When I was 16, I got my first job, working at Boston Market.
I had been raised in a strict, fundamentalist Christian household-- I was even
homeschooled-- so this was the first time in my life that I was allowed to leave
my house alone for long periods of time. I had to go to work, after all, and
and after work I could fudge my whereabouts-- who was to say I hadn't been asked
to stay late roasting chickens? Taking advantage of my newfound freedom to the
extent that my still-limited imagination would allow, I started dating an illiterate
BMX biker named Shane. Shane was straight edge and had a uni-brow (two strikes),
but he took me to my first punk rock show, the Knuckleheads and Gruntruck at
the O-Hell. Shane was the first boy I ever kissed, and we had a great time driving
around in his ’77 Caddy, listening to Pennywise’s cover of “Brown-Eyed
Girl”, and dry-humping in public parks.
Eventually, however, it dawned on me that Shane would only read Thrasher Magazine,
and even that only because it was mostly pictures. Strike three. I called it
off.
It was about this time that my parents split from the conservative, WASP-y
Trinity Bible Church, the congregation that had oppressed me since childhood,
and began to hunt for another, less materialistic, more Calvinist place to worship.
Along with a cohort of other militant, homeschooling poor people, they recruited
a pastor from Scotland and began the Portland outpost of the Presbyterian Reformed
Church.
Whereas at Trinity there was a nominal youth group, Sunday Schools, and no
consumption of alcohol, at the Presbyterian Reformed Church (a miniscule denomination
attended by a handful of families, none of whom practiced any form of birth
control), things operated under different doctrinal strictures. For example,
no musical instruments of any kind were allowed in the worship service. Everyone
sang acapella from psalters, which were the words of King David’s Psalms
set to folk tunes popular in 16th century Scotland. Why these folk tunes (obviously
pagan and secular in origin) were acceptable and piano accompaniment was not
still puzzles me to this day. Also, women were strongly encouraged to wear dresses
at all times, and cover their head to show their subjection to the male members
of the household, and, by way of these males, to God himself.
At Trinity, I had participated (under considerable duress) in church youth
activities-- as a homeschooled teen I had absolutely no other options for same-age
companionship of any kind. But now that I was a working almost-adult with a
newly-minted license to Come and Go As You Please, I found it extremely galling
that I was still expected to attend church with my parents every Sunday morning.
Of course, I was still living at home, and my previous existence had been sheltered
(though punctuated by episodes of rebellious depravity of a type unique to the
adolescent children of fundamentalists), so perhaps I was still unable to fully
process the idea of simply not going to church. In any case, I went.
About this time, I became friends with Simone, my fellow slave in chicken hell.
Between pulling the fat off frozen chicken parts and slopping macaroni and cheese
and mashed potatoes onto the trays of our obese clientele, Simone and I realized
we had a lot in common. We both favored dark eyeliner, surf music, and the vocal
stylings of Bjork. Simone, conveniently, lived near the Boston Market, and I
got into the habit of going to her house after work to hang out. I thought Simone
was pretty cute; in fact, I had a huge crush on her.
Simone had a boyfriend, Ben. Ben and Simone were really into cutting. This
was not my first experience with cutting-- some of the episodes of fundamentalist
depravity mentioned above involved the practice-- but I guess that in 1995,
cutting was THE big thing in the high schools of outer Southeast Portland. The
word spread like wildfire (or syphilis) from one drama geek to the next:
“Cutting is fun!"
"Cutting is cool! It feels good."
"It, like, totally gets you high. And it leaves these awesome scars!"
"Check out this scar! You could totally see the bone. My parents had to
take me to the ER. I told them I was jumping on the bed and fell on a screw
that was sticking out of the headboard.”
“Whoa.”
Ben had been diagnosed as a manic-depressive, and his parents had put him on
Prozac. Simone and I felt that this hampered his creativity, and convinced him
to stop taking his meds. Then we sometimes had to deal with his strange moods,
but on the whole he was so much more fun to hang out with.
For all their stellar qualities, Ben and Simone were also gamer geeks. They
liked to play a role-playing game called “Vampire: the Masquerade.”
I did not understand the whole RPG thing, maybe because I wasn’t good
at math, and those twelve-sided dice confused me. I could not understand why
one would spend all this time inventing a dramatic persona and then never get
to employ it anywhere outside your basement rec room, surrounded by empty pizza
boxes and 2-liter bottles of Coke. Why not dress up as the character and act
out the plot-- or even live the role in your daily life? (Because it's idiotic,
that's why-- but remember, I was only 16.)
Looking at their “Vampire: the Masquerade” books-- trying to decide
if I was a "Ventrue" or a "Malkavian"-- I became intrigued
with the idea of vampirism. I thought Anne Rice too mainstream, and Dracula
too antiquated, so I sought out other sources of vampire lore. (Judging from
the amount of it I found, my fascination with the subject was hardly unique.)
I was particularly taken with the work of Poppy Z. Brite, which had heavy homoerotic
overtones.
I began entertaining the idea that perhaps I myself was a vampire. After all,
hadn’t I always been obsessed with seeing myself bleed? In my earliest
memories, I lay in my crib, covered with the crocheted blanket, and picked and
bit at my fingers until they bled, then happily sucked at the shiny red droplets
before they made a stain. As a child, my sheets were covered with tiny round
bloodstains: I picked at each mosquito bite until it bled, festered, and scabbed.
None of my playmates shared this interest. My friends’ cutting experiments
were merely the latest, most trendy way to rebel against their parents’
control. I, however, had been making myself bleed since I was eighteen months
old.
Perhaps I had a natural instinct that craved human blood, and I’d used
my own as a pale substitute. Perhaps I was attracted to girls, not because I
was an icky bisexual who wanted to make out with them, but because of my innate
vampiric tendencies-- I actually wanted to devour them, body and soul, and convert
them to my way of thinking. I wouldn’t be satisfied by a kiss alone, I
wanted to suck their blood and turn them into lesbians/vampires like me. It
was a very confusing time.
On a clear blue October afternoon, Ben, Simone, and I convened at her house.
Her mom was relatively permissive; she would let us hang out in Simone’s
room with the door shut, something my mother would never have dreamed of letting
me do with a member of the opposite sex. Apparently, on this particular day
they were a little disenchanted with the antics of their gamer friends, and
they decided to indulge me in a little “live action” role playing.
Ben whipped out his razor blade. We justified it because we were all virgins,
and therefore the risk of AIDS was slight. He drew a heavy line down my upper
arm, and one on Simone’s shoulder. As she reclined in his lap, I sucked
the blood from her arm, and she sucked the blood from mine. It tasted sweet
and salty. Simone smelled delightful. As I ingested her blood I felt a bonding,
which I imagined as similar to that between mother and child. Her magical DNA
was becoming part of my body, just as mine became part of hers. Ben, omniscient
and crazy, looked on, discreetly touching his penis.
At five, I was due back home. I gathered my overcoat and drifted towards the
bus stop. Ben had cut me deeply. As I walked, I realized I was high for the
first time in my life; the blood loss had made me light-headed. It was a floating
feeling, my boots no longer felt attached to the ground; instead I drifted a
few feet above. When I got to my house, the sleeve of my blue button-down work
shirt was caked with blood. It stuck to the wound and I had to peel it away,
reopening the cut. Later that night, after my parents were asleep, I tiptoed
into the bathroom and removed the blood stain with a judicious application of
bar soap and cold water. Ben’s cut healed into a lovely fat groove of
a scar.
Then came the dénouement: Sunday after church, my mother was hanging
her go-to-meeting coat in the hall closet when she spied the book. We lived
in an old house that had been converted to a duplex in the 1960s. At one point,
the hall closet had been part of what was now my bedroom. Someone had nailed
up a slab of fake particle-board paneling to convert the doorway into a closet,
but it was not quite flush with the ground. I’d hidden the book underneath
my bed, but my mother saw it, and seized hold of it.
I ‘d been hiding things from my parents for years, and thought I’d
become quite adept at it. But after many successful hidings, one gets careless.
“What’s THIS?” she shrieked, Sunday coat forgotten. “Lesbian
vampire erotica? Martha, where did this COME FROM?” Clearly, it had come
from the Multnomah County Public Library, for it proudly bore their barcode,
stamp, and Library of Congress sticker, but this was clearly not the answer
she wanted.
In my room, two feet away, removing my nylons to the melodic strains of Sonic
Youth, I froze. In one moment, my mother had found out both my secrets. Not
only did she know I was a lesbian, she also knew I was a vampire. I knew homosexuality
was a big issue; my mother had gone to great pains to keep me ignorant of it.
Whenever the newscaster on National Public Radio would interview a gay or lesbian
person, my mother would purse her lips, say “We don’t want to hear
this,” and quickly change to the Christian station. The subject of vampirism
had never been raised, but it seemed safe to assume that the practice would
not head her personal list of Christian virtues.
“Honey, look at this!” She showed my father the offending book
of lesbian short fiction, and together they converged on me. I was afraid. To
keep them from getting at me, I pressed myself against the bedroom door; but,
combined, they were stronger, and forced it open, dragging me into the dining
room. Sunday lunch, thinly sliced Spam sandwiches with Dijon on whole wheat,
and chicken soup, was suspended while my parents harangued me. My mother cried.
My father told me I was going to hell. My mother wailed, clutching her cambric
handkerchief. How had she failed? My father lectured at length on the decadent,
morally corrupt evils of homosexuality that would, if practiced, destroy my
immortal soul.
It seemed this went on for hours. Interestingly, the vampire issue was largely
ignored in favor of the lesbian problem. It seemed that my being a murderous,
soul-sucking bride of Satan would be forgivable if only I would not compound
the offense by being a lesbian, and thereby destroying forever their hopes of
dandling brown-eyed grandsons upon their knees, grandsons who might possibly,
someday, have hopes of playing high school football.
During this I sat stoically. I would not break, nor would I repent. They prayed
earnestly. Jesus would forgive me for my sinful thoughts, and Jesus had the
power to remove those thoughts from my mind forever. Shrugging, I finally relented
and said I would consider what they had said. Finally they let me go to my room,
in order to contemplate the evil which lay within. The matter, to my parents’
mind, was settled. I would pray on my sins. They dried their tears, swallowed
their anger, and ate their soup, reheated in the microwave. Then they retired
to the bedroom for their traditional Sunday afternoon nap.
The next day, I kissed a girl for the very first time.
Martha Fletcher lives in Portland, and indeed, has
lived in Portland, or at least Oregon, her whole life, which makes her something
of a rarity in those parts. This is her first story for Lime Tea.
