The damned, like the drowning, pull those around them down with them. The important thing to remember, being damned is not to struggle and just go with the flow, saving the time you have free on other important matters besides begrudging your fate: sitting in a corner eating dirt. There's plenty of time for that, being damned.I succeeded in killing time with a very loud POP in the salty fog around five a.m. in the Outer Sunset in San Francisco - where The Great Highway and Taraval meet at land's end to the Pacific ocean. Taraval by the way was Balboa's indian guide to the Pacific and there's a strange sort of delicious irony that peppers the streets of San Francisco with street names like Pacific, Taraval, and Balboa, these streets where I get my riders for the cab company and myself, and my victims for my master. It's funny how this incident short-circuited my whole day, which was the whole night. I stared at a broken new watch and reflected on just how useless time is for me. My memory imploded to its beginning - the recollection of my first birthday which is of itself one of the many signs of being damned in a particular way, as a vampire. I've had various birthdays in various places.
How many times have I been born? Let me count the ways: on the 3rd. of March, in New York City - 1960; on the 17th. of December, one hour's train ride to Berlin, 1900; on Good Friday, at the docks of Trieste seaport, 1820; on the 19th. of October, three day's mountain hike to Athens, 1745; on the day a mosque burned, in Istambul, 1682; on the winter solstice, and a stone's throw from the Black Sea, some time in the 1500's (the closer to where you can buy your own clothes, the better track people keep of exact years) - on a full moon, Ceylon, 1420; in the very hot summer at total solar eclipse, in the middle of the Gobi Desert, sometime in 13th. century. In between birthdays, I tasted a bit of bitter eternity. Oh, it's so bitter just how horrifying hell is - everything stings of nothing.
And, hell came to me, abruptly, after my first demise. My head was severed clean off. I didn't feel a thing, but the last thing I saw was my executioner's boot. Then - blackness and my first sensation of flight. Glassy-eyed, I was mounted on a sharp spikes in two sections on the seventeenth day of the second lunar month of 1220 - Kamakura, Japan. My first birthday came at the hour of the snake, in the year of the rat, on the twentieth day of the eighth lunar month of 1188 in Teradomari, Echigo province. I'll talk more about multiple birthdays of the damned or hungry spirits like me, otherwise known as "vampires" today later -
Everything in its own good time.
Like I said, I killed time and it was that damned bitch who was to blame - Mrs. Chin, the dragon lady of San Francisco -
--who treated me like a rickshaw driver
--who made a chump out of me with the come-on -
"I giv-ee you BIG TIP carry cases up to hou."
The Dragon Lady plays with loaded dice; consistent sevens and elevens, her prime numbers her monopoly over prime Chinese real estate. Everything and I almost forgot to mention that she owns and operates the most economically efficient set of sweatshops in Chinatown since she imports her workers like tv sets.
Mrs. Chin might not be a ray of sunshine, so that's where Mr. Chin comes in - with those flashy red neon oriental massage parlors on the rank tail end of Union Square where the Tenderloin and the real action begins. Pai-gow and Pusoy poker with easy credit terms available in dingy blue smoke-filled back rooms. Not to mention his cat's-paws peddling enough pot and speed and black tar heroin to make life in San Francisco burn just a bit brighter.
You can see Mrs. Chin's workers pouring out of the 30 STOCKTON bus - otherwise known as the "Orient Express" by people with round eyes - from the mouth of the Broadway Tunnel. My master has a wicked sense of humor, and delights in torturing me with fares like Mrs. Chin as bait. Then I cross my fingers.
The beef I already had with the bitch is that she'd held me hostage to her bad Chinese grammar, blabbing away on her cell phone all the way from SFO to the end of The Great Highway and Taraval - right around the zoo. By then, I wanted to toss her head-first through the bullet-proof glass cages of the reptile house. I will speak to my master about that, he rewards good ideas.
The more disgustingly obnoxous my passengers are, the more pain I make for myself; the tendons of my index finger almost snap from the pressure of my fuck-you-finger like a thick cello string bends from a heavy-handed wooden bow: just a little nasty child's play with my master: a pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top to hear the finishing note for the grim reaper's left hand -
Dearest Satan,
Won't you fill my black stone heart with the sound of music?
And he has just smiled at me! Tickling my ass instead of shoving a hot poker up it.
Speaking of hot pokers up the ass, Mrs. Chin really made me do a slow burn:
Buddy-the-cabbie (catching my breath): "That'll be forty-seven dollars." (Yes, I left the meter running while I played her chop-chop do-it-all chauffeur).
Mrs. Chin (standing, in a perfectly taylored black silk business suit): "Me on-lea pay thirtee dolla."
Buddy-the-cabbie (kicking myself, I shoulda seen this coming): "Geeze, lady, the meter is forty-seven dollars! And the tip ain't included."
Mrs. Chin (crossing her hands demurely against her crotch): "Me al-way paye thir-tee dolla airpor."
Buddy-the-cabbie: "But there was no traffic -- it's five in the morning!"
Mrs. Chin: "Thir-tee dolla airpor on-leee."
Buddy-the-cabbie (writing this whole thing off in my head, things like this just happen when you drive a hack): "Okay, okay! Fork it over. Me need thirtee dolla now, cash."
Mrs. Chin (left hand palming what looks like green in the dark): "AMERICAN EXPRESS."
Buddy-the-cabbie (sliding the plastic through the meter and hoping to see 'GOOD ACCOUNT, CHARGE AUTHORIZED'): "Motherfucka."
Mrs. Chin (wagging her index finger's razor sharp nail at me): "Eye here yu, yu ru! Yu tay pea-ni up aah. Me re-pour yu bee ru, yel-lo cah-uh."
Buddy-the-cabbie (handing her back the paper tape and plastic and wondering how far I could lodge it down her throat): "Here's your receipt, you miserable -"
In the meantime, with all the lugging and huffing and puffing I did, I didn't notice my watch slip off my wrist while I was heaving and swinging those dead-weight monster suitcases of hers out of the trunk of the cab. My sneaker must have nudged it under the back wheel. Then came the POP when the tranny reversed and my brand-new chronometer was history. That POP by the way is a sure sign you've destroyed a quality watch.
Oddly enough, my master's black left hand twists our victims away from what's materially theirs, from what they've had free and clear up to then. My yellow taxicab doubles for a kind of "lost and found" on wheels. With a twist: lost articles written off to thieves, or stupidity, find their way back to my astonished and grateful passengers in return for their souls which I collect for services rendered. And that's the best tip that can be given, I take back -
In return for extras.
Mrs. Chin had left behind in the back seat of the cab a very old, very delicate ivory comb, finely engraved. I put it gently in the glove compartment after wrapping it carefully with paper towels. It will be my pleasure to return it back to Mrs. Chin. I always keep a small roll of paper towels and a traveller's mini-size of Windex in my cabbie backpack to polish the windshield, and clean up after drunks who barf in the cab.
And, it will be my pleasure to return Mrs. Chin's ivory comb back to her personally.
The extras rendered by my master are in the domain of the seven deadly sins, deadly not in your mortal's rank sense of death: something blue and black rotting reeking a stench so fowl you'd become a vegan.
Sin is a destination outside of time.
And death, by the way, is two-handed, right and left, yes and no, one and zero. You know who works the left, the sinister hand.
What goes hand in hand with sin is, of course, guilt: a convenient convenience, a hole in an outhouse used like a hammer in the rediculous gong-show of what religion pretends to be: a snakebite tonic, the magic pill, an innoculation against lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, revenge, envy and pride - everything that makes the world hum. These sins show as results not tracked back to my master, things such as unqualified success in business at the expense of all else as in the case of Mrs. Chin, or for other sundry services, like getting away with murder, as in the case of Avis Hertz who is talented enough to fly about the country for hire for a Louisiana sitdown supper with all the trimmings and murder a la carte for an additional charge.
Avis Hertz plies her trade in high society -"A" List circles, fronting as a fortune teller and a Cajun cook with a difference: to select victims she serves up, along with the gumbo enough slow-acting poison to make her mark smile on their way out of good fortune, and this world. Avis Hertz also weighs three hundred pounds and is stunningly attractive for a bull dyke lesbian; her skin shines almost in the dark, her teeth are perfect, so much so that when she grins, her smile can shock anyone out of the blues, and with her eyes - those wide almond eyes - she can gaze right through you, that gaze of hers unmasks what's underneath. You gaze back at her naked and defenseless, at least until you know her better. And Avis Hertz is my land lady.
She was introduced to me by my master as I was complaining to him at an all-nite Chinese restaurant in North Beach that finding an apartment in the middle of the night in San Francisco was a foregone impossibility: I was invisible on paper with no credit history.
Over Mongolian Beef and fried rice, he shot out his lips and said "Who do you think you are dealing with, motherfucker?"
The low reverb of the vowels and consonants made the dishes filled with Mongolian Beef and fried rice rattle and quake timidly against the faded yellow bakelite tabletop along with the cheap silverware, and that little round greasy jug of ancient hot chili sauce that is the hallmark of most San Francisco non-gourmet Chinese restaurants. One nostril flared at me and I felt my balls twisting with cold steel sandpaper. My master has his own way to punctuate things, just right.
Pointing to Avis he gave me a dismissive command with a tone whores know so well from nasty tricks who negociate their service fees to rock bottom: "Ask the black bitch in the corner if she reads tarot cards. Then tell her you're interested in her going price for overdone candied yams. Clay Quellette referred you. He has a green glass eye and a wooden leg."
Avis gazed at me with one eyebrow raised suspiciously as I was heaving from pain with both hands steadying myself on the side of her yellow faded greasy boothside bakelite table. To blot out the pain of my testicles swollen to two and a half normal size from my razzled nervous system, I stared at the nasty looking thick bloody-red chili sauce tub on Avis' table which was chock full of steaming full dishes. The spread looked like the Happy Family Seafood Combo for Two at fifteen and a quarter. I needed an apartment that night without delay before the morning. Everything hinged on her reply.
"Why, yes, I do. I do read the Tarot." Avis said. She sported a studied air of mystery. "Are you a follower of the occult?" Her eyes gently inched their way wider at me. She mistook me for one of her hook-and-reel-in suckers.
"What about your candied yams?" I said whincing over my balls trying to maintain my balance.
"Why, you must have heard from somebody about my private Louisiana sit-downs!" Avis broke out in a fine full-toothed grin, the first I'd seen for quite a while.
Then came something to prick up my memory. My master layed into my ass with that iron hot poker of his. I stiffened upright with a start and almost knocked over the nasty chili sauce and froze at attention leaving my balls on the greasy black linoleum.
"Are you all right?" Avis said. "Do you want to sit down? Waiter!" Avis waved her arm about frantically. Waiter! A glass of water over here, please!"
"No, no," I puffed at her while hyperventilating. "I'm fine. How much do you charge for the overdone candied yams?"
She leaned over and grabbed my jacket lapel by one hand.
"Sit down, sucker!" she commanded. Reeling though the air, I felt like a sack of hot potatoes flying as Avis wrestled me into her corner booth, practically on her soft lap which I could hardly see.
By then, I never knew what hit me. I sank with relief into the booth. Avis leaned even closer into me. I felt her pin me like a baby grand piano.
"Now who referred you? Talk fast," she whispered.
I could barely hear over the idle chitchat of Mandorin and Cantonese. The men at table 3 were complaining about customs duties, the ones at table 4, their wives. I turned around all twisted up and stupidly pointed back to the empty booth where my master and I had sat kibitzing.
"Why, Clay Quellette," I replied with confidence. "My name's Buddy. And yours?"
Avis was still not convinced she was dealing with a friend; her lips persed to two thin lines and she stared me down.
"Tell, me 'Buddy,' Does Clay jog in the morning with or without his contacts in?"
"That'd be kinda difficult with a wooden leg and one green glass eye."
"Which one?"
"Huh?"
"Which eye?"
"The right of course!"
Avis pinned my shoulders to the corner of the booth and gritted her teeth.
"Hell," she said, "Right, left - who cares? Avis Hertz at your service."
"Buddy," I said, offering her my hand.
I moved into my apartment the that late evening after handling her two thousand dollars in crisp one hundreds. Avis came by around seven p.m. the next evening with the mailbox key and my housewarming: maque choux, chicken etouffee, and dirty rice.
Over tarot cards, she looked at me wryly and said "One old soul to another, give me a 'heads-up' when's time's come."
As I opened my mouth the J CHURCH streetcar lumbered past the bay windows of the studio apartment, drowning out everything.
What my master gives, he takes away in spades, and I am his envoy.
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As I said, I can remember my first birthday. I know this because when I asked my mother at thirteen to explain how it was that I had a pink birthday cake and a bright Christmas tree that magically changed color from blue, to orange, to a very bright red even though my birthday was in February and here was this strange Christmas tree giving off quite a lightshow while I heard some kind of explosions at the same time I saw that big pink cake.
"That was your first birthday, dear. I was in the middle of divorcing your father, and with all that was going on, I didn't have the time to put away the Christmas tree. Explosions?! Now you know your father and I can't be in the same room for five minutes together without all hell breaking loose. I put you in a diaper on top of a bed sheet along with the cake to take some cute pictures and your father got me so mad -so mad, I might have thrown a dish or two - not at him, but to shut him up." She said all of this with her eyes downturned staring at the carpet.
"So, where's the pictures, ma?" I felt she might have hidden them from me, but then thought better of it knowing my mother's ways: she embarrassed me with a smile on countless occasions.
"Well, she said, "I had forgotten to get film for the camera. And then your father started up."
And so, the end of my Year One which logically should have marked my second birthday since birth marks the beginning I can recall in crystal, clear detail. Human beings, even damned ones from the Year One at birth are not a big Zero at birth; they are all assembled, ready to go - they don't have to be assembled from a box, and have shiny orniments attached; their eyes shine well enough. They themselves all bright and new mark the Year One, and in my case when the Big One which should have been Two, my mother was much, too busy to put the shiny Christmas tree back in the box from Macy's along with the magic color wheel that accounted for the fireworks in the background of my memory of that particular time which strangely enough was my first solid clue of my previous birthday in Berlin in 1900.
Sometimes answers come before questions are asked; memory serves as the final check, when all is said and done: the damned, like me have a 666 tattooed somewhere marking their future quite early. That's just how it is when you're damned, and can't get it quite right one time and are rewarded with a "do over," and another birthday and all the things that need managing once again, for however long it takes to kill time just the right way. In time, it will be clear to you. Trust me.
