Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

“I’m afraidthat particular transformation is out of the question. Remember what I said about mass? Mass can’t be created or destroyed. But thereis something you can do that Malice X cannot. And the wonderful thing is, you can do it thanks to a personal attribute you’ve always considered a handicap.”

“Oh yeah? What would that be?”

“Jules, unlike me or Malice X, you areblessed with mass. Four hundred and fifty pounds of it. Forget about trying to recruit a platoon of followers. You don’t need them. With some guidance and practice, you could will yourself to become a trio of hundred-and-fifty-pound vampires.”

Jules walked along a twisting, looping path of yellow chalk his friend had drawn on the concrete floor of Maureen’s basement. Doodlebug, now six inches tall, sat on his shoulder.

“Faster,” the Barbie-doll-sized Doodlebug said. He struck Jules’s shoulder repeatedly with an iced tea spoon. The tiny blows didn’t sting, but they were irritating.

“Hey, is that really necessary?” Jules said as he resentfully plodded around the maze.

“I’m the bird that taps against the window.”

“Thewhat?”

“The distraction that will inevitably present itself at your most crucial and vulnerable moment of concentration. Remember, you’re learning to form and control multiple bodies, which requires the clear mind and keen mental vision of the finest archer. You’ll need to maintain this pure mental state in deadly combat, surrounded by perhaps dozens of enemy vampires, explosions, and flying projectiles. Even the tiniest distraction while you are manipulating multiple bodies could prove fatal, if you let it. Now walk the pathfaster.”

Doodlebug whacked his earlobe with the spoon, which really hacked Jules off. He’d show that pint-sized pest. Aping Jackie Gleason’s nimbleHoneymooners dance steps, he pirouetted and dipped along the path, careful to keep his toes precisely on the chalk line. He felt Doodlebug grab hold of his collar, and he smiled as he heard the spoon clatter to the floor.

“That was the easy part,” Doodlebug said. “Nursery school. I don’t think you’ll be able to take this next exercise so lightly.”

Jules stared at the electric train set. Doodlebug had instructed him to assemble it so that the tracks crisscrossed the yellow chalk line. The train was a souvenir from Jules’s and Maureen’s happier days together, a hobby they’d shared on those long nights when there was nothing good on TV and one or both of them weren’t in the mood for sex. He was surprised Maureen had hung on to it. He finished assembling the looping track, complete with tunnel, bridge, flashing crossing lights, and New England-style town center. Then he placed the locomotive and its ten connecting cars on the track and hooked the electric control box into a wall socket.

While Jules was on his hands and knees, Doodlebug shimmied up his sleeve to his shoulder. “Very good. Turn on the train to its maximum speed. You are to walk the chalk path, counterclockwise. Here’s the complicated part: You must time your movement so that wherever the chalk path and the train tracks cross, you and the train reach that intersection simultaneously. You are not permitted to stop and wait for the train to arrive-you may slow or quicken your steps, but you must keep moving at all times.”

Jules eyed the layout carefully. The chalk path and the train tracks intersected at six points, arrayed at nearly even intervals around the basement. It didn’t look too hard.

It was harder than it looked.

Six attempts later-make that three crushed model autos, five flattened pedestrians, and one crumpled church steeple later-Jules made it around the entire course successfully, meeting the train at each intersection. He sat heavily on a bench by the wall, toweling off his dripping forehead and neck as if he’d just run the Crescent City Classic.

He grinned a Cheshire cat smile, despite his exhaustion. “How aboutthat, Tinkerbell? I think I earned myself a coffee break.”

“Actually, Jules, I was just about to suggest that you brew a pot of coffee…”

Ten minutes later Jules stood at the starting line again. This time, however, he held a china cup and saucer in each hand. Both cups were filled with steaming-hot coffee. Doodlebug had returned to his normal size and shed his Barbie clothes for a black leather skirt, neon-pink tank top, and black vinyl thigh-high boots. He sat on a stool with the train set’s control box in his lap.

“I’d like to seeyou do this, hotshot,” Jules grumbled.

“Oh, those monks had me doing much more unpleasant things than this,” Doodlebug answered brightly.

“Yeah? Well, I still think this is a dumb-ass idea. This is Mo’s best china you got me messin‘ with here. I bust any of it up, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“That’ll give you all the more incentive to concentrate, won’t it? On your mark, get set-”

Doodlebug switched on the train’s juice. The coffee cups clattered jarringly as Jules headed down his increasingly hateful path. He made the first intersection. Despite much clattering of cups and saucers, he timed the train’s journey through the tunnel perfectly and made the second intersection with nary a spill. At the third intersection, however, his right toe clipped the corner of a trestle bridge as the train passed over it.

“Shit-aoww-aoww-aoww-aoww!”

Jules spent the next fifteen minutes soaking his throbbing hands in a bucket of ice water. Doodlebug was good enough to mop up the spilled coffee and sweep the broken china into a wastebasket.

“Do you want to call it a night?” Doodlebug asked.

Jules wiped his hands on his pants. “Naww. I’m sure Malice X ain’t restin‘ onhis laurels. Lemme try it a few more times.”

Doodlebug poured fresh coffee into two unbroken cup-and-saucer sets and handed them to his friend. Jules lined up back at the starting point. The big vampire took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind of all distractions. His hands still throbbed. What if he spilled steaming coffee on them again-? No; that didn’t matter. What mattered was what Doodlebug had promised him. What mattered was the fact that if he worked hard enough, his enormous bulk, the target of endless insults and humiliations over the years, could become an asset instead of a liability. Then Jules Duchon wouldreally throw his weight around.

Jules opened his eyes. “Are you ready?” Doodlebug asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

The train lurched into motion. But Jules didn’t lurch. He flowed along the path like a blob of mercury guided by electromagnets.No need to rush, he told himself.I know exactly how fast that train moves-I got plenty of time to make the intersection. Doodlebug’s words bathed his mind like a refreshing warm shower: Flow. Peacefulness. Connectedness. The cups and saucers he held in his hands weren’t heavy at all. There was no clatter, no nervous sloshing. They were part of his limbs, connected to him. Like the path was connected to him. And he knew the train like he knew the beating of his own heart.

He successfully passed the first intersection five full seconds before he was cognizant of having done so. The trestle bridge didn’t trip him up in the slightest. He passed over it without causing even a stirring in the coffee cups.

But then something changed. The train hit an invisible wall of rubber. Some evil outside force took control of his calm mastery and twisted it, slowing everything down.

“You-you’re changing the train’s speed! You can’t do that!”

“I most assuredlycan,” Doodlebug answered.

“No, you can’t! Notnow!”

“The bird that taps against the window, Jules. It always pops up at the worst possible time.”