a description of the amazing and exciting adventures i have here in baltimore--- and other lies.

 
But lets begin at the beginning, shall we?


In arche

In his 134th year, David finally accepted that he was not alive any more. For many years, he had thought of "living" and "not living". but, to be perfectly honest, the thought of the idea of "undead" as a foreign concept. Besides, he felt quite alive. The living, breathing kind of alive. He was hungry and thirsty, and down on his luck. He was unsure of what to do with this, well, not life.

He could sometimes remember snapshots of his existence before, of people he knew, the places he had gone. Most visions had, however, for the most part become dream-like and fuzzy, and David had no idea what was true anymore. Sometimes, he longed for something more than to satisfy his hunger, doing so in prescribed ways and feeding on certain people. He wished to free himself freom what he considered to be a straightjacket, with all the rules imposed on him by the Committee. Freedom from all this, even by the head of a stake, would be far more comfortable thatn the hunger he felt; not the thirst for blood even, but the unsatisfied urge to do something else.

WHile he did not realize it, this was certainly an idea implanted by his mentor. Better, perhaps to say, the one who was supposed to be his mentor. "Willem does not care for me." David would bitterly pronounce, whenever and wherever he could get a chance.

"You are being absurd. Willem may be serious, but that is only because he takes things seriously. You should give him more of a chance. In fact, maybe you should go see him. It has been a while, has it not?" Anita was usually direct and no-nonsense, often reminding David of Willem. "Who is your next assignment?"

"Don't have one."

"What? Why did they not give you one?"

"Because I am, according to them, 'Too sloppy, too careless and too cavalier.' to take on projects. They told me to go on clean-up duty in Springfield.

"They can not be serious. Springfield? Are there even enough prey-marks to consider that place viable?"

"The Committee seems to think so. At least until they decide what to do with me."

"David," said Anita, "you could be so much better than you are." She sounded exasperated and angry. With a little effort, just a little, you would have better assignments, more fufilling ones." David looked at her, and saw how hurt she was at his situation. "you are far more capable than this. You are cheating yourself, and i do not know why.?

David was not sure he could agree. Whatever it was that he was doing, living, slowly dying, or something somehow inbetween, it did not feel right. He needed a change. Maybe the Committee is right. Maybe this is what I should do for a while. He felt like neither fish nor foul, and this disturbed him greatly. He knew he was not human anymore but was he more than that?

"Anita, you flatter me, but I am not sure that this is what I want."

"Well, you do not have a choice, do you?"

And, in this respect, she was absolutely right. She was always right. "you must be tired. Why not rest for a while, and when I get back from my assignment, we can discuss how you will fare until you fall in the good graces of the the Committee." She often took a concillatory tone like this when she wanted to avoid an arguement, even one she would win.

"Happy hunting," he said in a lame attempt to be jovial.
She left the room as quietly and as quickly as she had gone in. David did not look forward to her return, because she would force him to reflect on how he had come to this point.

**********************

THe first day of true consciousness was a real rush. David still could remember that time before he was chosen as a period filled with all kinds of chemically induced states of euphoria, but there was never anything as clear, or as long lasting as this. Ad would fit the pattern of all his later days, Anita, Andrej, and Willem were all there. He did not remeber much, himself, about why he was chosen to become un-dead, un-alive, but he also never bothered to find out the reason. For much of his time, he never really cared about anything. Job to job, meal to meal, before as now. In his mind, there was not much of a difference, not much of a change from the marginal existence he had before to now. In the long run, maybe there was not. And while he could not remember the whole thing, he was told about his transformation. Seeing one in action helped a little, but the metaphysics of this sort of thing was better left to Willem.

Willem.

Even the name sometimes made David angry. David once became so upset about an actor having the same name, as to put a foot throught the television when the Last Temptation of Christ was playing, just because he was thinking about what his own Willem had said, a month earlier. Willem was too hard, though, thought David. Whay does he always natter on about the "nature of things," or of the importance of understanding the "larger consequences" of whatever we are doing? It is a job, and I go to it.

"But it is more than a 'job,' David, it is almost a sacred duty what we do."

David could never understand how killing werewolves and the spirits of the woods had to do with any navel-gazing journey, of which Andrej, Anita and Willem, especially Willem, were so fond. David sometimes just wished he could be left alone. Besides, he preferred the world to which he was most accoustomed to being, the scummier, sleezier parts of town, where they found him in the first place. Where Willem first targeted David.

**************************

It had been a windless scortching day, with high humidity to boot. This was a continuation of the theme of that week, where even a small breeze would have been a welcome respite tot he unrelenting power of the oldest golden globe. The only breezes that day were the sighs and coughs of people hoping for an end to a summer that had only lasted six weeks, but had made up in vengance for having had a late start. "better late than never" was not on peoples lips

Baltimore City is like that, with the heat of the south rising up without mercy and the humidity of the Bay area, not even the Atlantic proper, a combination which could melt granite. The night offered some respite, in that one traded the direct rays for reflected ones. But the damage was done: on a night without ventillation, you can really feel your bones turn to mush. This was not an ordinary summer. Only one creature really stirred, a being for whom heat was invigourating. The hotter, the better. An ordinary man would find this unbearable. But David was no ordinary man. Or, in fact, soon not to be a man at all.

"Hey. Hey, you. Take it easy now. Take it easy."

David didn't like the tone, and he certainly did not like the patter. Too similar to tricks he had pulled himself. And those tricks others had pulled, never coming to any good. David knew the alley was close; he would have to be clever. In previous situations like this, he had learned the best way to attract attention is not to ask for help. Plaintive cries for assistance were met with downturned eyes, or heads turned away, or Feet made to go a little quicker to their intended goal. No, the best strategy was to say:

"I don't owe you a goddam penny! Ge the devil away from me, you malodourous swine!" THis grabbed attention. Now, there was a splendid spectacle worth watching, and all for free! No need to buy witnesses.

"in the alley."

"I will not, sirrah! I paid you in full two days ago, and now, we are even-Stephen! You blood sucking leech, you should rot in Hades for your usurious ways!" Late at night, with easier pockets to pick, the would-be mugger sailed on to the next block the next pocketbook. But not this night. As the tallish man closed in, David never even saw the older or his willowy consort from Cathay, until it was too late.

Swiftly, they took him by the arms and feet. The alley may have been the rendez-vous, but was certainly not the destination. David felt his feet leave the ground, and knew that this was nothing like any assault he had experienced before. For the first time in a long time, he felt real fear. NOt he apprehension of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, nor the queasy feeling one had as you realized one was about to received viscious beating. No, this was true fright, where one--- at least someone other than David--- would begin to pray for salvation. David however, having no such use for such superstition slipped from consciousness into the void.

When he revived, he was surrounded by the three. One at his feet, one at each arm. His appendages had been tied down to a platform raised about three feet from the floor of the pitch black room into which he had been set. The room was very, very dark, except for one, small candle, which provided less light than that of the most distant star in the sky.

"Where am I? Who are you? Let me go!"

"Did I not encourage you to relax before?" The man's accent was hard to place; it had that vaguely European tone, which David had heard most often from boats coming from some slavic region or another.

As his eyes began to focus he heard the older one say, "You have been chosen."

"For what? What is this?"

"You are about to become part of a continuum, which was your destiny always."

This made no sense. the only "destiny" David could imagine was that to which we are all bound: six feet under, sooner or later. Oh, how wrong he was! There was more.

"if you agree to our proposal, you shall gain a power unknown to mortals. We are Caxol, and we wish you to join us. Now you may decide not to do so, ans we can quickly dispatch you, so as to remain secret. But, I think you will agree, our mission is much better than the life you live now." Willem then outlined the proposal: they needed a fourth to complete their group, and David was the perfect candidate. He had been born with a caul, he had fine reflexes, and he was an orphan. "All in all, qualities which befit joining our society. But, ours is no longer life as you know it. YOu will resemble a human in shape, but the corporeal form you take will house a much different spirit. You will seek blood to drink, but it is not really to say we drink blood; rather, that we take the life-energy of our prey. This is imbued in the blood, but not the blood itself. So, you put something in your stomach to satisfy the urges of your former body, and, then, from that, seperate this force and "live" off of that. The Chinese would call this Qi, but we call it boishin."

The girl nodded. "but you will have responsibilities, and duties. Our kind has made certain arraingements with human authority, so as order to exist. You will need to feed on particular people, at specific times."

"Feed? You mean, you three are going to make me a, a... vampire?"

"Please, we prefer the origional word: Caxol. You will one day learn to speak our language."

"And, if I don't want to? Become a vampire that is?"

The European smiled. Bright, sharp teeth shone through, and glimmered in even that dimmly lit chambre. "then, it is a good meal for us."

David quickly agreed to the transformation. "Maybe I can get something really good out of this," he reasoned. Later, he sometimes would wish that they had just sucked him dry.

Much quicker than his ascent, and with much more planning and resolve, they set upon David. There was no pain, just wonder. They all bit in unison, and took every corpiscule, every capulet. Along with this liquid was drawn a force, more potent than a million suns, and more fragile than thin glass. His body, once warm, felt an unnatural chill, and as this energy drew away from his body, he had a new sensation: he felt his soul be divided amoung the three, then re-mixed with theirs, and the souls of a hundred thousand more. Then, they sliced open his chest, cut their wrists, and poured the blood they had drawn from him back into his body.
With it went his newly reconstituted spirit. He then felt the rush. As his lungs swelled, and he gasped for air, David was filled, as he respired, with inspiration. "You see how good it can feel? Do you feel the power?" The female voice was soothing. "Much better thant opiates, no?" She caressed his cheek, in a loving, almost motherly way. But her voice. Her voice. Anita purred on:"and much better than anything the cocoa plant can give you. Now really feel this in your heart, in your fingers, in your mouth, in your mind. All other sensations are insignificant to this, and this is yours forever." All true, all true. "Deliciou." This word was pitifully inadequate, but had to do for now.

David would learn later that this intoxicating experience was also brought on by the feedings he made. But for now, he felt more powerful than ever before, and more alive, if that could be possible for someone who was supposed to be a revenant. Any amount of abysynthe would not make as much of a change of mood. Curiously, too, there was not the feeling of nausea, of light-headedness that normally accompanied his incursions into the dream world resembling nirvana. This was longer lasting, more powerful, more fufilling, just, somehow, better.

"You are now a child of the night. Welcome to our world."

David looked at their faces. One mature, a little jowly. One with almond shaped eyes. One youngish; rakish, almost. "I might like this fellow," he thoght to himself. All the faces looked at David with a patient, hopeful look. A look that, thoght he was to know all of them for more than a century, he never saw again.

***************************************

Time ceased to matter. In his new state, he was seldom hungry during the daytime, although usually more than a little listless. For a while, he would wander about, watch the humans, study them. With his newfound sensibility, he could notice small details which, before, had escaped him.

Before being chosen to become part of that great continuum which kept all sorts of secrets and fouler things at bay, he was able to see the more subtle of movements his neighbors made, enhancing his already keen sense of what people were going to do.Growing up in the middle of a run-down area in Baltimore was a perfect training ground for such a sensibility. The docks offered entertainment, sailors to roll or cheat, or both, and students from the new University were easy marks as well. David found himself drawn to the corner of Broadway and Thames more often than not, to look for fun, drinks, whores, or whatever his fancy may find him. Usually, it was drink.

You can still stroll the rolls of Admiral Fell's great estate. It is not full of the same kind of riff-raff as it had been even fifty years ago, but still there is a glimmer of a world which has been sanitized and made ready for the tourist dollar. There are still locals who doll around the bars, gulping their sipping whiskey, warming the same stools night after night, pretending to laught at the same jokes told by the same jokers who were mildly humourous the first time, if only because of the novelty of their jest, but because they had encouragement the first time, became so bold as to assume that they should visit their bon-mots with anyone who is either kind enough or drunk enough to listen.

Students will still visit some of these same haunts as their predecessors. They may have traded stovepipe hats for bowlers, or stetsons for baseball caps, but they still spend their father's money freely and laugh just as loud. And they still ignore, cajole, humour, jibe or pity those examples of humnanity who, through one misfortune or another, beg their fellow man for a dime to spare. This was David's world, and he knew it well.
posted by gregorio at 5:46 PM