This song is fitting since I’ve been spinning my tires for a bit, not sure what to do. It was time enough to get busy. Earlier this week Lucy and I decided we should actively start looking for Jesus again. We hadn’t heard from Isabelle and out of all the mysteries going on, that was the only one we had any leads on. Some of you might be asking yourself why I’d want to find a vampire that tried to life rape me twice because of his own ego problems. It’d be a valid question. I asked that myself and found that the answer was pretty simple. He might have answers. Plus I had Lucy at my back now. If he got all fang frisky again on me, she’d be there to help. Provided he wasn’t already checked out for good.

I’ve mentioned before a small group of what I like to term ‘rejects’ that I’ve bumped into a few times over the years because of knowing Jesus. These vampires were never welcoming to me since I never gave them anything they wanted. I know now that they never could force me, which probably shocked them all into spurning me (or so Lucy and I gather after debating it). Lucy thought it might be a good idea to start tracking them down and seeing if they knew anything about what happened to Jesus. I said maybe it’d be a good idea to interview them for the blog. We said why not.

We decided to start out easy by going to the only one that seemed not overly be hostile toward me when we had met. We’ll call him Walter. I’ve never seen the show Breaking Bad except for in little clips. The name might not be appropriate but fuck it I don’t have any other meth references off the top of my head.

When I met Walter, I was tagging along with Jesus as he retrieved one of his ‘followers’ from Walters apartment in Gladstone. I wasn’t told how this girl ended up in Gladstone in some run down apartment complex townhouse but looking back, I think Walter did a vampire style poaching on Jesus stock. Apparently it was all in good fun as the two were very friendly with each other over the thing.

From my loft it is only about ten or fifteen minutes by car to Gladstone depending which highway you take. Finding the apartment complex again was easy, and because I take notes, I had the townhouse number still.

When I think vampire house, I don’t think lower middle class/upper lower class thirty year old apartment complex. Sure I could think shit hole poor as the pits apartment complex, but not one that is trying so hard to maintain itself despite the march of time and the lack of people wanting to pay higher rents. This is the type of place that people trying to pull themselves out of the poorer areas live while giving themselves the illusion that things are getting better. That is what the recent paint job and the “ask us about move in specials” signs are doing also. Giving the illusion of being better than it is.

Walters townhouse was a three story affair that was loosely modeled on some American dream of what an English row house would look like, if those houses had small front yards and were across from a more traditional apartment structure. When we pulled up I noticed a Christmas wreath on the door. Lucy said, “you sure this is the right address, they decorated?”

“Pretty sure, it’s June, not December. Besides look the door is already open for us.”

A tall thin man had opened the door and was standing in the light of the house looking at us. How he stood, arms across his chest, let us know that he was indeed looking at us and inquiring silently ‘what you looking at?’.

We got out and went to the door.

“I’m looking for Walter, he in?” I said.

“you cops?” He said checking us out.

“nope”

“Come on in?” he waved us past him. He shut the door but didn’t lock it.

The place looked the same. Imagine your parents house with all their years of collecting whatever it is they collected. Furniture, dishes, precious moments statues. Then imagine as if twenty geeked out twenty year olds lived there for a few years without cleaning up or bothering to redecorate. I swear the floor crunched from broken pieces of little dolls with over sized eyes. The ripped up couch held one too many bodies who were all zoned out into some kinda race car video game. The kitchen beyond that was piled with trash. The whole place smelled of sweat and urine.

I pointed up the stairs and then down at the floor so that the guy that let us in could track what I was asking. He pointed up. Lucy and I went that direction. Upstairs housed two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. It was a bit cleaner but not by much. The smell of urine went away at least. The doors to the rooms were open and I could see Walter and two girls sitting on what was probably once the master bedrooms sleeping furniture. A lined mirror between them. The girls looked like they hadn’t slept in days, most likely still in the cloths from whenever they started their run. Their skin was starting to pimple out from oil not being washed. They must of been fifteen or sixteen, but I could be wrong, my age detector is broken. Walter sat in a pair of dirty jeans, his tattooed arms and chest a stark contrast to the skin of the girls he was with.

He came up from in-taking a line of what was most likely meth and met my eyes. He smiled. “Alex, it’s great to see you! Come in come in, join us, and bring your friend?”

Lucy and I entered the room but didn’t hop at the invite to join them. “Hey, this is Lucy, we were wondering if you had seen Jesus around?”

He shrugged, “nope, he in trouble?”

“nope” I said back mimicking his tone. I’ve always hated that tone. Sure I say ‘nope’ like the best of them, but there is a way of saying it where your voice gets higher in the middle with a little flourish at the end, as if to say “no and I think you are ridiculous for asking”

The girls were looking at us like we are invaders. As if Walter belonged to them. Scratch that, as if Walters meth belonged to them. I almost dislike tweakers as much as I dislike vampires. That stuff turns you into a zombie while giving you the illusion of being acutely aware. So glad I don’t touch it anymore, although I think I’d do that whole mirror full just to piss off these girls. I dislike over protective anything.

“I have something else I need to talk to you about?”

“Shoot”

“Private stuff.” I make sure he sees my nodding at the girls. I make sure they see it also.

“Ha!” he burst out. “ask whatever, they’re cool.” I notice the bite marks on them after he says that. He doesn’t offer up any other comment, and once the girls have done some of what they are sharing they get to work shuffling playing cards.

“How does that work for you?” I point at the drugs. The sound of it going into his nose was somewhat less noisy than the girls had been.

“real good actually.”

“you don’t have to feed on someone who has done it?”

“nope, although I could if I wanted.”

Lucy said, “I bet he gets really thirsty after doing it. I bet he uses up too much energy awakening his body to accept it, isn’t that right Walter?”

“Yes it is, yes it is friend of Alex. Cards?”

Sure why the hell not we say and sit down at the end of the bed. Walter plays some jacked up non standard version of poker. I know enough about poker to lose all my money, but he isn’t playing for money. Not really playing for anything, he just keeps tabs of how many times each of us raises in his head. It is very odd. We played most the night as they got more spun and Lucy and I got more information. It was a rather odd drawn out interview punctuated by random tangents about social media, teenagers, the state of music, tie dye shirts, and whatever other random things Walter or the girls spurted out of their mind.

I’ve been working on getting the interview written up. It is hard to filter out what is needed on the site and what is just tweakbabble. Once I’m done I’ll post it.