Sunday, September 16, 2012

A MESSAGE THROUGH THE ETHER FROM THE VAMPIRE KNOWN AS PAPA

The townhouse looked nice during the day. Edith 'Swiffered' the hardwood floors. She vacuumed the fine, wool area rugs, polished the furniture, played with the knick-knacks (good stuff. mostly antiques and collectibles) and Lysol-wiped the kitchen. I don't know who was gonna get sick. Vampires don't carry any germs. OK, from time to time one of her friends from the Pines came to stay for a night or two. Even Mister Edith poked his head in every so often. Pin Head Mel, the mini-skulled kid who played with Horsey Skeezix, liked the city. She took him for ice-cream, rode him around on the subway, got him new shoes. Tomas said he'd pay for a doctor. You know, to try and do something for the kid's brain and all. But Edith told him not to. Mel was happy and everyone in the Pines loved him. So what were they gonna accomplish? Hell, Horsey Skeezix (the Jersey Devil kid) thought he was a genius. Them Jersey Devil kids are real feral when they're young.  Annie played with 'em too sometimes, but once she tried to take a bite out a Pin Head's ass, so Edith told her to stay the hell away. 

Lately she has a thing for human urine. Annie, I mean. She's fascinated by it. Wants to know if it's the same as chicken soup. Loves goin' into ladies' rooms and findin' some. You know, not everybody flushes. Scoops it out into a twist-top, plastic, sippy cup she got from the dollar store. Matron says - What is wrong with you, you stringy haired, little bitch?..... But Annie just tells her to go to hell and runs out. Experiments with it back home. Kills goldfish in it...sea-monkeys in it... roses in it. Once she cut up a whole flank steak (you know Edith and her human guests gotta eat) into little cubes and simmered 'em in it. Thank God she didn't ruin the good, Rachel Ray set. Then she fed it to the night-pigeons sleepin' in the branches at Washington Square Park. But they wouldn't eat it. Well, one of 'em did, but it already had a crazy eye anyway.

Conrad went to the movies. Guy he knows, sort a like a familiar, but not really, gets him into The Ritz Five up by the old Second Bank of The United States. Beautiful building. Round. Federalist, I think. He wants a be a critic. Get his name in The City Paper and all that. Tomas doesn't think that's such a good idea, but Baylah takes up for him. Vampire gotta have other outlet than blood, you know. 'Sides, ain't like he gone on Oprah or nothin'.

Sarah givin' out little vials of her blood to poor, sick folks. Perfume sample girl from Macy's give 'em to her. She got about a whole gross of 'em, I think. Fills 'em down the cellar (where the polio, ghost boy lives). Edith don't want no mess. Polio ghost boy say - What you doin'?..... But Sarah say - Mind you business....... 'cause she gotta concentrate. Then she shut 'em up real tight, stick 'em in her pocketbook and go on her rounds..... Ding-dong! Avon calling! ..... 'Cept what she got gonna make 'em feel a whole lot better. Sick, poor folks know she somethin' special. Don't never let on what it is. I don't think they want to. They just grateful for the help.

Then, 'fore she come home, always stop in some hotel lobby coffee shop for  vodka on the rocks. Bars is closed by then. But you can booze it up real good in hotel coffee shop. She a big tipper too. Keeps a little ledger with all the names a people she help..... what she give and when they get it. Don't know what she gonna do with it, but she do it just the same. Vampires can be very obsessive. Look how Tomas get wit' them black, leather bootkins. What kind a word is 'bootkins'? That how you know he from back in the day. 

Edith say Papa tellin her stuff. Say a thousand legger run out from behind the sofa. Say it go - psst! psst! (which must be difficult, seein' as how no thousand legger got a human tongue) She say- What you want?...... Thousand legger smile (also difficult)  and go - Woo! Woo! Woo! I can see you, but you can't see me......... Edith go - What are you, crazy? I lookin' right at you........ Thousand legger say - No, you ain't. Alls you see is a bug, but you don't see me...... Then she recognize the voice. Little bit tinny, considerin' the size and all, but it Papa. She know. It Papa. He tell her he riddin' 'round what look like heaven, but only the cheap part, wit' the Chinese lady. She say - Yeah? What it like?....... But 'fore he can answer, bug go 'guhk' and curl up dead. Guess them 'sterminator fellas sprayed too much bug juice last week. Sarah don't like no creepy-crawlies in wit' her while she sleepin'. This is the city, after all.

And I Mister Never-You-Mind, your obedient, ole, New Orleans, dead guy (kind a look like Leon Redbone while I 'live) signin' off.

Edith do try talkin' to a spider she see later out back. But it don't tell her nothin'...

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