Kev the Vampireby Phillip Donnelly |
Cast of characters |
| Chapter 11: Booze and Banishment |
‘The blood is the life! The blood is the life!’ That is all the mysterious Patient K would say at first. Dr. Mac Pherson gradually pieces together the story of K’s life: his gruesome school days at the Holy Bleeding Pelican; his drug- and alcohol-induced visions; his wars with Social Welfare zombies, and his attempts to use his meagre housing allowance to rent a castle. Dr. Mac Pherson learns of K’s romantic misadventures as a dishwasher in Bavaria and how comically difficult life can be for the quixotic would-be vampire in the 21st century.
In vino veritas the Romans used to say, and after the consumption of a great deal of alcohol, in the form of peach schnapps, K.’s veritas broke down the dam of caution. Emboldened with Dutch courage and with a swagger and a stagger, he approached the sous-chef, Helga Huggernaut, to make known his desire to resurrect his immortal beloved and use Helga’s body as a vessel for Elizabetha’s spirit, so that both she and Dracula could turn the human race into vampire slaves and rule the world in endless night.
It is hardly the stuff traditional romance is made of, and I trust I shall not spoil the plot in revealing that K.’s amorous advances did not end well.
There only descriptions of the event we have is from Helga herself, in a statement to the police, and for this I am indebted to the Landespolizei, who have been efficient and cooperative throughout my investigations; and I would also like to officially thank Dr Freihuntkrieg, a Viennese pastor, who has translated the interview at the behest of the German police.
* * *
(Transcript of Helga’s Interview with a Policeman)
Officer Spiegel: Fräulein Huggernaut, I am Officer Spiegel of the Fussen Local Police Force and I will be conducting this interview as part of the investigation into the case of Herr Kevin O’Donghaile, whose current location is unknown. I should also like to inform you this interview will be recorded. Do you understand?
Yes, Officer Spiegel. I understand.
Officer Spiegel: Where were you at the time of the incident?
I was working in the kitchen, on the evening shift, preparing the Gurkensalat and the Wienerschnitzel for the guests. The dishwasher Kevin had not turned up for work and no-one could find him, so we called in one of the other dishwashers to do the shift in his place.
Officer Spiegel: How long had you known the accused?
He had only been here three days, I think, but already the Head Chef had told the manager that he was no good, and he thought that the hotel should get rid of him, fire him, I mean. He was always staring into space and daydreaming, and sometimes he was found hiding in the store room, reading the ‘Frankenstein,’ when he should have been scrubbing the floor.
And the manager didn’t like him either. Some guests had complained that he was frightening, especially at night, when he used to wander round the castle walls, in the goth clothes, walking into people because he was always looking at the moon.
Officer Spiegel: How did you feel about him before the incident?
To be honest, I didn’t like him. It wasn’t just that he was no good at the job or that he was weird. He was...
Officer Spiegel: Go on, Fräulein Huggernaut.
He was more than ‘just a bit strange,’ he was a total fruitcake! Sometimes he would talk to himself, like a madman. I caught him once, holding a saucepan up to the light and mumbling to it. He took the marker and wrote and English word on it, ‘Y-O-R-I-C-K.’ The Head Chef was super-angry and made him brush it clean with a toothbrush! And sometimes I would catch him staring at me from behind the pots and pans.
Officer Spiegel: Were you in fear for your safety? Did you report this to the Police?
Officer, I am over two metres tall and I was the girls’ boxing champion in my school. I can look after myself. He was just one weedy little foreigner. He was like a rat. You do not call the Police because there is a rat in the kitchen. No, you get rid of it yourself. Splat!
Officer Spiegel: And the last time you saw him in the kitchen. Please describe the event.
I saw him come to the serving hatch. Like always, he was wearing the weird black clothes, even the sunglasses and the black hat. He looked like the man from on the bottle of the drink, the ‘Sandyman Port,’ and he was holding a bottle of peach schnapps in his hand, but it was nearly empty. He was staggering and swaying from side to side like the bums in Fussen.
Herr Gruntzalott, the Head Chef, shouted at him and demanded to know why he was not at his post and not in the dishwasher uniform. He said he had a greater mission and meant to wash away time and leave the plate of love gleaming. At least, that is what someone told me later. I don’t speak any English and didn’t understand him, but I could hear that he was slurring his words.
He looked at me and kept calling me ‘Elizabetha,’ and then Herr Gruntzalot translated what he was saying, as much as he could. He wanted me to run away with him into the forest. He said he had had a dream, a ‘prophylactic vision’ or something. He said we should both take the clothes off and rummage through the undergrowth in the Black Forest, like the ‘vampire pig’ and search for the ‘magic truffles’ so that we might have the ‘trippy experience’ and then celebrate the ‘passion of the union.’
The whole kitchen started to laugh, and I don’t like the people to make the fun of me, so I picked up the Wiener I had just garnished, and I threw it at him. I used to do the shotput too, you know, so it was Splat City! Bam!
Officer Spiegel: You assaulted him with a sausage? Was he injured?
It landed on his sunglasses and it broke them, but he still stood there, with the glasses hanging off his ears and the Wiener sauce running down his face.
Then he picked up the broken sausage off the floor and held it up to heaven and said it as his ‘liebe Wiener.’ Of course, the kitchen staff laughed even more, and I lost my temper. I picked up a big pot and I walked over to him, holding the pot above my head with one hand and meaning to smash it over his dirty foreign head.
Herr Gruntzalot grabbed me by the hand and stopped me, and he told Dishwasher Wittgenstein to bring Dishwasher O’Donghaile to his room and to put him to bed, and then he told me to go back to my station. He said he would have no blood spilt in his kitchen, because it was bad for the hygiene.
Officer Spiegel: And did Dishwasher Wittengenstein bring him to his room?
No. The foreigner ran away into the woods, and young Wittgenstein followed a while, but he lost him and came back to the kitchen.
Officer Spiegel: When did you next hear of Herr O’Donghaile?
It was nearly midnight, and we were all in bed, because we had an early start the next morning. We heard someone howling, like a drunken dog, outside the dormitory, and then we heard footsteps running up and down the corridor.
And then there was a lot of banging on the doors, and then a song, of all things!
Officer Spiegel: What song was it?
Someone told me later it was an old Frank Sinatra song called ‘Come Fly With Me.’
Officer Spiegel: Why do you think he sang this song?
He had changed the words of the song, you see, mixing English with some terrible German, so he actually sang:
“Komm fly mit me
Komm fly, komm fly away
I’m a bat und you’re a girl
And in coitus we must lay
Komm fly mit me,
Let’s fly, let’s fly away”
Officer Spiegel: What did you do then?
I opened the door of my room and went into the corridor, and there he was, naked apart from his Y-fronts. He was all bony and pink, like the carcass of the pigs.
He was running up and down, flapping his arms up and down and repeating over and over “I’m a bat, I’m a bat.”
The other staff opened their doors as well and we all stood watching him, not knowing what to do. He noticed me then, stopped and looked into my eyes and said, “Elizabetha, come fly with me.”
Officer Spiegel: What did you do?
Well... I suppose I must tell you the truth, because if I don’t someone else will... I slapped him on the face, and he fell on the floor.
Officer Spiegel: And then?
Well, I kicked him a few times and called him a dirty foreigner.
Officer Spiegel: And what happened next?
Some other staff came nearer and one pulled me away and warned me not to kick him to death, but I wasn’t kicking him hard, you understand. I couldn’t have — I was in my bare feet.
Officer Spiegel: And how did Herr O’Donghaile respond?
He stared at me with those piglet eyes of eyes and whined like the puppy dogs. He acted all wounded and hurt, as if I had done something wrong, like he was the offended party. Pah! Herr Gruntzalot translated what he had said later, “With these footfalls, you have trampled on true love and broken all bonds between us.”
Officer Spiegel: Did he stay on the floor long?
No, someone said they had called the Police, and he must have recognized the word Polizei, because he shot up and ran from the corridor and disappeared down the stairs, and we never saw him again.
Officer Spiegel: I see. Have you anything to add, Fräulein Huggernaut?
No. When do you think the foreigner will be brought to justice? When will he be sent back to where he came from, so we honest Germans can live in peace? These Celts are savages, you know. They’re worse than the English. These foreigners just are not like us. They should be made to stay where they are.
Officer Spiegel: The Police are continuing their investigation, Fräulein. Please let us know if you have any more information, or if you should see him in the vicinity of the castle again.
If I do, I’ll...
Officer Spiegel: You’ll what, Fräulein?
I’ll notify the Police, officer.
Officer Spiegel: Good.
Officer Spiegel is now terminating the interview with Fräulein Helga Huggernaut.
(End of Helga’s Interview with a Policeman)
* * *
While Fräulein Huggernaut’s transcript may lack the poetry of K.’s or G.’s prose, it does convey the events as they transpired in a logical and truthful manner; and I am assured that the testimony of other witnesses concurs in all important respects.
What it does not reveal, however, is the emotions of the misunderstood transgressor; and we can only imagine how Helga’s cruel rejection affected K’s delicate mind, especially since the truth was rendered unto him so viciously. The pangs of disprized love is one thing, but how much greater the pain when it is delivered on the point of a fearsome foot.
Evicted from society, he became a fugitive that night — albeit a minor one. He was now an outcast roaming the woods, a homeless searcher.
But was this role really new to him? Ever since his ‘revelation’ he had adopted the role of fugitive from the world of man; and since like attracts like, and birds of a feather look for similar wings to flock with, it is to be expected that he sought the company of other outcasts; and they, in turn, were drawn to him.
But that will be the tale of the following chapter, whose cup overfloweth with the veritas of vino.
Copyright © 2011 by Phillip Donnelly
