Vampire Weekend

by Mike Chen

And the chewed neck like a werewolf bite? That was a real concern, not because werewolves were real (they’re not), but because biting into a human was not easy. In theory, you first had to properly locate the carotid artery, then make sure it was easily accessible by positioning the head and neck the right way. Then you needed a well-placed bite—millimeters of accuracy here, from an angle where things are hard to see. I challenge any human to try and bite precisely into a piece of Red Vines stuck on a loaf of sourdough to gauge its difficulty.

“What are your parents’ names?” “Patti and Lou.” Which was metaphorically correct; I’d considered Patti Smith and Lou Reed more important in my early years than anyone I was related to.

“I found out something this morning.” “What’s that?” I asked as I popped on my amp. “Did you know New Order used to be a band called Joy Division? They’re really good. Like, unique.” The question came out so earnestly I turned to avoid laughing in his face,

I paused, listening to the offbeat drumming. “Fuck,” I heard from the room as he abruptly stopped, then it started again. “Goddamn it,” he said, repeating the process. He was playing Joy Division; somehow, he’d figured out the opening beats to “Transmission.” Which meant that he’d listened to “Transmission” intensely enough to try and pick up its unique opening rhythm. I wasn’t a parent, but I imagined watching children take their first steps or graduate high school felt similar to this, or maybe similar to when I taught Lola to high-five.

On top of that went a leather jacket, which was part of my standard rotation of clothes—emotional armor that doubled as physical armor today.

“How, um,” I said, searching very carefully for the right words, “how do you know what hospice is?” Ian shot a look that immediately told me I’d asked the wrong question. “See, now you’re doing it too.” More stereotypical teenage moves came: a huff, a headshake, muttering under his breath. “Doing what?” I asked, trying my best to sound sincere and sympathetic but without edging into patronizing. “Talking to me like I’m five. Of course I know what hospice is.”

“They’re sending Mom home.” “Home isn’t hospice,” I said, trying to reassure him. “They’re sending her home to ‘rest,’” he said, fingers in air quotes. “Well, that could mean anything.” His look cut right through my thinly veiled attempt at comfort. He was right—I was talking to him like a little kid.

This marked the third time a human learned my true identity, and between this, Laura’s “it’s fine” response and Marshall’s “that sounds depressing” reaction, I wondered if I simply wasn’t very good at being a vampire. Definitely a poor representative for the community if nothing else.

“It’s a good thing, I promise.” “Everything is a good thing to you,” Serena snarked at Eric. “Mr. Positivity over here,” she said to me. “The only thing that riles him up is when people break our rules and when people don’t use the oxford comma.” “The oxford comma is very important for grammatical clarity.”

Normal. So many emotional scabs crusted over the wound caused by that word, and yet the way Ian said it exposed the hurt again with an unknowing surgical precision. “Why you can’t just be normal?” My dad had asked that same question the afternoon they’d thrown out my records, six words loaded up with equal parts anger, disappointment, and taunt. What did normal even mean? We were never going to be normal in that neighborhood at that time. He was never going to be normal to his neighbors and coworkers, and his unending aspiration to meet some buttoned-down standard was never, ever going to happen. He’d put such value into such an artificial thing, as if he wanted me to break away to rock and punk, like the harder he jammed the normalcy button, the faster he’d accelerate my decisions. And my mom, with her stinging tongue and dagger eyes, like needling me would somehow pull me back to them rather than push me away.

“So you’re going to do it.” “I’m not promising anything. Not yet,” I said. He followed, opening the passenger door first. By the time I got in, he’d already buckled up, seemingly carried by an understanding of my tone. “But I don’t want to be selfish. There’s enough of that in my family. Aunt Laura taught me that. And—” I turned the key “—she had good taste in music. Always trust someone with good taste in music.”

“I feel sad for her, really,” Laura said. “Wu Jin-Yi. Mary, the instant we got here. She was eighteen, I was sixteen. The most American names they could give us. Our parents wanted our story to be one about taking a new future. Problem was they didn’t know how to give that. I left. And Mary met your dad, and they passed that on to you. And your brother. You just figured a way to escape.” She smiled, stroking the ears of the mini schnauzer that resumed snoring. “She was whoever imprinted on her. Our parents. Her husband. China. America. Her greatest tragedy is that none of them ever let her be herself. If things had been different, if she was a lesbian like me or heard punk rock like you or something else happened in her life, she might have given herself permission. But she didn’t. The barriers on her path were too tall for her, but no one ever told her to try. You want to know who your mom was?” Laura turned to me with clarity, despite the fact that I was probably nothing more than a human-shaped blur in her deteriorating vision. “She was not you.”

“Photographic memory recall is a pretty boring superpower,” I said through sniffles. “Like only good for the DMV test.” “Actually,” Serena said, “I think memory recall would be the best power.” “You jumped like twenty feet in the air and took out an assassin vampire.”

“You love music?” “I do,” I said, nodding with my words. “Music is everything.” “Exactly. Music is everything. It is emotion and spirit and purity. And love.” Serena really wasn’t kidding about her dramatics. “Some vampires have physical gifts, and I pity them. How boring it would be to simply be human-but-faster, stronger. But my gift is unique—I sense feelings. And there is no better place to absorb those, to let them wash over you, than at a concert.” Live music. I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was everything I preached to Ian, every indescribable emotion shared among hundreds or thousands of strangers. And to be able to absorb that among the audience? “Holy shit.”

“How are you?” “Fine.” “You’re probably not if you’re here. Listen, Louise, here’s one thing I want you to know about me. When I ask ‘how are you,’ I want you to give me the real answer. Not a polite one. So,” she said, closing the door and locking it behind her, “how are you?” “It’s...” I said, kneeling down to let her mini schnauzer sniff me. “Well, it’s a bit of a long story.” “It’s okay. I stay up late,”

“Your music is so loud. I hear it so much.” Her mouth twisted, the mangled beat continuing. “Maybe he’ll grow out of it.” Grow out of it? Months after he’d discovered how transformative, how life-changing a good song could be? Not if I could help it.

I’ve always loved vampires. If you ask my high school friends, they’d say I was borderline obsessed. When I was a kid, vampire lore always drew me in, and when I was a teen, I discovered Anne Rice. That was also when I discovered the power of music. That angst is largely gone, though my love of vampires, indie rock, and all things goth remains. It also took decades for me to realize that these countercultures represented an internalized pushback to the cultural stereotypes I fought against: academic, quiet, and obedient. Decades of therapy have done me well!

A huge thank you to both Eric and my editor Margot Mallinson for signing off on the slightly bizarre idea of “a wholesome punk-rock vampire resolves her family trauma.”