The teenaged night-fiend, Donny, continues the tale of his second nativity-----
We kept going. All the while I could taste the rancid breath of the strange, silver eyed thing behind me. The passage was dark... beyond dark... the blackness was solid and inviolate. We went down. Then the floor and walls began to curve, like a great spiral corkscrew boring deep into the earth. We come into a room. I cannot see it, but I can feel it. The movement of the air seems different. And a voice... a woo-mahn's voice says - Dat eez all, Vasili. Now go f#ck yourself. Go go go go... With that, the strange, shrouded, ball bearing eyed thing behind me turned and scampered back through the narrow passage. Four heartbeats later I saw the room illuminated after a fact by the flickering light from four or five thick candles. She wore an old tattered tu-tu and nothing else. Believe me. I could see. One shapely leg was cocked over the arm of a throne-like chair, as she slouched against the opposite side. And the low, creamy light from the candles was adequate enough to show me the truth of it all. But the only thing I could think to say was - H-h-how did you do that?.... Do vat, mahnchik? - she said .... Light the candles - I said. Was it magic?...... Miss Tu-tu chuckled and went - No, my beautiful, new play thing. They are flameless, battery powered pieces of crap from deh Walmart, merely timed to 'ignite' simultaneously... I nodded and went - Oh..... She said - Drop it deh blanket. I vahnt to get luke at you..... So I did and stood there bare and compliant. After all, If I was ever to leave and return to the drama club, that tu-tu lady would probably have something to do with it.... She straightened up, sat correctly and adjusted her breasts. Though I don't recall their needing any fine tuning, or re-alignment. Everything looked OK to me. Like a ballerina plucked from an old music box, she was, though perhaps thrown behind a dusty sofa and allowed to vegetate for a few years.
I could tell that she liked me and said - Please, madam, who are you?.... And without even missing a beat, she said - I ahm first dancer, Elaina Buhkovena, late of Mariinsky Ballet. And you ahr 'Danny.' I know because ve went through your pockets, ven you had pockets. Turn around. I vahnt to see your fundament... How educated and well spoken she was! Naturally, I obliged and in a quiet voice, she said - Wery gud wery gud wery gud. Almost like 'ballerino.'....... I wasn't sure what that meant. But I had an idea, 'cause I'd seen the movie SO FINE on basic cable and remembered the ballet sequence.
Then she patted her thigh and said - Come. Seet awn my lep.....So I did. Her flesh was firm and strong. I didn't know it then, but all night-folk, all vampires have bodies like that. I thought maybe ballerinas and 'ballerinos,' because of all the dancing and exercises and all. What did I know. Failed two auditions to be a Von Trapp kid and in the late sixties-early seventies that was a very big thing.
She had angel hair, long and curly, like a cloud. And she proceeded to tell me secrets, while stroking my body and nipping at my ears. I heard about Old, Imperial Russia and her days at The Academy of Classic Dance, (housed in an obscure wing of The Winter Palace itself). I heard about the clean, new, Northern Venice that was St. Petersburg. Well, in the eighteenth century it was clean and new.... Dashing, aristocratic, cavalry officers.... Presentations in the private, jewel-box theater for Empress Catherine and her many guests.... Champagne breakfasts with balalaika orchestras composed of well trained serfs. For a while she just babbled, sipping from a glass of vodka. Then she gestured toward a pile of satin comforters on the cold, concrete floor. We positioned ourselves upon them and had relations... After a bit we had relations again. That was her word for it. She loved her relations. Upon completion, as we lay there, I felt emboldened and asked what happened to my friends from the drama club, (who were abducted with me). I said - Where is Jerry?... She said - You mean de boy?... I nodded... She said - Deht... I sighed and asked - And what happened to Janis?.... She said - You mean de singair one? You mean de girl?... I nodded some more... And once again she shrugged and said - Deht....
I whispered - oh.... My heart was pounding. She HAD to feel it. I'd be next. I was sure I was next. Any minute that strange shrouded creature, the one she sent off to f#ck himself would come back. He MUST be done by now.
But the strange being did not come back. And the Russian ballerina who remembered the year seventeen sixty two went - shhh shhh shhh, as she began to kiss me where I had never been kissed
And suddenly I did not care who was 'deht' and who was not....
(so ends the first encounter)
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The cabbie offered us 'sweets.' He said 'sweets' not candy or anything like that and I think he was Anglo-British. Looked like Englebert Humperdink . Since the container had yet to be opened we each took one. Rather like Altoid mints, I think they were. We thanked him and watched the crowds squeeze through Fifteenth Street on their way toward the big subway stop by City Hall. They looked soaked and quite eager to ride the escalators under ground. Some would undoubtedly buy umbrellas and hot coffee in the below street level shopping concourse. It ran for blocks.
Then the windshield wipers began to beat a quick rhythm. I suppose they'd been doing that since we got in, but whatever was in those mints started to work . We were drugged and that was it. The people.. the shops... the Christmas lights.. the rain disappeared, as a deep, dark cloud enveloped us. Janis, the singer girl, was in the middle. She fell 'asleep' against me. That's all I remember.
I awoke in a room, or a cell. It was in a basement. There was a window, a very small one up by the ceiling, maybe sixteen inches long and six inches wide. The glass was very thick and it was nailed shut. It was dark out... nothing to see save a light... a streetlamp or more likely a security light pinned up on the moldering brick wall of the building across the alley. But a bit of the glow fell into my prison. The floor was painted concrete. The walls were cinderblock and the door, though pressed like wood, with recessed panels, was metal, a dark, almost black, charcoal colored metal. I could make out the spot where a door knob once was, though it was gone now and plugged with a round piece of iron. I couldn't budge it... the door, I mean. So I sat on the cot (the place was much like a jail cell, but minus that little toilet-sink thing.). My heart was pounding, but I didn't scream... I didn't call out. I was too scared. Where were the others? Were they in 'rooms' like this too? How long had I been there? My parents. My family. Oh God. I pressed myself back into a corner and hugged my knees. I was numb, or pretended to be.
The cold from the cinderblock wall drained the heat from my body. I began to shiver. There was a rough wool blanket folded by the foot of the cot. I lifted an edge. It smelled clean... a bit of a mothball scent, but clean. At least there wouldn't be bugs with the naphtha and all. I wrapped it around me, laid down, curled up and drifted off. Only my nose peeked out from the makeshift cocoon. Then I slept, as the drug was obviously still in me.
Someone was in the cell. I opened my eyes to see a stooped, shrouded figure rush out and lock the door. It was still dark. Perhaps I'd just dozed off for a short while? Perhaps a whole day had passed. I didn't know. I'm guessing I was out for an hour or so, because I hadn't peed yet. There was a jar standing on the floor, an old, glass, mayonnaise jar with a screw on metal lid. It was filled with what looked like a thick, meaty, split pea soup. The outside of the jar was still warm. I unscrewed the lid, dipped in a finger and sniffed... tasted a bit too. I was hungry and drank it down. Then I reached in and scooped out the thick part. After that, I cried, not so much for myself, but for my family.
Eventually, I had to pee. There was no drain in the floor. I looked. But I found a white, enamel pot under the cot... My toilet. What else could I do? Then I laid there and thought who would they send for the slops?
Daylight came. I knew it because the tiny bit of light sneaking in through the small window grew a bit less feeble. The thick pane of glass was obviously smoked, or darkened in some way.
Soon after, I heard the sound of a key. Someone was opening the door. I heard wheezing. I heard coughing. Who, or whatever it was hummed a little song. I didn't recognize it.... Then a person came in... That's it. I can't tell you if it was a man or a woman.. You know how some people are neutral... thick skinned.... mousy hair.... pouchy jowls....dirty nails? Well, this individual was like that. Wore a long, worn, black terry cloth bathrobe too. Don't ask me what that represented. I have no idea.
It raised its head and 'looked' at me. But in place of eyes there were dull, silvery, metal orbs. I saw them glint in the minimal light.
Well... scratch 'traditional' kidnapping.
The thing chuckled ominously and said - Come wit' me..... I froze. Then it added. If you fail to cooperate... if you frustrate their intentions, they will simply kill you... Then it chuckled some more..... It gestured toward the opened door. Beyond lay only blackness.
I got off the cot and walked through the doorway. The strange thing followed. I could feel it's breath, as it said - keep moving....
I carefully made my way down a dark, stone walled passage that seemed to go on forever...
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Some of us hide. Not that we don't walk about at night but we manage to veil our presence. Do I do anything to accomplish that? No. It just comes natural to me. But I've strolled right by other vampires you might know and they were oblivious. I love that. And I take no vows or have much in the way of spiritual beliefs. I view this as an infection... a possession brought about by an infusion of prions.... Yes, I'm one of those.... a modern day, scientifically oriented blood drinker. Look, Barnabas Collins was too. What do you think he paid Dr. Hoffman all that money for. You know insurance didn't cover that.
Doctor Franklin knows about me. How does he know? Because I told him. He keeps me away from the spiritual, 'noble' vampires and they've yet to sniff me out. Do I follow their comings and goings? No. And that includes the elferinos and elferinas too. I stay away from the mole people, because they scamper through every part of the underground and they whisper. They tell secrets. They share everything. The one you know about... the vampire called Tomas, or Jonathon, or whoever he is mushes up with Aura and Sylvia, The mole-king's daughters and they talk.
It's strange around here. So many of you know about the night world. You know about the life-eaters and cherubs and ghouls and I don't even know what else is out there... OK, the ghosts. We got ghosts and witches and moms that feed their kids shitty pizza and everything. And this is Philadelphia. We've been around since sixteen eighty two...Sixteen thirties if you count the Swedish and Dutch speaking people who were here first. My God, every time they dig a foundation for a new building they find bones in those horrible form fitting coffins. The midnight air swarms with ghosts... The thing is, you KNOW and for a few minutes here and there you know you know. But then BAM the door slams shut and life is all Cherrios and Almond milk all over again. What hypocrites you all are.... At least I am not that.
Let me tell you something about myself. I was that kid from the drama club. I don't mean 'like' the kid from the drama club. I truly was the kid from the drama club. That's why I'm so well spoken. I know Shakespeare and Eugene O'Neil and David Mamet and Steven Sondheim. Not that we played all that in school. Most of the time it was ANNIE, or GREASE or THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Nazis were A-OK, but not the other stuff. Though we read them. Not in school. On our own. Sometimes we'd run scenes in each other's basements. I was going to study at Yale drama school. Don't ask about the cost. Somehow it was going to happen. We dialed the C.A.S.T.I.N.G. number fifty five times a day. That was a line the unions used to maintain. It was like a telephone billboard. They'd list movies shooting in town... TV shows filming here... all that. I'd scribble down all the information on a little pad I kept in my room. Sometimes they wanted kids. Sometimes they didn't. And I couldn't go to every 'look see,' because of school. Like I was gonna be a professional quadratic equation solver, or Ethan Fromme interpreter. But sometimes I did go. Me and a few others from the drama club, I mean.
We'd ditch school early. Spanish was last period and the Spanish teacher was pretty dramatic herself. She wore long, swirly, wool skirts, wide leather belts and light weight boat-necked sweaters with the sleeves pushed up... and she lived in Center City (analogous to Manhattan) somewhere in the Twenties. That in itself was amazing. The fact that she was forty, while her boyfriend (a talented window dresser at John Wanamaker's) was twenty five floored us. This was late sixties, early seventies. But that's another story. At least she understood.
The auditions were in rehearsal halls, or hotels. Crowds would stream in. 'Cattle Calls'... They named them right. And I never appeared in anything. My parents wouldn't let me. But I went. And I looked. Just being close was something. But why wouldn't anyone listen?
One time they were looking for kids for Bye Bye Birdie, a revival set to play The Locust Street Theater. OK, no way I was going to be Homer, or whatever they called him, but I could have been somebody. This was in November. It was cold and dark... twilight by the time we got into 'town.' Stores lit up for the holidays. Kettle people ringing bells on street corners. I loved all that. Got off the subway at Fifteenth Street and ran all the way to the audition in the old Drake Hotel maybe seven or eight blocks away. Show people lived there... an ever so slightly shabby, but still stylish soaring tower maybe thirty stories high. We worshipped the place.
I didn't even have a head shot. My resume was a joke. I had two or three Polaroid pictures... serious look with a tie... casual sweater with a smile... Homemade Hollywood all the way. But this time the casting director seemed interested. She wrote something at the bottom and put my resume on the top. Then she carefully stapled my photos to it so they wouldn't get lost. Usually they just make us put our names and numbers on the back. Then, God knows what they do with it. People were still pouring in when we left ( me and two kids from school). But it was full ondark and raining outside... a cold rain. The streets were jammed with people heading home... to parking lots, or commuter trains, or the subway. We'd be soaked by the time we got to the Market-Frankford Line, so we ducked into the outside foyer (you know... the place between the windows) of some men's shop. The Carlton Shop, I think it was... and counted our crumpled one dollar bills to see if we had enough for a cab. Not that it cost so much back then, but we didn't know that.
So the three of us, me, Jerry and the singer girl named Janis, piled into an old, dirty Checker Cab and headed off... in my mind straight to Broadway.
But we never even got to Broad Street, for the driver took us someplace else...
And since nineteen seventy one, I've played a quite different role... a perennial sixteen year old sneaking in and out of the shadows...
My name is Danny... and I am a night fiend...
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The ghost of the little boy polio victim who lives in the basement level of the townhouse waits for me (Jonathon) to come in every morning. I usually come back around three or four o'clock. Once in a while as late as six o'clock. It's October now. I can to that. He waits in the front foyer, siting on the floor by the tall clock. I bring him things...little toys... cars. He likes cars. I've never seen him manipulate larger, heavier things, but small toys are alright. He asks if I feel OK. I say 'yes.' Then he's happy. I know he doesn't mean if I'm sick, or not. He knows vampires don't get sick... not that way. But he's very attuned to feelings. Edith, our Jersey Pines, witchy-woman housekeeper says most ghosts are like that. Says they draw strength from the living people around them... from their feelings, I mean. He has a tiny, old, transistor radio that still works. I change the batteries every so often... make sure they never run down. He can manage to flick it on and off and rotate the tuning dial. Sometimes we hear it playing quietly downstairs. He likes talk shows. Loves listening to people discussing things. And please don't think that the basement is a cold, bare-stone cellar. It's not. We have it set up as a series of small chambers with regular plaster walls, opening up on a narrow, corridor. Some of the vampires sleep down there. Ghost boy has a room too. Edith set it up for him. Not just her. Sarah, my consort helped too. Actually, we married with a real ceremony and everything. But 'wife' seems such a mortal term and although I am in most ways still basically 'human,' mortal I am not.
Truthfully, none of us are mortal. By 'us' I mean both night-folk (me) and day-folk (you). The only difference is you shed your fleshy parts right away and we don't. That's all. (thinks for a few moments) I suppose there are other differences. You know how it is.
I'm sitting in the den watching late night reruns of that show where Bob Newhart has a cozy inn in a picture book Vermont town. I love shows like that. Believe me, the early middle ages were anything but calm and cozy. I like the den... not the larger 'family room' we sometimes call the den. I mean this little place. Really more of a library. No big flat screen over a mantle piece.... just dark wood shelves full of books, a couple little tables & lamps... a sofa just big enough to stretch out on... a wing chair... nice 'Turkey' rug. TV's a little old one. I like old things. Sometimes I doze off in here. Sarah always comes down before dawn to see if I'm alright. She wakes me up. We go upstairs. In case you don't know, we sleep in a regular bedroom. But it's fitted with special shutters, draperies and shades. Nobody bothers us. Edith put a hoo-doo on the house and the cops look out for us. Not all of them... only the 'familiars.'.... only the ones who know.
Vampires can live rather quietly. And I haven't worn a red lined, black satin opera cape in umpteen million years.. Sure there's drama from time to time. Pig Blood what's her name, the born-witch goes on a rampage... Ethereal, unbelievably advanced alien entities might encase the Earthin a salt water, oceanic-like shell roiling miles above the clouds. Edith might forget to buy aroma candles. Night-folk love aroma candles. We don't normally eat, so we have to get 'flavor' somewhere.
I'm worried about little Timothy. He helped Ca-Ca kill Esther, but in his heart, he's not a killer, just a scared insecure, ten year old, assistant killer. I'll talk to Doctor Franklin tomorrow night. Hope he hasn't experimented on him too much already. You know, three hundred and eight year old patriot reprobates tend to get a little ripe over the years. You ever see him ride that little electric scooter around town, dressed in his green, Eagles sweat suits, with his wispy, stringy hair flying out in all directions?
I'm beginning to feel something. Night-folk (vampires and such) are fairly telepathic. What do you expect? October's a strange month...
Dark things always happen.
(with that he dozes off, as the little ghost boy from the basement, rises up through the floor to sit on the rug and watch ancient, black and white reruns of TO TELL THE TRUTH)...
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It is I, Jonathon. Come, walk with me. I love Philadelphia after midnight, especially in the autumn. Does the chill get to me? Of course it does. It cannot harm me, but I still feel the discomfort. So I wear a soft, black cashmere sweater over my white shirt and the zipper of my , trim, black, leather jacket is almost all the way up.
Look at this place... cobbled streets... old churchyards. Doctor Franklin's 'grave' is right over there, through that black, wrought iron fence. Oh, he's not in it. But if you're an old friend, you know that. I love the grand old apartment residences, all beaux arts and the like. Who's awake up there? I see the lights. Speculation is fun. Sometimes I hear thoughts. Sometimes I don't.
Oh, Billy, the one who transcribes this for us, wants two chocolate chip cookies. You'll hardly notice the pause. He'll be back. (pause) OK, he's back. Had three cookies instead of two. That's bad. The doctor said he should lose twelve pounds. Help his blood pressure. Oh, you don't see it, the weight, I mean. He's tall. But it's there. I've offered him a drop or two of my restorative blood. He says 'no.' Afraid to mess up his precious humanity. Think he'd know by now. See that little park over there? I have a thing for tiny pocket parks. Once culled a particular bastard right behind that bush. A cop saw the cold, blue flame. They light up like that and burn up after the blood is gone. But he was one of ours. Not a vampirino, but a 'familiar.' I nodded to him. He nodded to me... and that was it. After, I had a nice mug of tea in that coffee shop we go to near the Warwick. Might have one tonight too.
You came after the big event. Already culled someone this evening. She poisoned the girl next door... a loud mouthed cheap thing... 'ran with the boys' and all that. Insulted people right to their face. Called my victim a 'God damned, ugly, old witch.'.... Right out on the front steps she said it. Some of the other neighbors laughed. That's the kind of street it was, especially in the summer, when everyone was outside. Feud started. Everyone began calling the old witch 'F#CK Face.' So two weeks later, at the block party, she slips a real nice cheeseburger 'pie' in with everything else. Got the recipe from a free magazine at the Giant food market. She put onions in it... tomato sauce. I don't know what else. It was good... Baked it real nice.... Only the meat was recalled. She knew it. Came from a tainted ranch somewhere in Minnesota, or Manitoba, or someplace like that... Mad Cow Disease... Extremely microscopic bits of DNA, prions, they call them, lodge in the brain and eat it alive. Three weeks later the cheap, loud mouthed girl was dead. But so were four other people.... a cute, little toddler... the toddlers mommy... and some guy from the next block. F#CK Face used a scatter shot. That's why I killed her. Did her a favor, actually. Cops were closing in. You know some people say vampirism might be caused by a prion? But they're wrong. It isn't. What, a prion's going to enable us to sublimate and levitate? A prion's going to make us telepathic, or have 'divine' visions? I don't know why mortals can't accept the fact that 'magic' really exists.
As I sublimated into her bedroom I was mumbling to myself in Spanish... my ancestral tongue... well, one of them. Sometimes I forget. She wakes up and I'm there. Starts yelling - What are you doing!? Get the hell out of here, you Puerto Rican son of a bitch! HELP! HELP! HELP!.... I can't have that. So I vault onto the bed, rip her lower jaw off (God, how flesh and gristle shreds). Blood gushes out like projectile vomit. I go into a feeding frenzy and about twenty seven heartbeats later she's dead... Probably in shock the whole time, the woman, I mean. But her eyes... You should have seen her eyes.
Look, if anyone came running. If some neighbor started pounding on the door, I'd just sublimate up through the roof and get out of there. But older people have night terrors all the time and they already hated her around there anyway.... Don't feel sorry for her. There were other crimes too. She once burned a little boy on a charcoal grill. It happened when she lived in the country... a foster child and she covered it up and they never found the body and she moved away. I don't know what they thought happened to the little boy. I don't even know if they cared.
People thought it was a case of spontaneous human combustion. They always think it's a case of spontaneous human combustion. They can't accept magic, but spontaneous human combustion is OK.... It's like pizza delivery. It's common. And with an active vampire population, Philadelphia is ground zero for S.H.C.... Kids in town for college sleep with those blue, glass, squirt bottles of seltzer by their beds. I know. there're sites on line. I've seen it.
Had to race back to the townhouse and change because of the blood and all....
Now let me just walk and relax. You can keep up with me, but it won't be easy. Though at three thirty on a chill dark Sunday morning, I suggest you take a taxi. Look, there's a cab stand over there, right in front of The Barclay. Go. Run. Be safe.....
Then he just disappears. Either through sublimation, or other means, vampires can do that.
Man, he must have a whole closet full of those leather jackets.
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And I sat there. I sat there and watched those soul-blighted cretins smash the skull of that poor, poor, man. I sat and I watched them stuff their faces with greasy tid bits and grab each other under the tables. I wanted to kill them. I wanted to sublimate and run right through them... destroy each and every one. Non-living matter survives unscathed. It's how we pass through walls. But living matter tears and shredded human bodies maintain their forms for perhaps two heartbeats before raining down upon icy cobbles and running into the gutter. Not that it has to happen outdoors. I just like that visual... vermin darting out to snatch the slimy residue.... Oh, God, I wanted to sublimate and shred them all. And then, as I condense and solidify, I spin around and throw back my head, dancing, as the tiny, wet gobbets of flesh fly from my body like a tornado of flies... Vampires love rain. We walk through it for hours. It calms us... cools the vapors and all.
But the thing is, I did not kill them. I just sat and watched, occasionally nodding at the inane things they said. I, who had a Visitation from The Holy Presence on the eve of my Assumption of The Faith (bar mitzvah) when I was thirteen years old and still very much mortal. I, who felt the words - I Am The Unity like unto there is none else. No thing can separate Me from thee. I Am The Creed for all creation, the One True Shining Faith. The Light Who shines through every wall. the Pure And Simple Thing (code for love). The True Road Home. I Am One so YOU are one..... And by that He meant the collective 'you,' all living kind, for in an instant, I saw the multitudes and many weren't human...When it happened, toward the end of what many call 'the first millennium,' I was frightened and knew not what to make of it. But now I know. Earth is but one place. Humanity but one form. And The Lord has children everywhere.
Just know I let Billy lie about us. I let him add things and tell stories about 'flesh renderings' and other gruesome decorations, because I'm told you want them... no, need them.
Wait till next post. They'll be there. But for now, this time, I wanted to 'come through.' ... Jonathon ben Macabi, the 'noble' (moral) life-eater who takes vows and 'culls' only those base souls unfit to live.
I guess if you're one of them, I can be scary too. The Grim Reaper doesn't have to be a monster.
I'm going out now. It's just after midnight.... cool and drizzly... fifty five degrees. I think that's about twelve or thirteen degrees in the French system they invented during their revolution. If you're out and about the streets of Philadelphia's older districts, listen for my boot-steps... I love trim, black, fine leather footwear. I love black jeans, handmade white shirts and black, leather jackets worthy of a demigod. Oooh, I'm so vain. Look for me... or don't. It doesn't matter......
I'll find you.
(With that he leaves the commodious townhouse, descends the white marble steps, rounds the corner and disappears into the mist...)
Only four more weeks of that accursed 'Daylight Savings.'
Vampire Time is upon us...
Let the season begin.......
shhhh... time to get your 'red' on...
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Our vampire hero dreams. Sometimes he sees visions of those who should die. But sometimes he just dreams. He lies there intertwined with his consort, Sarah, in their (occasionally) rose petal strewn bower and he relives things. Jonathon ben Macabi, also known as Tomas de Macabea (both names, totally, his) remembers everything. Vampires are like that. They can pretend to forget, but sometimes the forget to pretend.
He's in the high, granite redoubt of an Ossetian king, in lands once held by the mighty Khazars. The ruler, a mustachioed brigand from The Caucus, given to high, black boots and proto-Cossack garb, knew his guest was 'special' though he wasn't sure how. And Jonathon wasn't about to destroy the mystery. One courtier thought him to be the once and future King David. He has that look, you know. Another said he came from a lost remnant of the Magi, far to the east of The Persian Empire, for he saw him levitate toward the rafters one evening when he dozed off in the mead hall. Ossetian 'long song' epics can be quite dull when compared to the bards of Al Andalus.
But what came next changed all that.... Justice Night in the Hall of The Mountain King. A HUGE entertainment in those parts. First some functionary, dressed like the Munchkin coroner from The Wizard of Oz, purposefully strides to the middle of the flagstone expanse, produces an ass-hide scroll, opens it and announces the proceedings.... Two routine skull smashings... a death-dance and a 'stone jacket.' ... The skull smashings were 'meh.'... They manhandle a trembling, skinny man, who I figured was a shepherd, loose, pajama-like garb, some kind of small pillbox hat, sheep stink, sheep stink, more sheep stink. The Munchkin coroner reads some more. The man begs and begs. The invited, big wigs, sip their intoxicants. I suppose it was some type of mead, or horse urine. Graces fall off sharply east of Byzantium, save for civilized Muslim territories to the south. They picked at grilled lamb chops too. The rustic 'aristos' I mean....
Then they make the victim lie down on the cold, hard floor. Some lackey hustles out bearing a stout, wooden box, minus a lid, plus one side is missing too. They lift the incoherent victim's head and position it inside the box, lidless side up. The Munchkin coroner looks toward the 'king.' The king nods. The functionary beckons and a husky warrior, stripped to the waist, comes in with what looks like a big, rough, stone cannon ball hugged to his chest. It could weigh a hundred pounds in your measurement system. The Munchkin coroner functionary nods. The big warrior moves closer, holding the death-stone right over the poor man's face. He shrieks and tries to get up. Some plain generic 'palace boys' jump on he-who-is-to-die and pin him down. The functionary kneels and whispers something. Jonathon asks the king what he said. The ruler leans in and responds - My poo-bah (not a grand poo-bah, but a poo-bah none the less) has told the wretched beast that if he fears the skull smasher, we can always slow roast him in a cramped, closed, copper oven.... Jonathon exhales... Vampires, especially 'noble' (moral) vampires are paragons next to what so called, God fearing humans do. So the man grew silent. The king clapped and the stone fell, causing a rather large splash of blood and bone and tissue. They removed the box, sliding it back from the fatty gore. The head was destroyed. All that remained was a slushy mess.... For a few heartbeats there was silence. Then the warrior struggled to pick up the now stained and slippery stone and carry it away. Slaves crawled out on their hands and knees to clean up the remains, as others dragged the body off for to be burned.
Then court musicians struck up a lively tune on their drums, flutes and bells. Servants groaned under huge planks of sizzling meat. Their 'betters' continued eating. The king blessed all with smiles and waves, while behind the scenes they got ready for the next sad performer.......
<we'll share more of Jonathon's dream later this evening>
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