Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale (26 page)

            He
grabbed himself a drink… Jack and Coke, and strolled over to a small empty
table in the back corner of the hazy room. From the table he had a good vantage
point of the entire club. They sat around like cattle chewing their cud, tall
thin glasses of colorful liquid crowned by dissolving cubes of ice. Their
conversations blurred together like a picture in the rain.

            He
nursed his drink, dipping his straw in the cocktail and placing his finger over
the open end to pull out a bit of liquid and dump it on the floor. Cigarettes
blazed like tiny orange eyes as guitars blasted the bar at a breakneck rhythm
that no one seemed to mind. Fascist voices yelled things in German that no one
quite understood but everyone still seemed to like.

            Vampires
wandered here and there, conversing with their friends. Pale-faced mockeries of
human beings dressed in clothing that would put a drag queen to shame. Women
walked around with silver twinkling in their faces and ears, but none of them
were the one he was looking for.

            The
night traveled on and he sat like a scientist behind an invisible two-way
mirror, observing and watching. There were some Stanks here and there, flavored
cigarettes adding more haze than usual to the perpetual cloud of filth that
clung to the bar’s walls and above the heads of everyone in the bar. They
mingled nonchalantly with the vampires, never having any idea of how much
danger they were in. A couple of them sat at the table next to him, and he
unwillingly listened to their boisterously loud conversation and inhaled clouds
of their bourgeois smoke. The orange glow of their flaring cigarettes reflected
in their black plastic eyeglasses. They dropped names of people that didn’t
matter and filled the time with stories so mundane they would bring a factory
worker to tears.

            Johnny
went over to Raff’s house and they were working on the siding, and Johnny
dropped a hammer down a flight of stairs. Catherine was putting together an art
show at some crappy gallery on Hawthorne that never had any visitors, but it
was still a cool opportunity. Megan’s child was growing so big… he could say
his first word now.

            Once
their conversation about their mutual friends ended, the man and the woman
began to talk about themselves, little bits of gossip and secrets that were
supposed to make them closer and more interesting to each other. Cigarettes and
booze disappeared into their mouths and their eyes grew with a feverish light,
as they related their likes and dislikes, talked about their meaningless jobs,
and told each other what movies they ought to see.

            You
should see Children of Men, it’s simply amazing. It’s about a world where there
are no children. My job sucks, all I do is punch numbers into a computer all
day. My job’s even worse, the people I have to deal with… they’re amazing.
Where have all the nice people gone? It seems like people are ruder and ruder
everyday. I’m thinking about quitting my job… I think I want to paint, that
seems meaningful and I’ve always love to paint. You should do that, I think
you’d make a great painter. You know I like you, you’re cool. I think you’re
great, too.

            He
watched as their conversation turned to something that actually mattered and
they skirted around it, afraid and unwilling to break the ice that sat between
them marking them off as simply friends. Then they tossed the conversation
under the rug like a dead mouse and moved onto other trifling matters, like
their pasts, stories that only mattered in their memories, like the time he got
hit by a car and the time that her house got broken into.

            He
listened as they mined the memories of their past for something significant,
something that would fill the void left by the topic they had shoved under the
rug. They struggled and the night grew on, their conversation grew stale and
became an amalgamation of “one time” and “remember when.” They chatted like two
old men laying on death beds next to each other in a hospital, talking about things
that had happened in the past, things that would never happen again. They
talked about things that were ghosts reaching out to haunt their minds, yearning
to change the world in some meaningful way that just simply can’t be done.

            His
mind couldn’t help it; the couple next to him was like an infection, a black
hole that dragged him into the past, into pain. He remembered making dinner
occasionally, nothing fancy, shells and cheese some fried hot dogs in a tomato
and green pepper sauce… with a side of fried potatoes. He remembered as his
daughter would pick up each individual shell and place it in her mouth with
delicate cheese-stained fingers, smiling in delight as she chewed the
fake-cheese covered pasta, the potatoes sitting untouched on the plate next to
a half eaten stack of red-covered hot dogs with bits of green peppers in it
like some sort of Christmas design. His wife smiling at his daughter’s bright
face, happy and innocent… a face made for more than she got. A face for the
ages, a face that couldn’t be unremembered once it had been seen. Part of him
wished he could forget that face, but he knew that her face was the only thing
that kept him from being completely inhuman.

            Silent
rivulets of past-stained tears were streaming down his stubbled and scarred
cheeks when she walked in, bitter lights dancing in purple blotches off of the
sheen of her straight black hair.

            He
wiped his eyes, stopping the flow of tears as his heart rose in his chest.
There she was, sauntering across the bar like a cat looking for prey. She was
no less than thirty feet away. He eyed her from the corners of his eyes so as
to not be completely obvious that he was watching her.

            The
Stanks next to him picked up their cigarettes and polished off the last of
their drinks before they left to go. They paraded out, side by side, in a
swerving pattern as the lights reflected off of their black plastic glasses,
the boy with his hand in the back pocket of the girl. The vampires still milled
around somberly, the din had dried out to a dull hum and the night was winding
down.

            Before
he could extricate himself, the girl with the purple-black hair came to sit
down at the table next to him that the Stanks had just deserted. The woman with
the high cheekbones and cut jawline looked ragged. Dark rings circled her eyes
and she looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. For a second, he thought he
could see a spark of recognition on her face from the corner of his eyes. She
sipped on a tumbler full of brown liquid floating in a sea of ice cubes.

            He
simply sat, looking down at his table, stirring the drink with a straw every
now and then. He produced a pack of Marlboro Reds from his pocket and packed
them on his hand. He tore off the cellophane wrapper and pulled the piece of
foil inside, then he grabbed a single cigarette and rolled it around the palm
of his hand for a while. He found some matches buried within the dark recesses
of his pocket and lit the cigarette. He had bought the cigarette for just these
times, when he had nothing to do and draining his drink was not an option. The
match flared in a stink of sulphur, and gray smoke infiltrated his lungs, with
a satisfying burn.

            He
could see her from the corner of his eyes, the reflection of the candle on the
table bouncing around in her green-flecked brown eyes. She too produced a pack
of cigarettes from her pocket… the package was green so he assumed they were
menthols. She searched through the pockets of a black leather jacket she was
wearing, but found no lighter. Then she leaned forward and lit the cigarette
using the candle.

            He
must have been watching too closely because as she came up with a fresh lungful
of smoke, she actually talked to him.

            “Hey,”
she said to get his attention, “don’t I know you?”

            He
sat rock still not quite sure what to say. Talking to her hadn’t been a part of
the plan and he was afraid he was going to blow everything. He decided he’d
risk it anyway; if all else failed, he could just run across the little space
between them and ram a stake into her heart.

            He
decided it would be best to be honest… “Yeah, I remember you from a month or
two ago… of course, I didn’t look like this when you left, I’m surprised you
even recognized me.”

            She
got up from her table with a smile that never touched her eyes and she moved
over to his table, settling her ass in one of the high chairs. Smoke curled
from the cigarette in her fingers and wreathed her head in a haze.

            “You
didn’t look good then, but you certainly don’t look any better now. What are
all these cuts and scabs all over your face? You look like you’ve been shaving
with a cheese shredder.”

            “They’re
nothing, just a misunderstanding.” He took another puff off of his cigarette
and examined the girl’s face. “You look tired.”

            “You
don’t know the half of it. I’m fucking exhausted…,” she paused as if to say
something else, but then she just took another puff off of her smoke. “You’re
one of us aren’t you?”

            “What?
I don’t know what you mean.”

            “C’mon,
you don’t have to play… you’re one of us.”

            He
decided to play along, “Yeah, I guess I am.”

            “You
don’t dress like us, but you have the spirit. You seem to understand pain.
Hell, from the look of your face, you actually seem to be searching it out.”

            “Pain…
is just a thought. If I wanted true pain I just have to look in my mind.
Nothing out here can cause me any pain that I can’t cause myself.”

            She
bobbed her head, thinking that she understood what he was saying when she
clearly had no idea.

            “So,
have you seen him?”

            “Seen
who?”

            “The
killer… the bum.”

            “The
bum?” He was shocked for a second but quickly recovered his composure.

            “The
bum… he killed one of my friends and a bunch more of us that I didn’t know.
I’ve been sitting around terrified to go out, terrified to dress like who I
am.”

            “I
know what you mean… it sucks not to be able to be who you are, when some psycho
is out there, killing for no reason at all.” He smiled in his mind… no reason.
He killed for the purest reason; she had a right to be scared.

            “People
say they’ve seen him sitting across from the club, a dirty old bum smoking
cigarettes in the rain and just watching. The police say they found the bum’s
body, but they won’t show anybody. They’ve got it locked up tight. It’s
probably in an evidence room somewhere on ice. Other people say there was
another person with him. Some of the newspapers are talking about how there was
proof that it was two people that have been doing the killing. They killed a
kid last week.”

            He
almost felt guilty. He almost felt like maybe he was doing the wrong thing.
“Maybe he is gone, the bum and his friend. Maybe when the bum died, the other
guy just gave up. Who knows if this other guy is even real?”

            She
shivered and cast her glance into her as yet untouched drink. “Maybe you’re
right. You want to get out of here? I don’t want to walk home alone… and you
were pretty good last time.”

            “Not
good enough to stick around for apparently.”

            “You’re
not going to be a baby about that are you?”

            “No,
I was just thinking out loud, I don’t care either way.”

            “Good.
Then let’s get going… my place is a few blocks from here.”

            They
packed up their stuff and set out from the Glasshouse for the last time, barely
touched drinks on the table floating in swamps of collected condensation and a
few burnt cigarette butts smoldering in a plastic ashtray that said Camel on
the side. He carried his old bowling bag and she carried her leather jacket
draped over one arm. They meandered through the place as if it was a video game
on pause. People eyed the couple, wondering if they would ever be seen again…
there was a fever in this place. The hum never stopped but he could hear a few
coughs of reassurance; thoughts were plain on people’s faces as if word-filled
bubbles floated over their heads like in the comic books. Pale faces returned
to drinks and the low murmur of the Glasshouse, a museum of the dead, faded
away into the night as the door closed behind them, the air ushering them on
with a last blast of industrial guitars and a puff of stale cigarette fog. The
night was cool and new.

They walked
around the corner past the cops that sat in their car, fogging up the windows
with their little cups of Starbuck’s coffee sitting on the dashboard. They eyed
the couple suspiciously as the squawk of the police band muttered, hissed, and
popped with static in the silent night. He nodded to a red-faced cop with
close-cut curly hair and a stare that seemed to look right through him. The cop
returned his nod, and even managed a smile, even if it never touched his face.

The streets
were empty and dry as he slipped a hand into her back pocket and squeezed. She
put her arm in his and they walked up the street like two old-fashioned lovers
out for a stroll pretending that the night was safe, pretending that while they
were linked nothing could harm them. He knew better, and from the way she
trembled, she knew it too. Her flesh was cold and clammy.

They walked
down the streets skimming like water spiders across the surface of the pond
from pool of light to pool of light. The sidewalk moved as if on its own, two
people on an escalator waiting to get to the top floor. Occasionally the girl
would look behind her, to see if anyone was following. She was nervous.