Interview With a Jewish Vampire (16 page)

“
Why do you sit with your husband’s ashes in the storage room?” Mom asked her.

“
I don’t want them in the house. Too upsetting. I will never stop mourning him, wishing he were with me, wishing he were a vampire too. Not that I could have made him one—it was too late by the time he died.”

“
That’s pretty ironic,” Sheldon said, “I was sleeping in the same place. I could have found you without making a million phone calls.”

“
I wish you’d found me last night, young man—when we were alone,” Tessie said flirtatiously. “You’re a handsome devil,” she laughed. “ I get tired of only female company.”

Sheldon laughed. “Rhoda wouldn’t have appreciated that.”

Mom wasn’t interested in Sheldon’s charms at the moment. She had too many questions. “It seems my daughter wants me to become a vampire,” Mom said “I thought she was kidding, or crazy. I totally dismissed the idea, but here you are, Tess, and you seem fine with this. How did this happen to you? Who changed you into a vampire?”

Ellen joined in the questioning. “Are you glad you did it? What’s it like? How do you get turned into one?”

Judy wanted to know, “What do you eat? Can you go out during the day?”

“
Slow down, girls,” Tessie said. “Give me some time and I’ll explain.”

“
Who made you a vampire, Tess?” was Mom’s first question.

“
It wasn’t my choice, Fanny. I was dying and my daughter changed me. She’d been a vampire for quite a while. I didn’t know it, she hadn’t told me. I knew she’d become a little eccentric, but then she was a conceptual artist. They’re all strange. But I was on hospice at home, I had terminal cancer, so she changed me. She actually didn’t ask if I wanted it, I was too far gone. But I was very grateful and neither of us has ever regretted it.”

“
Does it hurt?” Mom asked plaintively.

“
Actually I don’t remember. I was in a coma at the time. From what I hear you won’t remember either. You will go into a twilight state like when you have a colonoscopy. Oh, you won’t need those anymore. Isn’t that great? When you wake up you’ll be changed.”

“
If you’ve read Dracula you know the drill.” Sheldon addressed the girls. I will perform the change. She’ll die, we’ll get a coffin and bury her and then dig her up the next night at which point she will rise as a vampire. No big deal.” Sheldon spoke quickly, leaving out the gorier part about sucking mom’s blood and giving her his blood, trying to lessen the shock.

“
No big deal,” Judy shrieked. “My friend will become some kind of monster and you say it’s no big deal.”

“
I get buried alive?” Mom looked terrified.

“
You won’t be alive at the time, just when we dig you up. You won’t remember a thing.” Sheldon reassured her. “I didn’t know what hit me until I got dug up.”

“
Rhoda only wants to keep me alive, Judy. She has no intention of having me turned into a monster as far as I can tell,” Mom said. “Look at Tess. Is she a monster? Is Sheldon a monster?”

Sheldon looked totally harmless. His hair was mussed, he was wearing jeans and sneakers and smiling widely, showing his gleaming white teeth, which were un-fanged at the moment. He could retract his fangs when he wanted to. He’d even put on a little instant tanning spray at my request so he wouldn’t look so deadly white.

“
By the way I don’t have all the answers,” Sheldon said, “neither does Tess. The change affects people differently. Some vampires develop all kinds of amazing powers, like flying, others, like me, can only glide a little. You tend to develop powers that you want to develop. But you have to work at it, like lifting weights.”

“
I’ve developed the ability to glamour,” Tess said. “That means I can mesmerize people and bend them to my will.”

“
Why would you want to do that?” Mom asked.

“
Have you ever had to wait on line at Wal-Mart? Let’s just say that I never have to wait for anything.”

“
Can Fanny go out during the day?” Miriam asked. “We’d miss her at the beach and the early bird.”

“
Actually she can,” Tess responded, “but only if she has a good reason. Her powers will disappear during the day. She’ll feel sickly and weak. She’ll only be strong at night. Plus vampires need to sleep twelve hours a day, so that pretty much eliminates most daytime activities. She won’t wake up until sunset naturally, and will become so sleepy before dawn she’ll head right off to bed.”

“
You don’t have to sleep in a coffin?” I asked her. “Sheldon shlepped his coffin all the way down here.”

Tess laughed. “Get some blackout curtains for him and he’ll be fine. That’s an old wives’ tale.”

“
You never told me you could go out during the day, Sheldon,” I said.

“
You never asked. I don’t like to do it because I feel too vulnerable. I could be hit by a car and that would be it for me. If there were any vampire hunters around that’s when they’d go after me. I’m mortal during the day. Plus I need my beauty sleep.”

“
So I could have a heart attack during the day?” Mom asked.

“
No you couldn’t, vampires don’t have human ailments, but you could be killed in an accident, or by a vampire hunter. Just like you naturally want to sleep at night now, you’ll want to sleep during the day. You’ll see. It’s different for everyone. But you’re not going to burst into flames in daylight. That’s a myth. Florida sunlight, however, will not feel good.”

“
It doesn’t sound so bad,” Mom said. “Except for vampire hunters. Who are they? Would they be after me?”

“
They won’t be after you. You’d have the perfect cover,” Sheldon said, avoiding the question. “You’re a little old lady.”

“
Fanny, you forgot to ask what you’re going to eat,” Miriam chimed in. “How are you going to give up bagels and lox?”

“
Food is a problem,” Sheldon admitted. “My diet is not something Fanny would enjoy, so I’d rather not talk about it until after her change. Then we’ll work it out. Suffice it to say I do not drink human blood like some vampires. We try very hard to stick to animal blood, though human blood is a big temptation.”

“
We have an animal farm, sheep, goats, chickens,” Tess said cheerily, as if she was talking about cooking brisket for dinner. “It’s not bagels and lox but I’ve always loved chicken. Vampires need blood from live creatures, unless they get live blood from a blood bank, so we keep farm animals. We suck the blood out and then we get a rabbi to approve them for kosher consumption. You know kosher means all the blood has to be drained from an animal. It’s very convenient and we make money from it. Even vampires can’t live on Social Security.”

Sheldon stared at her in awe. “Why didn’t I think of that. I’ve never heard of vampires who didn’t hunt. I hunt rats. It’s disgusting, but I didn’t think I had a choice.”

“
That doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes lust after human blood,” Tess said. “But we manage to resist. It’s kind of like being on a diet. Think of it as the Atkins Vampire Diet since it’s all protein. I’ll take you out to the farm for dinner, Sheldon. We have a Haitian couple who runs it. They don’t question us at all—after all, they’re believers in voodoo; they believe in zombies, so we’re not a big deal to them.”

“
Where do you get the rabbi?” I asked.

“
Do you think Sheldon is the only vampire rabbi? Let’s just say there are others.”

“
I don’t want to find out too much,” Mom said, “or I’ll chicken out. If it’s what Rhoda wants I’ll just do it. How bad can it be? Sheldon here looks pretty happy. So do you, Tess.”

“
That’s because I found Rhoda,” Sheldon said. “I used to be very lonely. I was a rabbi before I became a vampire. Not too many nice Jewish girls go for vampires.”

“
A rabbi! I’m not sure I approve of my daughter marrying a rabbi,” Mom said, in perfect seriousness.

“
A vampire is OK but not a rabbi,” Judy said sarcastically. “Your sense of values is pretty twisted, Fanny.”

“
He’s not a rabbi anymore, Mom. He still lives in Crown Heights with the Hasidic Jews because it’s a good cover.”

“
Maybe you two will move to Florida,” she said.

“
Oh, Mom. You know I don’t like Florida. Too flat, too boring. Maybe you’ll move to New York when you’re not sick anymore.”

“
I’m not going to like the cold weather no matter how dead I am.”

“
You could be wrong about that, Fanny,” Sheldon chimed in. “I love the cold and dark. It’s a vampire thing.”

“
Fanny,” Miriam interrupted, “I’m not going to let you do this alone. I want to go with you. I’m eighty-five, I’ve got diabetes and a bad heart. My daughter never visits. What do I have to stay alive for? I’d rather feel good and be able to have an active life again. I don’t care about food, I never did.” Miriam was teary-eyed. The most delicate of the girls, she was tiny, soft-spoken, with a wispy gray bun on her head. She always dressed in sweater sets and straight skirts which looked like she’d acquired in the 1950s.

“
Could we play tennis, Tess?” Mom asked. She used to love playing tennis.

“
I don’t see why not, as long as you schedule it at night. There’s no wait at the courts, that’s for sure.”

“
They have tennis courts here that are lit up at night,” Miriam said. “Fanny, just imagine it, we can play tennis again.”

“
OK, I’m in too,” Ellen said. “I’m not being stuck by myself here.”

“
How about me?” Judy did not sound happy. “I don’t want to do this. It sounds nuts to me. I’m in pretty good shape. My grandchildren would be really upset.”

“
Judy, you don’t have to do anything. You can always change your mind down the road when you see how it works out for your friends,” Tess said reassuringly.

“
Are you going to change us all at the same time?” Mom asked.

“
Sure,” Sheldon said. “It will be easier for the girls to go through the change together. What do you think, Tess.”

“
I really don’t know,” she said. “I never changed anyone and never saw it done. None of us knows much about the change—we all went through it when we were dying. You’ll have to do some research, Sheldon. You’ve been a vampire the longest. I hear it’s easier for the oldest vampires to do the change.”

“
I can’t believe I’m agreeing to do this, Rhoda,” Mom said. “I must be crazy.”

“
We’re all crazy,” Miriam said. “But haven’t we always been the Century Village crazy girl gang? Everyone already thinks we’re nuts because we drive at night and travel to Europe on our own, not on a tour.”

“
Gee, that is pretty gutsy,” Sheldon said.

“
Maybe I should do it too,” I said. “How can I get old when Mom stays the same? And when you stay young, Sheldon. You’ll get tired of me. You’ll start going after younger women.”

“
No, Rhoda. I love you because you’re human. I don’t know how I would feel if you were a vampire like me. I love that you’re so sweet and soft and juicy and zaftig.”

“
Shame on you, Sheldon. I thought you loved me for myself, not because I’m human.”

“
C’mon, that is part of yourself. It’s no rush anyway. You can become a vampire when you get a few more wrinkles.”

“
But you look thirty-five and I’m already forty-one.”

“
Rhoda, I have enough to deal with changing your mom and her two friends. I’ve only changed one other person in my whole un-death, my brother Herschel. That was easy. He was young and dying already. Your mom and her friends are relatively healthy so it will be harder. Let’s see how that goes.”

“
OK, I’ll wait. But not for too long. I’m going on a diet so I won’t be so zaftig when I go through the change. I don’t want to be zaftig for eternity.”

“
That’s a good idea, Rhoda,” Mom said. “You really need to lose some weight anyway.”

“
Mom, just because I mentioned losing weight doesn’t give you permission to chime in.”

I’d long ago threatened her that the next time she mentioned my weight I’d stop talking to her, and she’d managed to keep her mouth shut. Until now.

“
I like you the way you are, Rhoda,” Sheldon reassured me. “Zaftig suits me just fine.”

Changing three old ladies into vampires wasn’t going to be a picnic for Sheldon—or maybe it was. He’d get to drink some human blood for a change instead of the usual animal variety which might or might not compromise his abstinence. Before facing it, we decided to take a night out together. Who knew when we could relax together again without worrying about how we were going to manage changing three harmless old Jewish ladies into three dangerous creatures of the night?

Leaving the girls at Mom’s house, we borrowed her car and decided to cruise down to South Beach, just to escape the claustrophobic, elderly atmosphere of Century Village. I wanted to take a romantic walk on the beach with Sheldon and maybe a little midnight swim. By the time we got to South Beach it was midnight and the streets were loud--crowded with Eurotrash types wearing as little as they could get away with without being arrested. . I wished Sheldon could eat and drink because the Cuban food and Mojitos were calling to me, but I didn’t want him to think I was a glutton. I wondered if he resented me because I could eat food and he couldn’t. I tried to resist stuffing myself when he was around but it wasn’t easy.