Andrew Fox: Fat White Vampire Blues

Nothing happened.

The intruder smiled expectantly. Then he laughed. It was one of the most unpleasant sounds Jules had ever heard.

“What was that supposed to do, huh? Scare the crap outta me? Make me think I was a worm or somethin‘?” He laughed again, so hard this time that he leaned on Jules’s coffin for balance. “Man, that vampire shit don’t work on anothervampire!”

Jules couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His worst, most inconceivable fears were coming true. But he still struggled desperately to push them away. “You’re bullshittin‘ me.”

“Oh Iam, huh? Take a look at these.” He smiled an exaggerated smile. His canine teeth were sharp and elongated.

“Big deal. Half the young punks in the Quarter got their teeth filed and sharpened. That don’t prove a thing.”

“Man, you are one stubborn sonofabitch, ain’tchu? You seen what I did to your security door? Now who could do that ‘cept somebody with the strength of ten men, huh?”

Jules was silent. The intruder shrugged his broad shoulders. “Oh well,” he said. “They say seein‘ is believin’.” He reached into the lumber pile and pulled out three of the thickest planks. Then he put his left foot on top of Jules’s coffin and effortlessly snapped the three planks all at once over his knee.

He tossed the broken lumber onto the coffin. “Believe me now? Or do I have to reach up and pull your plumbing outta the ceilin‘?”

“Skip it. I believe you,” Jules admitted glumly. “So where are you down from? Chicago? Cleveland?

Detroit? Couldn’t take the cold anymore, huh? Well, there’re rules against musclin‘ in on another vampire’s territory. You can’t just waltz into New Orleans and start puttin’ the bite on people. I’ve got a good mind to report you to the National Council.“

The intruder scowled. “Fuckthe National Council. Them old-men vampires ain’t got no jurisdiction over this. Ain’t you been listenin‘ to the way I been talkin’ to you? I ain’t from outta town. I’m ahomeboy vampire, Jules. I’m a Grade-A, crawfish-head-suckin‘, second-linin’, Mardi-Gras-bead-catchin‘,New Orleans bloodsuckah!”

Could it be true? Jules certainly hadn’t made him. He’d never seen this guy before. And Maureen wouldn’t have made him, either. Jules had had to sit through lecture after lecture from her about the absolute necessity of keeping strict limits on the vampire population of a given territory. More to the point, Maureen had always been adamant about never,ever creating a colored vampire. The only vampire Jules had ever made was Doodlebug, his onetime kid sidekick, and Doodlebug had been living out in California for nearly twenty-five years. There were other, older vampires in New Orleans who kept to themselves in a walled compound near the parish line. But those old-timers were supposed to be even more prejudiced against blacks, Jews, and Italians than Maureen was.

“I don’t believe you,” Jules said. “You ain’t from around here.”

The other vampire straightened his bright red bow tie. “You don’t hafta believe me if you don’t want. All you gotta do islisten.” He lifted the lid of the coffin so that Jules could read the spray-painted message again. “NO POACHINGmeans your nights as Great White Hunter isfinished. As of tonight, Jules, you isout ofAfrica. No more big fat black mamas for you. Capeesh?”

“What the hell are you talkin‘ about?”

“Thick as a brick, huh? Okay. Lemme say this in words you’ll understand. Ready? If niggas gonna get fanged, thenniggas is gonna do thefangin‘. You stick to your kind-that’s white folks, now, not black folks-and me an’ my brothers stick to our kind.That, my friend, is the way it’s gonnabe.”

Jules was stunned. Who was this Johnny-come-lately to tellhim whom he could and couldn’t victimize? “Pal, I been a vampire since before your daddy was knee-high to a nutria. I know tricks you ain’t heard of or even thought of. Nobody butnobody tells me whose blood I can suck on my own home turf.”

The other vampire nonchalantly scratched his pointed chin. “I guess you can call me ‘Nobody’ then. ‘Cause I be the one tellin’ you.”

Jules waddled forward, trying his best to look menacing. “You and what goddamn army, punk?”

The intruder grinned. “Heh. You don’t wanna knownothin‘ ’bout my army, Jules. I got eyes all over this town. Eyes inevery neighborhood. I know ev’rythin‘ there is to know about Jules Duchon. Like that little hot chocolate snack you picked up from New Orleans Mission earlier tonight. Hope she was good and tasty for you, ’cause that there tamale stand is off-limits as of, oh, ‘bout ten minutes ago.”

Jules felt a small bayou of sweat begin to trickle down his back. This was awful. Never in his worst nightmares had he ever imagined anything like this. All he could muster was a feeble stab at humor. “I thought that affirmative action jazz was out of style.”

Again the smile. Jules was coming to hate that smile. “Me, I’m a self-made man. Only kinda affirmative action I believe in is this-I tell you what to do, you reply in the affirmative, or I take action. Do we have an understanding here?”

Jules tried to figure an out, but his brain seemed stuck in neutral. “But-but more than three-quarters of the people who live here are blacks. Almost every poor person, every down-and-outer in town is, y’know, black. White people don’t leave their homes after dark. They’re afraid of crime. And the tourist trade is too hard to live on steady. You’re cuttin‘ me out of my livelihood.”

The black vampire clapped him on the shoulder. It hurt. “Well now, that’syour problem, Mr. Jules. Not mine. You white folks are supposed to be smart. You’ll figure somethin‘ out, I’m sure.”

Quicksand pulled at Jules’s ankles. He felt dizzy. His stomach called off its tenuous truce with the rest of him. If he wanted to avoid sinking above his nose, he had to grasp at any branch in reach. He needed time to think. He needed information. “I’ll ask you one more time. Who the hell are you?”

“Still got a little fight left in you, huh? Good. I like that. You wanna know who I am? I’ll tell you, ‘cause I think we done come to an understanding. I had a lotta names in my years.Jules Duchon — that’s the name you was born with, huh? How long you been around, Jules? A hundred years? No imagination-you white folks ain’t got no imagination at all. Seventy years a big badass vampire, and you ain’t got no more sense than to live in the shithole you was born in and keep the name your mama hung on you?”

He walked over to the coffin, dusted a spot with a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and sat down. “Sit a spell, Jules. This might be a while. I usta run with a kid gang, see, back when I was alive. Picked the name Eldo Rado to be my tag. Eldo Rado. Something a kid would come up with, huh? Named myself after a car made by some white French guy come to America, who called his car some weird-ass Spanish word. When I became a vampire, that shit didn’t cut it no more. So one night I went to the video joint. Checked out every tape on vampires they had. Figured I’d pick a new name after I watched all the tapes.

“You white vampires are lucky, you know that? You got tons ofbad, I meanbad mothafuckin‘ bloodsuckahs to watch on the tube. You know? Christopher Lee. That dude isbad, man! And what doI have to watch? Fuckin’Blacula, man. You ever want topiss me thehell off, just try pinnin‘ that Blacula shit on me. So the tapes wasn’t no help at all. Then I got to thinkin’. Maybe I didn’t need a totally new name. Back in grade school, the teachers used to call me Malice, ‘cause it sounded close to my real name and I was a bad little dude. Malice. I liked the sound of that. And I didn’t need no Christian name anymore, ’cause as a vampire I sure wasn’t no Christian. So nowadays you can call me Malice X. Any more questions?”