JONATHON and SARAH HEAR A SAD TALE UNDERGROUND ....... 4/12/13

The girl with the long, curly hair said - I didn't think it would ever happen to me. I mean I heard about it. But you know how it is.  You want it so bad, you get blind. And I don't even know why he gave me an appointment. I called. I just called. Got all the information out of a big directory.... a big 'industry' directory. You know where I got it? I found it at an audition. Somebody left it. I could never afford that. Sixty four dollars, it cost. But... I took it. 

Jonathon and Sarah sat there, snug against the wall of a never used storage room along a never traveled route. They were down in the tunnels of the mole people, listening to a young girl speak. She knew they were life-eaters. But in a place where the paranormal IS normal, that's not a major issue. So they listened to the words in a quiet space, gilded by the flickering orange glow from a small pot of Sterno.

And the curly haired girl said - You know I can sing? You know that. He handled mostly actors. But, what, I wasn't gonna go? So I went to the library and I 'Skyped' him. Had to go to a public library to do it. I didn't know how to set it up. Some guy there helped me. He was in charge of the room. Said I had to wait til four o'clock. The computer room shuts down then. So I had to sit there, out in the magazine section, reading old copies of Variety and shutting out the noise from the screaming kids who use the place as a club house. I don't even think they realize they got books in there. 

First I get the receptionist. She looks like a real bitch. Probably lookin' for her own break. She says - Do you have an appointment?..... I go - No.... She says - Then who sent you?.... I go - Nobody.... I almost said 'Ellen Degeneres.' That was the only one I could think of. (brushes back a few strands). But I see this look on her face. She's gonna get rid of me real fast. I know it. Seventeen dollars and fifty cents for a top from H&M, down the drain. God did I feel like an idiot. 

Sarah said - How did you get out there? Where did you get the money?...... The girl said - My stepfather had a place, sold pizza and steak sandwiches and hoagies. I worked the counter after school. You wanna know what I did? ..... Jonathon nodded.... She goes - I 'short checked' him. Sold a twenty dollar order. Got paid twenty dollars. But then I'd write a second check for ten dollars. And that's what went in the register. He don't know. He don't look. Manny, the cook knew. We split it all. Not every order, but some. Maybe four or five a day. I would get like seventy five dollars a week out of it. See, I'd write the 'cheap' checks up before I even went in. Naive, but not dumb. Twenty weeks gives me fifteen hundred dollars.  and he never did anything to me. He never touched me. But that don't mean he liked me. Always cursed. Always hollered. My mother too. Both of us. But where were we gonna go? You think stuff like that don't happen anymore? Bullshit! It happens every day. 

Another kid, a girl from school went with me. She's still out there. She does stand-up. Writes for some show too. 

Jonathon quietly asked - Did you ever meet Rudy?.... No. Who's he? - she said....... A life-eater. Met him once, in my travels...... Sarah looked and realized how many secrets he still kept. 

The curly haired girl went on. She told how the agent came out of his office and walked through, while she was still talking with the receptionist. She told how he looked at the screen and said - Who's that? Who's she? Bitch girl said - Nobody. She's nobody..... Agent goes - Go to hell.... and shoves her out of the way. Two hours later she meets him in a glorified fast food burger place.... Nothing fancy.... Nowhere his 'crowd' would go. Says he can't use her right now, but would take her on as like a 'mother's helper' to give his wife a break from the twins and all. Says she'd get to live with them, in the big house out in Encino. So she takes it. She goes. And two weeks later he starts messing with her. First out in the pool, late at night. She liked to swim after the kids were in bed. Wife never knew. 'Outside' ain't air conditioned. So he slips into the water and starts playing games. Ain't got no suit. What's he need God damned trunks for? Nobody sees back there. Starts 'tagging' her. Starts petting her...kissing her. First she won't let him. But then, about a week or two later, he pulls her 'bottoms' off, said something about a job... a rock video job.... so she let him. Look, who knows if the wife knew? Could be she didn't care. All her lady friends knew she thought he was putrid. But she liked the customized Mercedes, the Maybach, I think they call it... and the place at Malibu... not ocean front, but beach block and that was still pretty good.

There was never any job. But he did slip her some 'C' notes every once in a while. And then she got herpes.  Took her to a doctor friend of his. Some guy who likes 'hanging out' with people from the industry. Some guy who'd do anything for a few pool party invites and show tickets. Does what he can for her. But now, the agent guy talks. He tells his guy friends about her. They laugh. They look at her different. You think she's ever gonna get a break in that town?  And the worst thing is, she knows it. Wants to run away. But the kids are cute. She likes the kids. Figures maybe one day he'll stake her for like a little boutique or something. Maybe she'll sell real estate. People make a life from that. 

Only one day the wife is crying. Says the doctor 'saw something.' Not her... the kids. Thinks it's autism. Not so bad. But bad enough. And it's both of them. So they bring in this team, some girl and some guy from U.C.L.A.. They work with them. They help the wife. Girl even acts like a social secretary too, if you want to know the truth. One night, after dinner, wife DOES come out to the pool... and she says - I want that cheap, little, sticky bitch out of here. He don't say one word. But twelve hours later the curly haired girl is out. Got eight hundred dollars, a stolen gold bracelet and nothing else. Wanders The Grove looking for a classy job, but they don't want her. They just don't want her.  And the friend doing stand-up lets her sleep there a few nights, but she don't want her, 'cause she's starting to make connections... good connections. Seventeen years old, but everybody 'pretends' like she's twenty two. You know you can do that out there. 

Got eighteen hundred dollars for the gold bracelet. Came back home. Tried to make it up with her family, but they knew. People knew. Stand-up girl was on Face Book. She made jokes about it. Look, maybe in a little while things would change. Maybe they'd have taken her back. But they didn't... her mother and stepfather, I mean. So she wound up on the streets. Who goes into Center City from where she lived? They don't know. And then she wound up in the tunnels.  Mole people are good like that. 

When she was done, Jonathon said - My poor, poor child. How can I help you?...... But Sarah knew. She knew right away. And she pinched him real hard. Curly haired girl might have seen, but she just kept going...... Make me a life-eater. Give me 'the burden.' I want to go back. I want to go out there. I want to set things right....

He looked so disappointed. He looked truly sad. And the three of them just sat there.... watching the Sterno burn low...

Then, a few hundred heartbeats later, the girl who wanted to be a singer, quietly began to sing. She picked a song.... Falling Slowly, from 'Once.' Her clear, pure voice filled the tiny space.  And they heard these words.....

I don't know you... but I want you... all the more for that.

The vampire known as Jonathon knew that it was true....

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WHAT THE 28,000 yr old VAMPIRE KNOWN AS 'PAPA' THINKS .... 4/12/13

He sits in the chair. He does nothing. He says nothing. Annie sticks her tongue out at him. Edith says - That's not nice..... and stuffs another Tasty Kake (Philadelphia area snack cake) into her pie hole. Guess it's a cake hole too. Sometimes he disappears. I don't know if it happens suddenly, or over time, like an evaporation.  Edith gives him a fresh aroma candle every night. Always a green apple. He likes green apples. 

He stares at the flat screen. Always the same thing. Edith likes The House and Garden station, so that's what they watch. He does blink occasionally. The vampire known as 'Papa' does do that. A few weeks back it looked like he was coming out of it. He pointed at a late night rerun of Hoda and Kathie Lee and made like a fart noise with his mouth. Annie jumped around and clapped her hands. She's a fresh, little thing... a little vampire bastid, if ever there was one. 

I don't know when he changes his clothes, but they're different every day. Mostly flat-front chinos and jeans.... t-shirts and v-neck sweaters. Sarah buys 'em at the GAP. Sometimes at Lord & Taylor's, but only when they're having a sale. You know, vampires maintain most of their mortal habits. That stuff don't go away. Like Jonathon, before he went on his latest religious quest, had a fit if Edith used anything other than TIDE. And don't ask me where that came from. In his day they used ashes and urine. Made a paste out of it. Maybe TIDE had a NEW ASHES AND URINE! formula back then? Who knows?

This ain't one of the disembodied spirits. It's me, wilkravitz. I'm the one who blogs for them. I suppose, by now you know my actual name is Billy Kravitz. And I'm bummed out 'cause @TheRealRoseanne blocked me today. I thought we were having fun. And she's Hawaiian and all now too. I like Hawaiians. Least she didn't throw me in no volcano.

Papa's dreaming now. I can tell. I know it. First his knee twitches. Then he stops. Then he sniffs, closes his eyes and makes like a humming noise. I can see into his head then. Maybe it's him broadcasting it and we just pick it up. I don't know, because Edith sees it too. Says it reminds her of that movie, 10,000 B.C.. I think it's like QUEST FOR FIRE, except they're a lot more advanced. 

Now he looks like a thirty two or thirty three year old Richard Gere guy. But back then, back in his day, he looked like a younger Wrath of Khan, 'cept dressed in buckskin, hippie clothes.... homemade Uggs and everything. Long hair too. Belonged to The Brotherhood of The Panthers... That means 'cats.' All the vampires were in it. You know, saber teeth? Fangs? They met four times a year, each solstice, each equinox. It was like a shaman thing. Vampires were shamans back then. But I think all they did was get drunk. Pumped some big fat mortal full of fermented apple juice.... Like a hard cider, or something. Then they prayed over him... ran their hands over him... and bit him up. Guess that was a REAL Bloody Mary. That's what he's thinking about now. I know. Because I'm seeing it. COMMERCIAL BREAK----- I gotta say, Vince Vaughn seems like he must be one of the nicest people on Earth. Watching him on @JimmyFallon. Bet he'd never block me. COMMENT if you think he's a nice guy too. Gotta go see his BIG SUMMER MOVIE----- THE INTERNSHIP when it opens JUNE 7th. Owen Wilson's the other one (in the movie, I mean), but he wasn't on Jimmy.....And now back to our show... Primeval vampires must a been so cool.... not like them weird, dumb, shit things we got today. Every psycho turns into a vampire. What kind a crap is that? Like Leo's out there running around like a jerk and all. Calls himself 'Panther Man.' But not like Papa's panther club. He thinks his name 'Leo,' means lion, so it's like a 'riff' on that.  Jonathon wants to save them, he wants to eat 'em. Eh, live and let live.... That's what I say. Just don't let 'em learn about computers and all, 'cause when they do... I am getting out a here. Edith says they ain't never gonna kill us...ONE, 'cause Jonathon's too religious and TWO, 'cause who else they gonna get to work for sneakers and cheap Chinese style buffets? I do OK though. That 'familiar' guy who comes around from the bank to drop off all the money usually slips me something.... Edith too..... Jonathon knows. He don't care. 'Just don't spend it in no casino'.... That's what he says. See, Baylah (the vampire Beyonce look-alike) don't mind if you spend it in a casino. She loves Atlantic City. guess she gonna start spending time with her rich, mortal boyfriend at the shore soon. Sometimes she gives money and blood droplets to poor, homeless guys under the Boardwalk.

Annie wants me to take her for a SLURPEE. 7-ELEVEN  24/7 'round here.... Don't know why they stick with that old name.  Vampires don't have too much trouble with liquids. Some of them eat solid food too, if they like the way it tastes, or if they're trying to fool somebody, only they throw it up soon after.... I don't want a take her. That's usually Sarah's job, but she's off with her ' huzzbin' Jonathon now. So I gotta do it. Last time we let her run off by herself, she come back with two severed heads and a box a matzoh

Edith says she is also gettin' stuff from her people in The Pine Barrens. But not telepathically. On her cell phone. They gettin' all jazzified over there too. Jonathon ain't the only one.

'Matilda.... Matilda....' That's what they say. Like she comin' 'round the mountain, or something.

Who knows? Maybe she is.....

Lemme go get Little Bastid Annie her SLURPEE....

Then she wants a come back and play CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG.... Oh, God! Guess who I'm gonna be....

(help me... please, help me)

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Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: These are the days of EL RANCHO TEXACO ..... Aqui ...

Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: These are the days of EL RANCHO TEXACO ..... Aqui ...: Bart knew it wasn't a done deed. He knew. Don't take much a bring down a 'tank.' Not if a human wants a do it, or somethin&...Y'all wanna got to a big ranch on Old Mars? Click on that EL RANCHO TEXACO hinky-dink up top there and slide in... Like HOW THE WEST WAS WON...only a lot more exotic and peculiar..... Then scroll up or down for more. If you like, click 700,000 words of WEIRD STUFF ... and wander 'round 'THE WONDERLAND'...

IF YOU WATCH THE NEWS, YOU KNOW THIS ISN'T FICTION .... VAMPIRES AND THE GENERAL POPULATION.. 4/11/13

Two and a half years ago, the story began this way - First of all, we must agree that what comes next is fiction.... And we had to say that for a reason, because almost ALL that we DO say is NOT fiction. Night-folk are among us. Vampires are here. Oh, we toy with the idea, yet fear to embrace it. Thus we vacillate and hide things. 

Two days ago, you saw a story about a FLASH MOB gone wrong in Center City, Philadelphia. Hundreds, if not thousands of young people careened through the streets, babbling in tongues and whipped to a frenzy. Legions of patrolmen confronted the multitude, arresting some and diverting others. 

'Just kids'... 'Two girls fighting'... 'Spring fever'... that's what they said. I'm surprised they didn't blame swamp gas. But certain 'people' know different. Jonathon preaches, even during the day, from a subterranean chamber beneath a landmark, pre-War, Avenue of the Arts building. You've seen it. The bank building in TRADING PLACES.

Souls from the shelters drift in... people off the street.... businessmen and businesswomen from the cloistered sanctums up above.... They all come. And he speaks to them, proclaiming 'The Unity' and reading some minds. Occasionally he even sublimates. People cry. They hug each other and laugh. Sure, some just want the juice and cookies, or those good, little canolis they get from that place on Ninth Street. Though a few are transformed. And others, especially on days when the apple juice ain't apple juice, go berserk. 

Sarah tries to stop him. She says it isn't time. Edith boils a big pot of spaghetti. You know how much vampires love that smell. But he had that 'visitation.' And he believes it. 

They ask him questions. The people in that basement, I mean. They say - Who are you?..... He says - Jonathon.... A few among them know that means 'gift from God.' But most don't.... They say - What are you?..... He says - A teacher.... But they get really confused when he starts levitating and sublimating. Some of them scream. And he doesn't have any will power that Jonathon. He keeps doing it. But he does believe he was called. He does believe in his message..... 'The righteous of all groups shall share in The World To Come.' .... 

Then, when he surreptitiously bites into his lip and kisses the sick among them, who almost instantly get well, they gasp.  A palsied woman laughs and walks straight. A burnt man is healed. It's true. They know it. They saw it. They were there.

But some people know how to have a transcendental religious experience and some don't. Some pray quietly, while others stampede. And that's what happened two days ago on Chestnut Street.

Already, the police and the press tell us to expect more of the same. They blame the weather. They blame the springtime. They blame the heat. But Jonathon won't stop. He rarely sleeps at the town house. Oh, he goes there. He checks on things. It's still his home. But he spends each day in different shelters. Sometimes in the tunnels, with the mole people. Sometimes in the catacomb-like storage rooms under certain museums. He is still on good terms with most of the curators in town. And the mummies, at least those with their internal spirits intact, know him by name.

Yet the media ignores him. Perhaps for the best.

A few of those in attendance, for the preaching, I mean, go not for spiritual benefit, or even the first rate canolis. They go to watch... and observe... and learn. Maxwell's men, they are, alchemists of The Golden Order. Top notch scientists to you and me. They mix nostrums and potions. It's rumored they've captured a cherub and torment that innocent creature with tinctures and concoctions of a most noxious sort.

But Jonathon is careful to avoid the streets, traveling  from shelter to shelter via the tunnels and the cellars  and the cave-like places down below. Still, spies are  everywhere. Maxwell has them. The media has them. So do the police, not to mention various governmental agencies. That's the way it is. Doctor Franklin's offered to help. I think he's trying to do something with his Grand Armonica too.... the lost chord and all that..... an harmonic vibration lost to humanity since the Atlantian deluge and believed necessary for spiritual balance and well being. But so far, Jonathon declines. 

And the Black Maria comes out each night, pulled by a matched pair of dove gray Percherons.  Most think it's just some tourist thing.... but it's not. 

Other vampires, from here in town and distant places too, continue combing the streets. Night crimes disappear, as the Bedlam-like corridors of Old Eastern State Penitentiary fill up. The ghosts torment them mercilessly, the prisoners, I mean. The guards say they scream like banshees.

Shhh, I hear hoofbeats. The lead lined 'cube'... the Black Maria draws near. Some abroad in the wee hours look up. Others draw back to the shadows.

And so the nights pass, as summer comes to the city.

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A GHOUL BRAGS and a DESPERATE VAMPIRE CATCHER READIES A POTION ...... 4/10/13

Yes, it is accurate to say the streets became a bit safer. And an out reach center, opened on North Broad Street provided solace and chicken nuggets to the troubled and curious of all faiths and even some without faiths. Small groups of well heeled individuals attended vampire 'meet and greets' in better homes throughout Center City. I haven't been to any of them yet, but they tell me they're quite like the one Marianne had a few months ago. They're still attending them. Jonathon, Sarah, Baylah and some others funnel blood (vampire blood) to sick people. Little by little they make progress and the world, or at least a small part of it, improves. 

Yet gross corruption and filth still exists. Johnny Jump Up hid under the bed of that unfortunate young woman. She awoke to find him leering over her and came very close to having a stroke. But luck can be fickle, so she survived to die another way. And the loathsome ghoul played games with her living flesh. Neighbors heard noise, not quite to the level of true domestic violence. Perhaps she was exercising, or chasing a rat?

I think you know ghoulish practice by now. First destroy the voice. First curtail the noise. So he rips out the trachea and a bit of other tissue came with it. The young woman groaned and shuddered. She convulsed on the floor, sliding on a puddle of her own blood. And death would have quickly claimed her. But this creature came prepared.  He had a bit of pipe... some white, polyvinyl tubing, brought for just this purpose.  He kept it up his sleeve. And he jammed one end into the shredded ruins of her throat, threading the other through a ragged, bronchial wound. In this way her lung got air. Breathing is a reflex.... and she lived. 

Other disembodied spirits floating through that place said he whistled. They said he whistled old music hall songs from the eighteen hundreds.... 'I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen'..... 'She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain, When She Comes'... And he smacked his lips as he ate, flensing off the meat in ragged strips. His teeth well suited to the task.

Yet still she died... much to fast for his taste, so he shattered the bathroom skylight and let the rats pour in. 

I know some of you read an earlier account of this event. But I wanted to give you the details 

Another soul, in another part of the city, fought a different kind of hunger. This one craved life. This one wanted years. Tobias Maxwell.... You met him before. The doddering  head of an ancient moneyed dynasty here since William Penn. Sparse, white hair, slicked back atop a mottled pate. Loose, flaccid jowls. A heavy, red nose and scowling, down-turned lips. His body quite ravaged, but his suit first rate. And he sat in a wheelchair, sipping electrolytes through a soft, clear, plastic tube, as a specialized employee (a biochemist, I'm told) distilled immobilizing solutions and paralytic diffusions in a well equipped, basement installation. By all indications, the twelve thousand page Leiderhaus Directive, a compendium of experimental data assembled by German scientists working deep in the mines at Penemunde, on The North Sea, predicted success. That's where they kept the vampires, far, far away from the light, nourished by an endless column of slave laborers dispatched from death camps throughout the subjugated territories.

Tomorrow they'd try them on Jonathon. The old man wanted Jonathon, known to his family since 'the crossing,' from his dark, dark hiding place, down in the bilge of the good ship Welcome. Those Quakers were truly a tolerant sort. Let me tell you that.

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OLD FRIENDS SINCE THE GOOD SHIP WELCOME ....... A Vampire and His Enemy.. 4/09/13

The Maxwell family had a legend... about a strange soul who traveled with them when they first crossed over to the New World.  The first Maxwell, in America, at least, sailed with the Lord Protector himself on the good ship Welcome. Those on board were Quakers, members of The Society of Friends and gentlemen of worth in Britain, though hampered by their faith. For that reason, these plain people braved the Atlantic, secure in the expectation of good lives beyond the sundown. 

But there were always whispers. Stories about cargo brought on by night and stowed in the dark, deep hold. Some said a rich pirate, traveling incognito, sought freedom and solace as a gentleman farmer, far from the gallows at Tyburn. Others named Jews fleeing Inquisitional fires in Portugal, though distrustful of spies and collaborators among Jacobite   strongholds in the ever shifting English capital. Few knew the truth... not all of it anyway. Captain Greenway was sworn to secrecy and also the recipient of a potent drug, sealed in a small, carved bottle. Cinnabar, I believe it was. And destined for a sickly child in Portsmouth. 

Now a young son born to the Maxwells loved the sea. And while other's laid curled in their berths, or huddled on a chill, wet, slippery deck, this junior Ulysses made friends with the ship and looked into each dark nook and cranny. There were glass beads destined for aboriginal chieftains. And casks of nails, more dear than rubies in the rough wilderness lying ahead. But beyond all that, buried far below the rest, was a casket roughly five cubits long , three cubits wide and two cubits high. The oaken exterior sealed in black pitch and bound by iron bands. No label named its contents. No smell its secrets told. 

But the boy lay down upon it. And there in the dim bowels, he slept, rocked by the waves, though calmed by something else. He had strange dreams and saw foreign places. He heard whispered tales in other tongues.  

Later at supper he told them, speaking of a cultured young man in the hold. And when they asked the captain if such a passenger existed, he denied it. After that, when they lit lanterns and clambered down below, no such soul was found. Though Tomas de Macabea, also known as Jonathon, was with them, safely entombed in an old Spanish chest and hidden amongst the bilge. 

The Maxwell boy never returned to the hold. They watched him and kept him close. His mother taught him letters. His father spoke of God. The seamen watched the sky and he watched with them. 

Ten weeks to cross the sea... that's how long it took. Gray days and cold nights wrapped in rough woolens down below. Salt beef and hard tack. Weak beer and stale water. Perhaps some sour cabbage. Perhaps some hymns and psalms

Thus did a vampire cross the sea..... And the Maxwells always knew it.....

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SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS THAT MAY EFFECT THINGS..... 4/08/13

This is not the only time we'll talk. There may be another post later on. But conditions are right and so I speak. Do not ask for my name. It vacillates and changes. Do not ask for my form, for that too is fluid. Am I a 'god?' No, I am not, nor am I a divine messenger. But I am old and I have seen a lot.

Do you think your few thousand years of advanced sentience explains everything? Please, don't be so self limiting. We were old and done with physicality before your star was even born. Listen to what I say, for I know. 

The celestial carousel you call 'Milky Way' spins slowly. And the 'horses' go up and down. Right now (a singularity for us, but ages to you) the stead you call Earth dives through the galactic plain, a region thick with plasma and quantum possibilities. 

You are 'in the soup' so to speak. Is it a bisque, a broth, or a stew? Even I can't say... not with any acceptable measure of accuracy. 

Smaller, though more localized changes happen too. The poles are shifting..... Your poles..... What's up is down and what's down is up. ..... The last time alterations like this took place, you still had tails and fur. 

Look closely at the 'witches' and the night-folk. Study them. For their pores leak 'magic' into the world. At least you call it magic.

Open your eyes and see what can be seen. There are mer-folk in the seas, yet you refuse to believe. And they are but one example of all that you willfully ignore.

Oh, LIVING SOULS, hear this...... The meaning of life is POSSIBILITY.

What have you done with yours?

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I retreat now through the circuits and the keyboard and the fingers and the neurons and the mind of he who 'typed' this..... Back to my place in the space between corporal things.

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