Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

“How about yesterday’s edition?”

“I might have some stacked out back by the Dumpster. Why?”

“I’m lookin‘ for one story in particular, and I’m not sure what day it got written up. You mind diggin’ me out one of them papers from yesterday?“ Philip scowled. ”Goddamn customers with their goddamn special orders…“ Two minutes later, Jules was busily unsticking damp pages of newsprint from one another. He found the story he was looking for in the local section of a fragrant newspaper from the Dumpster. He smoothed down the page on Philip’s worn wooden counter and began to read.

Knight Supporters Hope to Spark Run with Rally by Vicki Hyman, St. Tammany Bureau

Supporters of white supremacy advocate and perennial political candidate Nathan Knight plan to rally in Covington in the hope of luring their preferred candidate into the race to fill two open St. Tammany Parish Council slots. Knight, who in the last decade has mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. presidency, a U.S. Senate seat, the Louisiana governorship, and the position of Louisiana commissioner of agriculture, has in recent years limited his public activities to appearances on his weekly radio show, promoting his Web site, and conducting occasional real estate seminars. He currently resides in Covington. The organizer of the rally, who declined to be named, stated, “The St. Tammany Parish Council has suffered for years from a leadership vacuum. They need Knight. Only a leader of the caliber of Nathan Knight has a prayer of maintaining the high quality of life that sets St. Tammany apart and makes it a haven for decent, Christian families.” The rally will take place at the American Veterans Union Hall in downtown Covington and is scheduled for 9:00P.M. on Wednesday. Organizers expect a crowd of at least 200 supporters and have extended an invitation for Knight to attend. Knight’s plans regarding participation in the rally could not be verified.

Jules’s mind raced.Two hundred white supremacists? All gathered together like presents under a Christmas tree! It could work… sure it could work! Sure! Who could be better for me to recruit than nutcases who already hate black folks?

He smiled at the obvious brilliance of his brainstorm. An army of two hundred white supremacist vampires would make Malice X shit his skintight leather pants; Jules would be in a position to demand any sort of deal he wanted. Nobody would ever dare fuck with him again. And Maureen would have to be impressed. Diet or no diet, she’d justhave to be bowled over by his victory, eager to take him back as her coffin-mate again.

Now that Action Plan Step One had been dispensed with, Jules remembered Action Plan Step Two. “Hey, Philip, any good nudie stuff come in recently?”

“Ah-ha!” the salesman exclaimed. “That’swhat I was tryin‘ to remember! Funny you should ask about nudie books. I got somethin’ really special fer you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Hang on a sec. I gotta dig it out from under the counter.” He disappeared beneath the counter for a few seconds, then reappeared with a folded-over brown paper bag. “This is the last one I got. Maybe the last one in the whole city. I swear, I never had a book fly off the shelves like this one. Y’know, withBig Cheeks Pictorial, I usually order four, maybe five copies a month. It’s a pretty regular seller, but it’s noHustler. But this sucker I’ve had to reorder twice, and last week my distributor said the whole run’s gone. I knew you’d love it, so I pulled the last one and stuck it under the counter, figurin‘ you’d be in sooner or later.”

Jules opened the bag and took out the magazine. The enormously voluptuous blond woman on the cover lay on a leopard skin draped over a red leather couch. But the kitschy props surrounding her faded from Jules’s attention like mist, leaving only a vision of luminosity. Her ivory white skin was flawless, glowing with an inner light. Her tremendous, gravity-defying breasts seemed shaped by a master craftsman, perfectly symmetrical, her nipples shining like pink jewels. Beneath them, three gorgeous tummy rolls descended like a stairway to paradise.

It was the same woman Jules had seen two weeks earlier in the Trolley Stop Cafй. The woman who had enjoyed her whipped-cream-covered pancakes so provocatively.

“Y’know, usually fat women don’t do nuthin‘ fer me,” Philip continued, “but I gotta admit, I took one look at this one, and my fuckin’ trousers were like a Boy Scout tent fer an hour.”

Jules dug eight dollar bills out of his wallet and slapped them down on the counter. “Philip, you’re good as gold.”

“Yeah. Well, you enjoy it, my friend. That soggy newspaper you can have fer free. See you next month.”

“Sure thing, pal. Take care.”

Jules could hardly wait to get back to Maureen’s house. Not only because of his new magazine, either-all those cups of coffee he’d downed at Doc Landrieu’s had him needing to piss like a racehorse. Why ohwhy hadn’t he used the bathroom before he left?

He still had that nagging sense of being watched. To be safe, he really should stick to the busiest, most populated streets. This would mean a zigzag course back to Maureen’s house, maybe eight or nine blocks.

But Jules wasn’t sure he could last that long. He didn’t want to have to spend $4.50 in some dive bar on a beer he couldn’t even drink just for the privilege of using the bathroom. The direct route to Maureen’s was only four and a half blocks. Those four blocks were some of the most desolate in the Quarter. On the upside, if he just couldn’t hold it anymore, he could pee in an alleyway without worrying that some cop would drag him down to the station for indecent exposure.

His bladder didn’t let him debate too long. The direct route it was. Holding himself with one hand, his newspaper and precious magazine with the other, Jules headed west on Iberville Street as fast as his legs would carry him. Trying to distract himself from his most immediate problem, he thought about the woman on the cover ofBig Cheeks Pictorial. What had she been doing in New Orleans a couple of weeks before? Maybe she lived here? What a weird coincidence, his seeing her in the Trolley Stop and then buying a copy of her whack-off mag barely two weeks later. Her and that stack of flapjacks… nowthere was a woman who knew how to enjoy a meal. What an incredible sight that had been, a woman of her size and classy grooming eating massive quantities of fattening food with such sensual gusto-in public, yet! Man, if only Maureen could learn to be so relaxed about her size… what a refreshing changethat would be…

Something in the window of a parking garage attendant’s booth caught Jules’s eye. A flyer was taped to the inside of the window, with a picture of a woman on it. The caption beneath the image read,I’M MISSING-HAVE YOU SEEN ME? followed by a phone number to call. The photocopied snapshot was blurry, dark, and indistinct, but Jules was almost positive it was a photo of one of his most recent victims. Bessie. Hummingbird Bessie.

Naww, that can’t be right,he told himself.She was just some homeless lady. Nobody cared whether she lived or died. Nobody’s lookin‘ for Bessie. It must be somebody else.

But the thought that it might actually be Bessie on the leaflet wouldn’t go away. The suspicion haunted him like a pesky mosquito, fluttering against his nose and ears no matter how fiercely he tried swatting it away. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood stiffly. He had the queasy, prickly sensation of being followed. He passed other windows and telephone poles that had similar flyers taped or stapled to them, but he didn’t stop to look at any of these. Jules walked as fast as his chafing thighs would allow.

Three black men emerged from the shadows of an alleyway. One was dressed in a flashy sharkskin suit, with gold cuff links the size of golf balls. The second guy Jules recognized as the buckskin-jacketed huckster from the amusement arcade. The lead man, a couple of inches taller than Jules, wore a black cowboy hat with a silver medallion, snakeskin boots, black leather pants, and a Los Angeles Raiders starter jacket inlaid with gold thread.