Chapter 11 "The Greeley Vampire"

Wyatt was looking at me every now and then on the way over to the daycare. I wasn't saying much. I think he wanted me talk, but I was full of booze and trying to think of a viable situation in which we could pick up Chloe. He was playing 'The Best of Tom Petty' on his car CD player which was a CD Walkman hooked into his tape player with one of those tape hook-up dealies. In a world of MP3 players, it looked like a giant square dinosaur of a device. He was playing it loud. I was thankful he wasn't saying anything, because I didn't have one single idea. Wyatt and I were partners in crime, he knew that mind was mulling over the situation and was cool to let me think out the problem of getting Dade's daughter, but at this point, I would be grateful to hear him say anything.

"This is ridiculous," I sighed. There was silence, Wyatt was smoking a cigarette and gravely nodding to the beat of "Don't Come Around". "We have to be the legal guardian..."

"Hmph," said Wyatt as he smirked into a cloud of smoke.

"I'm serious, man. Officer Mayhew, the lesser one, he said...."

"Hey, chill, if that's the case, why would Dade send you?" Tom Petty was singing the opening licks of 'I Won't Back Down'. "Just finish the job and go see your beautiful meat mistress," Wyatt was emboldened. I looked at him critically for a moment and realized his demeanor wasn't quite normal. What could it be? He's fired up about something. "You know I hate driving drunk," he sucked his breath through his clenched teeth into the dwindling sunlight. "We'll get her."

I nodded, and lit a cigarette and opened the passenger window of the car. I stuck my arm and half of my head out of the window. I let the beautiful red and orange light of the fading sun in. There was an approaching storm from the west. The sun hit my face intermittently as the long shadows of buildings and trees buffeted the outlines of the city streets.

It is times like this when the framed space of trees and buildings allow me to see the movie of my life in slow motion. It's where I get my power to alter the perception of time. Regression. Every flash of dark and light are a new or an old image of horror and deliverance from myself. This story. My eyes register the landscape and the people, but I am reliving the pains and pleasures of my life through graphic hallucinations spurned by the tiny patterns that my eyes perceive as miles slam through them. It's as if you're sitting next to a giant piece of film as it rolls through a projector at 24 frames a second. It's as if you're so close to it that you can only make out certain pieces of it. It's like a Monet painting too close. You can make any swirl of color a beast of your imagination. It is a truly special time of the day, the sunset, or the gloaming. Wyatt's words were of comfort, and true. If Dade didn't set up the appointment for the Chloe pick up, it wasn't my deal, now was it?

As we drove east, I was lost in my thoughts.

This one time when I was in college, up in Greeley, I used to drink quite a bit. I drink quite a bit now, but I was younger and more resilient, therefore went at it with more gusto. I did something that literally scarred me for life. Those were good times, but this time in particular, I wonder if I was sane. A little legend grew up around this incident that went something like this:

I was thrown through a plate glass window once and I lived to tell the tale.

I went to a party on Halloween, apparently, and I don't remember this very much, I was abusive to a male member of the party. Now, I know I don't get abusive for inappropriate reasons, even when I'm completely hammered. Maybe he didn't like my costume. That year, I was a vampire. I had dressed nicely, because vampires are pimps. I had a black overcoat on. It was over a dark blue pin-striped suit that I had bought from the Salvation Army the day before. I wore no make up. I did, however have a set of fangs custom made by my father. He is a dentist. It was a cool, if not subtle, costume. I had no problems getting into parties all night. Once I bared my custom fangs and acted the part, my costume was one of the best at any party, but there was this last one.

The last party we went to that night was a party thrown by some assholes that told me at the door that I wasn't wearing a costume and that I had to buy a mask from them for ten dollars to enter. All attempts by me to show my custom made fangs fell on deaf ears. I was quite drunk and far from fighting over ten bucks, so I purchased a Strawberry Shortcake mask and went in. The party was beautiful. Drinks, and beautiful women, and Tara, my girlfriend, dancing, drinking, did I mention drinking, because there was drinking.

At some point, I don't remember certain things; I had to be filled in later by my friends that were also at the party. It went like this:

I got in a tussle with a gentleman in the kitchen. I vaguely remember getting him into a chokehold and ramming his head into the refrigerator. Apparently, I knocked him out. He was the cousin of some guy that was throwing the party. I got summarily ejected by several large gentleman, that chased me down the muddy alley after some fisticuffs. I remember falling down while running down the alley. Apparently there was a guy chasing after me after all his friends had stopped and he tried to tackle me. He only succeeded in head-butting my knee and passed out or was knocked out, but I fell down anyway. After getting up, I was covered in mud and remember thinking, "Tara's not going to like this at all."

I remember taking off my overcoat and covering my would-be attacker with it. Then I walked back to the front of the house to re-enter the party. This is where it gets hazy. Supposedly, this guy befriended me. For the whole rest of the night I called him simply, "Mexican." I've never seen him before or have since. Sometimes I think he might be a dream, but since my friends have recollections of him, he had to be real. Tangible, and true, although I remember nothing of him except for a friendly presence over my shoulder during the ensuing moments. Ah, Mexican, where ever you are, call me!

There are stories as if he was kicked out of the party a little before I was. There are also stories as if I did some bumps of crystal meth with him before we came back to the party. There were stories as if I just pulled this guy from the street as I came back. None of these stories surprised me, but the truth is probably stranger.

Apparently, we came back in force. We started shit with everybody. I was ejected head first through a large screen door with a plate glass window front. No screen, just a plate glass window. I remember this part very well. It took three or four large gentlemen to heave me through it. Someone had torn my Salvation Army suit jacket off during the tussle and I remember tucking and rolling into a cannonball to save my face and everything else.

As I went through, the screen door crumpled and shattered and I heard the crowd go, "OooooH!"

When I got up I remember feeling okay. I walked back towards the house. People moved away from me in horror. I grabbed what was left of the screen door, and by then I felt warm trickles all over my body. I must have been cut in a million places. My hands and forearms were dripping with rage. One of the guys that threw my through the door tried to stop me from coming in. I could only think about finding Tara and going home. When he tried to stop me it was like trying to stop a train. I over came him in two swipes of blood drenched, adrenaline raged, alcohol induced, haymakers. Bless Tara. She found me quickly and drove me to our home in her friend's Jeep Wrangler. It didn't have its top on and I remember shivering deeply the few blocks of the ride home.

What happened next is the weirdest thing ever. Tara threw me into the shower and hosed me off with cold water. She closed my wounds with super-glue. I'm talking gaping wounds on my back, my forearms, knees and hands. She quietly closed all of them.

Then she did something weirder. To this day, I have nothing that matches it. After I was all closed up, and she had stopped bleeding, she laid me down on our bed and fucked me so sweetly. She took care. She made sure. She didn't want to injure all of these new wounds. We came together. Fuck, it was amazing.

After that there was a stupid legend that ran rampant upon the UNC campus. "The Vampire" or the “Greeley Vampire” as the story had come to be known, he got his revenge that night. I was both too afraid and too mortified to fess up that it was me. Everyone who new it was me came up with a convenient story about where they were at the time. It was easily forgotten, and I was thankful for it. My wounds were closed and my blood was forgotten, to this day, I have little pink, raised scars all over. After that day I made a solemn oath, mostly to myself, to never come in contact with plate glass again. And tequila and or meth.