Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story

saying. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be more careful. I’m sorry.Jay: it’s nothing. so ur coming?

A quick bike ride and poncho refolding later, and Doug was at Jay’s front door. He thought he’d better make it a front door sort of day. He rang the bell and listened as Chewbacca came barking, listened to his tiny terrier nails claw for traction on the hardwood floors, listened as he threw himself again and again against the inside of the door. Usually someone was right on his heels shouting, 'Chewbacca! Shut up! Sit! Sit! Stay,' and then the door would open. Chewbacca continued to bark and scratch at the door, but even his actions began to sound confused, a little lost, like a man in a bar fight who’s expected his friends to hold him back before he embarrassed himself.

Doug was considering ringing the bell again when the door opened to Pamela’s wary face.

'You can get your own drinks today,' she said.

Chewbacca leaped toward Doug, licking and jumping and just hoping to catch a little bare flesh or get a good sniff of groin. After becoming a vampire Doug had braced himself for a lot of growling and biting from previously friendly pets, but if anything dogs seemed to find him mind-blowingly awesome now.

'Jesus,' said Pam. Chewbacca had stopped leaping but was teetering like a trick dog on his hind legs, nose aquiver at Doug’s crotch. 'You hiding a hot dog in there?'

'Wouldn’t you like to know.'

'Probably one of those little cocktail wieners.'

He wasn’t going to let her get to him today. Today he would stay cool, cool as a tall glass of lemonade.

'What are you wearing?' she asked him.

It was the same shirt he’d worn at that party in San Diego. Long sleeved, lots of tiny pockets. It was a little snug, but the salesgirl had said it was supposed to fit snug.

'Oh, and you’re qualified to give me fashion advice,' he said, 'because your swim team T-shirt is so incredibly awesome. Look! It has autographs all over it! Autographs of the other members of the swim team! Are you gonna let me in?'

Pamela took a languid half-step to the right. 'Jay gave me three dollars to get the door for him. You two have a spat?'

'How much would he have had to pay you not to tell me he paid you?'

'I don’t know. Seven? But he probably didn’t think he had to. He’s so morally upright.'

Doug followed her into the house, feeling carbonated and shivery. He would see Sejal soon. He and Jay would go to her house, Cat’s house, and they would sit and stay awhile. Gentlemen callers.

'Where do you think you’re going?' Pamela said suddenly. Doug had absentmindedly followed her all the way to the door of her bedroom.

'Uh, sorry. I just spaced out.'

'Were you looking at my ass?'

'No,' said Doug, who at the mere mention of the word 'ass' had almost looked at her ass again. 'I wouldn’t look at your ass if it had a Playboy stapled to it.'

'Nice.'

Doug spun around and walked, pink cheeked, back to Jay’s room.

'Okay,' he said as he crossed the threshold. 'I’m ready to go.' Chewbacca stretched up Doug’s leg, paws on his knee.

Jay didn’t look up from his computer. 'Cat’s bringing her laptop over here now. Cat and Sejal. She said something like, ‘No way with my mom on the rag’ and said she didn’t want anyone at her house.'

Doug could tell he was trying to be standoffish, but Jay still couldn’t keep a straight face while saying 'on the rag.' 'They’re coming here? Shouldn’t you clean up a little?'

Jay looked around his room, which was spotless as always.

'Clean up what?'

'I dunno. At least take down the Darth Maul poster, right?'

Jay shook his head. 'You’re just like Adam.'

'Okay,' said Doug, 'I’m sorry you’re upset. I thought, you know, we’ve been friends a long time, and friends kid each other. I didn’t know I’d been hurting your feelings.'

It sounded reasonable to Doug as he said it, as if it could even be the truth. There was a flimsy nobility to it, like a paper crown. Just then the doorbell rang.

Doug nearly collided with Pamela in the hallway. Chewbacca rushed past to bark at the door.

'No!' Doug said. 'This time we want to answer it.'

Pamela held out her hand. 'Three bucks,' she said.

Doug stared at her, hard. 'You will let me answer the door,' he told her.

'Yeah. For three bucks. Stop looking at me like that.'

'I thought,' Doug said, fishing his Velcro wallet from his back pocket, 'that trolls…were supposed to ask you a riddle'—the wallet was free now, and he paid Pamela—'not demand cash.'

'You’re thinking of sphinxes.'

Doug ran to the entryway, then skidded to a halt and took a couple of leisurely steps to the door.

The door wouldn’t open, so he turned the deadbolt, found that he’d just locked it rather than unlocked it, turned the small handle lock instead, and soon he was looking out onto the stoop, and yard, and Sejal.

Jay’s house faced the south, and that dazzling midday light made the neighborhood incandescent and traced a hot red edge around Sejal’s small body. Cat was there, too.

'Cat, Sejal, come in,' he told the girls. Chewbacca seized with happiness at having so many visitors.

Cat had her computer under one arm and a backpack over her shoulder. Sejal was wearing a long-sleeved red shirt that you could see through to a black tank top beneath.

'Hey, Meatball.'

'Hi, Doug,' said Sejal.

Doug led them down the hall and said, 'Jay mentioned you might be coming by, but I thought I’d have to miss you. I have an appointment later.'

'He paid me three dollars to let him open the door!' Pamela shouted from her room. 'Which one of you does he have the crush on?'

'Sejal!' Cat shouted back, and entered Jay’s room.

Doug winced at Sejal. 'You look nice,' he said.

She looked beautiful. Each time he saw her now, she was more lovely. It hurt a little to look at her, hurt in a part of Doug’s body that he couldn’t immediately define.

'Thank you, Doug. I didn’t know you were going to be here,' she said, as though explaining something, though Doug couldn’t imagine what. 'This dog is very taken with your pants.'

'Yeah…well,' Doug said. There didn’t seem to be a great way to spin a comment like that.

In the bedroom, Cat and Jay were talking like they were friends.

'Well, I hope you don’t mind that I brought a bunch of music over,' Cat was saying as she dumped a pile of CDs onto the floor. 'I don’t know what you’re into. Where are your CDs?'

'I don’t really buy them anymore,' said Jay. 'I have everything on a networked hard drive. I like They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot…'

'Awesome! Nerdcore!'

'What?'

'That last guy was nerdcore. Are you nerdcore? I think that stuff’s hilarious. Oh, my effing God! Is that a theremin?'

Cat jumped up from the floor and over to a long black box on a microphone stand in the corner. Dials and knobs studded one side of the box, and fat antennas trimmed the ends.

'He’s really good at it,' said Doug. 'He can play anything. Play something, Jay.'

'Maybe later,' said Jay, his ears blushing as red as brake lights.

'Oh, you have to! That is so rad,' said Cat. 'A theremin’s this electronic instrument you play without touching, Sejal. You just wave your hands around. You should totally start your own nerdcore band, Jay!'

'So what kind of music is all this?' asked Doug as he sifted through the CDs on the floor. 'Goth?'