Good Evening, I am Dracula -- a Diary in Progress

[JM]

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Good Evening. I am Dracula, "Count Dracula" as you may have heard--the
chap who is always being associated with bats? Not "Batman", no. I
have no "bat-mobile", no sidekick named "Robin," no obsession to be
out fighting for law and order, as if I thought I were some medieval,
Romanian answer to "Joe Friday". My name is not "Count Dragnet", as
for that, it really is not "Count" anything, but "prince" actually.

I am Prince Vlad Dracul, born November 25, 1431 in Sighisoara,
Transylvania and died -- wait . . . what am I talking about? I'm not
dead yet. Can an old (very old) vampyr be excused an occasional
"Alzheimer's moment"? I think I should have earned my senility stripes
by now, for a person 579 years old, come this next November. But no,
it's really not like that. The one thing I do not forget is having
been alive all these years, nor for that matter anything concerned
with how all this longevity of mine came about. Regretting it, yes,
that at times has come of issue, forgetting it, no. And never mind
what they say, when it's like, "If you can remember the 1460's you
weren't there". Believe me, for anyone to say such a thing about that
decade, is to show that *they* weren't there--not at any of my famous
dinner parties, anyway, or all right, 'infamous', if you insist.

So forget the "Alzheimer's moment" -- there's none of that going on
here. An occasional Weisenheimer's moment? Not a chance! Prince Vlad
Tepes a "Weisenheimer"? No, that would be much too far out of
character for a dark and brooding type like me. Think of me more as a
"wiseguy" with all that may be associated with that persona. But if
you will think of Vlad "the Impaler" in those terms, as you would
think of "Ice-pick Irving from St. Louis" then do not by any means get
me mixed up with some picture of Joe Pesci, George Raft, Peter Falk or
any of those 'wiseguys'. Instead, did you ever wonder how Brando would
do in the role of Dracula? Listen, if he could do Don Vito Corleone,
he could do me--and I don't mean with a wooden stake. No, nor as he
looked totally, like, sooo senior citizen for that part, considering
how I, Dracula have kept my youth--not to mention my abs. Rather, what
you'd want is how he looked as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the
Bounty. Yes! That would be good. Or better yet, if like me, Marlon had
indeed been able to keep his youth and a tight figure, then you might
see me, Dracula, as Brando in the part of Dr. Moreau, in The Island of
Dr. Moreau. This would be much to my liking, let alone my very best
likeness--unless you thought Johnny Depp would be more like it, as the
Young Dr. Moreau, or which is to say, the Eternally Twenty Something
Dracula. Fine. If you can use it, do it. I can dig it. I'm Dracula,
shape-shifter, par excellence.

So much for what is going to be needed in the 'imaging department' for
the story we are now about to find unfolding here. Background is what
comes next, and on this score let us put it down right here and now,
that of all the historical figures whose tales have been out there to
be told, possibly none has had more nonsense written, filmed and
whispered about it than mine. But am I really a vampire, then? Why
sure! If I didn't have that going for me, I might as well be sitting
here writing "The Autobiography of a Yogi" or "My Life in the Fast
Lane" by Mario Andretti, or "How to Win Friends and Influence People
by Norman Bates? No, I would not disappoint you in that. This being
said, let it be observed that there is just as much silly superstition
believed down the centuries about vampirism in general, as about
myself, personally. What you are about to see is my attempt to set the
record straight, here and now, once and for all.

It has been widely rumored down the ages that news of my death is
wildly exaggerated. True for me as its been for Huckleberry Finn and
his amanuensis--for do they not both yet wildly live? Only now are the
memoirs of that American bard coming to press--no different than mine.
But immortality we must admit does take oddly different forms. For I,
Prince Vlad of Wallachia was killed, most decidedly indeed, on the
battlefield against the Ottomans in 1476, after which, so it is said,
I was then promptly be-headed, only to have my said head preserved in
an earthenware pot of honey, to be sent forthwith to Constantinople.
There, so the story goes, the Sultan impaled what they had of me on a
stake, for all the Muslim populace (and whatever yet remaining Jews
and Christians) to see--that Vlad the Impaler had finally got for
himself a no less than highly piquant taste of what he'd been dishing
out all those years to the Ottomans and all the rest of his enemies,
as for example the Boyars--but of those dogs, we'll have somewhat to
say further on as we go.

Has history recorded the truth of the matter? And if so, then who are
we reading about here, Dracula or the Headless Horseman? No. I am
Dracula, not Washington Irving, and yes, nevertheless, my head, just
as they tell it, was shipped in a clay jug, not Tupperware. Before all
that, it was whilst in valiant combat as a duly dubbed knight ("made
man") of the Holy Roman Empire's "Order of the Dragon (dracul)" that I
received my so-called, "fatal" wound. But as any third grader knows,
this is no way to go about killing a vampire. It takes not the steel
blade of a broadsword being run through your gut; jerked around some,
and twisted real good, but a wooden stake hammered through the heart--
and not only that, but *into the ground*, for that is the whole idea
of the thing, don't you see. It is in order that the corpse of the
vampire will be pinned down, so that it may not leave the grave at
night to be out wandering around, or hanging out at some favorite old
haunt, such as the friendly local Burger King, or whatever ale house
and roadside inn.

The stake indeed, must be put through the heart, or failing that, then
the wandering body of the 'strigoi' or 'lampir' (other names for
"vampire" or "vampyr") must be somehow detained from his mortal
necessity of returning to his grave, or his coffin containing the
earth of his native soil. Or you can partially fill a waterbed with
it, stuff a little baggie of that dirt into your pillow or under the
mattress--just so long as that bed is located in a completely darkened
chamber, tomb, crypt or 1974 Dodge van with all the windows completely
covered so that not a single ray of light may fall upon the vampire in
repose.

The vampire during the day is not sleeping. No, he or she is dead.
Quite dead. And like a lot of the hard partiers you know, or may be
yourself, we "only come alive at night." But insomuch as I was
separated from my head, after death, this is neither here nor there
for the vampire, for whom beheading is to no avail. And it is no worse
than had they cut off one of my fingers or a big toe to go carrying it
off with them. It is the *heart* that matters, not the head. And how
many times have you heard people say that--in whatever context? So
long as the heart is at rest upon its native soil, the supernatural
transformation can take place, for no sooner is that last ray of
direct sunlight gone from the western horizon, than the old First Law
of Thermodynamics has it sway, and Conservation of Matter does its
thing in such a way that not even Richard Feynman, Paul Dirac or any
of those big-shot physicists can explain--nor yet, which is all the
same--scientifically disallow, for in Quantum Mechanics the
probability is there, always there, for every atom of matter that ever
went to make up your body has the chance of returning (whether by
curse or blessing), that you might be made whole, alive and kicking
again. Thus it is for we vampires, every evening when the sun goes
down.
--
JM