Interview With a Jewish Vampire (2 page)

I shook my head in bewilderment. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would scare him, but then maybe he was a wussy vampire.

“
How did you become a vampire?” I asked, playing along, while I made notes.

“
I was a rabbi who was killed by the original Count Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. You didn’t know Dracula was an anti-Semite, did you? He thought it would be amusing to turn a Jewish rabbi into a vampire. I mean we Jews have the strictest rules about what’s kosher and forcing a rabbi to drink blood, well, that was his idea of a joke. He didn’t laugh for long. Little did he know that I’d still be around a hundred years later and he’d be staked in his coffin by rampaging villagers. Dracula was just too obvious, what with that cape and that nasty-looking
punim
.”

“
So how did
you
get away with living as a vampire? Didn’t people notice?”

“
I had a big advantage as a Jewish vampire. I was a Hasidic Jew at the time I became a vampire and so naturally blended in. The last thing I wanted was anyone knowing the truth about me. Once people start being afraid of you, you’re at the mercy of hordes of villagers wielding wooden stakes and opening coffins. We Hassidim already are very pale; we turn mirrors to the wall, don’t wield crosses and wear black. As for garlic, I was so used to it in Jewish cooking it didn’t bother me at all. Jewish services begin at sunset so that’s convenient. You can be a teenager forever in eighteenth-century black hats and black clothes--you always look old. You can drink blood instead of wine and no one will notice that you don’t eat. You can refuse food on the grounds that it’s not kosher enough. No one will argue. It’s a great cover.”

“
Didn’t you feel guilty about killing people and draining their blood?” I hoped he had some restraint. I might have been sexually starved but I wasn’t suicidal.

“
Did they feel guilty about killing us all these years? I don’t think so. I preyed on the anti-Semites and let me tell you, I never ran out of blood--until recently. It’s not so fashionable to kill Jews these days. Actually I don’t kill people anymore,” he sighed. “I stick to animal blood these days. It doesn’t taste so good but at least I don’t hate myself in the morning. If I were going to suck human blood today I’d stick to the goyim or Republicans. I wanted to hunt some of George W.’s born again buddies, especially the ones waiting for the Rapture. They think they’re going to be transported right up to heaven. Hah! They’ll be in for a big surprise when they find the big guy in the sky is a rabbi, just like me. Why do you think he has a long gray beard? In fact, just wait till Mel Gibson gets there. Actually, he might get there sooner than he thinks if I have anything to do with it.
Passion of the Christ
, what a
shanda
. That movie was the work of a man obsessed with blood and he’s not even a vampire, and he never will be or we’d all be in trouble.”

“
I voted for Obama myself,” I told him reassuringly. “Did you vote for him?”

“
No, I’m an illegal alien. I can’t even get a Green Card, much less become a citizen. The immigration office is closed at night.”

“
If you’re a Hasid where is your beard?” He was clean-shaven, without a trace of five o’clock shadow.

“
I shaved it, of course. Do you think I’d show up for a date looking like Charlton Heston in
The Ten Commandments
? Luckily, like anything else I cut off, it will grow back by tomorrow after my night in the coffin. You didn’t think I’d spend a hundred years in a black hat and
payess
? I wanted to have some fun.”

“
Actually, you are very nice looking, but I suppose you’re aware of that.”

I was surprised to see his huge grin, fangs flashing. Those green eyes fastened on me with a look of hunger, which I hoped was of the carnal, not carnivore variety.

“
No I’m not aware of it. Thank you.”

“
What have you done to make your life, or rather undeath, easier?” I changed the subject, feeling a bit embarrassed by his intense gaze.

“
I created a golem, a creature of mud that comes to life. Jews have believed in golem for centuries and will accept golem where they will not accept vampires. Golem don’t eat so they don’t have to be kosher. My golem, named Goldie, cleans, guards my coffin and goes out during the daylight to get what I need. She’s good company. I’ve taught her to read Yiddish so she keeps me from being bored when I’m stuck in that coffin during the day. You think we vampires sleep all day. Well I suffer from insomnia and I get really tired of lying in that
farshtunken
coffin for twelve hours at a time. It’s the rule that we have to stay in the coffin during daylight or who knows what might happen. I don’t want to find out. I can’t watch TV in a coffin so Goldie reads, mostly Isaac Bashevis Singer. He knew from the undead. The only problem is that she’s jealous when I talk to any woman but her. She thinks she knows what’s best for me. She reminds me of my mother. Don’t ask! I used to use Goldie to do all my shopping since stores closed at sunset, but now, with Wal-Mart open twenty-four seven, I can do a lot of my own shopping. I just adore Wal-Mart.”

“
What could a vampire want at Wal-Mart? Especially a kosher vampire?”

“
I like auto parts and hardware. And electronics of course. I once had an all-night electronics store in Times Square but that’s another story. I would be in undead heaven at Home Depot but it’s not open late enough. I get great deals on EBay, though.”

“
You shop on EBay?”

“
I get the best buys there because no one else is up at 4am. I wait till the last second when an auction closes and then go for the jugular. Metaphorically speaking, of course.” He gave me a mischievous grin, which I found charming.

“
Why do you have to shop for bargains? After centuries you should have multiplied your investments?”

“
Ever heard of Bernie Madoff? I got talked into investing my lifetimes of savings with that
goniff
. I’ve got nothing on him in the blood-sucking department. I’m thinking of making him my first Jewish victim. If you hear about him dying in jail from unknown causes with mysterious puncture wounds in his neck you’ll know who did it. Now my circumstances are reduced. I work in the diamond district at night since I was trained as a diamond cutter in the nineteenth century. It doesn’t pay great but hey, it’s a living. Luckily I’m very entrepreneurial. I’m thinking of creating a vampire video game since we’re so popular with kids these days, if I can find a computer maven to program it. I like modern technology but I‘m still using a pen and parchment to write my memoirs. IMHO computers are the work of
dybbuks
. Mine is always giving me the blue screen of death. That thing knows who I am.”

“
If you’re writing your own memoirs why talk to me?”

“
You think I know how to write in English? I only write Yiddish and who’s going to translate? If I try to get one of those Hasids, they’ll probably start
davvening
over me. Plus who would believe me? You’re a journalist. You’ve got clips.”

As Sheldon spoke, I became mesmerized by his voice, which was soft, with an adorable Yiddish accent. Or maybe he was doing his vampire hypnotic thing on me. Whatever it was, I found him irresistible. I had no idea if he was attracted to me.

I hated having to date again in my forties. I thought marriage meant I was through with all that adolescent angst, but ever since I’d been dumped for a younger, thinner, blonder, dumber
shiksa,
my self-confidence was at an all-time low. I’d prayed that tonight’s date would at least find me attractive. I’d had a long string of JDates who had made it painfully clear that I didn’t pass their hotness test. My standards had plummeted so far that just about any high school graduate taller than five feet two who had all his teeth passed my hotness test these days, no matter how inappropriate he was, which explains why I didn’t run screaming out of the bar when Sheldon introduced himself as a vampire.

I should have been ashamed of myself for lusting after every man I saw, but I was going through post-divorce pent up demand. After ten years of spending all my sexual energy avoiding sex with my husband, I was insatiable. Not coincidentally, my husband had also been avoiding sex with me—but then he was getting it elsewhere.

I’d always had terrible taste in men. I tended to go for the bad boys, who were dangerous biker types when I was a teenager, and then dangerous hedge fund manager types when I got older and decided to marry money. Of course, my ex-husband was the baddest boy of all. After fifteen years of promising that one day he’d take me on a vacation, he took the
shiksa
at the next desk instead. They headed for the Bahamas where he’d stashed a lot of cash, but not before cleaning out our joint bank account and canceling my credit cards. His finances were so tangled that I would have had to hire a team of accountants full time for a year to sort them out, and by that time, I’d be broke. He was kind enough to give me the house in Scarsdale with the huge mortgage I couldn’t pay. That’s how I wound up in a tiny Manhattan studio apartment on the Upper East Side with a rent I struggled to meet every month.

Maybe Sheldon still had some money? I doubted that Madoff could have taken it all. After a hundred years he must have a few nest eggs stashed here and there. He didn’t have a family to support after all, only Goldie, and how much could a golem cost these days. But by the time he finished talking I really didn’t care how much money he had, I was a goner, but in a good way. Ironically, considering he was a fearsome creature, he had a sweet smile, an adorable dimple in his chin, an old world courtliness and charm.

“
Why don’t we finish the interview at my place?” I’d had too many drinks, it was very late, and he was the most attractive guy I’d met so far on JDate.

“
You want me to come up to your place?” he asked, all of a sudden looking at me appraisingly. “Did you have maybe a nightcap in mind? You have any blood in the fridge?” He chuckled. “You’re not afraid of me?”

“
You told me yourself you only feed on animals.”

“
I did say that, but why should you believe me? I’m a vampire, not a boy scout.”

“
I’m not interested in boy scouts,” I breathed heavily. I didn’t want to ask him directly what his sexual proclivities were. Or if he had any. Was there sex after death? Didn’t Woody Allen ask that question? I couldn’t remember what the answer was. I vaguely remembered Anne Rice’s vampires. They didn’t seem to have actual sex, but got off on the act of sucking human blood. However, Stephanie Meyer’s vampires loved sex, but only with other vampires because they got pretty rough during the act. There were as many myths about vampire sex as there were vampire novels. I wondered what vampire series Sheldon had read. I hoped it was
Twilight
and, like Edward, that he would fall totally and madly in love with me.

“
Why don’t you hail us a cab?” I suggested.

“
Cabbies never pick me up. Blacks and vampires, it’s prejudice pure and simple.”

I hailed one. As we smooched in the back seat I found out Sheldon knew how to use his tongue as well as his teeth.

I was breathing heavily in the cab, but by the time I got to my apartment, I was gasping for breath. I lived in a third floor walkup and I was out of shape. Sheldon seemed to float effortlessly up the stairs because vampires probably didn’t have to go the gym to stay in shape. Wouldn’t that be great? As soon as I walked in the phone rang. I didn’t have to look at the Caller ID to know who it was.

I picked it up, put my hand over the receiver and said to Sheldon, “It’s my mom, I’ll be off soon, make yourself a drink.” It occurred to me he might not drink but at least I was being a good host.

“
Hi, Mom, it’s midnight, why are you still up?”

It was a rhetorical question, I knew she’d stay up so she could call and ask about my date. If I looked at my Caller ID I knew I’d see that she’d called at least five times and hung up before my voice mail picked up. She didn’t want to seem like the nuisance she was.

“
C’mon, Rhoda, this is your mother here. You know I don’t have a life. I’ll never have another date—not that I’d want one of course. Forty years with your father was more than enough. I have to live vicariously. And of course you’re my only child and I want you to be happy.”

I worried about Mom these days more than she worried about me. She’d already had a quadruple bypass but she refused to stop eating fatty foods and start exercising. She lived in Century Village in Florida, and her life consisted of sitting by the pool, hanging out with her girlfriends, going to early bird specials that were laden with greasy food that old Jewish ladies love. Yes, she did go shopping, which was a pretty strenuous form of exercise considering that she hunted bargains with the zeal of a lion stalking its prey, but she refused to take the stairs like I told her to. She was still a kid who loved escalators.

“
Mom, my date happens to be here as we speak, and he doesn’t look happy. Can I call you back later?”

“
Have a good time, darling. Don’t rush on account of me.”

“
I have no intention of rushing. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” I hung up.