Joe Vampire

POST 30



That Joe and the Do-Gooder



If you’ve ever had a friendship go sour, then met up again by surprise with said friend while things were still in the crap stage, you know the feeling that comes with an unexpected reunion. The strange tension as you forget for a second that things aren’t kosher between the two of you, the odd way you instinctively start to pick up where you left off as if nothing ever happened. The gut churning befuddlement of wanting to hook your arm around his neck, ask him what’s up and head for the cooler to get your six-pack to split… just before your stupid, grudge-holding brain reminds you that this isn’t someone you do stuff like that with anymore.

That’s where I was.

It was all just one big ball of confusion.

“Hey, Joe.” Hube looked me straight in the Ray Bans. I was thrown off a little by his friendliness until I realized that I was the one who was ticked at him, and not the other way around. I guess I thought he’d be mad that I’d blown him off for so long. If he was, he hid it well.

“Hey, man.” I kept it sort of cold. Not hard to do considering my permanently lowered body temperature.

And my sustained bitterness.

“How are things?” he asked.

I know he wasn’t trying to make me uncomfortable, but it happened anyway. Here I was in my rumpled, pseudo-stylish date clothes, with my shirt half-untucked, fangs at full-staff, hiding my light-sensitive eyes behind a pair of shades, with wine stink still lingering around me like rancid aftershave. There was probably a stain on my pants, too, somewhere right around the crotch area, left behind by my still-deflating wood. I looked like I’d fallen off of a park bench coming down from a three-day drunk. He’d seen me in far worse condition, but still… it felt weird. I might have been imagining the disappointment in his eyes, but I don’t think so. “Things are… things. Y’know. Same ol’, same ol’.” There was no word cloud for this.

“You let the fangs grow in?” He motioned to my teeth.

I felt like I should cover them up, but I just left them there in all their glory. “Not on purpose. It just sort of… happened. Earlier tonight.”

“Oh.” He eyed my bags full of chops and cutlets. “That’s… a lot of beef. Are you feeling okay?”

This horrible rush of bitterness pushed through me, helped along by the Cabernet and the happenings of the evening, I’m sure. Here I was, one foot in each world, trying my damnedest to negotiate a decent life somewhere between my old self and my new self, holding on as much as I could to the man I used to be while not letting the creature I had been turned into take over every aspect of me. How could he ask something like that having watched my descent into vampiredom? Right before his eyes I’ve become even less than less-than, some hopeless sub-species that doesn’t get a real name or a page in the science books. I have no idea how long it will be until this hateful affliction totally mows me over, or what it will look like when it’s all said and done. And there’s Hube, not three feet in front of me, healthy and hearty and whole.

And human. All the way.

Everything I used to be, and everything I wanted to be again.

I don’t think I realized it until that moment, but God, I resented him.

That bottle deep inside that Louise is always trying to get me to open finally popped its cork. “Am I feeling okay? Are you f*cking kidding me? No, I’m not feeling okay. I crave blood, Hube – real, live people blood, all the time. But rather than running out and neck-f*cking transients or biting vampire groupies, I suck the juices out of raw animal flesh instead. Have you ever tried it to see what it’s like, maybe just to get an idea of what I go through every day? Don’t bother, because I can tell you exactly how it is: it’s f*cking disgusting. I have ears that have grown into points, f*cking fangs where my teeth used to be, and zero chance of carrying on a normal relationship with a woman – ever!” I couldn’t believe what I was saying, even while I was saying it. But I just kept going. “I’ve rearranged everything – my job, my habits, my entire f*cking life, just to make sure my skin doesn’t burn off when I go outside. I use a power tool to grind my teeth down to nubs twice a day to keep from looking like a goddamned freak, and I can’t take these stupid glasses off for a minute without feeling like I’m going blind from a full-on assault by every speck of light in the whole f*cking world.” I whipped off the Ray Bans. The fluorescent flicker in the store was excruciating, but I left them off and stared into his face so he could see what I look like now, jet black irises and all. He didn’t look away. “If I’m lucky I get three hours sleep a night; if I’m not lucky, I get none. I work a shit job for a shit company to pay for my nothing of a shit life, and I’m never going to do any better than this because I’m a f*cking vampire! Ask me again in about a hundred years when all of This still has its dick up my ass. Maybe I’ll be feeling okay by then, but I’d have to guess my answer will still be the same.” He just stood there, letting me launch all over him. This was not like me at all when it came to Hube. We’ve had disagreements in the past, over some pretty stupid, small-potatoes stuff. Sometimes it was about girls; sometimes music. Twenty four years of friendship can’t be level all the time. But I’ve never talked to him like that before, like he wasn’t worth an ounce of respect from me.

And he just took it all.

And when I was done, all he said was, “What the hell has happened to you?” He didn’t even raise his voice.

“I think I just made it pretty clear.”

He shook his head. “No; all you did was tell me a bunch of shit I already know. I want to know what happened to you – to Joe.”

I didn’t know what else to tell him. “This is me now, Hube; all me. This is Joe.”

“No… no, it’s not. The Joe I’m talking about was going to give being a vampire his middle finger and tell it to sit the f*ck back down because it isn’t any more important than anything else in his life; he didn’t want to feel sorry for himself because he had to put in a little extra effort to keep his shit under control. The Joe I’m talking about was determined not to become something he didn’t want to be, by whatever means necessary. He knew what he was in for, he was ready to face it head on, and he was damn sure not going to be taken under by something as crazy as this. But you’re not that Joe; I don’t know who you even are. It’s like that Joe just gave up and handed his balls over to the vampire without even putting up anything close to a fight.”

What? “I put up my fight, Hube! I’ve been putting up my fight every goddamned day since this happened! I told this shit to back the f*ck off, and do you know what it did? It came at me twice as hard, twice as fast and kicking the crap out of me the whole way!” I put my glasses back on. “I fought it; I didn’t win. So I’m making the most of it now. Playing the cards I was dealt.”

Oh, shit.

That was Don’s line.

Hube just sighed. “So have you bitten anyone yet?”

He really went for the throat with that one – a fair shot, considering how I’d gone for his throat with everything else. But even as I read it coming out of his mind the second before he said it, I couldn’t believe he’d asked me that. So I fired back in kind. “No… but I’m getting awfully close.”

He shook his head. “You know what I think?”

“Can’t wait to hear it.”

“I think you’re afraid of trying to kick this shit – really trying, not just doing it halfway like everything else you do. Things get a little rough for you, and you bolt. You’ve always been like this – with work, with the band. With women. With everything. If it doesn’t go your way all the time, you just throw up your hands and quit. That’s why there’s a permanent carpet dent in the shape of your ass under your coffee table.”

Wow. It made sense that he knew the absolute truth about me. But hell if I was going to admit it. “You haven’t been living my life; you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you’re choosing to let this vampire thing define you; I know that’s really the last thing you want. And I know that you need help to fight it. You can’t do it all by yourself.”

Now I knew how patronized the homeless guy outside of Don’s place must have felt.

F*cking do-gooder.

“Yeah, well, I thought I had someone to help me. Turns out he wasn’t entirely trustworthy.”

I can be a real dick sometimes.

Hube didn’t let it faze him. “You’re right. I was wrong to tell Lazer, and I am sorry down to the bottom of my goddamned soul for it. Maybe you won’t believe this, but I bust my own ass over it every day, wishing I could take it all back. I’ve been trying to apologize, but you won’t let me. And I’m f*cking right here, dude, right now. I’ll do anything it takes to help you get through this – anything. Somewhere under all the vampire shit, that Joe knows it’s true, even if This Joe doesn’t want to hear it.”

For a second I considered how not-that-bad what he’d done actually was: he told one person – one – and it was someone we both knew. Granted, Lazer was a total loser, and true, he may have blabbed about me to Iris, and maybe a few others who didn’t even know who I was, let alone care what I was. But it’s not like Hube had posted it on Craigslist. What I should have done at that point was let it drop, and spend the rest of the night reconnecting with the one true ally I had in the world.

What I did instead was fingerhooked all my bags and pushed my way past him without making eye contact.

“It’s all good, Hubert,” I told him, moving toward my van with my deli cuts in tow. “There’s really nothing for you to worry about. If you see Lazer, tell him I still say ‘f*ck you’. And keep your mouth shut about the vampire shit, please. I don’t need any more crap to deal with.”

Hube raised his voice behind me. I think I had finally worn through his patience. “You got it, boss man. I won’t mention you ever again – to anyone.”

Whoa. That stung.

I know I deserved it. But even being able to read his mind, I didn’t expect it.

I shouldn’t have unloaded on him like that, no matter how bent out of shape I was. The guy made one lousy mistake, but somehow I just couldn’t find it within myself to forgive him and let it go. All he’d ever done was try to help me figure everything out, and he’d done the best job anyone could have hoped for under such bizarre circumstances. I thought it through on the ride home, between screaming about it into the steering wheel and trying to steady my shaking hands. If Hube and I were still as we had been, he’d be where I’d have gone to blow up about someone else. He would have known my yelling wasn’t about him; it was about Bastard X, and he wouldn’t have taken it personally. He would have known exactly where I was coming from, and he’d let me have my fit. He would’ve even joined in on the bashing until I had cooled off, and we’d have laughed about the whole thing afterward. And if the situation were reversed, I would have done the same for him. That’s just how we are.

How we were, I mean.

I don’t even know if we are anything at this point.

Reading it back now, the way I treated Hube might just be my low point with the vampire experience thus far. Maybe even worse than the shitting and the sucker f*cker date thing. He was trying to help me, and I was trying to hurt him in return. I wouldn’t blame him if he never forgave me for it.

It would serve me right for being such a prick.