirty-degree tilt, eager to see what downtown Baton Rouge had to offer him. The answer, he discovered after walking a few blocks, was “Not much.” The boarded-up storefronts along Convention Street, North Boulevard, and Florida Street reminded Jules of old Dryades Street back in New Orleans; Dryades had withered to the point where the only commerce that took place there involved the trade of green paper for white rocks and black skin. If anything, these streets were even sadder and lonelier than Dryades was, because not even crack dealers and streetwalkers bothered pushing their wares here.

Finally, on Florida Street, Jules found the one business establishment that wasn’t a windowless phantom. Richoeux’s Cafй was closed, but at least it looked like it might be open sometime. The faded Coca-Cola sign over the restaurant’s entrance mocked Jules with its invitation toPAUSE…REFRESH. He thought about the Trolley Stop Cafй back on St. Charles Avenue, the rough-and-tumble cabby fellowship he could always find there, the decent, if not outstanding, coffee. He stared through the dark front window, trying to see if the cafй‘s hours were posted somewhere inside.

Jules heard a rumbly clanking behind him, on the street. “You lookin‘ for sumptin’ to eat?” a voice asked.

He turned around. The voice belonged to a tiny, white-haired black man who was pushing a rusty shopping cart half filled with crushed tin cans. “You lookin‘ for sumptin’ to eat? Dat place don’t open up ‘til seven-thirty in the mornin’. It ain’t cheap, neither.”

“Yeah, I’d like to find me somewheres to eat,” Jules said. “You know of any places around here that’re open late?”

“No, suh.” The old man shook his head sadly. “But dem holy rolluhs gonna be handin‘ out samwiches an’ joe any minute now, over in the park.”

“The park? Where’s that?”

“Jes’ up the street,” the old man said, nodding his head toward the river. “I’m goin‘ over dat way now. Youse welcome to follow me.”

Jules shrugged and silently followed the old man and his rickety shopping cart down Florida Street. Where there was one homeless person, there were likely to be others, he reasoned. They might not help him earn money for a new Caddy, but at least an enclave of street people would ensure that Jules wouldn’t starve.

Lafayette Street Park was an acre of oak-shaded green space tucked between the Mississippi River levee and the old State Capitol Building. Jules noted with satisfaction that the park was home to a sizable community of derelicts, at least two dozen. Most of them were clustered around a large station wagon parked at the edge of the trees. Several people were setting up a coffee urn on the wagon’s tailgate and beginning to pass out wrapped sandwiches to eager hands.

Jules’s companion aimed his cart at the gathering and sped up his pace. “Dey make you sing,” he said, smiling shyly. “But I don’t mind none. Me, I kin sing dat gospel real good.”

Jules let the old man hustle off toward the chow line and drifted into the park. From a distance he endured several ragged choruses of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” One of the women volunteers noticed Jules watching from beneath the oaks and waved at him to come over, but he ignored her. He’d never taken a handout in his life, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to start now, especially not from some Bible-hugging Baptists who probably considered Spam on white bread manna from heaven.