Fat Vampire: A Never Coming of Age Story

kind of thing.'

Cat put some music on. 'I promised pizza,' she said. 'Is Agostino’s okay?'

'You don’t have to do that,' said Jay.

'Whatever, I’m doing it.' She checked her phone. 'I’ll be right back, I’m not getting any bars in here. Sejal, come with me.'

Sejal and Cat walked back down the hall, followed by the dog. After the front door opened and shut, Jay rounded on Doug.

'Don’t you think you’re…I appreciate it and all, but don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick?'

'What are you talking about?'

'All your flattery. It sounds fake.'

'God, there’s no pleasing you,' said Doug. He’d actually been enjoying it, being so complimentary. He’d noticed there was a way you could do it that made you look even better than the person you were complimenting. But it kind of ruined things if the subject of your praise was going to be all ungrateful about it.

'Just act normal,' said Jay. 'Except don’t make fun of me as much. That’s all.'

'Well…you act normal. Except not so retarded. Then there won’t be anything to make fun of. And you’re acting totally weird, too.'

Jay frowned. 'No, I’m not.'

'You are. You’re all, ‘I like Sandman, too, Cat. We have so much in common. Watch me code on your computer with my dick.’'

'Shut up.'

'Screw this,' said Doug, and he shuffled out to the front door. Cat and Sejal were coming back in as he reached for the knob.

'Oh! Hey,' said Cat. 'They’re really backed up because of Labor Day. So the pizza won’t be here for an hour.'

Doug looked at his watch. 'I have to leave in an hour. To see this…mentor guy by Clark Park I’ve been seeing.'

'Mentor?' said Sejal.

'Uh, yeah, he’s like a career counselor. You know. Helping me figure out what to do with my future.'

Cat announced that she was going to see how her computer was coming along, and left the two of them alone in the hall. Now the stale house air seemed to crackle and bloom. He wanted to seize Sejal and hold her close. He wanted to shrink her down and carry her around in his tiny pockets.

'Maybe I should blow off my appointment,' he said. He couldn’t remember how to stand. What did he usually do with his hands? 'The company is better here.'

Sejal was looking at a potpourri arrangement on the side table. 'Your future is important,' she said.

22 Origin stories

YOUR FUTURE is important, Doug thought as he biked the last few blocks to Stephin’s house. What did that mean? Important because she wants to be a part of it? He wondered if it was possible he was going to marry Sejal. He pictured the ceremony: huge families, lots of pink and red and orange, flowers everywhere, molting flakes of gold. Sejal with painted hands, in some complicated outfit, wrapped up like a present. Doug with a big mustache for some reason.

They get married and then they live together in some cramped little New York apartment. The trains rattle their knickknacks every fifteen minutes, but that’s okay, they have each other, taking long walks by the river and breakfasts in the park.

They don’t move to New York, they sail the world instead; and at each port of call the local constabulary calls upon them to solve mysteries in their own playfully pugnacious fashion.

So far away was Doug that he almost missed Stephin motioning to him from a bench in the park across from his house.

He had on a wide-brimmed hat that Doug thought looked effeminate. Like something his mother would wear to garden. But then he remembered his new, complimentary outlook.

'I like your hat,' he told Stephin.

'I like your hooded poncho. I believe we share a bad habit of not feeding enough? I am a bit sensitive to the sun.'

'Why did you meet me out here, then?'

'Because I believe, regardless, that I need to get out of the house. Can we walk and talk?'

'Sure. Um…is it okay if we don’t meet too long today? I have a lot of homework to do.'

They walked deeper into the park, away from the house, past groups of kids playing with foam swords. It looked to Doug like the sort of game he and Jay and Stuart used to play. He had to resist an urge to shout at the kids, 'Run! Vampires!'

'I don’t doubt you have homework,' said Stephin, 'but that’s not really why you’re impatient to leave, I think.'

'How do you know that?'

'I’ve been watching people a long time. I’m good at reading them. And you’re a teenage boy, which makes you about as challenging as Dick and Jane.'

Doug huffed. 'Fine. It’s a about a girl — big surprise, right?'

'What’s her name?'

'Sejal.'

'Hm. A little padma from the subcontinent, eh?'

'Mmmm, sure. Yeah.'

'Does this Sejal also know about your condition?'

'About being a vampire?' asked Doug. 'No. No, definitely not. I wouldn’t tell her. It would be dangerous.'

'And yet how very dangerous not to. Can you afford not to tell her? If you truly care? The Vampire’s Dilemma — you must have these kinds of human connections to retain your humanity. And yet they’re impossible. And without them you’ll become nothing but a hunter and a hermit.'

And a fucking downer, thought Doug. And a completely depressing pain in the ass.

They circled the park, twining in and out of its concrete paths. At all times Stephin seemed to be distantly watching his leprous house.

'So,' said Doug after a long silence, 'did you ever have…someone? Were you ever married?'

'I never married. But, yes, there was someone.'

'What happened?'

Stephin cracked a rare smile. 'What a question. He died.'

'Oh. Sorry.' He? You’ve gotta be kidding me.

'We’ve been away long enough,' Stephin said, then turned abruptly toward the house.

Inside, seated again in the small study, Stephin seemed more animated.

'So it occurred to me after your first visit that we’d spent the better part of the hour not talking about anything. I blame myself. This time I’ve made a list.'

Doug straightened.

'First, Miss Polidori has been most insistent that I glean certain information from you. Her ghoul Asa has been at my door twice in three days. Someone should do that man the favor of killing him, and I mean that in the friendliest sense. So. Perhaps you’ll tell me about the hazing that got you into our little fraternity.'

'Um. You mean…you want to know how I became a vampire? Like my origin story?'

'If you don’t mind telling me.'

'I guess I don’t.'