The Traveling Vampire Show

Slim’s bedroom. It had to be, because of the book shelves. There were lots of bookshelves, and nearly all of them were loaded: rows of hardbounds, some neatly lined up, while others were tipped at angles as if bravely trying to hold up neighboring volumes; books of various sizes resting on top of the upright books; neat rows of paperbacks; crooked stacks of paperbacks and hardbounds; neat stacks of magazines; and scattered non-book items such as Barbie dolls, fifteen or twenty stuffed animals, an archery trophy she’d won at the YWCA tournament, a couple of little snow globes, a piggy bank wearing Slim’s brand new Chicago Cubs baseball cap and her special major league baseball—autographed by Ernie Banks.

In one corner of the room stood a nice wooden desk with a Royal portable typewriter ready for action. Papers were piled all around the typewriter. On the wall, at Slim’s eye level if she were sitting at the desk, was a framed photo of Ayn Rand that looked is if it had been torn from a LIFE or LOOK magazine.

Slim’s bed was neatly made. Its wooden headboard had a shelf for holding a radio, books, and so on. She had a radio on it, along with about a dozen paperbacks. I stepped over for a closer look at the books. There were beat-up copies of The Temple of Gold, The Catcher in the Rye, Dracula, To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone With the Wind, The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Eyre, The Sign of the Four, The October Country, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. I hadn’t actually read any of these books myself (except The Catcher in the Rye, which was so funny I split a gut laughing and so sad that I cried a few times), but Slim had told me about most of them. Of all the books in her room, these were probably her favorites, which is why she kept them on her headboard.

When I finished looking at them, I turned around. Rusty was gone.

I felt a surge of alarm.

Instead of calling out for him, I went looking.

I found him in the bedroom across the hall. The mother’s bedroom. Standing over an open drawer of the dresser, his back toward me, his head down. He must’ve heard me come in, because he turned around and grinned. In his hands, he held a flimsy black bra by its shoulder straps. “Check out the merchandise,” he whispered.

“Put that away. Are you nuts?”

“It’s her mom’s.”

“My God, Rusty.”

“Look.” He raised it in front of his face. “You can see through it.”

“Put it away.”

“Dig it, man. It’s had her tits in it.” He put one of the cups against his face like a surgical mask, and breathed in. The soft pouch collapsed against his nose and mouth. As he sighed, it puffed outward. “I can smell her.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I swear to God. She hasn’t washed this thing since the last time she wore it.”

“Gimme a break.”

“C’mon and smell it.”

“No way.”

“Chicken.”

“Put it back, Rusty. We’ve gotta get out of here before somebody catches us.”

“Nobody’s gonna catch us.”

He breathed in slowly and deeply, once again sucking the fabric against his nose and mouth.

“For God’s sake.”

“Okay, okay.” He lowered it, folded it in half and stuffed it into the drawer.

“Is that the way you found it?” I asked.

“What do you think, I’m a moron?” He slid the drawer shut.

“Let’s go.”

“Hang on.” He pulled open another drawer. “Undies!”

He started to reach in, so I rushed over and shoved the drawer shut. He jerked his hands clear in the nick of time.

But I’d shut the drawer too hard.

The dresser shook.

On top of the dresser was a tall, slim vase of clear green glass with three or four yellow roses in it.

The vase toppled forward.

Gasping, I tried to catch it.

I wasn’t quick enough.

It crashed down onto a perfume bottle and they both shattered. Glass, water and perfume exploded, filling the air. Roses flew off the front of the dresser. As they bumped their bright heads against the front of Rusty’s jeans, a cascade of scented water spilled over the edge of the dresser, ran down and poured onto the carpet.

Chapter Fifteen

We gazed at the mess, stunned and silent.

The air of the bedroom carried an odor of perfume so sweet and heavy that it almost made me gag.

After a while, Rusty muttered, “Shit. You really did it this time.”

“Me?”

“Huh? You think I slammed the drawer?”

“Oh, you had nothing to do with it. All you did was open it in the first place so you could paw through her stuff. If you weren’t such a degenerate…”

“If you weren’t such a prude…”

Then we both fell silent and resumed gazing at our catastrophe: the puddle on the dresser top bristling with chunks and slivers and specks of glass; the wet patch on the carpet that looked as if a dog had taken a leak there; the bits of colored glass sprinkled on and around the wet patch; the yellow roses at Rusty’s feet, some of their petals fallen off.

“What’re we gonna do?” Rusty asked.