I WAS A CHILDHOOD VAMPIRE

I Was a Childhood Vampire

By Diane Head

I was seven years old when my father allowed me to watch Bela Lugosi’s famous 1931 portrayal of Dracula. Why he allowed it never ceases to confound me. It was the start of a brief childhood obsession with vampires and was to be the cause of another incident that came back to bite me many years later.

I sat next to my dad on the couch to view the old vampire movie. We had plenty of popcorn and I squeezed in under Dad’s arm, riveted to the TV. I was hooked like a prize fish. From then on, I decided being a vampire would be way cool. It seemed so important to stand out in some unusual way, and being a vampire was as good as anything and better than most things.

I made it my young life’s mission to see all the vampire movies I could get away with. There was Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and Nosferatu (1922). I tried the TV series Dark Shadows, getting a little girl crush on Barnabas Collins. But I couldn’t watch enough of the old black and white vampire movies. Those were my favorites.

When my parents had had enough of the old movies, I figured there had to be another way to learn about vampires. I made good use of our Saturday trips to the library. I started with the children’s books, but didn’t find a lot about vampires on the shelves, at least not in 1963. Taking caution that my mom and the librarian didn’t catch on, I moved up to the grown-up stacks.

The adult section had a treasure trove of vampire books. I found Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but Stoker’s vocabulary was leaps and bounds above mine. There was Carmilla, which I didn’t understand at all. And the front cover artwork of The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre was off-putting. Yuk. Kissing. Nevertheless, I wedged them into my reading stack, looking around for my mom’s sharp eyes before I snuck over to the check-out counter, carefully layering my stack of books to hide Dracula from prying eyes.

All this involved a lot of mind-numbing shelf-reading and a great deal of subterfuge. It was exhausting.

Not to be deterred, I scoured the pages for drawings of Count Dracula. I didn’t understand why adults wouldn’t want illustrations in their books. The library’s encyclopedia helped, and I traced the artwork carefully to take home to help me with my vampire study.

Reading books and watching movies was all fine and good but actually being a vampire would be way better. Clothes – that was the ticket! I knew I could find just the right things to wear from my very own closet. No need to shop.

The next day, I pulled on my black leggings. Girls were to wear skirts and dresses to school, but leggings underneath were okay. I found a white shirt and tucked it into a black skirt. Perfect. I looked through our Halloween clothes and found a black cape. Just the ticket.

Mom didn’t object to the black and white outfit, but she’d pitch a fit if she knew I was taking a cape to school. I jammed it into my satchel.

For the most part, no one noticed me. Huh. I was going to have to get radical.

The next day, I stole Mom’s eyebrow pencil. I could draw a widow’s peak just like Dracula’s.

Still, there was little response at school. None of my classmates asked me about the new look. Maybe they thought it was dirt. To be honest, it kinda looked like dirt.

Stronger measures would be required.

My grandmother lived two blocks away from the school. Making a detour the next day, I stopped by her house. After the obligatory greetings, I asked if we could go to the local Woolworth’s Five and Dime. She was more than happy to go with me.

I scoured Woolworth’s shelves until I located a set of plastic vampire fangs. To make my costume better, I found a medallion on a ribbon that would be perfect for Count Dracula’s medal.

Grandma didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. I dug into my coin purse and pulled out a shiny dime to pay for my treasures.

As Grandma drove, I laced the medallion around my neck, slid the fangs into my mouth, leaned out the window to see my reflection in the side view mirror, and admired my new look. I curled my fingers into talons and hissed. Yup. I looked great. The acid test would come tomorrow at school.

Stopping by the bathroom before class, I took my new possessions out of my satchel. Leaning forward toward the mirror, I pulled out Mom’s eyebrow pencil and drew two little black dots on my neck where I imagined my jugular vein to be. I added the widow’s peak. Then I slipped the medallion on. As warm as the building was, the cape would have to wait until recess. In went the fangs, the coupe de gras. People would notice. I grinned around the fangs as slobber oozed down my chin.

I made my grand entrance into the classroom. I had Dracula’s famous slink down to a fine science.

“It’s not Halloween,” one girl said, flinching away from me.

“No,” I slurred around the long, slippery fangs. “I’m a vampire. I got bit.”

“You did not,” another one sneered. “That stuff is make-believe.”

I curled my fingers and lunged at her. A growl was enough to silence the disbeliever. “See?” I insisted, pointing at my neck.

She huffed at me and turned her back.

Clearly, desperate measures would have to be taken.

At recess, I pulled the black cape from my satchel and swirled it around my shoulders. Then I got in the line. I was nothing if not patient and persistent.

“I have to avoid the sun,” I informed a boy standing behind me. The fangs made comprehensible speech almost impossible.

“Why?” He looked puzzled. Obviously, he needed to be educated.

“I’m a vampire.” I took a defiant stance, my hands on my hips. “Can’t you tell?”

“No, you’re not,” he stated, rolling his eyes. “Vampires drink blood.”

That stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t thought of that. But it didn’t keep me from staying under the trees at recess, whipping my cloak over my face, and stalking unwary victims. I stopped short of biting their necks.

At home that night, I looked through the pantry while Mom and Dad were watching the evening news. Food coloring! Perfect! I pulled the red vial out of the box and palmed it, taking it to my room. I couldn’t wait to get to school tomorrow.

Sure enough, a drop or two of the red food coloring made the lunch milk resemble blood. I admit I got a lot of mileage from watching my classmates’ faces as the red liquid ascended the straw. Emotions ranged from horror to wonder.

And it stained my teeth, tongue, and lips a bright cherry red. I absolutely loved it.

My next brilliant idea was to encourage my playmates to stop by my house to play after school. And then I bribed my mom into saying that I was asleep in the basement. In a casket. The deal was I’d clean the bathrooms for a month if she did it. Cleaning bathrooms was not my favorite chore. But it was worth peeking from the basement windows to see my friends’ expressions.

I don’t know why I decided to ramp up my vampire activities, but I did. And it proved to be my undoing.

One day at school, the Shade of Count Dracula came over me. I looked for a victim on the playground. Wrapping my cape over my arm and covering my face, I snuck up behind Ricky Meyer. Ricky lived next door and was not the sharpest crayon in the box. He was busy doing major surgery on a hangnail and not paying attention to Count Dracula. I should have considered his bulldog of a mother before I nipped him in the neck.

I ended up in the office. The principal looked at my get-up and shook her head. I wasn’t entirely sure why she kept biting her lower lip. I was too scared to ask if she was a vampire fan, too.

Ricky ended up at the doctor’s office. He got some sort of shot. I think it might have been a rabies shot, but I wasn’t sure. He wasn’t speaking to me. Neither was his mother.

My mom got a call from the principal and a visit from Ricky’s mother, which didn’t turn out to be all that wonderful for me. I guess she told my dad because the vampire movie marathons ceased. And the bathroom cleaning lasted three months instead of one. Sheer torture.

It didn’t stop me from reading scary stories, though. Tons of them.

Years passed. A little over sixty of them.

When an invitation to our Fiftieth Class Reunion came by email, I decided to go. I found a sleek pair of black satin trousers and a romantically arranged white silk blouse. I draped a black wool jacket over my shoulders, knowing this venue would be chilly. A long gold necklace with a ruby pendant completed my ensemble. In my opinion, my outfit was classic chic.

The second I stepped into the reception hall, the comments began.

“Hey, guys! There’s the vampire chick.”

“Oooh. Nice choice of clothes. Is that what fashionable vamps wear these days?”

“Is your Mom letting you out of the basement now?”

“How’s that casket working out for you?”

“Who ordered the Steak Tartare?” All eyes turned my way as a plate holding a steak literally swimming in blood was placed before me. I hadn’t ordered that. I pushed it away before I gagged.

They weren’t done yet.

“Please pass the garlic bulbs.”

“Send down that bottle of red.”

And then someone tossed a set of plastic fangs on my dessert plate. There were endless jokes about biting and vamps and Transylvania. I endured about an hour of like comments before I’d had enough fun and games. But there was more.

“Hey! Isn’t she the one that bit Ricky Meyer?”

“Ricky! Come over here! Maybe you’ll get lucky enough to get another little love bite!”

Everyone snickered except me. My face burned with horror.

Ricky had transformed in the intervening years. Gone was the geeky kid. Here was a man who dressed like he belonged on the front cover of GQ and was a cross between People’s Sexiest Man Alive and Mr. Atlas.

I wanted to slide under the table. With a magnum of red. Instead, I braced myself on the table and pushed back my chair.

The lie I’d told as a child, a child with a vivid imagination, had come back to haunt me.

I picked up my black jacket, swirled it over my shoulders, and strode out, head held high. From my pocket, I pulled out the vampire fangs someone had tossed at me. They fit perfectly.