Amen and A-merica

Oh, I forgot to tell you something.

I'm psychic.

Yes, I'm a psychic and a tattoo artist and a wannabe-writer living in Santa Cruz in the God-blessed fifties. Amen and A-merica, bitch.

Now that you know most of what there is to know about me, I will continue my story.

*****

So I'm standing before this man.

This hot vampire.

And I'm in my school-girl outfit.

Weird, right?

I'd had a dream about him the night before.

I'd never before seen him in real life.

And someone might say, maybe you did see him in passing and that's why your subconscious conjured him up for you.

To that I say, fuck you.

So I'm standing before this man.

I'd never seen him, other than in my dreams.

I'm frozen.

And I thanked God for the fact that the pain meds were kicking in.

*****

"Need help?" he'd said.

I had a sudden inclination to call him sexy but I held my tongue.

"Do I?" I said, confused.

"Your car isn't starting."

"I thought so," I said.

"I can help," he said, tilting his head to one side.

I'm making a terrible first impression.

"I don't usually smell like this," I said.

"I don't smell anything. Except for your car. Needs oil."

Finally, the spell broke off of me and I found myself again. "And so much more," I said. "She really is the bane of my existence."

"Pop the hood," he said.

And I opened the door and leaned down, reaching for the latch.

I felt him looking at me. Was I imagining? I hoped to higher-beings he was looking. They tell me I have a cute ass. I pulled the latch.

When I stood up, he was standing before the hood, throwing it open.

Smoke flung its Judas-awful self into the air.

So that was just nice.

When I came around to the front of the hood and stood beside the man who was a vampire in my dream, I said, "They say life happens for you, not to you."

"Everything happens for a reason," he said.

"Fuck that."

"In my experience," he said.

And for some reason I got the indication that he truly did have experience, and that his experience was vast: something about the way he'd phrased the sentence. His sense of calm. No defensiveness or posturing. Only himself.

He took off his thin black gloves and pocketed them. Then he reached across my engine and began feeling things I didn't know the names of.

"Hot," he said, tapping his hand against something metal. "Too hot."

You're telling me, I thought.

"What's the damage?" I said.

"You ever seen that movie," he said, "Pearl Harbor?"

"That bad?" I said.

"I re-watched it last night," he said. "It's an old one. As for your car, the damage is more on the level of the Titanic."

"The metaphor is lost on me."

"But you still seem to have a sense of humor," he said, eyeing me in the eyes, examining me, it seemed. At least that's how I felt: examined. He seemed amused.

I was trying to hold it together.

"I need a ride," I said, crossing my arms.

Right then, Aunt Jenny came through the glass doors and, throwing her arms wide and in the air as if she were doing a cheer, she said, "That damned car damned itself to hell. Finally and at last." She said it loud and throaty. Like only a woman who had successfully hidden a nicotine addiction for many years could.

Great. Just great.

My mystery vampire man was about to meet my crazy, condescending aunt.

For the record, I didn't think he was actually a vampire. That was just how my dream portrayed him. Vampires weren't, like, a common occurrence in Santa Cruz, or anywhere else that I'm aware of. And I certainly didn't believe in magical powers anymore than I believed in religion.

Old Joe tried to say I was religious because I read the Bible.

I read the Bible because it's good literature.

Old Joe can go to hell for all I care (which I don't believe in).

And so can Aunt Jenny.

"Need a ride, honey bear," said my aunt. She'd never called me honey bear in my entire life. As she came over, she sized up the man. After all, Jenny was looking for that fourth marriage. She was surely twice as old as the man.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" she said to the man.

Aunt Jenny had become so abruptly sappy I wanted to throw up.

"Anthony," he said, extending a hand. "Anthony Eden."