Vampire High Sophomore Year

15



But whatever Turk didn’t like, she had no cause for complaint on Sunday. She complained anyway, of course. But the jenti tore through the second and third floors of the mill all morning while Turk told them they were doing it all wrong, and Gregor told her to kindly shut up.

An avalanche of junk came through the windows and bounced and crashed onto the ground around the mill. By noon, the outside looked like a yard sale at an insane asylum, but inside the floors were clear and you had a sense of just how big this building really was.

“Not so ugly now,” Gregor said.

“It feels like something could happen here, all right,” I said.

“It will,” Turk said, passing out brooms. “It had better. Sweep, creeps.”

We knocked down cobwebs, swept the floor three times, and dusted the walls. The funny thing was, it started to feel like fun. We broke up into two teams without anyone saying, “Hey, let’s break up into two teams!” Turk, Gregor, and Constantin were one. The other was Ilie, Vladimir, and me. We each took half the long room and tried to beat the other getting done first.

When we were finished with that, we took a break for drinks.

“These walls are good brick,” Vladimir said, wiping his mouth. “Washed and scrubbed, they would be handsome.”

“We don’t have a ladder that long,” Turk said. “I’ll have to get one.”

Vladimir jumped to the top of a wall and hung there by one hand, clutching the bricks.

“You have brush and water, please?” he said.

“Brushes, sure, but no water yet,” Turk said. “We can’t go running down to the river for a bucket every few minutes.”

“There is water,” Gregor said. “Or was once. See, there are sinks along that wall.”

There were six sinks about the size of wading pools. Gregor walked over to one and tried to turn the taps. Constantin, Vladimir, Ilie, Turk, and I all joined him at the other sinks. They were like iron. Actually, I suppose, they were iron. Anyway, they didn’t want to move. We all stood there grunting and twisting, and finally one of Ilie’s let go. Then one of Gregor’s. In a few more minutes, every one of the jenti’s faucets was twirling back and forth like it was 1930 again. Turk’s and mine were still frozen solid.

“You permit me to try?” Constantin said to me.

Gregor just walked over to Turk and stood beside her.

“Take your best shot,” she said, giving up.

Gregor and Constantin growled deep in their throats and leaned on the taps, and in a minute they had rejoined the Land of the Working.

Then we all went outside to the shutoff valve.

The shutoff valve was big enough that two of us could get on it at once. Gregor and Vladimir tried to turn it, and it was interesting to watch. I’d never seen jenti faces get so red before. They made space for Constantin and Ilie. That valve didn’t even budge.

Finally, when they were looking exhausted, I said, “I know I only have the body of a weak and feeble gadje, but let me in there,” and they did.

If this was supposed to be the part where my one little extra bit of strength made the difference, somebody forgot to tell somebody about it. Pretty soon, I was as wiped out as they were.

We all lay on dry grass and panted.

Turk walked over and looked at it.

“Oh, man,” she said. “Wouldn’t you know it?”

“What’s the matter?” I said. “Apart from the fact that nothing’s working.”

Turk didn’t answer. She just leaned all her weight on the valve and made grunting sounds. Then the valve gave a short skreak and began to move.

“Somebody stuck a British fitting on the pipe,” she said. “It turns the other way.”

“You are joking,” Gregor said. “Anyway, how do you recognize such a thing?”

“I do art,” Turk said. “I did a whole network of pipes and faucets once and entered it in a show in Seattle. Called it Water You Doing. Great title. Didn’t win, though.”

“You have been—intelligent,” Gregor said, dragging the words out of himself.

“Duh.” Turk shrugged.

From inside the mill came a sound like dragons roaring, trying to get out.

“What is such noise?” Vladimir said.

I swear he jumped.

“Air in the pipes,” I said.

“Let’s go see our water,” Turk said.

Inside, the faucets were trembling and spitting, coming back to life one at a time. Water came spewing out in brown, angry jolts, along with grumbling air that hadn’t moved in seventy years or more.

“You know, some of these drains could be clogged,” I said.

“Thought of it, Cuz,” Turk said. She produced a plunger and stood there holding it like a scepter.

Sure enough, the sink right in front of us began to back up.

“Permit me?” Constantin said, and held out his hand.

“Sure,” Turk said, handing him the plunger.

Constantin worked the plunger up and down and side to side, and gave a heave that sent water flying all over us.

The drain gulped greedily, and the water went down in the most beautiful swirl I’d ever seen.

In an hour, the air was gone from the pipes and the water was running clean. Relatively clean. Almost clean. Clean enough for what we had to do next, which was wash the walls.

You have no idea how fast four jenti can wash the walls of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old New England mill unless you’ve seen them do it. Room by room and floor by floor they scrubbed. None of them spoke except to call for another bucket. Turk and I ran buckets of fresh water to them while they hung on the walls, one or two to each, and made long, sweeping strokes that changed the color of the bricks to dark, warm red.

Vladimir licked one of the bricks and said, “Not bad. If it were made of blood, I would like it.”

By now it was getting dark inside the mill. We closed everything up. By the time we were done, the sun was throwing patterns of squares all the way across the bottom floor. They made our half-done wigwam glow.

“I never thought it was going to be this easy,” Turk said.

“Not so easy,” Gregor said, looking at his fingers. “But well done.”

A car crossed the bridge and pulled up in front of us. A city car. The twin snakes of New Sodom were painted on the door.

A pudgy guy with a pleasant face got out. He had a piece of paper in his hand.

“You the homesteaders?” he said.

“I am. We are,” I said, jerking my head toward Turk.

“This is for you, then,” the pudgy guy said, and slapped the paper into my hand.

“What is it?” Turk said.

At the top of the paper were the words NOTICE TO CLEAN PREMISES. Below was some legalese telling me that my property was an eyesore and a health hazard, which was true enough, and giving me thirty days to clean the property or lose my claim. Only the word thirty had been crossed out, and the word three written in above it.

“This is kind of an interesting old form,” the guy said. “I’ve never delivered one like it. You guys are the first homesteaders I ever cited.”

“You know,” Turk said, “this place doesn’t look too different from the other ones around here. Do they all get citations, too?”

“No.” The guy shrugged. “There’s nobody responsible for most of ’em. Nobody we can find. But you guys are here, and you’re responsible.”

“Did you cross out this number?” I asked, pointing to the three.

“Not me,” the guy said. “I just deliver ’em. Rain or shine, weekdays or Sundays.”

“But why is it crossed out at all?” I said.

“Everything happens faster these days,” the guy said. “Back when this form was printed, a month was probably like three days now.”

“We need an extension,” I said.

“Oh, you get that down at the department,” the guy said. “The thing is, it takes thirty days to process a request. And you’ve only got three, so—” He shrugged.

Vladimir growled.

The guy lost his grin and backed toward his car.

“Well, good luck,” he said, and drove off, bouncing over the potholes and looking back over his shoulder.

“I get the feeling somebody doesn’t like us,” Turk said.

“Nobody likes you,” I said.

“Big joke,” Turk said.

“He is right. Nobody likes you,” Gregor said, and his guys snickered.

Turk ignored them.

I looked down toward the trees at the river’s edge. Somebody was watching this place for sure. Somebody who had enough clout to get a guy from city hall to come out on Sunday with a carefully modified citation.

“There’s only one thing we can do,” I said. “We have got to get this place cleaned up. We need Dumpsters. Anybody know anything about getting Dumpsters?”

“They cost hundreds of dollars,” Turk said. “I rented one once for an art piece. Wiped out my budget.”

I looked at the piles of junk around us. Some of them stood higher than my head.

“We’re going to need at least ten big ones,” Turk said. “I could maybe afford six.”

“I can get the rest,” Gregor said.

“Like hell,” Turk said. “I don’t want to owe you anything.”

She turned to me. “Want to buy my car?”

“Not even if I had the money,” I said.

Gregor was looking at Turk like she’d slapped him, which she pretty much had. “You are a stupid, arrogant girl,” he said.

“I don’t take favors from anybody,” Turk said.

“It is not a favor,” Gregor said. “I want to keep my rooms here. That will be hard now that someone knows—that the city knows—”

“This is about those marks, isn’t it?” I said.

“Never mind,” Gregor said. “You want no favors, and I give you none. But I will buy your worthless car for whatever price is fair. And please do not think for one moment that I do this for you, stupid gadje cow.”

Turk looked down at the ground. “All right, damn it. Three thousand.”

“Done,” Gregor said. “You will have the money tomorrow. But can all this be cleaned so quickly?”

“It’ll have to be, or we lose this place,” I said. “Are you guys willing to skip school?”

This was like asking jenti if they wanted to go swimming at the beach. They just didn’t do it.

Gregor turned to Vladimir, Ilie, and Constantin. “We will get these Dumpsters, and you will all join me. We will forget school for that day.”

“Forget school?” Ilie said.

“All day?” Vladimir said.

“Like gadje?” Constantin said.

“Exactly like gadje,” Gregor said. “This is for Burgundy,” he added.

Then he walked over to them and put his hand straight out.

“Burgundy,” he repeated.

“Burgundy,” Ilie said, putting his hand on top of Gregor’s.

“Burgundy,” Constantin said, slapping his hand down on Ilie’s.

“Burgundy,” Vladimir said, and put his hand on top of the stack.

“Burgundy, Burgundy, Burgundy, Burgundy,” they chanted.

It sounded like they were trying to get served in a wine bar.

Turk held out her car keys.

“Want to take a test-drive?” she said.

“That will not be necessary,” Gregor said. “I plan to resell your vehicle as soon as I own it.”

Turk turned away and headed toward her car.

I followed.

“I’ll call as soon as I’ve got the Dumpsters lined up,” I said to Gregor.

“We will be ready,” he said.

As we drove back over the bridge, I said, “Just in case you’re wondering, I have no idea what that Burgundy stuff was about.”

Turk didn’t answer. She didn’t talk all the way home. I think she was saying good-bye to her car.