Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale (16 page)

            “I
don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear that I was here the whole time.”

            His
mouth dropped open as he stared down at the rough old man that sat cross-legged
on the floor. “You mean to tell me that you didn’t hear me pounding and
screaming inside that box? You’re going to sit there and tell me that somehow,
underneath a bridge somewhere, you found a bum’s bed that was made from
soundproof wood?”

            “That’s
not what I’m trying to say at all. All I’m saying is I was here the whole time
and I didn’t hear a single sound come from that box. Maybe you dreamed you were
makin’ all that noise, because I didn’t hear a thing.”

            “You
were here the whole time?” A grain of doubt had now crept into his voice. Maybe
the old man was telling the truth.

            “Well
I did take out your garbage, but I couldn’t have been gone for maybe a second.”

            “And
you were here the whole time, except for that?”

            “Yes…
you didn’t make a noise.”

            He
sat down relieved to believe the Old Soldier and his adamant replies. He didn’t
want to have to be furious with the old man, but he couldn’t help it. He had
been on edge ever since they had decided he was a vampire.

            The
Old Soldier stood up and surveyed the state of the coffin’s interior. The
inside of the box was covered in a stew of bodily fluids. The heat had ripened
it quickly, and he could almost see waves of stench coming from inside like
looking down a long street in the middle of the summer. At least he finally
knew where the smell had been coming from. He had almost taken a shower earlier
in the day, because he thought that he might be the source of the smell.

            As
the Old Soldier surveyed the inside of the coffin, his friend moved to scoop up
the blanket, trying to avoid touching any of the contents himself and at the
same time avoid spillage. He managed to scoop the blanket up without making a
mess and he ran down the stairs in a manner not all that different from the way
the Old Soldier had run down the stairs earlier in the day. He held the
blanket, folded in half, with the waste sagging in the middle of the folded blanket.
He ran as fast as he could down the stairs, leaping from one landing to the
next, causing the iron railings of the stairwell to ring and vibrate in a
deafening tone.

            He
reached the bottom in no time at all and skidded to a halt. He only stood for a
second, long enough to assess the picture that lay sprawled before him. On the
ground, rat carcasses lay in a pile as flies buzzed nonstop in tiny gliding
circles. A maggot looped, like a giant sea serpent, swimming through the
openings in the rat's jellified eye.

            His
second was up; he tossed the blanket in the garbage, successfully avoiding
making any more of a mess on the dumpster’s already soiled façade. He turned
and ran back up the stairs, trying to put the sights and smells of the recent
past out of his mind. When he got upstairs, he saw the old man liberally
scrubbing the inside of the coffin with a washrag. The smell was already
starting to dissipate as a nightwind was making its way through the apartment.
He watched the tendons ripple underneath the Old Soldier’s skin. He may not be
the strongest looking man, but there was no denying that there was some sort of
untapped strength underneath the old man’s homeless veneer.

            He
stood in front of the window, enjoying the cleansing gust of the night, and
admiring the simple lives of the people in the apartments across the way. His
old friend had just finished another set of lifting weights, and had decided to
treat himself with another five knuckle shuffle. By the time he realized that
he had been staring at a man jerking off, the Old Soldier was standing at his
side.

            “C’mon,
you pervert. We got a lot of work to do. Maybe we can find your ass some rubber
sheets, until you can keep from wettin’ the bed.”

            He
punched the Old Soldier in the shoulder as hard as he could and that made him
feel better. The pain in the Old Soldier’s eyes was satisfying. He wanted to
see more of that look.

            The
Old Soldier rubbed his arm as they gathered their things and discussed the plan
for the evening.

            He
walked up to the front of Beelzebub’s with the assumed air that he had been
using for years just to get by, the air of the old veteran with a chip on his
shoulder, the air of a man whose country had forgotten about him, the air of  a
man that had nothing to lose and everything to gain. But most of all, he had
the air of man that was looking for trouble. As he walked up to the front of
Beelzebub’s, he spread his attitude thick, wondering if anything he was going
to do tonight would make a difference? Would anything he did tonight make him
feel better? Or honor the memory of the men that had disappeared at his side?

            He
sized up the man that guarded the front entrance of the bar or club or whatever
it is they called the things these days. He wasn’t much more than a pile of
shit, some 300 pounds of it, stacked into a 6-foot 4-inch frame. He stood with
a serious face, glowering out at the world and making sure that whoever cared
to look would know he meant business. He noticed the deep laugh lines that had
started to form around the edges of his mouth and that whatever impression he
was trying to give off was completely ruined by the softness of his face. He
wore Doc Martens, steel-toed probably, the trademark of many a worthless
bouncer, some faded blue jeans and a leather vest over a white t-shirt that
clung to his healthy beer gut. As he moved closer he saw what he needed to see,
green-flecked brown eyes.

            He
moved to go into the bar and the bouncer let him stroll by. Once inside, he
looked around, trying to find the best, quickest way to get the bouncers
attention without getting the cops involved. Bouncers were a tricky thing. On
one hand, they were simply another part of the whole fucked up capitalist
system, underpaid workers with remedial talents who were expected to do more
than their meager wages should rightfully entail. In certain situations, a
bouncer would simply tackle you to the ground and boot your ass out the front
door. A lot of times they would simply call the cops, and hand you over to
them. It was a lot simpler than handling the problem on their own, and it gave
them more time to stand around and look tough. However, if you wanted the extra
special, back alley treatment, you had to press the right buttons. You had to
dishonor the bouncer. You had to give the bouncer a reason to make a special
occasion out of your face. Bouncers were trickier than they had a right to be.

            The
attitude outside had only been for the bouncer’s sake. He simply wanted to be
noticed, and if there was one thing in the world that could make a person get
noticed it was the lean of a man with a chip on his shoulder. To some the lean
signified danger, to others it signified a challenge, but they always
remembered the face, no matter what.

            He
shambled over to the bar, trying to make himself look as wretched as possible.
If you wanted to make yourself some trouble you had to deflate yourself, make
yourself look like a target. You had to become like the kid in school that
always got picked on; assume a slouch, turn your confidence knob to zero, and
be as meek as a choir boy. You had to put a look on your face that said, “Look
at how worthless I am; doesn’t my face need a punch? Wouldn’t I look a little
less pitiful with a swollen lip, a bloody nose, and maybe a black eye or two?”
You had to become Johnny Punchingbag, and then you had to give them an excuse.

            He
moved to the bar for a likely mark, someone to give him a little tit for his
tat. There wasn’t much potential in the bar tonight. It was not fetish night,
and the bar was anything but packed. The bar was situated on the east wall and
was packed with customers that sat with the ease of regulars. Others customers
lined booths that sat around the remaining perimeter of the establishment. The
stage and the big floor in the middle of the room were empty, except for the
occasional customer making their way across the bar. The place was smoky and
filled with industrial music that was just loud enough to drown out the
conversation of the person that was sitting two seats down. Apparently,
Tuesdays weren’t the best nights to try and get a bar brawl going. He was going
to have to change his strategy. That was just fine with him. He could switch
personas the way Mr. Rogers switched shoes.

            His
new plan was more fun anyway and it had the added bonus of allowing him to down
a few before all the fun. It was no good trying to fight regulars; that would
not earn him the blue ribbon beating he was looking for. When a regular gets
into a fight, the bouncer’s reaction is to throw the offending party out as
quickly as possible. Management doesn’t want one off their customers getting
hassled; they know where their bread is buttered, and regular customers
translates into a steady stream of cash in the language of business. Quite
often, the bouncer will call the cops to ease the herd and let the regulars
know that they are important; they’re not just another customer in the
establishment. They are a part of the family, the drunken uncle that loves to
spend his or her hard-earned cash on things that make the pain go away. It was
no good picking a fight with the people in the booths either. The people in the
booths were there for privacy. People in booths are there to be left alone,
ignored, and forgotten. To pick a fight with a person that is minding their own
business is to tell the bouncer, “Hey, I’m a crazy dangerous fuck that wants to
start some shit.” These are the type of offenders that bouncers dread. These
are the offenders that you will see dragged out of clubs through thick crowds
of people, there arms twisted behind their backs and their faces twisted with
rage. These offenders could go either way. The bouncer might simply throw them
out and tell them not to come back out of fear of reprisal, or they could just
as easily call the cops and have them put away for the evening. The second
option is usually taken when the bouncer is afraid that the person may go home
and get a knife, gun, or maybe some friends and come back later.

            That
only left one other option, the bartender, and wouldn’t you know it? The
bartender was a lady tonight. It looked like there was some luck to be had
tonight after all. The bartender, you see, is the lifeblood of the bar. Without
the bartender, the drinks don’t get poured, the money doesn’t get made. Without
the bartender, there are no regulars, no steady stream of cash. The owners of
the bar know this. The bouncers of the bar know this. A male bartender is
treated like royalty if they’re good. A female bartender is treated like a
goddess no matter what.

            He
ordered a beer, a Pabst Blue Ribbon, or PBR in normal speak. The bartender
delivered it with a smile and he smiled back as he handed over the little
amount of money that his friend had given him for their ruse. She was
definitely likeable, which worked to his advantage. She bantered back and forth
with the customers as if they really were her friends and not just some people
she was trying to weasel tips from. She was good all right, and she was loved.
He suspected that quite a few of the regulars came here just to be in her
presence. He surveyed the regulars and noticed that quite a few of them
caressed her with their greedy eyes when she wasn’t looking, quickly averting
them when she was looking. He wondered if any of those people sitting down the
line of the bar were vampires like his friend.

            He
doubted he would ever be able to find out. Hell, he wouldn’t even know that his
friend was a vampire if it wasn’t for those two happenstance evenings, the one
with the rat and the one where he had tried to commit suicide. He had no marks,
no teeth. He was unusually pale, but he hadn’t been in the sun for a little
while and he got the feeling that his friend had never really been a fan of the
sun in the first place. He didn’t look physically intimidating. There were
times when he looked at the wasted shell of his friend and felt, that if it
came down to it, he could probably take him in a fight. He hoped his friend
could tell who the vampires were, because everyone here looked just as pathetic
and worthless as he did on most days.

            He
produced one of his beauties and lit it with a match, wreathing his head in a
haze of sulfur and smoke. He imagined that the way he was at the moment might
be how Beelzebub would look if he was standing right in front of him, all
smoke, stink and mystery. He drained the remainder of the PBR that he had been
working on and waited for the bartender to make her way down the line and get
him another.

            He
sat thinking as she poured liquor into shiny bar equipment, mixing and shaking
without measuring. She appeared to pour some very strong drinks for her
customers, and none of them looked like they were leaving anytime soon. She
whirled, still mixing up a drink and placed a pitcher underneath the tap,
strained the drink she had been working on into a glass full of ice and placed
it before her customer just as the pitcher filled to the brim with semi-sudsy
brew. She topped it off and slid it to one of the booth customers that was
waiting at the end of the bar. He wandered off contentedly upon receiving his
prize and left a considerable tip for a pitcher of beer. The bartender made her
way down to him.

            “You
ready for another?”

            He
made a big show of downing his nasty lasties and slid the empty can towards
her. “You bet.”