Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

The theater echoed with the sound of applause. Even though it was just Doodlebug clapping, to Jules’s four extraordinarily sensitive ears, it sounded like the Rockettes doing a tap number just above his heads. “Oh, Jules! You’ve done it! I knew you could! Iknew you could!”

It had been so easy, so painless and effortless, that it took the two Juleses a few seconds to recognize what he’d accomplished. Bat-Jules and Wolf-Jules stared at one another, almost disbelievingly. He saw himself, and he saw himself seeing himself, and he saw himself seeing himself see himself. It was dizzying, like being in a fun house hall of mirrors.

His wolf-self had an overwhelming desire to sniff his bat-self up close and personal. This was so exciting! Wolf-Jules gazed deep into Bat-Jules’s black, beady little eyes and admired the lively, curious intelligence there.Sure, maybe the little winged guy’s a bit rounder than he should be, but just look at that terrific wingspan!

Bat-Jules was hardly less admiring of his fellow.He’s so noble looking! And lovable! No wonder that bitch in Baton Rouge found me irresistible!

Wolf-Jules nudged Bat-Jules with his nose as he was sniffing him. The resulting sensory feedback loop-his touching himself touch himself touching himself, ad infinitum-overloaded both of Jules’s brains. His concentration shattered. Both of Jules’s bodies devolved into pools of proto-matter before vanishing in clouds of fleshy mist.

“Ohhhh mannn…” he sputtered after he’d re-formed, sprawled facedown on the floor. To his disgust, his left cheek was stuck to the tacky surface. “What happened? I was doin‘ so great…”

“Don’t worry about it. You did fabulously well. The shock of direct physical contact between two bodies sharing a single, generalized consciousness is enough to overwhelm any vampire at first.”

On his second attempt, Jules was able to maintain separate wolf- and bat-forms for six minutes before losing his concentration. Next up, he was able to flop around the floor as three individual bats for nine and a half minutes-before exhaustion, more than lack of concentration, forced his collapse.

While Jules was toweling himself off, he decided to ask the question that had been bugging him virtually since the first night Doodlebug started training him. “Hey, D.B., even tonight, even with my usin‘ that posthypnotic trigger-thingie you gave me, how come all my other bodies are still sofat? I mean, I still can’t get even an inch off the floor when I’m a bat, ’cause my damn bat-belly’s like an anchor holding me down. What’s up with that? Multiple bodies is a kick and all, don’t get me wrong. But it’s about as useful in combat as bein‘ able to juggle eight heads of lettuce, if all my bodies end up as fat and slow as my regular body.”

Doodlebug pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’ve done some thinking about that very subject. I don’t believe your other bodieshave to be fat and slow at all. I think you create them that way out of habit. I think that, somewhere along the road, you got used to the notion of Jules Duchon as obese and clumsy, and you got comfortable with that. I think your wolf-belly drags the ground because youbelieve it should, and that your bat can’t fly because youbelieve it shouldn’t.”

Jules was quiet for a long moment. “That can’t be right,” he said finally. “I’vewanted to be a skinny bat. I’vetried. Don’t you think all them times my life’s been in danger-that time by the lake with the Levee Board cops, or tonight in the alley-don’t you think I tried with all my might to become a bat that could fly? Why would I hold myself back like that, when mylife depended on it? It’s gotta be that I just… can’t… do it.”

Doodlebug walked over and sat in the chair next to him. He started to reach for Jules’s hand, then hesitated and pulled back. “Jules, I’m not a trained psychologist. But it’s pretty obvious to me that someone, a very long time ago, convinced you that you weren’t worth much. Whoever that was, they inserted a little facsimile of themselves into your head, just like I inserted your posthypnotic trigger earlier tonight. And that little mental facsimile whispers to you not to try, because if you try you might fail. And only someone who is worth something can afford to fail, so you’d better not take the risk.”

Halfway through Doodlebug’s soliloquy, Jules had clamped his hands over his ears. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “I read about it inNewsweek. You’re psychobabbling me.Blah-blah toilet trainingblah-blah self-esteemblah-blah inner child… Well, it’s not gonna work, Dr. Ruth. I’m not gonna let you get away with blamin‘ all my problems on my mother.”

“Who said anything about your mother?”

“Youdid.”

“I did not. I never mentioned your mother.You mentioned your mother.”

Jules got red in the face. “I didnot!”

“Yes, you did,” Doodlebug responded coolly.

They sat in silence for three long minutes. Doodlebug was the first to break the uneasy quiet. “Tell you what. Let’s try something new. One last thing. We’ll do it together this time.”

Jules didn’t respond in any way. Not even a grunt.

“You said thatSingin‘ in the Rain is one of your all-time favorite movies, right?” Doodlebug continued. “That people used to tell you that you looked like Gene Kelly, and that when you watched this film, you imagined youwere Gene Kelly? Well, go ahead.Be Gene Kelly. I’ll be Cyd Charisse. We’ve got all the costumes we need right here. We can do one of the dances from the movie. I’ve shown you how you can turn your imaginings into solid reality. Don’t just imagine yourself as a slender, graceful Gene Kelly- behim.”

Jules tried not to respond as Doodlebug nudged him. But he realized that the younger vampire would just keep talking until Jules saidsomething. “That, hands-down, is the single mostidiotic idea you’ve come up with since you’ve been back in New Orleans.”

“What’s so idiotic about it?”

“I told you before. I don’t dance.”

“No problem. We’ll do the fantasy duet from the ‘Broadway Ballet’ sequence. Cyd Charisse does all the moving in that number. Gene Kelly just stands there and looks awestruck.”

Jules sighed. He felt like he was speaking with a retarded child. “Even you can’t dance without music, right?”

“No problem. I’ll run the film. We’ll wait until that part comes, and then we’ll dance along with it.”

Again Jules sighed. “No matter what I say, you’re gonna do it anyway, aren’t you?” he said flatly. “So go ahead. Get it over with. Put on your costume and play your games. Only the joke’s on you, pal, ‘cause there ain’t any outfit on either of them racks that comes anywhereclose to fittin’me.”

“We’ll just see about that,” Doodlebug said, and smiled.

After twenty minutes of trial and error, loading and unloading various reels of film, Doodlebug found the reel that contained the “Broadway Ballet” sequence. As the film stuttered into life, Jules found himself sucked into the images on-screen. Despite his resistance to the whole idea, hearing Gene Kelly sing “Gotta Dance!” and watching him stride around those Broadway sets in that athletic, manly, yet compellingly graceful way of his brought back memories both good and surprisingly bittersweet. Jules was shocked by how much Gene Kelly resembled what he remembered of the young, human Jules Duchon. Not so much the physique (even in his best shape ever, Jules had to admit, he’d been nowhere near as buff as Gene Kelly)-more the smile, warm and cocky and reassuring all at once, and the friendly cast of the eyes.

When Gene Kelly saw Cyd Charisse stride through the doors of the Broadway casino, and the scene melted into a fantasy tableau of the two of them dancing together in an ethereal paradise, Jules didn’t see Cyd Charisse; he saw Maureen. It was Maureen in the flowing white gown, her fifteen-foot train soaring behind her in the wind, her beautiful long hair spilling over her bare shoulders. It was Maureen who danced around him, wrapping his torso and arms with her gauzy cape, who dazzled him with her angelic footwork, exciting a brilliant smile from his lips. It was Maureen who danced away, her arms futilely beckoning, as the fantasy dissolved into the harshly lit reality of the casino, and she turned away from him to accept her gangster boyfriend’s cold embrace.