Annie of the Undead (13 page)

After you’ve checked your neck and found it to
be free of laceration, you do a frantic assessment of the rest of
your body, and when you find yourself by all accounts unmolested,
you sit very still and you breathe. You feel your heart beating.
Then you take a deep breath and you sigh. You have not been
changed. You are not a vampire, and though you don’t know it, the
very fact that you woke questioning the state of your substance
makes it real obvious that you’re not. You’re still a living,
sweating, eating, pissing human, and as you sit there in the dark
next to that awesome, ageless creature, somehow, you’re not sure
whether or not that pleases you.

Maybe you feel like a criminal because of some
of the things you did that put you in bed with a vampire. Maybe
you’ve taken on a sociopathic mindset because you know where you’re
going, and in a way you’ve already checked out of the world,
whether or not immortality lies beyond that door.

Maybe you feel like that. I did. What filled me
then was an imperative, an urgency, the strongest I had ever felt
in my life. It was strong as the need to be loved by that first
junior high school crush, who my affection-starved psyche, pegged
as the one who was going to save my life. It was as strong as the
need to run like hell during any perilous moment of my former life
spent before the leveled barrel of some fool’s shotgun. It was
mighty as the most powerful sexual urge, the most compelling fight
or flight response. I wanted it all then, the power, the freedom,
the immortality, the inviolable good health, the surety that my
future would have far better to offer than my past. I even wanted
the special justification for aggressive appetites I thought I
already had. I wanted, needed, then, to be a vampire.

And I knew then, in the dark of the slave’s
quarters, that I had work to do.

Miguel had gone hunting after our stroll. After
his return all fresh and rosy, we spent the remainder of the night
talking about the present, the past, and the future. I had learned
a great deal, including just why he wanted me to be a vampire, and
just how dangerous it would be for me to try. In short, I could
die.

Apparently, becoming a vampire wasn’t all that
easy. Simple, yes, but not easy. In short, you had to get drained
nearly to death –like one shallow breath away, then suck the hell
out of a well-fed, sufficiently old vampire.

How difficult was this process, I had asked?
More humans died than made it, Miguel had said. Most were not
strong enough, or not well enough prepared. What do I need to do to
prepare, to be strong? Be fit. Practice drinking vampire blood. Is
that safe, drinking vampire blood? Safer than drinking raw blood.
It got sterilized, apparently, inside vampire veins.

So we had practiced, right then and there, on
the bed in the Banana Grove. I had to keep my teeth in his flesh at
all times, else, as he had fed recently, his veins would heal shut,
and I had to suck hard –No heart to pump it out. Oh, and vampire
blood tastes like shit to mortals.

The result? I managed to get to the toilet
before puking it back up.

And how much had I drunk? About a measuring cup,
Miguel had said. Not enough.

So it would take some practice. We would work on
that.

The other thing I had to work on was getting
fit. I’d already nearly lost the ten pounds I’d gained in jail
during our chaotic flight and my illness, but I was far from fit. I
was a fighter. I knew what fit was, and I wasn’t it.

And I now set out on a mission to get
ferociously fit.

I needed to guard incapacitated Miguel until he
could mingle his blood with that of his ex-lover and disappear from
cult radar. I therefore could not get far from our room during
daylight hours. That was okay. I could lift weights.

The slaves’ quarters were not exactly the place
to hear the Rocky theme running in your head, but they would have
to do. We snuck a set of free weights into our room. Then I went to
town. I did calisthenics, stretches, and everything else I could
think of in that small space. Endurance seemed to be key in
surviving the transition, so I circuit trained in six square
feet.

When night came, I got out and ran through the
French Quarter while Miguel hunted, dodging people like I was in a
pinball game. I charged past drunk people, mule carts, and a guy
waving an American flag and wearing board that said “Good Mister
Goodwin” on it. I almost wiped out into one of those walking ghost
tours when a little rat dog being held by a teeny goth girl with
pyrotechnic-orange hair lunged for my throat. She hardly seemed to
notice the little monster’s misbehavior, going on with her lecture
on the Hanging Man of Papillon House as if her perfect pet hadn’t
almost committed murder. My ankle had pretty much healed from the
injury it had sustained in the fall on the pool patio, but I had
always healed fast –It’d been one of my strengths as a fighter. The
new hundred-and-fifty-dollar running shoes with their fiberglass
insoles helped a lot. I spared myself no effort, no pain.
Immortality was the goal, death the danger. Talk about
twenty-four-karat motivation.

After my run and his hunt, Miguel and I convened
to share the remainder of the evening. We wandered the flea market
by the riverside. He bought me a dew rag with the Jolly Roger on
it. I let him smell my sweaty neck.

Coming down the stairs the next morning, I
realized that, for the first time in I couldn’t recall how long, I
was ravenously hungry. I ravaged the continental breakfast provided
by our hosts, eating all of the hardboiled eggs, an English muffin,
and two apples. I was building muscle now. The fat would go on its
own.

“Boy, someone must have had quite a night last
night,” said Jonathon, who had apparently been standing in the door
of the idyllic breakfast room, watching me scarf down everything
with protein in it. I realized I was drinking straight out of the
soymilk carton. I put it down.

“Oh, don’t let me interrupt. You need your
strength, partying all night with Desperado up there.”

This morning he was dressed in big cargo shorts
and a T-shirt, with a political button that said “Good Mister
Goodwin” in red letters on it. He had slides on his feet and a soda
in his hand.

I knew from his eagerly congenial face that I
was not going to get out of the room with just an exchange of “good
mornings”. He was going to want to chat. It appeared he had nothing
else to do. Judging by the ease with which so many people lounged
on stairs and doorsteps around this town, having nothing to do was
a New Orleans thing, or at least a Marigny thing. Couldn’t blame
them, it was so damn hot here.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to Jonathon
–okay, it was - but it didn’t have anything to do with him
personally. I was the type of person who had to be in the mood to
talk (at least talk pleasantly), and I was not in the mood; I was
on a mission to which prolonged pleasantries would only be a
hindrance. I had to work out and guard my vampire.

“Good morning, Annie. How are you this morning?”
he asked cheerfully. Lo and behold.

“Hungry.”

“I see that. Are you planning on saving any of
that for our other guests?”

I looked at him.

“I’m just kidding. We’ve got piles of food. Look
at me, for God’s sake.”

He rubbed his broad belly and smiled with
gratification.

“You’re taking this nightlife thing just about
as seriously as I’ve ever seen anyone take it. Out just after
sundown, back just minutes shy of dawn.”

“Yeah, well, that’s how we roll.”

“Are the slave’s quarters agreeing with
you?”

“Sure.”

“Got enough room in there?”

“Yeah.”

“Because if you find you need…any more space, we
have a larger room open in the main house. You know, if you find
the slave’s quarters at all…constricting.”

“Our room’s fine.”

Back off. I just want to eat this whole pile of
fruit.

“Just asking. We want to make sure our guests
are comfortable, you know, especially the feisty ones.”

My God, did this guy think about anything other
than sex? Oh wait, this was a guy.

“Jonathon, leave the poor, hungry guest alone to
eat her breakfast,” chided Lucas, entering the parlor with an
armload of boxes. “Let her secrets lie.”

“I don’t have any secrets.”

Lucas looked at me over the stack of boxes.

“Sure you don’t.”

“Don’t worry, sister,” Jonathon said. “What
happens in the Quarter stays in the Quarter.”

“Jonathon, would you help me with these flyers?”
Lucas said, opening a box and removing a stack of red, white, and
blue flyers with “Good Mister Goodwin” printed on them in
triumphant letters.

“Who’s this Goodwin?” I asked. “I’ve been seeing
his name all over town.”

“Oh, sister,” said Lucas, putting a hand to his
chest, “He is our man. He is the man who is going to clean up this
mess you see outside our door.”

“Mess?”

Lucas and Jonathon looked at each other.

“You haven’t noticed?” asked Lucas, “You haven’t
noticed the empty houses or the collapsing ones? What about the
tarp on our roof? They’re all over town.”

He hadn’t seen Detroit.

“I actually thought your city was kind
of…pretty.”

I surprised myself by thinking it.

“Oh,” said Jonathon, “That’s right, you drove in
at night, and you probably haven’t been outside the neighborhood,
have you?”

“Not really.”

“Well,” said Lucas, “If you want to have a nice
vacation and enjoy yourself and not think about anything unpleasant
while you’re here, then don’t leave the neighborhood….Half our
neighbors haven’t come home, and there’s a hole in our roof we
can’t afford to fix, and if we can’t afford to fix it, they’re
going to shut us down, but we’re okay…”

He stopped, tears choking his speech. Jonathon
put a hand on his shoulder.

“Breathe, honey,” he encouraged.

Lucas took a few deep breaths, then went on,
“…We’re okay, but if you want to see what has happened to our city,
why we need a man like Goodwin so badly take St. Claude east across
the canal. Go there and say a prayer for us..”

The pair retreated into their private section of
the house to comfort one another. I was left standing with a
half-eaten pile of fruit, very sorry I had asked anything about any
political candidate. I vowed to myself never to ask about one
again.

I was, after all, and awkward creature, inept at
reacting to another’s pain. In opening up to me, Lucas had given me
a fleeting glimpse of the deep injury lurking beneath the surface
of this gilded rose that was New Orleans. At the time, I hadn’t the
first idea of what to do with the knowledge, but I would learn.

I would learn.

“Miguel, I have pussy-vision,” I said on our
third night in New Orleans, as we sat by the edge of the broad,
dark river, dotted with the orange and white of city and boat
lights, beside other couples who were more vigorously engaged.
Miguel wouldn’t nuzzle me again. I had tried.

“I expect a cat around every corner. Where the
hell are your pursuers?”

“It will take them some time to scry my
location. The spell tracks somewhat as a bloodhound would.”

“They have to walk your trail –from
Michigan?”

“Not quite, but something like that. They may
need weeks to find me.”

“How the hell am I supposed to stay frosty that
long?”

“With luck you will not have to. Andy may call
any time.”

“Does he have your new phone number?”

Miguel just looked at me.

“Well, you’ve been under a lot of pressure
lately.”

“As have you.”

“Well they’re late to the damn dance. I’m
itching to stick it to somebody. Making us run like that… They
don’t have the fuckin’ right. Damn victimizers. Bet they fuck their
children, beat their wives.”

I threw a few punches at the air. A straight
right, a left hook, jab, feint, feint, hook…

Miguel, watching me, said, “You would like to go
back inside the ring.”

“I’d rather bust some pussies. Smack some
Siamese. Pop some Persians. Wreck some Rexes. Mangle Main
Coons...Oooo! Christmas!”

Miguel had stuck a piece of paper in front of my
face –not just any piece of paper. It was a paid membership to a
gym –with training.

I jumped to my feet, jabbing and hooking for
joy. I punched at the river. I punched at Miguel. Other couples
stared.

Suddenly, I stopped.

“Stop,” he said, seeing me open my mouth. “I
want you to go. You have done enough for me for now. You will be
more useful later if you are robust and able.”

“But who’s gonna watch your back?”

“You may not believe so, Annie, but I am
actually quite practiced at that.” Again, he interrupted my open
mouth. “My greatest concern at this time is not my own safety. It
is yours.”

“Mine?”

“As long as you are as you are you are in
danger.”

“Are as you are you are as are…”

“And you must remain as you are for as long as
is necessary to maximize your chance of winning the prize fight for
your life.”

“Oh.”

“You see the problem.”

So I went to the gym. I found that it was not
located in the French Quarter, but on a seedier side of New
Orleans, a place of old warehouses and disheveled sidewalks with
alien vegetation springing out of every crack. There were buildings
out here that looked like something really big had taken an equally
big bite out of them. Many were standing empty, crumbling, and
devoid of windows. Being from Detroit, I wasn’t put off by any of
this. This was a grittier place, a rougher place. Good.

Even better? Parking the McLaren outside of
it.

I stepped through the door and at first just
stood there, inhaling the healthful funk of sweat, cigarette smoke,
deodorant, foot fungus, and the bacteria that grows in the
spit-and-blood buckets. They don’t call boxing the “sweet science”
for nothing.