Jonathon had a special safe stuffed with 'flat' after 'flat' of hundred dollar bills. A flat is a neat, sharp stack of fifty Benjamins. Doctor Franklin really gets a kick out of that. One of his (Jonathon's) familiars from the bank comes over every so often to keep it topped up. I think it holds like one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. So he's taking maybe forty thousand with him to get the ball rolling. Gonna give five thousand to each deserving soul. Look, it's a start. And he's gonna let them know it's a vampire doing it.
All the others plan something similar. Sarah's gonna hit a few hospital kiddie wards, like she usually does, only this time she's not gonna pass as an angel. She's gonna tell them. She's gonna say - You like Twilight? You like Vampire Diaries (and they all do)? Well, shake hands with a dream come true..... They'll go - Huh? What?.... She'll say - Would you like to feel the tips of my fangs?..... They'll slowly reach out. She'll take hold of pudgy, little hands and guide 'em closer til fat, little fingers feels needle sharp dentition. Then she gives them the vial (with a few drops of her curative blood) and leaves them a few bucks. You know they're not gonna forget that. Maybe even get to know a nurse or two, as well. Sarah usually avoids them. But not now. No more.
Plus there's gonna be a few billboards around town. SUCK THE BLOOD OUT OF HATE... SUCK THE BLOOD OUT OF POVERTY.... SUCK THE BLOOD OUT OF LIES.... A whole lot of 'SUCK THE BLOOD OUT OF'S.... You'll see 'em. Twitter account gone up. Face Book page gone up. Maybe not all on the first day, but eventually. Jonathon's shooting for Pentecost.... his Pentecost, about forty seven nights from now.....
And this is the different part...the unique part. They're going to try and contact other bands of night-folk in other cities and get them involved too. Maybe people they know from THE VAMPIRE REVELS? Edith says they can always hide out in The Pines, 'cause you know there's gonna be a few fundamentalist, vigilante types of all stripes out to make them disappear.
Jonathon wants to bring back that multi-plex, movie theater Coke commercial. He talked about it before. But this time it's really gonna happen. And nobody's really unique. If he feels that way, other night-folk, in other places must feel the same way too. Not the noxious types. There's always a few bastards. ..... What was I saying?..... Oh, yeah, that commercial, the one that goes---- You give a little love and it all comes back to you. You're gonna be remembered for the things that you say and do.... That's it. Kabbalah, my friend..... Kabbalah...... Ka..... Ba.....La..... The Radiance surrounds us. Tap into it. Scientists call it zero energy, negative energy, vacuum energy. It has a lot of names. Maybe it's manna?
Who am I? Well, I'm not a dead vampire, or anything special, like that. And I'm not a spirit from old Judea, like Zebulon, or an eternal guardian, like Johannon (the one who saved Jonathon from the fire). I'm one of those guys who owned a men's store under the 'el.' I got shot. I got shot execution style in a robbery. Maybe you remember me from BINGO BOY? I think I narrated a few episodes back then. But who I am doesn't matter... YOU matter..... Go and do good things..... If not you, who?..... If not now, when?...... It's not hard..... and you know it.
Jonathon looks good, actually. Got them trim, black leather bootkins. I like that word. Got them equally trim black jeans. The white shirt. The leather jacket. The long, black ringlets. He is one tight rammer-jammer. Hey, I never said I was cool. But I don't have to be.
Look, you want to start easy? Buy a burger off a dollar menu. Go in any fast food place and do that. Then go outside and give it to the first homeless looking guy you see. Maybe add a container of hot coffee, but I don't press. Do whatever you think is right.....
But just do something.
So the vampires are gonna jump out of the crypt (just an expression. I know they don't sleep that way. least the ones 'round here don't).
I bet THE DAILY NEWS will write something about it, but The Inquirer never will...
Louise, from her hiding place in the Art Museum, wants to help. So does the guy with the stuffed reindeer antler baseball cap.
Maybe a show down with Johnny Jump Up? Maybe they should go after him? Get some kids from a local film school to shoot it. Put it on You Tube? That should get a lot of hits.
What do you think?.....
I know some of you get it..... Some of you have been here since the beginning. You know how it started. You remember...
First of all, we must agree that what comes next is fiction.....
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The streets were almost empty. Jonathon passed a few people heading in early.... some delivery trucks.... a few guys setting up lunch wagons. Everything seemed quiet. It's as if he didn't hear them and they couldn't hear him. But a bundled-up little toddler, snug in his mother's arms, turned toward him and said - Tell them.... And an old, bedraggled, street woman, shuffling along in scuffed, worn shoes, looked at him and said - Tell them.... Then a young girl resembling no one so much as his 'first meal' all those many years ago, pushed back her scarf, reached out for his arm and whispered the same thing.
When he got back to the townhouse the others were already settled in. He turned on the alarm, stopped for a few sips of cranberry juice and went to his cubicle. Sarah was sleeping. She still breathed like a mortal. He pulled off his clothes and crept in next to her. Edith would be up soon. God knows when she slept... perhaps two or three hours in the afternoon... maybe two or three more in the morning. wilkravitz wasn't home yet. He was still in the hospital recuperating from his near fatal brush with Johnny Jump Up. Annie watched old, classic sit-coms on the little flat screen in her dark space. The Andy Griffith Show was a particular favorite. So much so she called Edith 'Aunt Bea' sometimes. Conrad dreamed of his old life as an almost monk. Baylah, snug in her jewel-box nest above her piano bar whispered to ancient spirits known since long ago pilgrimages on The Great Salt Road 'tween Timbuctu and Mecca. And Leo just slept.
But in those fleeting moments, Jonathon knew the truth of things. And he knew the world would never be the same. ..... The desiccated mummies wedged in their narrow coffins at The Penn Museum (a one time vampire refuge) giggled. And the huge, heavy, polished, crystalline discs of Doctor Franklin's Grand Armonica, from their exalted place in a temperature controlled, sterile laboratory, resonated with a deep new harmony almost like the elusive, lost chord.
The Great Clock high atop the William Penn tower of the immense 'wedding cake' that is City Hall (at one time, the largest non-mortuary building on Earth) struck six. And all the vampires... and all the elferinos... and all the elferinas... and even the 'cherubs,' snuggled anywhere amidst the myriad byways of The 'Grand Duchy' of Philadelphia slumbered in that magic way only the night-folk can know...
May you never know pain... May you never know fear... May you hide from death now and for forever, or until that time when all lies slip away.... (a Vampire Prayer)
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After their meal in the little snack bar, they repaired to The Chinese Salon, a large space (part of the permanent collection) furnished in fine, lacquered, ebony cabinetry, dark red, velvet upholstery and fit for a mandarin, porcelain what-nots. The floors were rich, black hardwoods, covered with sumptuous, hand knotted carpets. Heavy draperies defined the perimeter of the place.
Jonathon wanted to sit on the large, low divan, a platform fit for an emperor. But Louise said - No... and got down on the floor, creeping under another similar resting place. She whispered - Here. Under here.... and the vampire slid under to join her. Even in the low watt lighting, discretely reflected from out of the way sources, he could see the long, sinuous Chinese Dragon etched onto the hidden surface.
The crazy teacher girl known as Louise said - Look at the colors. Look at the red and the yellow and the green and the gold. Look at the black background. I think that's ebony too. Can you imagine living with stuff like this? They did, you know. A rich, noble family gave it all to the museum just before the Japanese invasion. I think they did it to curry favor with somebody in the State Department. You know, American visas were hard to come by and very coveted in those days. I heard they died anyway. Well, most of them. A few got out. A shame they didn't have more furniture.
Jonathon whispered - You like it under here, don't you?..... She said - Uh huh... and snuggled in tight. Then she added - It's small and it's close and it's warm and it's safe..... But he didn't touch her. He didn't lick her, or bite her, or nibble, or stroke her. He didn't explore, or taste her body, as he would have in the past. Prophets don't do that. They just don't. So they laid there in the shadows, staring at the dragon. After a few dozen heartbeats, Jonathon said - What do you want?.... She whispered - I want to go home. I just want to go home, to my job, to my place, to my life. That's it. That's what I want...... The vampire said (although he already knew) - And why can't you?..... Louise sighed and whispered - Because the world is a horrible place. I didn't do anything wrong. But that bitch jumped all over me. I was supposed to spin straw into gold, when even the straw kept biting my fingers. Not that they don't need things, but those kids don't need school. They don't need math, or adverbs, or the Pilgrims. What are they gonna do with that? They're not ready for it. They need something else, like counseling, or better parenting, or maybe even hospitalization. Then they can have school. I don't know. But it's politically correct to blame the teachers, so they do. Every school sacrifices somebody and in my place, I was it. I was the little fix, 'cause they don't want to fix the big stuff.
Jonathon said - You want me to fix the big stuff?.... Louise said - Yeah... Two minutes later she dozed off. Three minutes after that he did too. And then he had a dream. The Lady Renate walked through a damp, green, dark, primeval forest. She approached him and she said - Tell them. Tell them. Tell them.
Just before dawn, when he woke up, Louise was gone, so he silently crept from the Chinese Salon, sublimated out through the walls and ran down a lightly trafficked Benjamin Franklin Parkway toward home...
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So Jonathon smiles at the crazy girl who accidentally killed her virago boss. She smiles back. Got ugly teeth, but that's all right, 'cause most people in The Bible never wore no braces. She says she's hungry and tells him they have a glass doughnut case with a real snug door in the ground level snack bar. Most nights the guy never empties it 'cause he's just a real lazy son of a bitch. No, it says so on his t-shirt. That's how she knows.
They sneak down a dark, little side passageway with a brown linoleum floor and tiny, two watt security lights. But the big green, metal door is locked. Jonathon sublimates his hand and part of his wrist through the surface and fiddles with the lock on the other side. Crazy, weird, teacher girl says - Wow. How do you do that?.... Jonathon says - Meditation.... She goes - Oh..... Ten seconds later, door opens. He says - After you... She responds with a curt, little nod, sniffs back some snot and enters.... He follows. They walk down an almost completely pitch black hallway, lit only by the red and white plastic exit light atop the far off door.
Teacher girl says - So, what are you?..... He says - Uh, I'm a Spanish Jew, Rite of Spain. 'Sephardic' they call it.... She says - No, come on, what ARE you?.... Jonathon says - Well, lets just say I'm 'special.'... Girl says - I hope that don't mean you're a 'retard?' Man, a magical retard. That could be a dangerous situation. And I hate to say that word. I was just thinking how the kids throw it around all the time. So if you're in any way afflicted, I know it's a medical condition and forgive me....... Jonathon laughs - Oh, it's a condition all right. And I do forgive you....
They come to the exit door. She carefully opens it, looks passed and soundlessly makes her way across a wide, lobby-like expanse of terrazzo flooring, reflecting a dark, gunmetal glow from the clerestory windows above. He follows her and they proceed toward a snack bar tucked in a little alcove. But another museum dweller, a man in a black turtleneck, wearing a cartoony looking reindeer antler baseball cap was there first. He sees them, quickly scoops up his peanut butter cracker dinner and streaks out in another direction. Jonathon wants to talk to him. He wants to say something, but the girl shuts him up. She whispers - No, we don't do that. Leave him alone.
They go inside, take some doughnuts from the case, plus some cold drinks from the glass doored refrigerator. Then they slide into one of six orange laminate booths, lit by the weak glow from a florescent night light behind the counter. She spreads out napkins and they eat. Well, she does. He sips from a sixteen ounce bottle of Poland Water. Vampires do all right with certain fluids. And if forced to, he can down a few nibbles of solid food. Comes up later. But he can fake it.
A guard, seated in a little cubicle far away, sees them on one of his tiny screens. But he does nothing. It's obvious they're not art thieves. And he sees a lot of strange shit in here. So he goes back to his Maxim and leaves them alone. They rarely turn on the motion detectors, 'cause it's a mad house when they do. Birds get locked in. They set it off. Feral cats. Not too many rodents. Exterminators they got. So the moral vampire, known as Jonathon and the strange girl, who may be just a little too old to be truly called that, sit in piece.
Jonathon watches her eat. She breaks off little pieces of plain cruller and demurely pops them into her mouth. He smiles. She sees the sharp, tiny points of his cat-like fangs and says - What do you want from me?
He looks down. He swallows. He shrugs. But he knows.... He knows.
When you want to change the world, you have to start somewhere.
Vampires can't do it on their own....
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The young woman froze, as still as any figure in the sculpture galleries. Perhaps there was a microscopic tremor..... Perhaps... but then it passed. And Tomas called Jonathon slowly walked around the woman, breathing in her aura. He knew her name. He knew her age. He knew everything. She was alone and in pain.
He said - I have come to redeem you. I have come to bring you back...... She raised her gaze and looked into his eyes. And Jonathon let her see his essence. She saw the 'magic,' if that's the right term. She knew him to be more than human. But she didn't say a word. He led her to the broad, marble stair leading up toward the goddess, rising up toward the Diana statue and gestured. She sat down on the first step. The vampire sat beside her. And she cried. No sobbing. No hiccups. Just tears rolling down her cheeks. And he knew. She killed someone... a woman... a boss... a tormentor... ending her agony with a knife. No more humiliating, facile, groundless lectures in the lunchroom. No more hurtful evaluations meant to satisfy a quota. She always got the 'cases.'........ tourette syndrome kids... vicious, bigoted haters..... fetal alcohol babies..... red hot angry time bombs. All the other 'educators' were safe. They had too much seniority. They had husbands... lawyer husbands.... BIG lawyer husbands..... They had money. Teaching was the wife's job. And 'hubby' wasn't gonna let her lose.... not to some jumped up virago like this one. Trouble was, the virago knew it, so she set her sights on a more vulnerable target. She tortured Louise. That's an old fashioned name. But she wasn't from around here. Louise came from West Virginia... little place near Morgantown. Kids were kids. They said 'Yes, ma'am,' and ' May I have a cookie, please?'..... Nobody told the teacher they were gonna pinch her God damned titties, or stick a Popeye the Sailor Pez dispenser up her ass. Nobody smeared their used tampon all over some Erkle kid's face. They did not do that stuff.
The virago didn't care. All she wants is good test papers.... standardized tests.... state-wide tests.... color in the black dot tests.... erase and make it right tests..... cheat, if you have to tests...
Louise cried everyday. Used Zantac like a condiment, or something. And she had no money. And she had no friends... no powerful friends. One day she goes to a health fair.... Gets screened... Takes a lot a tests. Somebody say she got a little bit a cancer. And she's afraid to use her work coverage, because they're getting ready to fire her...... Can you imagine them jumping all over a physician, somebody who works with the sickest of the sick, 'cause he ain't made them all athletes yet? ... I don't think so.
One day after the 'kids' almost gave her a stroke and she practically peed herself 'cause the afternoon aide never came'round for her break, she walked out of the building and got on a bus. Rode all the way into 'town.' Rode all the way into Center City. Head hurt real bad. Back hurt real bad. She knew how sick she was. Took her money out of the bank.... Not much, like twelve hundred dollars, and got a hotel room...special rate, one fifty a night, down from three. Figured she'd stay two nights... eat s steak... walk around.... duck in some place (like a chapel) for a prayer... and then kill herself. But that night, after an exquisitely savory Chinese dinner (maybe she'll persevere for three or four nights?), she's laying in her big, pillow-topped mattress bed watching some window size, flat screen TV. Sees a story on FOX 29 News, 'bout a virago... her virago, who went 'guhk' and died right in the middle of an after school conference with some cigarette stinkin', loud-mouthed, big bellied, juvvie-hall wannabe kid's mama. TV lady say peanut residue done it. Some viragoes are very allergic to that shit. They havin' a 'vestigation and everything, 'cause it look like an intentional poisoning.......
That's when Louise remembers... She used the jelly knife for the peanut butter. Wiped it off a little. Ain't no time to wash it, 'cause the lunch-is-over, hold-your-pee, come out and get your maniacs bell just rang. And sometime she think they might keep her. So she runs out to the blood stained, scrapped skin covered, concrete expanse to round up her feral charges. Forgot what she did with the knife. Forgot she leave it on top a the peanut butter jar... And the rest a the afternoon is a hell-hole madhouse. One 'kid' even dumped in the corner. And this supposed to be a quiet, suburban school. But truth is, just 'cause it's out of the city don't mean it's suburban. Sometimes it's something else.
Virago run in. Starts ripping her a new one right in front of the 'kids.' Threatens to write up some kind a form. Tell her she better get a lawyer. Then she run out to help a lady friend teacher of hers who got the exact same kind a class down the hall. That's how she does it 'round here.
Louise knows what's gonna happen. That's why she winds up in Center City. But now the witch is dead and she done played Dorothy.
Little later she walk out for a cafe latte. Even them what about to die got their cravings. But a Gypsy lady point a finger at her and say she ain't gonna die. Also tell her she better not go home, 'cause cops is lookin' for her. You know killin' somebody wit' a misplaced, peanut smeared butter knife a crime 'round here. So she dye her hair, buy a few outfits, stuff em in a big handbag thing and hide 'round the city. Two nights later she find the art museum. It's big. It's dark. It's filled with hidey-holes. Yeah, they got cameras and all, but they been shootin' ghosts for years. So how they gone know?
Now she got Jonathon, also known as Tomas, kissing her. Bit his lip a little so he can force some blood in it...her mouth, I mean. 'Cause she really was sick... And she really would a died. But now that Jonathon kissed her, she won't.
I do not know how he 'spects to utilize her abilities (whatever they may be), but now she 'it.' She the first one...
And she gonna help him save the world...
(more tomorrow)
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I don't know where it happened. But I met the Lady Renate, as I sublimated into the air upon leaving the vast, Laurel Hill Cemetery. And the circumstances caused me to lose all sense of myself. Was I conscious? I don't know, yet the actual molecules of my body no longer existed. I was thought. I was mind. I was soul. And so was she.
We swirled together like goldfish in a Disney cartoon and in that way communicated. She knew of my dreams. Renate knows everything. Older even than 'Papa' she is... and even more detached from humanity... To her, even 'we' fall under that umbrella. I rather like that. You know what a moral 'life-eater' I am.
She told me to proceed. She told me to have courage. And she gave me a kiss. Not in any way physical, but more like a point of connection... Like that picture high up in the Sistine Chapel where a paganized representation of The Lord quickens the soul of Adam. Only, in this case, my vampiric grandmother had no physicality. I wonder how Michelangelo would have painted her.
But I felt strengthened and emboldened by this nebulous encounter and as I condensed into a material state, I heard her words.... 'Start with one.'... Moments later, I became aware of a grey, limitless ethereal cloud. Soon after, I saw contrasting areas of light and dark. Then I stepped out onto the dim, nighttime, marble expanse of The Goddess Diana Hall at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, as authentic an Olympian shrine as any Roman ever saw.
A figure stood there amid the gloom... an innocent woman... and by that I mean guileless. She was a patron, purposefully locked in for the night and hiding from the guards. Can you do that in these myriad halls and galleries? Of course you can. One man did so for years, padding along in an old pair of Chuckies, dozing in the deepest shadows and kissing the paintings of long dead signorinas in the night.
Sometimes the guards know they're there, though they chose to ignore these quiet intruders. You can tell a thief, but these are something else. They sit and they stare and they ponder. Occasionally one phantom will spot another, but they never talk and rarely make eye contact, passing through corridors like wraiths in the darkness.
I soundlessly approached her, as only vampires can. Did she know what I was? I don't think so. Yet she didn't move. She didn't leave, or make a sound. Then in the moonbeams slanting down through high, leaded clerestory windows she saw me... and her eyes quickly blinked in surprise.
But she was the first one.... and I gave her my 'blessing...' .... After that it was easier......
(more tomorrow)
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I drift in and out of consciousness. JOHNNY JUMP UP ripped open my stomach. Few survive. I did. They have me on a morphine drip, in an effort t deaden the pain. Sarah, my 'vampire' friend was here. She sublimates onto the floor late at night, when most of the nurses are drinking coffee and eating these real big apple fritters from Dunkin Donuts. It's dark then. Well, 'darker.' They got these weak, blue night-lights, like something out of a Cronenberg horror film. Please excuse the way I spell. Communicating via brain wave sensitive head band and it's slipping down and cutting into the skin of my upper eyelids, the part that gets hidden in the crease when my eyes are open.
Sarah put a few drops of her restorative blood into my morphine bag. The old guy in the next bed (semi-private room) started yelling. Said he was gonna tell. She begged him to keep quiet, but he wouldn't. So she ripped off a piece a duct tape and pressed it over his mouth. Put some over his nostrils too. He couldn't pull it off, 'cause his hands were already tied down, 'cause he was tickling the nurses too much and considering they carry sharp needles and urinary catheters and all, that could be dangerous. A lot a vampires carry duct tape. I don't know why. they don't say. But they do.
Only thing is... the guy died. Vampires tend to forget how hooked on oxygen we are, 'cause they're not. So she , quick, tore off the tape, stuffed it in her pocket and vanished.
Forty minutes later, nurse comes in, sees his worse than usual blue-gray color scheme and goes - Jesus Christ! ... Took them three hours to transfer him to a dead box and de-corps-ify the place. Hospitals NEED better de-corps-ifiers. Everybody knows that. Doctor Oz talks about it all the time.
I'm still all mauled up, but I am a little better.
Old guy's step daughter, Phyllis, says she gonna buy a boat and maybe a whole lot a pair a Uggs, 'cause she likes 'em so much.
You see, her name was on the will....
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