Joe Vampire

POST 35



Buds



After throwing aside the lies long enough to share the reality of This with someone outside of my tiny posse, I had a slight case of Truth Teller’s Remorse – especially considering that the recipient of this particular truth was someone whose original intention was to murder me. But since Bo now knows all about the guy who puts the Joe in Joe Vampire, I figured it might be better to keep him close by as much as possible; if nothing else, it’ll help me control the spread of information about me outside the cybersphere.

Only on the internet does it make sense for you to share your secret shit with whoever wants to know while still trying to keep it on the Q.T. from the real world.

As the Pire Hunter had pointed out in such an animated, object lesson-y manner, my blog had some serious security oversights… such as not having any security whatsoever. So I took him up on his offer to tighten the screws and lock things down on the blog. I can Google something righteous when searching for interesting nothingness, but I’m nobody’s hacker. And my Truth in Search formula may be pretty slick but it is strictly desktop business; it doesn’t require any in-depth knowledge about code or programming or how to manage any business that might fall in the behind-the-curtain category. So I know now that if Bo the Hunter was able to get all up in my digital world with a flick of his overly thick wrist, then any half-wit technobe with an Android, ten minutes to kill and a definitive hatred of vampires could easily track all the way back to me through a worm hole or time warp, or whatever advanced computists call it when they work their evil magic. Not everyone out there is going to understand what I have to say or what I’m going through, and an even smaller subset of those individuals is going to be as easily convinced by my charms as Bo was to back off. Pretty sad that as soon as you happen to develop some feature that makes you different from everyone else, chances are you automatically have someone hating on you for it. It was naïve of me not to realize this from the beginning. Sometimes I just have to learn the hard way.

But one silly wank busting into my house was lesson enough for me.

And by the way, I told him all about this entry. Not sure how much he understood, but knows I called him a wank. He thought it was funny.

After I explained what it meant.

Whatever Bo might lack in vocabulary he more than makes up for in technicity. He says he learned it all from You Tube. Still, it all makes sense to him without even having to think about it. He may never crack open a dictionary, and his library card may be used mostly to scrape dried bugs off the windshield of his four-by-four, but he can load the code like it’s going out of style, and drop HTML bombs like nobody’s business. I probably didn’t say those right.

See how little I know about this stuff?

That’s why I had him throw some major cyber defense around the blog – firewalls, spycatchers. A moat filled with digital sharks and robot alligators. The works. I was so grateful to have his help, I even paid him for it.

In Budweiser. And occasionally pizza, too.

It’s all he would take.

Beyond earning his beer by tricking out my blog to keep out intruders, he seems to like hanging out around here. I’m not always the most engaging of company, but I think he might be a little lonely, and I can certainly relate. Even though it only took him a weekend to get the firewalls in place, he kept showing up after that… every morning… just as I was getting home from work. It’s not like I had anything else going on, anyway. Good thing I can get by on little to no sleep. Not sure how he explains his absence to his old lady, though.

His name for her, not mine.

Aside from his techno-wonder wizardry, he’s an all-around master when it comes to fix-it stuff and the home-centric odd job, which was his other business before he took up vampire hunting. Which is now his defunct business, thanks to me. But jobs of any kind have been sort of few and far between for him recently, and seeing as how my blog wasn’t the only thing that could use some straightening up, he started offering to fix my real walls in addition to my firewalls. So I’ve had him do a few minor repairs and spruce-ups around the house, things I’m either too busy, too lazy, or too lacking in skill to take care of myself. Like refinishing the hallway he sort of ruined with his Spidey Climbing, and the living room wall I pushed him into… the one that now bears the impression of his profile. And his gut. I figure it’s easier to get it all taken care of now, before it starts blending in and just becomes part of the décor. I help him out with stuff as much as I can, if for no reason other than to pull my weight and to not feel like a total slack. It also gives me something relatively humdrum to think about instead of dwelling on the battle scarring that’s built up on my increasingly unrealistic life. As it turns out, Bo is quite an awesome handyman. And I am really good at passing him tools.

And beer.

We chat a little, too, about more than just drywall and spackle. “Do you like being a vampire?” he asked me one day.

“You hacked the blog, Bo. Didn’t you read it?”

I think I embarrassed him. “Nah… reading’s not really my thing.

“Then, nope – I don’t like being a vampire. The super strength thing is pretty bomb, and I get a lot more TV time in not being able to sleep as much as I used to. But everything else sucks.” If I could have said it like that from the beginning, I’d have saved myself a shitload of blogging by now.

Bo liked the strength thing, too. “Yeah… if I was strong like you, I’d be picking up heavy stuff all the time just to show off.”

“You’re pretty strong without being a vampire, Bo.”

“Not like you, though… you’re like WWE strong.” Okay. If you say so. “I’d totally want you having my back in a bar fight.”

I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before. There’s never really been a reason to. Still, I was sort of touched. “If that were ever to happen, I would do my best.”

Once the topic had been broached, he was none too shy about asking everything. “What about biting people? That’s pretty nasty, isn’t it? I can’t even stand the taste of blood when I bite my own lip.”

“Don’t know. I’ve never bitten anyone… and if I have anything to say about it, I never will.” I told him about the meat thing. He looked like he wanted to puke.

“That’s nasty, Joe.”

“Yes it is, Bo. Yes it is.”

“And if no one ever sticks you in the heart with a stake – sorry again for trying to pull that shit on you, by the way – then you’ll live forever, huh?”

I thought of Don – or rather, of his headless, tattooed corpse – lying in a field, and on a slab in the morgue. Pretty extreme, but no stake required for that slaying. Easier just to not say anything about it. “Could be.”

During these talks I’m like the Louise, the one with all the answers, and Bo is like me, with one question after another. It’s all good, though… sort of helps me keep things clear in my own head, and to reinforce what I hope I’ve learned from her. And I think Bo likes having someone to talk to, even if it’s all about vampires. I think I like it, too.

Don’t get me wrong; he’s no Hube.

But it’s nice to have a dude friend to hang out with, even if we have nothing in common.

Other than the property damage we caused together, of course.

The questions have gotten more personal as of late. “How’s your old lady feel about you being all fangy like you are? That’s gotta hurt when you take the action downtown… ”

I laughed so hard when he asked me that, Bud shot out of my nose. “I don’t have an old lady, so I’ve never gotten to try the downtown action with the fangs.” I really hoped by “old lady” he meant girlfriend, and not mother.

Either way, the answer would be “no”.

“Get out! You don’t have an old lady?” That’s it, Bo… just rub it in.

“Not at the moment.” Not in many moments, actually.

“We need to find you some sweet lady love, Joe Vampire! Super-strong stud like you can’t just hang around the house being all single and shit. There must be a thousand pretty little things out there just waiting for you to come along and sweep them off their feet.”

I had put the thought of Chloe aside as much as I could lately, but the ghost of our non-existent romance still hovered nearby. “Someone’s sitting kind of heavy in my heart right now. Until I get past her, I think I’m stuck where I am.”

He didn’t seem to think it was as complicated as I did. “Does she know you like her?”

“Yeah, she knows.” I think.

“Is she a vampire, too?” He was suddenly in eHarmony mode.

“No. I hear that doesn’t work out too well.”

“Is she banging someone else?”

Oh, brother – the imagery of that. “She’s engaged to another guy.”

“So they’re not married yet?”

“Not that I’ve heard.” God, I hope not.

“Then go get her.”

What? Just like that? “I can’t just go get her.”

“Why not? You like her; she ain’t married to the guy. She might just be riding on his donkey until something better comes along.” Great – more imagery. I might need a hypnotist to get this shit out of my head. “Sounds like you just need to try a little bit, Joe. She might like riding your donkey better. You should just try.” Holy cow. That wasn’t wisdom by any means. It was even better; it was common freaking sense. And yet I hadn’t done it.

Why hadn’t I done it?

Oh. That’s right. “She doesn’t know I’m a vampire.” That’s why.

“So tell her.”

Tell her, he says.

Think about this: the woman you believe you might be thoroughly in love with, someone with whom you’ve flirted hard core for what feels like a thousand years but is really only a little over one, finally lets you know in the form of a get well card that she might have the same feelings for you, too. Then, instead of actually getting well as the card had suggested, you find out you’re a vampire – permanently – and she moves on with someone you thought she was preparing to dump in order to move on with you instead, all before you even have a chance to tell her exactly how deep your feelings are or give her a chance to tell you what she meant by We should talk… Would it seem sensible for you to then explain to her about your supernatural condition, thereby throwing yet another monkey wrench into a works already fairly littered with other wrenches? Or would you opt instead to not have her think of you as a freak of nature for the rest of her life, just throw up your hands in resignation and let things between you die without saying anything?

No, really – this isn’t a rhetorical question. I’m looking for an answer.

I don’t have one.

Bo seems to think I should do it, just throw caution to the wind and out myself, and see what happens from there. So does Louise. She said as much when I told her all about how Bo and I came to be buds.

That part she wasn’t thrilled with.

“First of all,” she started in, all protective and maternal, “and I’m a bit surprised to have to say this, but I would warn you against spending time with someone who originally broke into your house to kill you. Even if you weren’t a vampire, that’s not a very good idea.”

“Yeah, I hear you. But we’re past that now, and it’s turned out for the better. He’s actually a good guy… all things considered.”

I don’t know if she believed that entirely, but she could have peeked into my head and seen that it was true if she wanted to. “Secondly, I think I would have to agree with Bo. If you feel as strongly about Chloe as you seem to – and, let’s not kid ourselves here, you won’t be moving on with your life anytime soon if you don’t clear this hurdle – then you owe it to yourself, and to her, to tell her the truth about how you feel… and the truth about being what you are. It’s only fair.” Only fair? None of this has been only fair, not for a flipping nanosecond. “And after you tell her, I think it’s about time you tell your family.” Them, too?

I didn’t argue too much, because I knew she was right. As always. If I was waiting for the right time to do it, I would probably be waiting forever.

Not that this wasn’t a possibility. But it wouldn’t solve anything, either.

“If you don’t want the vampire to take over your life, “then you need to take your life back from the vampire.”

Damn, Louise.

If you ever decide to give up knitting and playing Push the Button, I think there’s a real future for you in writing supernatural fortune cookies.

So now, in addition to sharing my weirdness with a vampire hunter – or reformed vampire hunter, rather – I’m seriously thinking about how to tell Chloe everything that’s been going on, and let her in on exactly how I feel about her. I don’t know if I can muster enough honest forthrightness for all of that in a single swing, but the more I consider it, the more I feel like I have nothing to lose. I’m essentially on my own at this point; that doesn’t just go away all by itself. And I was ready to lay it all on the table with her before, back when I thought things were in my favor; after everything I’ve been through, it can’t be all that much more difficult now… can it?

Maybe it can.

As you can tell, I’m still on the fence.

And thanks to the little skirmish between Bo and me, I’ve lost the comfort of having a coffee table to crawl under if it doesn’t work… although it is next up on his fix-it list. But that’s not the point. The point is I think this might be as good a time as any to clear the air, to speak my peace and let the chips fall where they may, if that’s not mixing too many metaphors. Maybe, ready or not, it’s the right time to finally talk to Chloe – talk talk, not just office flirtation or polite chitchat. But talking to my family? There’ll be a lot more prep work before I can make that happen for real.

Those people are a whole different box of crazy to deal with.

Let’s see how it goes with Girl No. 3 first.