Just before dawn, the vampires went to bed. Baylah and her mortal boyfriend retired to their specially darkened suite upstairs and the others (just Jonathon and Giacomo, actually) made do with quilts and sleeping bags in the windowless storage room behind the garage. Giacomo said the chill, painted, cinderblock walls reminded him of a tomb. Jonathon said - Listen. The surf. I can hear the ocean. I've never slept by the sea before. Did cross the ocean 'melded' to a whale once, the old fashioned traditional way. You ever do that?... No - said the newcomer. This is the first time I've ever been here. Giacomo comes to The New World. Wow. That's a New World term, isn't it?.... Definitely - said Jonathon... Then they fell asleep, lulled by the pulse of the sea.
Later, that evening, Baylah came down to wake them. There were towels and toiletries in two of the en suites upstairs. Night-folk rarely perspire much, or shed excess oils, but they do tend to be fastidious, save for the most feral types and considering their semi-coldblooded natures steamy showers are very much appreciated. But let's gloss over the details. Baylah had a closet filled with the necessary smart, trim clothing favored by vampire guests, so they dressed, met for weak tea in the kitchen. The wealthy, mortal boyfriend greeted everybody over a plate of rigatoni Bolognese (he more or less kept to vampire hours but ducked out for a nice walk and lunch most afternoons). Giacomo said - I remember that from my mortal days, except tomatoes hadn't yet made their way into our fare. We used eggplant instead... Baylah went - Good, now we know. The driver's out side. Go. He'll come back for us later. Jonathon, you have your phone? It's charged? You have my number?.... He nodded. that was it. They left.
The driver, a trusted 'familiar.' Helped them into the car, a big, black, shiny B.M.W. and they were off, straight down Atlantic Avenue and into Atlantic City and The Borgada maybe fifteen minutes to the north. Just as they snaked up the landscaped drive to the entrance, Giacomo jumped out of the car and said - I need to kill somebody. You know how it is. Find you later..... and he ran off through the bushes. Just like that. Real fast. He was gone.
A few minutes later he spied a fat pimp haranguing two skinny hookers down a narrow scuzzy street (every town has a narrow, scuzzy street. what are you gonna do about it?) and heads right for him. Pimp thinks he's a cop, or a racketeer in his black leather sport coat and tight jeans and all. Vampires got an image too, you know. Waits for Giacomo to talk first. Only thing is Giacomo don't say nothing. Just grabs his head (one hand on each side and breaks his neck. First hooker goes - Eeeek! (like a little mouse) and skitters away. Hooker number two claps her hands and laughs. Even pees a little. Don't run away, or scream, or nothing. Watches as Giacomo lowers that still breathing, foamin' at the mouth pimp down onto the dirty concrete and proceeds to tear open his neck. She kicks his knee a little and says - Yo, mister, you a vampire?.... Giacomo, deeply chugging blood, manages to mumble a low 'uh huh.'... She goes - Can I get his watch?... The vampire finishes, belches and goes - No, watch comes to me. You get the ring.... She gets down and yanks it off, just as the body ignites into the signature 'cold' blue flame and disappears. She jumps back and goes - Wow! Look at that!.... But Giacomo is already gone.
She watches the flame burn out, leaving nothing but a greasy residue and goes - Goodbye, you lousy pimp... Then she sticks the ring on her thumb and tip-taps (high heels) away.
Look, even if somebody peeked out a dried up, old plastic window shade and saw something on that street, they ain't gonna say. They ain't gonna say nothin'. They just gonna 'live' and that's it...
Giacomo comes to America....
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They're seated in the ocean-front salon of the beach house belonging to Baylah's mortal companion. Jonathon and his nearly three hundred year old Tuareg princess ally listen to the tale of the vampirino known as Giacomo, a vagabond blood drinker, nominally part of the 'civilized' 'noble' line... but only just nominally. Baylah found him at the card tables up the coast, in Atlantic City. Night-folk have a thing for games of chance. It's said there's a special chamber, off the floor, of the legendary casino in The Hotel De Paris devoted to the wagers of life-eaters. Some say their loses are what keep Monaco afloat. You hear a lot of stories on The Riviera. The 'house' supplies them with plump, nubile refreshment, snatched from the shores of Sicily, Malta or North Africa and they fill its coffers.... But Giacomo tells a different tale. He speaks of his dark nativity.... Giacomo - I fought for The House of Modena, a lesser aristocrat, roughly equal to the knights and chevaliers of England and France. You know the history. The fighting never stopped. Each tiny city-state a 'potential' Rome, or at least an Athens. We accompanied a Neapolitan princess from her father's palace in Naples to our lord's holdings in the north. A beauty, she was. He sent a galleon powered by one hundred and eighty oarsmen comprised of criminals and Moorish captives. They were chained thirty to a side, sixty per deck, three decks in all and they rowed till they dropped. Replacements waited, ever at the ready, for the dreaded cry of 'bondsman UP!' As they scrambled through the slick, greasy darkness and slapped their asses down on the stained, fetid bench, the previous occupant, mercifully oblivious to it all, splashed down into the wine dark sea. The sharks dined well. The slightest hesitation on the part of any galley slave meant the sharks too. Can you imagine how they screamed? In a quiet voice, Jonathon said - Yes I can. I was herded into a tenth century Provencal synagogue with hundreds of other believers. They burnt the sanctuary around us. The roof became an orange sky. Little children burst into flame in the oven-like heat. They sang prayers. They laughed deliriously. Those 'lucky' enough to squeeze through an opening in the wall (heated masonry crumbles, you know) were immediately hacked to pieces by crazed, hate riddled men at arms. But this is your tale. So please go on.... For a while there was just silence. Vampires can be a moody lot. Then Baylah got up, tuned out the lights and opened the draperies, revealing a moonlit sea. How soothing it was, just to watch the waves break upon the shore. How easy it is for night-folk to fall into a trance. But then, after perhaps twenty five heartbeats, Giacomo went on - I had an enemy on board, my superior, a certain young gentleman hungry for a title or style (lesser title) like mine. He was ambitious. The army was one way. It's all he had. How he hated me. I didn't need this. He did. So one night he drugged my wine, shaved my head (oh, he had helpers. they always have helpers), stripped off my clothes and threw me in with the bondsmen. I was barely coherent when they whipped my ass and forced me up to take my place at the oars. Apparently I complained. I hesitated. I refused. No one so much as responded. They just wrapped me in weighted chains and heaved me over the side, into the chill, black sea. I screamed. I gasped. My lungs filled with salt water. People say that. You hear stories. but can you imagine what that really means? Did you ever have pneumonia? Did you ever feel that sharp, little, biting pinch when one small part of your lungs fills up with mucus? Cough it up. Get it out, if you can. But we who've drowned know better. That sharp, little pinch is nothing. The lungs fill up like balloons. Sometimes they burst. Maybe 'burst' is the wrong word. I should say 'explode.' And I stood there, on the bottom, thirty fathoms beneath the sea. My eardrums were gone. My eyes, oozing jelly from countless tiny ruptures, pressed back into my skull. I was blind. I was deaf. My ribs began to crack and my cranium would most certainly have followed suit, had he not found me when he did... a vampire who walked the depths for pleasure. There's no place darker, or more desolate. Could I see? Could I tell what was happening? No, my brain was almost dead. But (and I learned this later) we shot up through the depths, broke the surface and vaulted toward the stars. He took my blood and gave me his. Was I healed? A little. Complete restoration would come later. But I was saved, in more ways than one... Now I am here to help. I've scanned your blog. I know. I know. I know you don't write it. Perhaps in isolated instances, but not too often. I'm aware of that. But, as a vampire, I recognize the truth of it. I remember the passage, not too long ago, when you said - This is the time of independent actors... I can see that. Banding together in large political blocs doesn't work. I saw what went on with you and the venerable Doctor Franklin. What a farce. Politicians we are not. I suppose it's an ego thing.... But I am here to help. Who should I kill first? Baylah laughed. Jonathon didn't know what to say. Just then, Baylah's wealthy, mortal companion came in, fresh from a stint at the casinos. (blackjack is his game). He looked at the new face and went - Jesus Christ, who's this one? Another vampire??? Baylah laughed some more. Jonathon laughed too. But Giacomo felt hurt and disrespected... After all, he did so want to help... <more next time> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ click - WHO ELSE DOES SERIAL FICTION LIKE THIS? ... to see all Vampire Wonderland posts. But you might have to also click the 'subscribe' rectangle near the top right corner of the screen to make it happen. I think they changed things around. Or you could always click onto the other RSS subscribe buttons around the regular blog page. click - WHO'S CALLING? ... to join me on Twitter... please comment. thank you...
This is not one of the regular posts they put up here. This time it is I, Doctor Franklin, addressing you. If you know a bit about me, you know I began my career as a cultural observer, a fictional old busy-body woman, who dished out advice on just about everything to clueless, insecure letter writers via a column in some prerevolutionary newspaper. I was the first 'Dear Abby.' I popularized raccoon skin hats generations before Davey Crocket and in Paris, no less. Some know me as America's first, great, celebrity adulterer- theoretical scientist. Hey, curiosity... it's my 'thing.'
I joined clubs and associations all over Philadelphia. When I ran out of clubs, I started my own. I regularly attended and subscribed to Protestant and Jewish congregations. If the Catholics (of all types) and Muslims had organized churches and mosques back then, I'd have rubber necked the crowd and prayed there too. Was I a Mason?' Sure. So what? Who cares?
The thing is, I have studied and explored everything. And the truth is we ALL steal from everybody. Nobody's culture is sacrosanct. I've seen old white ladies eat dry Cheerios with chopsticks... Hey, 'sacrosanct'... isn't that a Latin word?
African food became American food. Indian food did too. You like succotash? Good. So did Pocahontas. ... Ancient, Celtic-Irish observances morphed into Halloween. The savory, deliciousness of Italian cuisine got Tarantella-ed into Chef Boyardee . <~~ Ever see an Italian name spelled like that? I didn't...And Jewish thought-belief-religious practice got 'knocked -off' (an old Jewish term) into pretty much every mode of Western Oriented Faith we have today. You might say we ALL follow various denominations of Judaism, even the Atheists. Ever hear Woody Allen? But, old biases die hard. It's 'not nice' to say that. Thus 'Abrahamic' was created. Thing is, them ain't Abrahamic stories in all them scriptures... Them's Jewish stories.... Oh, well. What are you gonna do?
Transplanted, West African - In North American culture is like that too. It's the music. It's the classic 'Southern' recipes. It's the speech patterns. (some linguists say Old Dixie's accents are just seventeenth and eighteenth century English overlaid with the cadences of Senegal and Cameroon and Old Mali). Keep diggin'. Yams grow in all the gardens.
And I haven't even begun to dish out all the Frenchie, Spanish, Creole jambalaya they got bubblin' up from New Orleans to San Francisco. Bet some American Indian grandmothers up in Alaska make a mean borscht too.
I think God wants it to be this way. Everything goes into the stew. But it's not all pureed down to a smooth consistency. We can still taste the chunks of meat and potatoes and spices..
So, the thing about cultural appropriation is this... When nobody wants what you got, that means business is bad.
And everybody likes a little business.
Regular readers know I am one of the night-folk now. I am one of the vampires. Hey, don't hate. Investigate.
Your obedient servant -
Doctor Benjamin Franklin
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I come back to this a lot. It's my favorite movie. I like other films too, but I always come back to this one. It's the inspiration for my EL RANCHO TEXACO story arc. In my world, the romance of the Old West will live again on Mars.
First settlers will be called TROOPERS and SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON will be the unofficial anthem, sung and banquets and dinners and weddings and everywhere a whole bunch of old TROOPER families get together...
In remote areas of the red planet, horses will be the preferred mode of transportation because the dust gets into mechanisms and fouls them...
Land grant families live on vast ranches (rancheros) and estancias. Our main family, the TEXACOS live on LA POLVA ROSA. Dynasties rise. Powerful families vie for The Stone House (Mar's White House)
Great mobs of CHUPACABRAS (like bigger, stronger mandrills and baboons) terrorize the far places.
An old, indigenous, strongly humanoid population, called TUVA TUVA lives out in the bush. They waited for wetter times, in a freeze-dried state, deep within vast caves and came 'alive' when the place was terraformed. Some are peaceful. Some are 'renegades.' Some work for the settlers in towns and out on the rancheros.
Specially developed horses with exotically messed with DNA soar through the Martian skies on great, bat-like wings ---- majestic 'Pegasi'
People speak a rich patois of English and Spanish..
Incredibly long assemblages of 'cars' called space 'TRAINS' with names like THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS and APACHE NATION connect the Earth to settlements, towns and growing cities on Mars.
The planet's carved into states---- NORTH MARS... SOUTH MARS.. EAST EQUATOR... WEST EQUATOR and MARS MONTANA...
The capital city's called BARSOOM, after the famous science fiction name for Mars... Locals pronounce is BAR-sum.
But then war fever grips the land. Who needs EARTH? Why is the STONE HOUSE subservient to the WHITE HOUSE. Folks start flying the REBEL FLAG... and THE WAR BETWEEN THE WORLDS begins.
In my mind, I see this as a movie or cable series...
I think if you Google or search -- EL RANCHO TEXACO Vampire Wonderland by Billy Kravitz, it'll get you in. Then just scroll around, or click NEWER POST or OLDER POST at the bottom of each installment..
I get EL RANCHO TEXACO fever every so often and I got it now...
So forgive me and maybe take a look. Maybe I'll find the direct link to the first EL RANCHO TEXACO post and come back and edit this tomorrow. But it's late here and I got to go to sleep....
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I don't even know what my name is anymore. What difference does it make? It's just a collection of sounds... a bar code that stands for me. I know who I am. That's all that matters. I am female and I'm a vampire. We've never met. The one they call 'Billy' hasn't channeled me yet. He might not even realize he's channeling me now, till he sees what he's typed up. But he's sitting in that little library, in the townhouse in Philadelphia, listening to Christina Perri. That's how we connected. I heard the music, not through the small device that plays it, but through his mind. Vampires can't always control what comes through. It's like leaves sailing on the wind.
I wander around a lot. Actually, it's all I do. Got no 'familiars' to smooth the way. There are no safe deposit boxes stuffed with money and gold and all. I walk. I kill. I sleep. Am I moral? Who knows? I don't even know who made me. He did it and he left... not right away, but soon enough. I thought he was 'the one.' All vampirinas do. Well, all vampirinas know shit. He taught me how to sublimate. At least he did that. Look, I don't even know his name. I'd ask. He'd say - Call me Jimmy, or call me Daddy, or call me Mister.... It was a joke. But I didn't get it. Maybe he had a real mate somewhere else? Maybe he was just a real bastard. What, you think they're all like your 'Jonathon?'
It was a little town in Central Pennsylvania, right by University Park... right by Penn State. I went there. Studied education. Went to bars. Walked College Avenue. Walked Beaver Avenue. Got drunk. Ate sticky buns. Slept around. Cut class. You see, I wanted to be a singer. Wanted to be like Joni Mitchell, but with a lower, throatier voice. This was the seventies.
Sometimes I sang with a group in one of the clubs. They were cool clubs in those days... dark... basic places with black light posters and little, raised stages. Platforms really, maybe eight inches off the floor. Played under hot, little pin lights. Bar sold rum and cokes and vodka gimlets and 'dark' beers. We'd step out for fresh air... smoke these little, blunt looking, Turkish cigarettes. Pretended they were weed, but they weren't weed. Actually, everything was 'hash' when I was there. I'm not even sure what that was. Could of been little blocks of processed bird shit for all I knew. I was just happy to sing. I didn't need any 'high.' Had my jeans... my knee length suede boots... my peasant shirts... beads... long wavy hair, parted in the middle, no bangs. Tried to get a whole lot of little waves. 'Angel Hair' we called it. Smelled from Herbal Essence shampoo. That was real big back then.
And, you know what? I probably would have made it through. Probably would have graduated and taught school and married some guy who had a profession because his mother and father wanted one. Might of had a couple nice kids. I think about that sometime. Also might have blown my brains out. I think about that too.
I loved walking around State College. That's what the town is called. The campus is called University Park. They touch. It's really one thing. Tree lined streets. Traditional houses. Real nice shops. Classic college food joints like The New College Diner and The Corner Room. They had a big, stuffed mountain lion just over the door, when you walked into The Corner Room. It was like an old fashioned casual restaurant. I think the lion is still there. I don't know. Never been back.
The band had a front man. I wasn't a regular, so I was nothing. His name was 'Zodiac.' That's what he called himself, Zodiac, or Zodi. Think his real name was Zandor. His people came from Hungary. Not him. He was born here. Looked like Johnny Depp but with cleaner hair. I told you. The seventies. Everybody washed their hair all the time. Dressed like Steven Tyler, but not so girlie. Well, not 'girlie.' You know what I mean. I thought we were gonna be 'it.' Be rockers and all. He knew Patti Smith, or he told everybody he did. Used to take girls, college girls like me, to this tiny room behind where the disc-jockey set up. Disc-jockey played when we took breaks. Had a little sofa back there. More posters. More black lights.
I didn't know about all the other ones. And I wasn't playing dumb. I really was dumb. One night I wasn't supposed to be there. Was supposed to be home, back in Pittsburgh. But I couldn't get a ride and had to wait till the next day to take the bus, so I just walked over. Town was all decorated for Christmas time... a lot of 'bee' lights and wreaths and trees. Like Hollywood did it. That's how it looked.
Streets were quiet. Half the kids went home already. Locals were out. 'Townies' we called them. But that didn't have a stigma, like 'Cutters' in Indiana. Cost money to live in State College. My God, corporations had conventions and retreats there. They had a big resort, Toff Trees, right on the edge of town. Jitney buses rode up and down the snow ploughed winter streets driving people west to the Blue Knob ski area. I went a few times.
Look how I wander. Look how I put things off. But I, uh, walked in there. The band was playing. People were dancing. Not so much dancing. More like standing and nodding and swaying to the music. Crystal Ship, I think it was. Band liked The Doors. The 'second' front man, Ronnie, was on. I figured Zodi was taking a break in the little room behind the D.J.'s place. Snaked back along the wall. Didn't want to interrupt the set. The corner where the D.J. set up was opposite the one where the band played. They didn't want D.J. stuff and band stuff to get mixed up. So I opened the door to that little room and went in. They didn't even notice. Just kept going at it... Like a whippet and a pudgy, little cocker spaniel humping in the street. That's what I thought. Then it hit me and I started to cry. I wasn't gonna be a singer. He didn't want me. He probably didn't want the cocker spaniel either, but I didn't realize that. He NEVER caught on that I was there. Just kept doing his exercises. That's what it looked like. Hip thrust. Hip thrust. Hip thrust. Like zumba, zumba. zumba! But I saw her open an eye. She knew I was there. Didn't phase her a bit. Just raised her flabby arm and gave me the finger. Now when the set ends, the place goes ,black for a heartbeat, or two , so I slipped out and left.
Auggie, the bartender, liked me. He said - What's wrong?... I just shook my head. Then I said - Gus, give me a bottle of wine. I'll pay you later... He nods. Hands me a Chablis. Not my favorite, but who the hell cared.
Did I go back to the dorm?... No, I walked down Allen Street, passed the movie house and left town... No more shops, or cute houses, or Christmas lights. Walked along a country road... a few houses here and there... a few Christmas lights. There were some, but mostly darkness and cold and quiet.
I unscrewed the cap and drank the wine. Didn't want anybody in town seeing me do that. So dry, like fancy vinegar. I had one of those nylon parkas with the wolf trimmed hoods. All the kids had them. Gets cold in central Pennsylvania. Had my scarf and my gloves and my knit cap. All cocooned in with my misery.... Got pretty drunk too. Started sobbing. Banged into a tree. Scraped my face on the bark. Kept going. Lost my balance and plopped down against the next tree. Had some more wine, hiccupped a few times, wiped my nose and fell asleep...
About an hour and a half later, I woke up shivering. He was standing over me. I saw the dark form of a man, outlined by the full moon. No vaporous exhalations rose up from his face. Was he breathing? I was too out of it to be scared. I said - What the hell do you want? Who the hell are you?... But he never answered. Just scooped me up, held me in his arms and walked off toward the woods. That's when I noticed he wasn't wearing a coat. That's when I felt the little pin pricks on my neck. That's when I fell back asleep....
Well, I thought it was sleep...
But I was drifting through something far different than that...
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Jonathon looked around what seemed to be like a vice-principal's office in some recently constructed suburban middle school. Who knows? Maybe it was? He sat in a green vinyl, roughly Queen Anne, visitor's chair. There was a matching green vinyl wing chair on the other side of the desk. It was turned around and he couldn't see who was in it. Jonathon cleared his throat. An empty gesture. Vampires don't have to do that. Whoever occupied the wing chair sighed and spun 'round..... Doctor Franklin said - Tah Dah!... Then he laughed. Jonathon didn't respond. He didn't look happy, but he didn't say a thing.... The newly minted, vampire-patriot, resplendent in his usual, green, Philadelphia Eagles sweat suit said - Please, dear boy, don't be like that. So I won and you didn't. What difference does that make? Look, the world's not a perfect place. People aren't as altruistic as you think they are, or as you pretend to think they are. That doesn't mean we can't change them, just via slightly more violent means. So much more direct. Look, think of it this way. You're Nicola Tesla. I'm Thomas Edison. The poet versus the engineer....
Jonathon still didn't respond.
Franklin said - You know, for a thousand year old specimen, you're still so God awful naïve. You're like Jefferson with his dream of a free and perfect, agrarian utopia. Can't you be a little more 'Hamilton?' Can't you just get things done in a direct, effective way that gets results?
That got a response.... Jonathon went - You mean like that girl in Korea? Tell me how successful she was. A new generation 'vampire' with superior sublimation abilities and I don't know what else. Oh, my God. The modern world is born. Is Aura like that? Excuse me, I mean (affected accent) 'Cressida.'
Franklin chuckled defensively. He said - You know how that ended. She never saw that pudgy bastard who owns the northern half. She never killed him. He still rules. Blah, blah, blah. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Now go to hell...
And in a quiet voice, our vampire hero said - How could you not realize 'the other side' wouldn't sit there and let us kill them? You know history. It's never worked. Did we get Hitler? Did we get Mao? They have their necromancers too....
Franklin interrupted - Nation to nation. Leader to leader. But there are ways to get through. Strike during peacetime. The element of surprise. We live and we learn....
Jonathon said - She never saw the leader. That Korean girl, I mean. She didn't even see a look-a-like. She saw a hologram. A fat, little hologram with a ridiculous haircut. They lured her into a lead lined room. Lead walls. Lead floor. Lead ceiling. Can't sublimate through lead. Everybody knows that. Then they filled the place up with more lead, in a molten form. Can you imagine how she suffered?... Jonathon looks at Franklin and goes - I think you can.
I doubted your capabilities - said Franklin. Your intelligence network is prodigious.
After one thousand years it would be - went our night-friend...
I suppose it would - said Franklin.
Where are we? - asked our friend.
That's not important - said Franklin. But the obvious thing is 'us.' You and me. We should work together. You want to change the world. I want to change the world. I don't know what that Marcus Aurelius thing wants to do. But between the two of us, we can control him. You knew it would come to this, but, no, you had to be difficult...
I guess that's just how I am - went Jonathon.
Then some girl came running in all agitated and crying because some creep threw her off the roof of the auditorium. But she was just a ghost. Jonathon told her God loves her. She stuck her tongue out at him and made a face. He said a prayer. She disappeared. Franklin laughed...
The two vampires sublimated out through the wall into the chill, damp night.... Jonathon looked back and said - You left the lights on.... Franklin said - I don't pay the bills...
And they walked off through the trees...
When they were gone, someone else turned them off...
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They have all kinds a little country roads around Atlantic City. Not on the island itself, but over the bridge and through the marshland. Air still feels like the shore, but you can't see the ocean. Sure, folks know the Atlantic City Expressway, The Garden State Parkway and all them. But folks what know, ride the Black Horse Pike, or the White Horse Pike. They got two lanes in each direction, no sidewalks and lots a old timey custard stands, farm markets, places what sell all kinds a hubcaps, burger place with a giant, country boy, Mad Magazine guy standin' over it and woods... lots a thick, mostly pine woods comin' right up to the edge and sometimes reachin' out over it.
Then we got the smaller roads, one lane in each direction cuttin' through little truck farm villages (really just stretch a highway with few houses and a tiny convenience store on it)... some horse farms... few sheep places. One or two a the houses is murder scenes, but old ones, not fresh ones. Road crosses baby rivers and every place you look got lots a trees.
See, most of Jersey ain't 'Joisey.' That just a New York thing. South Jersey do have a lot a Philadelphia suburbs, nice ones too, with big malls and delicatessens and decorator kitchen showrooms and beautician-like plastic surgery joints in country-lookin' houses with green lawns, but that New Yawk thing is far, far away on the other side a the Jersey Pines, if you don't count Route 73, or Route 70, or Route 38, or Route 130, or 295, or ...well you get the picture.
But we're following witch gal, Anabella (from The Pines) and that salesman guy. They outside Atlantic City... well, fifteen or twenty miles outside Atlantic City. They got lots a blueberry farms out that way. Some roads got cranberry bogs, but not this one. This one just got the blueberries.
Salesman drive a two thousand and three Ford Taurus. It all shined up, but it still a almost seventeen year old Ford Taurus. Salesman know this, but Anabella don't, 'cause car ridin' ain't a regular thing with her. Folks in the Pines sets they asses in old, pick-up trucks, farm wagons (like a Jeep an' a teeny motorized cart had a baby) and mostly live horses and mules. Once she rode in a ambulance, but it was a old fashioned, hearse kind an' she was out cold, 'cause a mule foot clipped her head.
She say - Where we goin'?..... He say - We goin' for pizza. That like an Eye-talian grilled cheese sandwich wit little hot dogs cut up on it. You hungry?.... She go - Hell, yeah, I'm hungry. But none a that mushin' up stuff till after we eat, 'cause I ain't no whore.... He go - Uh huh.... Then nobody talks and they just ride. She see a temporary, seasonal Halloween costume store. She see a little place what sells pressed ham, American cheese, soft pretzels and cans a soda. She sees a gas station... a spooky lookin' doll hospital...a old lady tryin' a give away a angry, little, screechin' monkey in a homemade Hitler suit. Monkey don't like no mustache and keep rippin' it off, but that ruin half the effect.... Salesman guy go - You want that monkey? I get it for you?.... Witch gal say - No...( Some people fussy).... Salesman go - I like your dress... She say - Thank you. I made it myself. Took a orange, nylon extra large, men's tank top an' stretched it out so it'd be long and then I found a sequined belt on a dead baton twirlin' girl layin' in the swamp. (salesman guy's mouth twitch a little)
More quiet ridin'... Then she put her hand on his knee. They go a little faster. He gotta jam on the brakes, or he shoot by that pizza place. He scoot round a her side and let her out. That when he see she ain't got no drawers on. Ain't got no brassiere on either.... jus' her stretched out, nylon tank top an' that sequined belt from the swamp.
Folks let pizza grease run down they chins and jus' look when she walk in, 'cause she so beautiful and partially exposed an' all...
Owner turn the air on real strong, 'cause he accommodating that way...
And we really do want a tell you more tonight, but it is just about 3AM here. Billy's still woozy from chest cold potions and other nostrums . He's the one who channels this. Plus there's lousy snack stuff in the kitchen, not no honey glazed turkey-ham, or honey-mustard-onion pretzel bits, or nothin' with honey. or even salt... jus' crappy cookies and crappy cookies and crappy cookies... so with your kind indulgence... more next time.
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