NIGHT SCHOOL
“Stay away from Merkel,” Chaz said. “He’s a vampire.” Everyone in the
small classroom laughed, some more humored than others.
Vivian had survived
the dreaded introductions—the part of any first-day-of-classes she hated most.
Luckily it was a small class, only seven, including the instructor. Well,
eight; Merkel wasn’t there yet. A close-knit group who already knew each from
the previous session of History 101, Vivian felt that she was an interloper,
crashing a family reunion by pretending to be one of them. She had taken
History 101 last quarter at the normal time of 6:00pm to 8:30pm on Tuesdays and
Thursdays. A hiccup in her schedule caused her to have to register for this
night class, which met from 7:00pm to 9:30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays.
At first she had been
worried that the session would be filled with weirdoes and lazy druggies just
out of high school, but most of her fellow students were nice and normal. Chaz
was a construction worker in his mid-thirties who was getting his Associate’s
Degree in order to be considered for a foreman position with his company. Glenn
was twenty and worked part-time at the Best Buy while he studied film; the
night history classes were the only ones offered that fit his schedule. Sherry
was not quite thirty (for the third year in a row) and a full-time waitress,
mother of three, who wanted to be a medical coder after hearing a story on the
news about the demand for employees skilled in that field. Meagan—pronounced
“Mee-gan”—was just out of high school and didn’t know what she wanted to do
with her life, but, she said, it would be something like event planning or
working with kids. Laurie was “sixty-one, going on nineteen,” and was just
taking random classes to occupy time in her life. Then there was Doctor Connor
Nann, or, Doctor Conan, as he liked to be called; he was in his late thirties
with the start of the professor-pouch (a slightly inflated stomach on an
otherwise skinny frame), thick-framed glasses that might or might not have
prescription lenses in them, and a close-trimmed beard.
The only one she
hadn’t heard from was Merkel. Though she had heard about him. Vivian could tell
the others weren’t trying to be nice for her sake, there was some kind of
deep-seeded animosity amongst them, regarding the one described as tall, dark,
and horrible. Supposedly, he dressed like a corpse—whatever that entailed—and
chuckled when Dr. Conan talked about some of the atrocities of wars as a way to
juxtapose violence today with the violence of so long ago. Laurie had called
him a ghoul. Glenn and Chaz referred to him as a vampire because he seemed to
know a little too much about specific historic events. Meagan avoided the
conversation, probably because she secretly thought he was kind of hot. And
Sherry said that she was careful not to talk about her kids or their school
when Merkel was around.
Like any good literary
monster, an image of Merkel came to her mind based on the little bit of
information that was utterly terrifying. She imagined him as tall, wearing all black
(possibly a black trench coat, though no one had mentioned one), with heavy
boots that were loosely laced so that he clup-clomped
when he walked; greasy, stringy black hair that was dyed so dark it absorbed
color, especially from his pale face that was hidden behind the dreary curtain.
The complete picture reminded her of some of the images from young men who had
shot up their high schools: depressed and angered loners who couldn’t take
their lives anymore so they decided to take some of the lives of those who made
them miserable as well.
The door was at the
back of the room, with a little hallway that had some coat hooks. When it opened,
the conversation stopped, as though silence had been the topic all along. But
it was only Dr. Conan.
He came into the room
and set down his messenger bag on the desk at the head of the room. He turned
to the chalk board and wrote the class title, course number, and his name. Then
he picked up a half-podium and set it on the desk. He surveyed them. “Oh, it’s
you lot,” he said with a grin. “Well, two’s company, three’s a crowd, and
five’s a class.” He opened his bag and pulled out a print-off. “First day
attendance,” he muttered. “Almost perfect. No Mister Merkel. Shame. He’ll miss
the cotton candy and the sword fight.”
Vivian looked over at
Sherry. She smiled and shook her head. Dr. Conan was a joker.
Just then the door
opened.
Everyone looked up as
a dark figure emerged from the hall that led to the door. The atmosphere in the
room plummeted from one of jovial kinship to maudlin isolation. Each person,
except Dr. Conan, seemed to withdraw into themselves. Vivian found that she
couldn’t look right at him. Not because of some supernatural force, but because
she was generally afraid to.
“Ah, Mister Merkel,”
Dr. Conan said. “You have been re-awarded your cotton candy privileges, but I’m
afraid your tardiness has excluded you from the sword fight.”
Merkel said nothing as
he walked almost silently through the room, towards the window on the far side,
and all the way to the desk in the back corner.
Vivian kept her head slightly lowered, he eyes fixed
on her desktop. The starched whiteness of the blank note paper in front of her
was blinding. She blinked a few times, clearing the blue-ish afterimages and
put her attention on Dr. Conan.
“Okay,” he said. “History one-oh-two. Moving on. We
wrapped up last term with the War of Eighteen Twelve and a discussion on where
you wanted to start this quarter. In a vote that proved the democratic process
works—when you don’t involve politicians—you voted to start in the mid-eighteen
fifties and the start of the Civil War. Am I right?” There was mumbled
agreement. “Okay, so eighteen thirty! In January of that year, there was a
debate between Robert Hayne and Daniel Webster about the question of states’
rights versus federal authority. And who can guess what state Mister Hayne
represented?”
“South Carolina,” the class answered in practiced
unison—except for Vivian, and possibly Merkel.
The class went on until about 9:00pm, pausing for twenty minutes for a
trip to the vending machines. In that time, Vivian learned that Dr. Conan had a
thing against South Carolina and their overpowering secessionist attitude,
often making jokes and citing them as the sole reason for the division of the
nation. She took her notes and made her doodles when she was bored. She
listened as Laurie called Dr. Conan out every time he told the class that they
were probably too young to remember some allusion he was making, not realizing
he was about as old as most of the students. He wrapped up the first night of
class thirty minutes early—a gift he told them.
As they stood up to
gather their things, Glenn leaned over and told her that they usually meet at
Harry’s, an Irish-style pub that served a great pizza near the campus after
class. Vivian said that it would be fun to go and said that she would meet them
there.
She turned and looked
over her shoulder at Merkel, getting her first real look at him.
He was turned, looking
out the window. He was not at all what she expected. For one thing, he was
dressed in a nice black suit with a narrow black tie and a clean white shirt.
His hair was black, but it was neatly combed and styled in that popular way
that was short and sleek, like Rod Serling or Sean Connery’s James Bond. In
fact, his entire appearance seemed to be taken right from a cigarette ad from
1964—minus the cigarette.
Merkel wasn’t
awkwardly unattractive. He was shorter than she had pictured, but still taller
than she was, and his skin didn’t have that corpse blue-gray hue she imagined,
more like weak tea than white. His face was devoid of hard angles giving him
almost feminine features, except for the protruding Adam’s apple just above the
tight knot of his necktie.
Then she glanced at
his reflection in the windows, made a mirror by the light inside and the dark
outside. He caught her looking. Her eyes dropped and she spun for the door just
as it clicked closed behind the boisterous group that just left.
She got lost on her way to Harry’s and had to stop into the 24-hour
pharmacy and ask directions. When she finally arrived, everyone was already
there and one pitcher of beer had already been drained. Merkel had made it as
well, but he sat alone at a small table near the kitchen door.
“I hope you like
mushrooms,” Sherry said as Vivian sat down.
“Only the magic kind,”
Chaz said.
They all laughed.
“I’m sorry,” Vivian
said. “I wasn’t expecting to go out. I didn’t bring any money.”
“It’s on us,” Glenn
said. “Just don’t turn into a hungry-hungry hippo or anything.”
Again, they shared a
laugh. It felt good. Having felt a little odd going back to school after so
long, it was nice to feel so accepted so soon.
The group chatted and
listened. They told her more about themselves and she told them what she thought
they wanted to hear. The pizza was good and she promised to pay them back next
time, or maybe buy a round of drinks. But in the corner of her eye she saw
Merkel the whole time, sitting alone and content.
When the conversation
quieted, she stood up and walked over to him. She sat down without asking his
permission.
“What’s your first
name?” she asked.
He examined her with a
glance, his eyes squinting a little. She could tell he was deciding if she was
there to harass him or not. Vivian took a breadstick from the paper sleeve on
the table and bit into it, the soft interior yielding to her teeth.
“I didn’t think
vampires could eat garlic,” she said around the ball of chewed dough.
He snorted. “I don’t think I’m a vampire.” His voice was
steady and rumbled a little in his chest.
“It isn’t about what
you think,” she said. “It’s about what others think.” She took another bite of
breadstick.
He considered this.
“Ryan,” he said.
“Why do you come here,
Ryan Merkel? It doesn’t look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
“I enjoy making them uncomfortable.”
Vivian looked over her
shoulder at the group. None of them were looking at her. They were huddled
together, their faces near the burning candle that was jammed into the old
Chianti bottle with the woven whicker bottom. It cast them in a diabolical
light, the flickering candle carving out deeper shadows in their faces until
they looked like a bad makeup job in a cheap zombie film. And she was pretty
sure that Meagan’s hair was going to catch fire any second.
“You do excellent
work,” she said, raising her half-eaten breadstick in mock salute.
They sat in silence,
listening to the clattering and shouting of the kitchen staff. Then he said, “I
think they’d be able to eat garlic.”
“Who?”
“Vampires.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Seems
pretty random of a thing for an entire species to be allergic to. And in the
original legends, it never said they couldn’t eat it.”
“It didn’t?” Vivian
took another small bite of the breadstick, fully aware of how much garlic
butter it had been slathered in. Also noticing that he wasn’t eating one.
“No,” he shook his
head. “The earthy stink of the garlic was supposed to confuse them away from
your home. Like, they smelled it and thought another rotting vampire was
already there, so they would leave you alone. Besides, if vampires were real,
they wouldn’t be these beautiful things like Dracula. They’d look like
zombies—rotting corpses walking around looking for just enough blood to feed
themselves for the night. And forget about them living the highlife in some
swanky penthouse and engaging in all sorts of sexual escapades.”
“You sound like you’re
speaking from experience,” Vivian prodded.
“I’m a pragmatist,” he
said. “I believe in what is probable, not what is possible. If vampires, the
undead creatures of the night, were real, then they would probably be more similar to our modern idea of the zombie—not the
voodoo one, but the flesh-eating one.”
“But what about all of
the history stuff you know?” She finished the breadstick and swallowed. “They
all think that you were really there.”
Merkel blinked, looked
at the group, blinked again, and looked back at her. “I read the text book. And
Wikipedia. And I watch a lot of the History Channel.”
“Are you studying
history?”
“No, criminal
justice.”
The answer surprised
her. He didn’t look like the hero-cop type.
“Is that why the dark
suit and government agent ‘tude?”
For the first time he
smiled. She noticed that his bottom teeth were slightly misaligned so that they
looked like a row crooked tombstones. It wasn’t gnarly, but not what she
thought when he regarded his appearance.
“I work days as a
clerk at the courthouse,” he said. “Sometimes I have to interact with judges
and lawyers. And I like to look nice.”
He had an answer for
everything, like he knew what she was going to ask and had prepared for it. She
felt compelled to know more. It was some kind of power that he had, dangling
information in front of her, letting her nibble off bits at a time.
“Let me borrow your
cell phone,” she said.
Without any
hesitation, he pulled it from his inside coat pocket and gave it to her,
pausing to unlock it first. Vivian rapidly tapped at the screen with her thumbs
and then handed it back, locking it first. “I’m going to get my stuff and say
my goodbyes. In ten minutes, I want you to call me on the number I just put in
your phone.” She didn’t give him a chance to reject her. She just got up and
did what she’d said she’d do.
She knew he’d call.
She could see the hunger in his eyes.
Merkel knocked on her door almost exactly fifteen minutes after he’d
hung up with her. He could sure move fast when he wanted to. But then, his kind
always could, she guessed.
Vivian opened the door
and smiled at him. His hands were planted deep in his pants pockets, making the
cuffs rise a few inches from the tops of his shoes. He seemed reluctant to come
in; just stood there, looking around her apartment with his eyes from out in
the hall.
“Are you going to come
in?” she asked.
“One should always
wait to be invited,” he said stepping through the door. “Not every open door is
an invitation.”
“Again, you sound like
you’re speaking from experience.” Vivian closed the door, and, out of habit,
flicked the deadbolt.
Merkel moved to the
side, stepping into the small kitchen area next to the front door, to give her
room to lead the way.
“I was surprised you
called,” she said, pulling him to the couch with the sway of her hips.
“No you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t,” she
admitted. “Boy, you sure don’t make playing hard-to-get any fun.”
She felt his hands on
her shoulders. He spun her around to face him. His eyes were glistening in the
soft yellow light of the lamp on the end table. He moved in and kissed her. She
resisted for a second, then gave in. He was too much for her. It had been so
long.
His lips pulled back
from hers, taking a breath then mashed down again, sliding wetly over to her
earlobe. They fell to the couch. She managed to work her way so that she was
straddling his lap, leaning in for all the best parts. His tongue flicked
serpent-like on the rim of her ear and she moaned.
Merkel is a vampire, she heard Chaz say in her head. But she didn’t
care. Not now.
She tossed her hair
back, exposing her neck. Merkel pulled her too him. She felt his mouth on her
skin, felt his tongue tracing small figure-eights, felt his teeth as they
scraped against her as he pressed down, just to be that much closer to her.
Oh my God, she thought. This
is it. This is really happening.
He pulled away from
her to take a breath, but she moved quickly, taking advantage of his pause. Her
lips traced up and down his neck, her tongue flicked at his jaw line. Her teeth
elongated and she attached herself to his neck, his skin giving as easily as
the breadstick.
One thing was for
sure: Merkel was not a vampire.
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