The Blind Vampire Hunter (3 page)

“SO...” I started, but again, he cut me
off.

“See her after school, explain the situation,
and see if she has room for you.” He warned, “Don’t get your hopes
up as I really don’t believe she has room for another student.”

I visited Miss Masters, and before I could
say anything, she announced, “I don’t have room for you, but I will
make room for you. Report here tomorrow.”

I was so excited at her proclamation, that I
ran out never finding out how it was she was so ready for me and so
determined about finding room for me in her classroom. As for
making room for me, I had to use her teacher’s desk for a couple of
classes until she found me a proper student desk. Once she found me
a desk, she had to place it between her desk and the row of student
desks nearest the window.

As to being an advanced class too difficult
for me to handle, I loved that class. One assignment was to write a
short story. I wrote a novelette that got me a near perfect score,
the highest score she had ever given any student, though I lost
points on spelling. High school students did not have computers
with spell-checkers in the early 70’s.

At the end of one week in a high school math
class, the teacher called me up and said, “You don’t belong in this
class.” After a dramatic pause he added, “You aced the first day
exam when most of these students can’t even add or subtract. Hell,
some of these
high school students
didn’t even spell their
names correctly.” He continued, “This week I have looked hard to
find somewhere else to put you, but there is no other class to
place you in during this time period. So I have decided to put you
in my office, give you some books and let you teach yourself. When
I can, I will step in and check on your progress and make myself
available for any questions you may encounter. I understand you
have had some experience at this self-teaching before. When
feasible during the last ten minutes of each class I will give the
class busy work, so I may come in and see how you are doing, answer
any questions you might have and help you if you get stuck in your
self education.”

While the teacher tried to teach addition and
subtraction to the mentally, but mostly morally challenged
students, I taught myself algebra and trigonometry so well that
later in college I “examed out,” which meant instead of taking the
required course, and then taking the final exam, I took the final
exam, passed it, and was not required to take the class. I tested
out with such a near perfect test score, and since I did not have
to take the course, the instructor asked me if I would tutor for
him, to help him with some others of his class students who needed
the extra assistance. I agreed to do so.

Yes, I not only graduated from high school,
but received a college degree. I should mention that, by my later
college years, I needed special visual aids to get through the
classes. Late in my college classes, I started taping my classes.
In one class, the instructor would enter the class after the
students and immediately start lecturing. For this reason, I had
gotten into the routine of starting the tape player as he entered
the room. One evening, he walked in and announced, “My day job is
sending me to Hawaii for two weeks to fix a problem that will most
likely take me two hours to fix. For the next two weeks I plan to
have a real good time in Hawaii, all on a company expense
account.”

One of the female students asked, “Are you
taking your wife and kids with you?”

Pointedly he answered, “Did you not hear me
say I was going to have a good time in Hawaii? Of course I am not
taking the old ball-n-chain and the rug rats with me.”

The young lady sitting next to me announced,
“You do realize Jack just taped all that.”

If looks could kill I’d be dead right now,
but the class laughed on.

Second Front: I had to fight to survive my
peers. From the 50’s through the 70’s, “legal blindness” did not
exist. You were either fully sighted, blind or A RETARDED FREAK. As
previously mentioned that English class I had to fight my way out
of—fighting off a whole class of students–one against dozens,
Right?

Yes, Right. Part of my “Special Education.”
Even among the “retards” I was a freak because of my eyesight. I
needed to learn to defend myself or get the crap beat out of me.
You know the old trick of distracting your victim while an
accomplice kneels down behind the victim. Three students tried to
pull that on me once, but only once. One day on the playground, two
students who were thorns in my side, walked up to me saying that
they had decided to become my friends. I got suspicious. It was
autumn and there were lots of dry leaves on the ground. When I
heard the leaves crunching behind me, I mule kicked backward and
nailed someone right in the head. I kicked him so hard that he
dropped to the ground, crying. I then shoved my arms forward and
rammed the other two, knocking them on their asses. No one ever
tried to pull that on me a second time.

* * * *

Meanwhile in Louisiana...

Business was growing for one “lady of the
night”. “That prostitute in gothic-vampire outfit will give you a
blow for free, well not totally free. Her price: a little bite on
the neck. Hell, I don’t know what’s more exciting, her blow-job or
her bite on the neck. Charlie swears he always comes twice- and it
costs no money!”

* * * *

Meanwhile in back in Maryland...

When I was a child, my parents forced me to
“go out and get fresh air.” Instead of fighting to keep my bike
from being stolen or dodging eggs thrown at me, I found an
alternative to the tortures of my peers. Fortunately for me, next
to our housing development there was a wooded area that was
supposedly inhabited by the cannibalism madman called the “Rabbit
Man.” He was called this because his whole attire consisted of a
pair of rabbit ears taken from one of the rabbits he had eaten for
his dinner. He used a large bloody axe, and he always carried it
with him. Oh, yes, word was that he ate kids stupid enough to enter
his domain. Or desperate enough?

I spent a lot of my time in those woods. At
first I was very cautious of every sound that might mean the Rabbit
Man was near...

Of course, I never met up with the “Rabbit
Man.” When I was old enough I went from messing about in the woods
to the honorable Boy Scouts. Think I made friends within such an
honorable, highly moral institute as the Boy Scouts? Think
again.

My patrol leader [scout assigned by the Boy
Scout troop leader to be in charge of a subgroup within the troop]
loved to give me every dirty duty possible, and if it was not dirty
enough he would find a way to make it dirtier for the pleasure of
all the others. In short, even within the Boy Scouts, I was a
four-eyed retarded freak because of my low-vision. When I was old
enough to progress from the Boy Scouts to the Explorers, I had no
intentions of progressing on. My father and the Scoutmaster never
could understand why I did not move on to the fun and adventures of
The Explorers. It couldn’t be because those boys that tormented me
within my Boy Scout Troop were waiting for me in the Explorers,
with girls to embarrass and harass me in front of no less as the
Explorers was uni-sexed. Interestingly, I was not allowed to
progress within the Boy Scouts because even though I was
night-blind and could not see stars, my Scoutmaster was not
familiar with night blindness and refused to believe it. Meanwhile,
on outings, his boys loved stealing my flashlight so they could
watch me stumble around blindly in the dark.

I do recall one time when their folly of
stealing my flashlight backfired on them. It was during a 50-mile
hiking trip. It was such a great night that most of us guys figured
it would be nicer and easier not to bother pitching tents. There
was one exception; twin brothers, tenderfoots, on their first
hiking trip. All day the guys had been teasing the twins to look
out for bears, so when it came time to sack out for the night these
two brainiacs thought they’d be smart and pitch a pup tent.

[Pup tent: Tie a rope between two trees,
throw the tent canvas over the rope and secure the sides.]

The brainiacs then placed a number of rocks
at both ends of the tent opening so if a bear stumbled into one
side of the tent, the twins could escape from becoming the bear’s
dinner by exiting through the other side of the tent.

Of course, after bedding down for the night,
I got the call of nature. Rooting around in my backpack, I
discovered that, despite packing my flashlight at the bottom, it
was gone, again. Looking around, I took notice that the Scoutmaster
and the volunteer fathers were still yawning around their campfire,
and I figured to use their fire to mark my way out to pee and
return. After finding a nice large tree to go behind, I took care
of my business. When I circled the tree to get back to my sleeping
bag, I discovered that the men had sacked out for the night,
putting out their campfire. I was lost.

Trying to remember my way back to my sleeping
bag I found instead, yes, I found the twin’s fortifications by
falling over their stone guards. The twins, figuring I was a big,
old hungry bear looking to eat them, ripped out the other end,
yelling, “BEAR! A BEAR IS IN OUR TENT! HEELLP!” This, of course,
woke everyone up, and I had lots and lots of flashlight beams to
help me back to my sleeping bag.

It was during this time in my life that I
made a new friend, the son of a new friend of my father, who
introduced me to a fascinating magazine called,
FAMOUS MONSTERS
of FILMLAND
. From the first time I eyeballed it, I instantly
became a horror fan. Also during this time, my parents were having
trouble finding sitters who could referee my sister and I, as we
tended to fight like cats and dogs–no, really, I barked a lot at my
sister, who liked to scratch at me a lot–and on and on it went. My
parents found a high school sucker, Nancy. When she learned about
my interest in monsters, she made a deal with me. If I did not kill
or even try to kill my sister, I got to stay up past my bedtime and
watch
Creature Feature
on TV with her.

For the first few times before Count Gore
DeVol started to host the night’s Creature Feature, Nancy made a
point of telling me, “Now remember, what you see is only
make-believe, there is nothing really scary about these movies.
Certainly nothing that can hurt you.”

I took her instruction so much to heart that
years later while sneaking off to view Hammer Horror movies with
two of my buds, as they totally freaked out during the movies, I,
Mr. Cool, would prevail. Nothing scares
the Man
.

Who could not watch those great Hammer Horror
movies and not become a great fan of Vampires? From Christopher
Lee’s Dracula to all those sexy female Vamps.

One more note on my sister. Even though we
fought like cats and dogs when we were younger, when we matured, we
developed a pact. If some girl gave my sister a hard time it was
her problem; if some guy gave her a hard time, it was my problem.
My sister’s first job was at our local Roy Rogers Restaurant. There
was a young man who liked to talk dirty to the girls, this included
my sister. When she told me how upsetting it was, I visited this
Roy Rogers, and I made a point of arriving when they were not busy.
When I walked in, I looked around. The place wasn’t quiet, it was
dead. The only people I could find were two serving girls standing
behind the counter, eagerly waiting for me to walk the snake and
upon arriving in front of the register, give my order. Instead, I
walked around to the side of the snake, came up beside the register
and asked one of the serving girls to ask “Charlie” to come out to
see me. She complied by disappearing into the back. The girl
returned from the back and told me, “Charlie says he’s too busy
right now.”

Loudly, I proclaimed, “Well, tell
Charlie
that if he does not get his ass out here right now I
will go back there to see him, and he will not be happy.”

No sooner than that was said then some big
guy was standing behind the counter-girl apologizing profusely. I
can’t imagine Charlie knew what he was apologizing for, but he was
very enthusiastically doing so.

Finding ourselves between the end of the
front counter and right next to some bar seats where a diner could
sit and look out into the parking lot, I introduced myself as
Erica’s brother and invited him to be seated; he sat. Taking the
bar stool next to him I began giving him a verbal lesson in manners
his parents should have given him, on how men should treat women as
ladies. I’m not saying women are second-rate citizens, I just
believe woman should be treated like ladies not like hookers. He
seemed to hang on every word. I finished my lecture by saying, “If
my sister should tell me you require a second, more physical lesson
on the subject, I will be back.”

At this point, I noticed that the two serving
girls where wiping down the cash register so as to be in easy
eavesdropping distance, so I added, a little louder for their
benefit, “In fact, if my sister tells me you’re still having
trouble behaving around any of the girls here, I will be back for
that second lesson.”

He assured me that would not be necessary,
and it wasn’t. There was an interesting development to this. In the
future when I walked in and ordered and paid for a small drink, I’d
receive a tray with a large drink, large fries and a roast beef and
possibly even a hamburger. While this was really cool, I was a
little worried that this gratitude from the girls might get them
into trouble, since they were handing out free food. I told my
sister that, while I was enjoying the free food, I did not want the
girls getting in trouble for it. She informed me that the female
manager was very aware of the “Charlie” problem, but was at a loss
to figure out how to handle it. She was
very
appreciative of
my handling the problem for her. The free meals were her request.
They were orders the girls enjoyed fulfilling.