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Vampire in trainingFor Dorian By ELLA VERES I’m from Transylvania and it’s
trouble. When I came here I didn’t know how to handle this America! People from
all over the world, but then it seemed that whatever the differences you have
one thing in common: you’re all fascinated with vampires! Sure, at first it was
nice that people took interest in my humble origin and we got to talk and I
enlarged my English vocabulary, but then I got tired of the routine vampire
questioning. Even in the subway, I live in Queens on the M line, and it is okay
when it works, but they started improving on it, so now we go here and take
this and then get off here and take this, not from this platform, across, where
it says it goes opposite but no, that’s during day, during night it goes to Queens,
Jamaica Center and so at times,helpless, I step in and out of the subway car, ‘People,
is this the right train to Marcy Ave?’ so guys take pity on me or react to my
Bela Lugosi accent and all is fine until again, they go, ‘Oh, I’ve always wanted
to go to Transylvania! I’ve just browsed on internet and’’ Please, understand there are no
vampires in Transylvania! I’m as vampire as it gets! I know it’s not your
fault: you can’t help it. You grew up with these vampire movies like I grew up
with westerns and books about Indians written by Karl May, a German! and I imagined
Indians walk around in their 2-meter wide feather headdress. Only when I came
here, I found out the poor Indians are cornered in reservations, decimated by
alcoholism. Do they go to work in the casinos with their feather regalia on? No,
they just do it for tourists’ sake, make a buck! It turned into a hoax, people!
Like now in Transylvania is full of professional vampires. They watched Dracula
movies and built theme parks for you, dear gullible Americans. Maybe I should pretend I’m a
vampire and invent stories from now on, which I do from time to time to
entertain myself; but the other day there is this lovely young man, almost an
earnest child, whom I met at a theater I work with and he is sweet. He comes
and hugs me and laughs at my accent. Well, when he asked me eagerly about
vampires, I was dumbfound, and didn’t have a heart to tell him there are no
vampires. I said they have hooves and cow tails, and they hide the hooves in
boots and the tails in pants. He made big eyes and I was lucky he got a call
and had to leave, so I saved face. But how to break it to him
that, Look, Dorian! There is no Santa
Claus! Grow up! I don’t know what to do with
him. Maybe I should write him a letter, give him a present in a beautiful box
for Christmas, fancy wrapping paper and ribbons and in it, Dorian, I’m sorry but there are no vampires! Please, don’t spend your
money on Transylvanian vampire tours! There are no vampires. If you want to see
Transylvania, go buy a movie ticket and watch the movie Cold Mountain. It was made in Transylvania with
Transylvanian soldiers fighting your Civil War. I don’t have a heart to. He’s
so sweet! I should pretend that I am a vampire just to keep him out of the
streets, before someone scams him! Because it’s getting crowded here with us
Transylvanians. Yesterday a friend, and he’s not a kid, he’s in his 50s! told
me, ‘You won’t believe this but I met another Transylvanian: after my gig on Saturday
night at Town Hall we were taken to a restaurant on W 44th Street
called Osteria del Doge... the waitress sounded somewhat similar to you, so I
asked her, and she said she was from Transylvania... Her name is Diana, and she
looks forward to meeting you.’ I’m not getting off this stage until I learn how to be a
vampire! You’ll have to help me out! I’m serious! So, I know I’m supposed to sleep during day and be up at
night, and I do. That’s one thing America did to me, because I work nights at
Copacabana, and my sleep is messed up. I can’t go to bed before dawn, so I wake
up late afternoon. That’s why I’m here tonight; otherwise I’ll be in bed
sleeping. No! No! I’m having a great time! You are nice people! Anyway, I’m
supposed to be pale, which I am. I don’t see daylight. I’m supposed to sleep in
a coffin. How much is a coffin? Depends on the material, so let’s say a modest
but decent coffin is roughly around $400? Good, well, my bed is a coffin, it’s
all dead down there. Plus! Plus I live in a basement with no windows, this is
all I can afford, and that qualifies for a mausoleum, a crypt, whatever! What else? Garlic. Am I supposed to eat the garlic? No? Fear
it. Okay. Fear it I do. I can’t eat garlic or onion or anything. My mother
brought me up properly! A nice girl can’t stink of garlic! So only the thought
of it makes my liver ache! What else? Fearing the cross. That I do! That I do! Dear
Lord and Armageddon Armies when I arrived here, I was downtrodden flat with all
the visa procedure and the work permits and the rules and regulations that I
ended up homeless! People took me in because I was from Transylvania, but that’s
what I was: homeless. So I came across the born-again Christian tribes and oh,
dear Lord, they prayed and saved me until the life almost went out of me. Have you said your prayers? Have you studied
your Bible? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Personal Savior? So now
when I see the cross, I run away for dear life. Yes, I do! Praised be the Lord!
But let’s not get heavy here. Drinking blood. Huh. Do you
mean menstrual lesbian oral sex without tampons? I’ I don’t’ I’m not partial to
that’ This guy said to me, after an open mike pointing at his jugular, ‘Lady of
the Night, later on, you may suck me here!’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because vampires suck the
blood out of people!’ ‘Do they? I’m happy if you buy me a drink. Tomato juice
won’t do? Or a Bloody Mary?’ ‘Vampires are not supposed to drink alcohol.’ ‘How
convenient.’ ‘Do you see yourself in the mirror?’ ‘No, I don’t. Ever since I
developed a double chin, good-bye mirrors!’ ‘Because vampires’’ ‘Yeah, yeah. I know, vampires don’t show up in the
mirror!’ ‘Neither on digital camera screens. Have you come alone?’ I thought he
liked me. ‘You’re supposed to have your minions with you.’ ‘Like an entourage
of misfits? How about you? Aren’t you misfit enough?’ I deeply disappointed him. He knew even the word we have
for vampires. Strigoi. Moroi. But see, all that strigois drink is the milk from the
cows. ‘What?’ he shouted! ‘Yes, they dry-out the cows. That’s all they do!’ ‘Oh,
man! You took all the danger out of it! No blood? Just milk from farm cows? No
blood? No sex?! Oh, man, this is so disappointing!’ But seriously, Dorian, minions and velvet dresses and so
on,--well, I can’t afford to buy the newest fashions. I dress from the thrift
store. I buy vintage, so I look medieval. Only for others, who deal in cloth
and bricks and golden coins we are wretches. Wretches we are, Dorian, but we
have style. But seriously, Dorian... there is a vampire in me. I fear
I’ll sink my fangs in you, Dorian. Wait! What are vampires? Immortals, no? I
found out what makes me immortal and I’d like you to be forever young, Dorian.
I’d like you to stay like you are now, I’d like you not to lose what you have
now, ever. I’d like you always come laughing towards me, and I’d like to always
amaze you. But then, how could I do this to you, Dorian? Look where
I am trapped and where I can’t get away from! Look around you. What do you see?
A velvety room. Yes. An enclosed coffin. No sunshine. No reality. The unseen
takes shape under the lime light, phantasms of our dreams and nightmares,
imaginings. I can conjure with my words and mere thoughts, past and future, here,
there, anywhere, I can make you in many beings, many lives, experience them
all, be changed by them, live forever. But the more you are part of this imaginary
existence the more unreal you become. I can’t live in the real world, Dorian,
anymore. All I do by now is to distil the flesh in imaginings, and I’m good at
it. I take pride in it. They are much more interesting and alive than in flesh!
Time disintegrates the vane splendors of the world, while
we still live, cutting thru waves of crumbling palaces. It’s not in the flesh
that we stay young, it’s not our bodies that stay alive centuries! Rubbish!
It’s my imaginings. My love for your pixie spirit. Your fierce playfulness. The
wonder of beauty and adventure is what stays alive. It is sweet to infect
others with it. It is sweet to attract and contaminate more and more of us. A
peoplehood. Jaj, I sound like a bombastic communist Anne Rice. Well,
what do you expect? I’ll shut up, but know Dorian, I’m as vampire as it gets,
for there are none! Please, someone get me off this stage! Sorry? What language do we speak in Transylvania?
Transylvanian? Yeah, sure, Transylvanian! Crap! There isn’t such a thing as
Transylvanian language!!!! I’m from Russia. Mainland China! Thank you. the
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