Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

Jules grimaced as his ribs pinched organs never meant to be pinched. “Yeah-two naked white guys- ahh jeez-we’ll blend into this crowd real good.”

They rounded the corner onto Baronne. Jules’s Lincoln was parked in the middle of the block. The battered gold car had never looked so beautiful to Jules before. “Guess you’re gonna hafta drive, buddy,” he groaned. “Lemme lie down on the backseat…”

His friend tried to be gentle as he assisted Jules onto the back bench, but the process of squeezing his bulk through the narrow aperture was nearly as wrenching as getting smeared by the limousine along the alley wall. At least the engine started on the first try.Thank Ford for small favors, Jules thought as he stared at the car’s sagging head liner, fighting off unconsciousness.

“How do I get out of here?” Doodlebug asked, his voice tight with tension. “Should I head for Claiborne Avenue?”

“Not-Claiborne,” Jules gasped. The sirens were now so loud, they sounded like they were inside his skull. “Cops’ll be all over Claiborne. Go down to-St. Charles Avenue. Drive slow, normal-like. Wrap my cloak around you. Cops won’t think to stop a-white woman-drivin‘ on St. Charles-”

“Left at the corner?”

“Yeah-left…”

Oblivion grabbed Jules tightly this time.

The next time he opened his eyes, the car wasn’t moving anymore. He wasn’t in the car. Every part of him throbbed with pain; it was even worse than when he’d been boiled in holy water. Jules tried to figure out where he was. The light was dim. He seemed to be inside a building with a very high ceiling, close to a huge, shiny wall. Doodlebug’s shadow looked immense and grotesque against the pearly surface.

“Where-where are we?” Jules croaked.

He saw his friend’s worried face hover above him. “You’re awake? Good. We’re in a theater. I parked in a delivery alley behind Canal Street. After that battle we were in, the streets were swarming with police patrols; I thought we’d better lie low awhile before going back to the bed-and-breakfast.”

“A theater… that’d be either the Joy or the Loews’ State Palace. Maybe the Saenger… cripes, I feel like hell…”

“I tried being gentle when I pulled you out of the car and carried you in here. I hope I didn’t make your injuries worse-”

“We’re right by Charity Hospital, aren’t we?”

“I think so. That’s the big filthy art-deco building behind the government complex, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. That’s the one.” Jules took a quick inventory of his probable injuries. Broken or cracked ribs-three or four of them, for sure. Maybe a dislocated left shoulder. And if any of the ribs were busted clear off and were hopping around, possibly a perforated lung or kidney or something. “Wish I could check myself in there. I’m all busted up inside. Way more than a day or two of lying in my coffin can cure.” Jules felt his limbs begin to quiver. Then he was shaking all over. He sensed sweat rolling down his neck and sides. Was this what going into shock felt like? “Take me to Doc Landrieu. He’s a friend. My ex-boss. He’s helped me before. He could probably tape up my ribs, keep ‘em from grindin’. And maybe he could dope me up, too.”

“Actually, I’ve got a better idea.” Doodlebug knelt down and stared directly into Jules’s eyes. “I’m going to hypnotize you. And then you’re going to heal yourself.”

“You’re off yer rocker. You know as well as me that one vampire can’t hypnotize another.”

“Normally, you’re right. But you’re on the edge of going into shock. Your natural, subconscious mental defenses against hypnotism have to be greatly weakened. You’ve already proven that whenever you’re able to achieve the proper level of concentration, you’re capable of higher-level vampiric metamorphoses and body control. What I’d like to try is to implant a posthypnotic trigger. One you can ‘pull’ whenever you need to achieve that heightened state of concentration.”

The waves of nausea, sweating, and chills were becoming worse. “Whatever! Give it your best shot, and do it fast. ‘Cause if it doesn’t work, you’re gonna hafta drag my ass over to Doc Landrieu’s lickety-split.”

“All right. Just hold still, and keep your gaze focused on mine.”

“You got a pocket watch you gonna twirl?”

“No. Just start counting backward from one hundred.”

Jules fought to make the shaking in his limbs stop. “Hokay. Here goes. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six, eh, ninety-six… ninety-uhh… ninety…”

He was back in Maureen’s basement. He felt strong, as though he’d just swallowed an entire bottle of Doc Landrieu’s miracle pills. He sensed Doodlebug, invisible, floating above him, strengthening him even more. His mind was wonderfully, perfectly clear. The train set appeared around his feet, growing organically like a stop-motion fantasia from a kiddie movie. The twisting chalk line materialized, too, a luminous, beckoning pathway. He held his arms straight out from his shoulders, and two sets of coffee cups and saucers landed in his hands. The tiny locomotive puffed into life. Without his commanding them to, Jules’s feet set out along the path, moving with the speed and smoothness of ball bearings rolling along an oiled metal track. He hit all of his marks without altering his pace one iota, without even trying. It was easy. It was easier than anything he’d ever done.

Jules blinked. Once, then three times in quick succession. He was back on the theater’s floor, still lying down. Was he all healed up? He still felt sweaty and nauseated. Hesitantly, he raised his arm and set his hand down on his ribs. He applied a tiny bit of pressure. The resulting shock wave of pain nearly made him double over.

“Owww!You lousy rat-bastard liar! It didn’t work! I’m still as busted up as before!”

“Well, of course you are. You haven’tdone anything yet. All we’ve accomplished so far is to implant the posthypnotic trigger. That part of it worked fine. My theory concerning your mental state was right on the mark.”

Jules scowled. “Well, goody for you. I’ll be sure to have the monks mail you a gold star to stick on your forehead. What now, smarty?”

“Do you remember how I was able to change my breast size and alter my waist-hips ratio? You should have the same type of control over your body’s composition. A good visual metaphor is helpful. Umm, did your mother knit?”

“She didn’t make woolen booties, if that’s what you mean. But let’s see… when the war rationing was on, and you could hardly buy nothin‘, she used to hafta mend my socks pretty often.”

Doodlebug smiled. “Very good. Here’s what I want you to picture in your mind, after I have you say your trigger words. Imagine your mother mending your socks, threading the new thread through her needle and sewing the holes in the fabric up good and tight. Then imagine that your hands replace hers and continue with the sewing, only what you’re sewing together isbone, not cloth. Finally, imagine a skeleton like the one that used to hang in your high school science lab, but it’syour skeleton, and it’s whole and undamaged and perfect. Do you have all that?”

“Yeah.” Jules blinked again as sweat from his forehead stung his eyes. “So what’s my magic word, Merlin?”

“Train set.”

“Do I hafta picture it, or do I just say it?”

“Doing both wouldn’t hurt.”

Jules started to take a deep breath, but the expansion of his rib cage hurt so much that he quickly expelled it. He took a much smaller breath, then closed his eyes and said,“Train set!”

Pain and fear were instantly swept from his mind. His thoughts were distilled water, perfectly clear and sharp. He saw his mother sitting in her scallop-backed Victorian parlor chair, knitting basket on her lap, squinting hard as she threaded her needle through the frayed edges of the toe rip in his coarse black woolen sock. Then he saw himself in the same chair, with the same needle and thread in his hands, only his knitting basket was filled with broken pieces of his ribs. One at a time he was fitting his ribs together, then pushing the needle through the broken parts (it slid through as easily as it would through foam rubber) and suturing them together. As he imagined all this, he felt the burning in his sides begin to lessen. (It’s working! It’s really working!) He knit eagerly but methodically, making sure not to miss even a single tiny piece of rib in his basket, test-fitting various segments of bone together like jigsaw pieces to ensure he was creating the proper matches. With each stitch, he felt himself grow stronger.