The One With All The Boats
In the darkened gallery of the Reading Room, four, or possibly five (if Dracula has managed to make it past the beaded curtains), ancient monsters discuss a work of vampire literature. They do this to see what people really think of them. So far, they have mixed feelings about it. Tonight, they have mixed feelings about Fevre Dream by JRR Martin, which is about vampires living on a river boat in the Civil War Era deep south of the United States of America (which none of them has ever visited).
Anatole wriggled back into her plush wing back chair. “I’m just saying, I feel that this author will go on to write something wildly popular later on, and people will pick up this one thinking it’s like that one, but then be low-key disappointed that it, in fact, isn’t.
“That’s a rather specific accusation,” Trenchant said. “You obviously have something in mind. Care to elaborate?”
Anatole scowled at her. “Nothing specific. But this one was mostly about boats, right?”
“I thought you liked boats,” Seth chimed in.
Fenrir snorted a laugh. “About as much as the Kraken likes boats.”
“I mean,” Anatole huffed. “How can one be deep, dark, and mysterious if some drunken sods in an overgrown canoe are floating about with lanterns ablaze, caterwauling about the weatherman coming, while attempting to spear one of the most majestic creatures of the seas with a stick and some sort of grenade attached to the end.”
“Hold on, I’m confused,” Seth said. “Who has the grenade, the whale or the weatherman?”
“Neither! The grenade is on the end of the stick!”
“Can’t see that being any use,” Trenchant added.
“Wait,” Seth said. “When you say ‘weatherman,’ do you mean to say ‘Weller’-?”
“No, don’t finish that word!” Anatole hissed like a steamboat. She cocked her arm, poised to throw her copy of the book at Seth.
Dracula hummed the first few bars of a sea shanty.
Anatole threw the book at him, which he caught one-handed without missing a beat. He glanced at her, then stopped, mumbling: “Sorry.”
Anatole sat back, mollified. “Listen, tiny, wooden boat, honking big leviathan. Can’t see why they would even bother. So I sunk their canoe.”
“Blubber,” Fenrir added.
“Fine, if you want to be nautical about it, I sunk their blubber.”
Seth’s brows furrowed deeper. “Hang on, are you telling me that you were a mermaid?”
“More like a siren,” Trenchant said. “Except she can’t sing. Still sunk their boats though.”
“Served them right. How dare they challenge the wrath of the seas.”
In the moment of silence that passed, only the scratching of a pencil could be heard.
All four turned to the head of the table, where Dracula was ensconced, scribbling away in a notepad supported on Anatole’s copy of the book.
“Oh, I guess he learned to write,” Trenchant said.
Dracula gave a wide toothy grin, turned the notepad around, and displayed a beautifully minimalist drawing of a whaling boat with lanterns, a whale being set upon by men in a canoe, and a woman who could be confused with Anatole if one squinted and suspended disbelief to a degree, as well as ignore the tentacles that sprouted from her nude torso in lieu of legs. “So far, we have boats, whales, and sirens,” he said. “Did I miss anything?”
“Destroy. That!” Anatole growled. The light dimmed perceptibly, and the air took on a damp, briny quality.
“Touch it, and I will gut you like a fish,” Trenchant said, eyes ablaze in glee.
“Erm,” Dracula said. “I wasn’t planning on-”
“I’ll pay you a thousand Sovereigns to destroy it!” Anatole said.
“I’ll pay two thousand to display it in my gallery,” Trenchant countered.
“Deal!” Dracula shouted. “What’s a Sovereign?”
“Currently?” Seth said. “Worth about two litres of milk.”
Dracula looked at his drawing again. “Not sure what I would do with all that milk, but I guess a deal’s a deal.”
Fenrir pushed his glasses up his battle-scarred nose and demurely cleared his throat. “About Fevre Dream…”
A barely suppressed groan wafted over the table from the collected participants.
Fenrir raised an eyebrow. “I noticed that it was written in the classic style.”
“You mean long-winded,” Trenchant said.
“So boring.” Anatole flopped back into her chair, her ruffled feathers settling.
“Be fair, it does get better near the middle,” Seth said.
“What, when the vampires show up?” Trenchant scoffed.
“Yes, lovey,” Anatole said. “We all successfully played ‘spot the vampire.’ Hint, it’s the pretty and mysterious one.”
“I didn’t like it,” Trenchant said.
“At least we’re talking about the book now,” Fenrir said. “All right, Baron, give us your analysis of why you did not like the book.”
Trenchant pouted. “I just didn’t.”
“You’ve got to give us more than that,” Dracula said. “I can’t sketch ‘I didn’t like it.’”
“Well, if you must know, I was offended.”
“What could possibly offend you about a book about vampires on a boat?” Seth asked.
“Was it the alligators?” Fenrir said.
“No!”
“Was it the saucy description of human food?” Seth asked.
“That was unnecessary, but no.”
“Was it the lack of female characters of any consequence?” Anatole said.
“Alligators?” Dracula asked.
“Horrid reptile things,” Fenrir elaborated. “Think of a homicidal log with bird’s feet, clad in brigandine armour.”
“Hmm,” Dracula said and started sketching.
Seth could not contain his curiosity, and slipped in behind Dracula’s chair.
Dracula, with his eyes narrowed, attempted to shield his nascent drawing with his body while proceeding.
“It sort of looks like an elongated moving castle,” Seth said.
Dracula scowled at him.
“A compliment, I assure you.” Seth put up his hands in a disarming gesture. “I’ve not personally seen an alligator myself either.”
“Awful things,” Fenrir pressed.
“Would you like to talk about it?” Anatole asked.
Fenrir cleaned his glasses and said no more.
“I was offended,” Trenchant said with a slow sigh. “That the author made Mr Marsh ugly. And all the wicked vampires beautiful.”
“There it is,” Fenrir said.
“What?” Trenchant said. “I could live with the pretty bad vampires. But I draw the line at ugly perspective characters. It’s bad enough that people that you meet on the street may be ugly. It’s not their fault; nature is cruel and arbitrary. But this is a work of fiction, a fantasy! What could it have cost the writer to put some effort into making poor Abner pretty, or at least unobjectionable to look at? Nothing! Instead, I was forced to try to imagine just how ugly Mr Marsh really was! So I was forced to put the book down.”
“So for a change, I’m not the only one who didn’t finish the book?” Anatole said.
“No,” Seth groaned. “You are not. I also didn’t manage to finish it.”
Several sets of eyes turned to look at him.
“Your excuse?”
“If you must know, I was a little put off by the fetishisation of river boats, and the perverse way human food was thrust in the reader’s face.”
There was a general shudder at the thought of shoving the warmed up decaying carcases of animals and the slowly rotting husks of plants into moist mouth holes to be masticated then dropped into biochemical acid.
Seth shook himself out of it. “It reminded me uncomfortably of a woman I once knew who claimed to have fallen in love with the Berlin wall. She would spend nights out there in a tent next to it, and when-”
“I’m sure we don’t need to know the rest,” Fenrir quickly added. “But it’s not like you to be so easily thwarted.”
“I mean, it’s made out of concrete mostly. Which is hard, and rough-”
“Thank you, Praetor D’Asur. Your description is best left to the imagination.”
Anatole rubbed her hands together. “So Draccy-boy by default, Nine-pence, Monsieur Liberiere all did not finish the book.”
“And what was your excuse?” Seth asked of Anatole.
“What?” Anatole’s affront took hold. “I tried to find the movie version, and found something else instead! In the episode, there were these twins, right? They were beautiful and blonde, so I know Trenchant would have loved it. And they were having a go at each other, if you know what I mean, and then some kid saw them, and the man threw the kid off a tower!” Her eyes gleamed with glee. “Riveting stuff. No riverboats or pornographic descriptions of food anywhere!”
“Were there any vampires in it?” Seth asked.
“Alas, no,” Anatole said. “Et tu, Fenrir Jarl? You didn’t finish it either? J’accuse!” Anatole cackled a laugh.
“No.” Fenrir almost growled the word.
“The alligators?” Anatole asked.
“Of course the bloody alligators. Now can we please talk about something else?”
An uncomfortable moment passed.
“I drew blonde twins in the throes of passion,” Dracula said. He revealed a line drawing picture of a pair of androgynous lovers. If one squinted, and had a bit of an imagination, the first bore a striking resemblance to Trenchant, and the second to Anatole.
Trenchant straightened and slashed her fingers diagonally through the air.
The paper was sliced in half, seemingly tearing apart by itself.
Dracula dropped the two pieces. His frock coat parted with a puff of earthy smelling dust.
With the serpentine grace of an eel, and the belligerence of an alligator, Anatole slithered in under the table, and came up shoving both pieces into her mouth chewing. All the while staring death at anyone who would dare to remember what was ever displayed on the paper.
“No drawing?” Dracula asked.
“It would be good to remember that this is a book club,” Trenchant said. “Illustrators who value the current location of their extremities would do well to start their own club at another time and place, should they wish to pursue that particular hobby.”
“Erm,” Dracula said.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Seth said under his breath. Then his brows furrowed. “Hold on,” he muttered, turning to the swishing beaded curtain that was doing its best to strangle Dracula as he attempted to make his exit. “Was he creating art?”
Fenrir put his hand on Seth’s shoulder. “Don’t bring the art thing up again. Have you forgotten what happened last time?”
