this must of necessity be a rushed post. web hook-up is still screwy. lights on xfinity modem or whatever they call it blink on and off. I've asked some of out disembodied spirit narrators to slip into the digital realm and see what they can find. But some of them were last 'in the flesh' centuries ago and think manual can openers are high tech. so we're 'broadcasting' via a secondary hook-up. Hope I don't lose it. the net access company is a doodie head. even a cop would agree. but they're sort of a monopoly around here and short of a revolution, we pay and cry and they laugh and spend.
BUT...
Back to our story...
SMALL CLEARING IN THE DARK, NEW JERSEY PINE BARRENS
EDITH (the witchy woman) strides through the dense trees, which appear to make way for her. The RED PAINT PEOPLE self consciously melt back into the shadows. TOMAS stands there...
EDITH approaches him and caresses his face.
EDITH - How mortal you are. You smell so human...
TOMAS sighs and shudders. She hugs him. He cries.
TOMAS - I want it back. Help me. I want it back..
She gently rocks him from side to side.
EDITH - (whispers) Come with me.
She takes his hand and leads him through the trees, which momentarily move out of the way as they pass.
CUT TO - another small clearing. EDITH'S cozy cabin occupies the central position. Sort of like what Jed Clampett had before he struck oil, but less crude, less rustic. Well placed moonbeams gild the gray, slate roof. They approach the porch. HORSEY SKEEZIX, a juvenile, rather equine faced human with bat wings and smooth, short, glossy fur (a JERSEY DEVIL) gets up from the stoop and moves out of the way. PIN HEAD MEL, his teeny headed playmate titters from the bushes.
EDITH and TOMAS climb up onto the porch and go in.
INT. CABIN seconds later...
They sit 'cross a rough dining table. Neither says a word. Then Tomas speaks up...
TOMAS - I want 'Papa.' I want him. He's gotta do it.
EDITH - (sighs) I knew you'd say that.
TOMAS - You been 'watchin'' me?
EDITH - (nods) I ain't no 'born' witch, but I got my talents.
TOMAS - Then where's 'Papa?' Where is he?
EDITH - Can't you feel him?
TOMAS - No. Not now. Not like this. I'm a vampire, not a witch.
EDITH - Honey, you ain't even that. And I don't know where your 'Papa' is. I have no idea.
They hear staccato farts from behind closed door.
TOMAS - What's that!?
EDITH - Don't be scared. That's my husband. That's Mister Edith. He's sleepin'... doing his digestion. That's all.
TOMAS accepts that, but sinks back into silence.
EDITH - (reaches for his hand) He may not be there, honey. May not be anywhere. Might have 'sublimated.'... You know how them old ones 'give up the ghost.'
TOMAS contemplates what she said...
They sit there in the flickering glow of a small oil lamp... Tomas lays his head on his arms.
EDITH - (whispers) Don't be scared. I'll do somethin'...
More loud, staccato farts from beyond the door...
EDITH - (yells) Shut yourself up, you old bastid, you! You wanna poison everybody!?
Farts stop.
EDITH - (smiles) There, I did that.
Tomas doesn't respond...
And the cricket rhapsody takes over, as the low light from the oil lamp fades away.
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The New Jersey Pines Barrens is a funny place. Some parts don't have any roads... Maybe a few deer paths, or still used, old Indian byways, but nothing a car could use. I guess them old spirits like it that way. Miles and miles of endless pines. They say forest rangers go in from time to time, but I don't know anything about that.
Tonight it's dark. Big thick band a thunder boomers came through couple hours ago. Lightning like white hot, lethal Silly String. Air still got that ozone smell in it. Crickets still singin' 'bout it, the dumb bastids. They got shit for brains. Place has little clearings. The Pines, I mean. Maybe enough room for like a rough, little house or two... a chicken coop... some apple trees. All tumble down and homey like. Some clearings are just empty. They're stompin' grounds... dancin' places. Red Paint folks uses them. Red Paints is an old tribe. Not Indians. Folks what know skeletons say they come from 'cross the 'Lantic Ocean. Dried up skeletons say which ocean you crossed over. Not you, 'cause you still livin', but your people... your dead people.... all them 'generations.'
Red Paint folks ain't got much magic.... just strange ways. Right now, they catch a guy... not like they run after him and grab him. They just find him, put out like a present... duct tapped to a tree. Mafia fellas does that. Drive out from Philly. Stow the car on some little fire access road and tote the guy into the woods. Then they jus' truss him up, wearing nothing but that gray, shiny duct tape. Let him set his bare ass down in the mud, though. Pour pancake syrup all over him and go home. City all torn up now, but Mafia guys is always busy. They jus' never sit still.
Pancake syrup brings in the critters... bitin' critters. They little, but they determined. Everything gotta eat, even mousy-ratty-buggy things. Trussed up guy screamin' when they find him. He beggin.' He cryin.' He go - Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!... but he not rescued. He jus' discovered. Red Paint folks not hungry. They already ate. But still wanna have fun. Everybody gotta have fun. 'Sides, they know he a bad fella, or Mafia dudes wouldn't a done him like they do. So that make it alright. Red Paint folks ain't no savages, you know. They jus' pin him down and commence slicin' him open with specially sharpened banjo picks. I think they banjo picks. Maybe guitar picks. I not sure. Kids make 'em to keep busy. That way they have like a little business... make some money.
Picks peel that skin right off, jus' like cleanin' a possum. Guy stop screamin' 'cause they got all kind a shit stuffed in his mouth. But he tremble and his eyes go all crazy-like. That how you know he don't like it. After eyelids ripped off he REALLY look crazy. He REALLY don't like it.
That when they start the 'stompin.' Make like a circle. Do their dance... Stomp to the left. Stomp to the right. More like shuffle, actually. Eyes glaze over. Some guy play a little Hawaiian guitar. Keep it up til Mafia bastid look like pulled pork.
What happen next, I do not know, 'cause that when Tomas come. Big, old timey hearse he locked in clatter to stop on little fire access road. Werewolves pullin' it starts howlin' and yelpin.' Red Paint folks shuffle out through trees to see the show. Not like they ain't got a show a they own, but you know how it is. Folks jus' gotta see. Always somethin.'
Hearse doors fly open. Tomas jump out. He coughin'. He pantin.' He go - Edith! Edith! Where Edith!?..... Red Paint woman go - Shit.... 'Cause she know witchy woman don't like makin' pulled pork out a people. It like 'a thing' with her. So they real quick bury the guy and clean up. Werewolves jus' wander off, 'cause they conceited bastids.
Then Edith march through them trees like a big, ole virago queen sayin' - Who call my name!!?? Who call my name!!??
Tomas go - I did.....
And she start cryin', 'cause she like him a lot.. Missed him real bad too...
<next time... Tomas and Edith make plans>
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They quietly walked to the edge of the great, wooded, forest-like necropolis known as LAUREL HILL (a real place) and waited for 'the man' to come. Its hard to get around. Travel is dangerous. Bandits and street vigilantes are everywhere. People hole up at night around hand cranked flashlights. They hide behind blackout shades eating cold cans of soup and tuna fish when they can get it. Lot less cats than there used to be. And you got to have those little tablets that purify water. Some guys rig up labs to make them. But they have to be real careful. If word gets out... if they sell to many, or somebody talks... BOOM! You know a warlord's gonna grab them. Keep them locked up. They got places. Make them work. Make them cook up a whole mess a them tablets. What? You think they ain't rediscovered slavery yet? Warlords control all the drugs. Bad drugs, good drugs, they got them all. You pay. You live. You don't pay. You die.
But that's another thing. Right now, we're waiting for 'the man.'... Tomas doesn't say a word. Nobody does. Street's empty... deserted. No more traffic lights. No more street lights. The absolute darkness of a medieval night. Sometimes you hear somebody mumbling in the blackness. Don't go that way. Just don't... Marianne took his hand. She's 'elferina.' She's vampire. So are the others. They can see... a little. They can fly... true flight. Elferinos and elferinas can do that. They can pick him up, Tomas, I mean and take him there. But they can drop him too. So they don't take the chance.
They stand there waiting. Heartbeats go by. Then off in the distance they hear something... wheels clattering.... hard wheels... iron rimmed wheels. But no sound... no engine... no hoof beats... nothing..... Then rat noises, as even the vermin run from it.
Soon they see something... the fleeting glint of starlight on polished, lacquered ebony... silver bits.. trimmings... glass. Eyes glow in the darkness... hard eyes... 'animal' eyes. They hear panting. Steam rises from unseen backs.
Marianne whispers - Here, follow me. Put your hand on my shoulder... She leads Tomas to the back of the vehicle, opens the doors and helps him climb up into what seems like a large, upholstered cabinet. Satin... he feels satin. The doors lock. He can't get out. Albion strikes a match, just for an instant. And Tomas sees him. He sees him through the wall of the conveyance. It's glass. The walls are glass. He's in a hearse... a great, black, nineteenth century hearse. But where are the horses? What pulls this thing?
Then they're off. Twelve, huge, midnight, third caste werewolves (human intellect, but always in lupine form) streak through the night, bearing their precious cargo out through the city toward a bridge, a steel and concrete artery
spanning The Delaware. Are bridges patrolled? Of course they are. But few confront true lupines. In a time of chaos, old fears die hard. Even warlords pretend not to see. And the guards cower in their guardhouse, as the fearsome 'meat wagon' speeds by.
<coming next time - Tomas reaches the Pine Barrens and reunites with Edith, the 'witchy' woman>
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One of the brightest most inspirational numbers in American Theater. But picture a future place... the United Worlds of America... Huge star ships enter our space via the eye of a GIGANTIC hologram of The Statue of Liberty.... Vast, Ellis Island-like sorting center... immigrants pass through full body scans...like cattle in a cattle chute.... lots of yelling... scared, desperate families... some essentially human... some humanoid... some a little bit squishy for my taste... But FUTURE AMERICANS ALL! Pushing and jostling to this song.
I picture it as a scene in EL RANCHO TEXACO, my How The West Was Won epic (I hope) on Mars. Can't help it. I got dreams too, you know. If you like, google EL RANCHO TEXACO by Billy Kravitz and poke around. No vampires, but we do have a few chupacabras out on them red plains of Mars. Go see~>
Would have posted a regular narrative episode, but had to do a lot of #ff stuff on Twitter and want to be fresh for Labor Day Weekend activities tomorrow (means I gotta sleep). Can't rely on sugar rush to stay awake, 'cause I ain't got no cookies. And somebody 'messed' with the apple pie in the refrigerator, so that's off limits (torture knowing it's in there though).
Watching AVATAR on FX... Really like that movie... Now, I'm thinking it's Disney's POCCAHONTAS (can't spell Old Algonquin) on Pandora instead of Virginia...Humans should re-evolve tails...prehensile ones...just like monkeys.
Hope you enjoy I LIKE IT HERE IN AMERICA.
<more next time>
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Imagine the poor, little soul... a small child... half human and half ape.... What father would let his essence be used that way?...What mother her womb?... But such things did happen. I saw them. Pathetic, mewling wee ones, kept in pits for the entertainment of curious boyars and other Eurasian nobles. They always blame Stalin. But that monstrous branch of animal husbandry predates him. Arab traders and explorers reported such things centuries ago. Some were hearsay, gathered 'round hearths in rude inns on frigid nights. Others were true.
In the Urals they embalmed them. Little halflings, I mean. Sold them as relics...Siberian Demons, they were called. And not just in the Urals. Certain medieval Scandinavian kings had their own specimens. I saw a coupling once. There was a woman. They had her in a pit. The Bride of Kong, so to speak. I see movies too, you know. She screamed. She prayed. She clawed the dirt walls with her nails. She shrieked and cackled like a banshee. Caked with dirt and naked, she was... an older woman, known for her fecundity. The potentate wanted healthy 'cubs.' For ten days hence they fed her liver and rice, occasionally mixed with strongly pickled pigs feet. A suitable diet for those about to conceive, or so they thought. Such low, brutal people they were. Wolf meat... they actually ate wolf meat.
A powerful wizard, they thought I was. Night-lore was new to me. I wandered. I witnessed. I explored. Basically, I had one good trick... curing the sick with tiny droplets of my blood. But they didn't know it was my blood. I couldn't tell them that...
<Tomas sat and regaled his adolescent vampire companions, as they waited for a man willing to take him to the JERSEY PINE BARRENS. He wanted to reunite with EDITH, his friend, ally and 'witchy-woman.' She'd know how to contact the one who 'made' him... the one known as 'Papa.'>
Called it the 'red elixir,' I did. Said it was liquified rubies stolen from the hoard of a Hindustani king. They 'oo-ed' and 'ahh-ed.' Tried it on a sick, condemned slave first. Brought from Pomerania, he was. Caught with a royal daughter and for that he must die. But he had a case of the 'flux.' Don't ask me what that was. Everything was 'flux' back then. He coughed a lot. I know that. And his stool was loose and bloody, so 'flux' it was.
We laid him on 'the groaning board'... the huge table where all the 'A' Number 1 rapists and pillagers ate their meals. I gesticulated a bit. There's no business like show business, you know. Then I carefully tapped a few drops from what looked like a silver eyedropper into his mouth.... Nothing happened... The rapists and pillagers waited. Some mumbled a bit... Then he hiccuped. The coughing stopped. His copious farts grew a tad less noxious. His breathing grew less labored. He relaxed. He even sang a little prayer ( to some outlandish, South Baltic, pagan deity. I don't know). Then he sat up and laughed.... The grease smudged assemblage cheered... Two minutes later they summarily pulled off his genitalia with white hot pinchers and threw them to the hounds. But I was safe, a valued member of the ruling class.
Getting back to the dirt-caked naked older woman in the pit... she soon met her groom, a broad, hulking, vaguely Neanderthal/Gorilla looking gentleman with the red pelt of an orangutan. She froze. He sniffed her... examined her breasts, then knocked her cold with one sharp backhand. The aristocratic audience (snacking on crisp, fried seal hide) nodded their approval (though some of their womenfolk seemed none too pleased), as he threw her to the dirt and sealed the deal. ... Nine months and three weeks later (yeti-like beasts apparently have longer gestation periods) the little thing was born. The mother loved it. How could she not? It was hers. But I saw the sadness in its eyes.
As one born to vampirism in a likewise violent way, I understood that all too well. Though nothing is devoid of charm and I soon learned to see the good of it.
<then he stopped>
Marianne, one of his closest elferina friends, offered him a clear liquor and he drank.
Then they sat, waiting for the man to spirit him away. No one comes to the old, woodsy cemetery after dark, so they were safe, staring up at a new crescent moon. The city was quiet that night. They could even hear crickets, as God's silver Thumbnail climbed higher into the sky...
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TOMAS AND THE ELFERINOS & ELFERINAS TALK IN A HIDDEN LAIR UNDER A SMALL PRIVATE MAUSOLEUM IN THE FABLED LAUREL HILL CEMETERY~~~
You have to break through one of the coffins to gain entrance. But they already did that eons ago. Tomas sat there with the others. He likes elferinos (pubescent vampires). How basic. How trusting. How innocent they are. Yet each has certain heightened abilities due to the raging hormones coursing through their bodies at the time of 'inclusion.' They fly... true flight... Peter Pan flight, though infinitely faster. Other vampires 'sublimate,' traveling through matter, even air, while elfin-folk need no quantum construct. The vacuum of space is no barrier to them. Albion has seen the lakes of Titan. How did he stay warm in the glass-like frigidity of such a foreign place? It's a mystery. No one knows. You could ingest every word in LA CIENCIA VAMPIRISMO and not find it. Night-folk keep their secrets well. And I know you're seen some lesser secrets here, but please don't think yourself an 'adept,' for 'lesser' is the operative word.
Celeste prepares a hookah. She fills the four hundred year old, hand blown glass chamber with rose water and a certain tincture made from the blood of (unknown donors), lights the fire and waits. Then she attaches the pipes and beckons the others. Each draws in the sweet and pungent vapors. They sit there on the packed earth floor, lost in the darkness, beneath the crumbling bones of nineteenth century robber barons 'sleeping' up above.
Tomas says - I can't go on like this.
Marianne (sighs) - I thought you valued mortality?
Tomas - I do... but not for me. I have seen into... I don't know what to call it... 'the fourth dimension?'... And not just in that cave, that grotto, near Baby Philadelphia... not just in the moon... Everything has been like that since my 'inclusion.' A 'life' with few barriers. You know what it's like.
The others say nothing, but he sees their faces in the glow emanating out from under the ancient, Turkish water pipe. They know. He can tell. Elferinos know a lot. Some they don't understand. Yet that doesn't mean they don't feel it.
Marianne says - Is he here? Can you sense him?
Tomas shrugs. Marianne crumbles dried leaves and sprinkles them into the bubbling liquid. Roland draws first. He likes herbs. Not all herbs. Just certain ones. They say he spent his first years in Brazil.
Marianne ~ Take some, Tomas. It helps. Maybe you'll 'feel' something.
Tomas - Vampires don't need that.
Marianne - You're not a vampire yet.
He breaks down and cries. Marianne embraces him.
Tomas sniffs. He mumbles something - Scottosh beedosh. Beedosht boposht. Boposht skeetosht... Then he just stares...
Albion - What was that?
Tomas - I don't know... I used to know.. but I don't anymore. I don't know what's real. I don't know what's not real... (laughs) I like peanut butter though. I know that...
Celeste - We'll find him. We'll find 'Papa.' We'll get him back...
Tomas nods. Then he tears up some more.... They hear an explosion off in the distance. Street battles between various factions happen all the time. No one says a word.
Then Roland says - They killed a vampire yesterday. I didn't see it, but a lady on a 'bus' (open air trucks) told me. A 'wild' vampire he was. Nobody controlled him. No warlords, I mean. They sealed him in a glass cube... more like a rectangle I guess it was. I think they embed thin strands of lead in that glass to keep them in. Wheeled him out to the middle of LOVE Park (where the original 60's LOVE statue is)... and left him there til the sun came up.... He, uh, boiled. Flesh fell right off the bones... a pink, soupy mess, bubbling away at the bottom.... They clapped and danced jigs. The people, I mean... the mortal people.... Rectangle thing's still there, if you wanna go see.
Celeste - I hate this world.
Tomas chuckles - Anybody got any peanut butter?
The five friends instinctively huddle together, as another explosion rumbles through the night...
<more about the being known as "Papa' next time>
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Tonight I'm not talking about our current story arc. We'll go back to Tomas in his pre-apocalyptic Philadelphia next time. This is about real vampires. Yes, I know. Tomas, also known as Jonathon is real too. But we know him. We feel him. We savor him. Eight hundred thousand words is a long time. Not that every passage is about him. But in a way he inhabits them all. Even THE LITTLE MATCH BOY resonates with his voice.
This is a nod to the vampires we don't know. They'll be out soon. Long autumn nights soothe them. They walk the streets inhaling all the intoxicating vapors of life. They watch us from the fuzzy periphery of reality... a bit paler... cooler and incredibly still.
Some prowl the rooftops, stretching out to peer through scattered, illuminated skylights. Most skylights lead to bathrooms, you know and vampires love watching us during those real, unguarded moments. Milky glass means little to creatures adept at tasting the world around them. They feel our heat. They smell our essence, observing us as we observe birds, or small drifting fish in a fish tank.
And they like to toy with our world, whispering in the ears of poets... Everyone who creates is a poet... and most have heard the vampires' song.
You know, you might have been a life-eater (term vampires use for themselves) in a past life. They 'die.' They are destroyed. Ever catch yourself staring at a light bulb in a still, quiet room, or contemplating the patterns, lines and contours of your surroundings? Sometimes those are signs. Are you intrigued by strangers... passengers on a bus... diners in a restaurant... people waiting at the emergency room? Do dogs gaze meaningfully into your eyes? Perhaps they sense something?
And 'goth' culture is but a parody of the truth.
Music plays a part in this too. Vampires love 'the old standards.'
Skylark is a special favorite.
That's why we have it here tonight.
Close your eyes and listen... October comes... Not September... September is the anteroom of fall, as much epilogue to Summer as prologue to what comes next.
But October is something new.
So enjoy summer's end. Breathe in her showy death... rich deep orange sunlight... cerulean skies... warm, sparkling seas... juicy, ripe peaches... the virtuosity of crickets.
One day she'll be gone, replaced by chilly nights, pumpkin pies and vampires.
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