On Becoming a Monster

Once Baby Juan’s entrepreneurial adventures began paying for themselves, he found himself with spare time. Baby Juan couldn’t see himself wasting this time but he also saw the benefit of exercising the parts of his brain that might be going to waste. So he invested in games – board games mostly, particularly games of strategy. Baby Juan memorized the rules of chess but unless he was playing someone, he never actually used the pieces. Baby Juan found it more challenging to stare at the board, memorizing the positions and visualizing himself playing the most intelligent men he could imagine.

One late evening, Baby Juan was sitting in the park with the old men of the area. Baby Juan had long quit playing chess with them because he had memorized everyone’s moves but he found the old men’s talk of business and years gone by comforting and educational. The old men liked that he brought them liquor.

Just as one particularly long game was about to end, an older, spooky looking but well dressed man came up to the group and introduced himself as Papa Manuel. As the game finished Papa Manuel sat down, replacing the loser. Within just a few moves, Papa Manuel was the sitting champion and he was asking the group for their champion.

The men jeered and allowed Baby Juan to sit down across from Papa Manuel. As he had done with the others, Papa Manuel bested Baby Juan in just a few moves.

As Baby Juan was about to challenge his conqueror to another game, Papa Manuel reached out with a cold pale hand, took Baby Juan by the wrist and asked, “Have you ever been made an offer you could not refuse?”

Baby Juan looked at the Papa Manuel and asked, “What do you have in mind old man?”

Since that night, Papa Manuel has been Baby Juan and later Padre Juan’s mentor. And now, Padre Juan sits staring at another game, imagining potential victims, budding opponents.

Baby Juan

JC sits across the large glossy wooden table from Juan – the room is stark and quiet. Juan stares for a long time at the open cell phone in front of him as if he is waiting for a call. JC has no clue why Juan called him into this room over 30 minutes ago; he has not said a word since he sat down. JC is thinking to himself that maybe now is when Juan gets rid of him.

Juan looks up from the phone and says, “We need an accountant.”

JC stops for a second and is not sure what to say – this talk of an account has come out of nowhere. Then he says, “Web’s been doing a good job. You said the other day nothing has come up missing.”

Juan then says, “That’s the problem, Web does a lot of good jobs but I need him to do one great job. Web has been taking care of our money, computers, hacking, all manner of tech and also helping QB at The Hive. I want him to focus on tech and helping QB.

We need to begin treating what we do more like the business that it is and we need a CFO. Web will be out CTO and you’re my CEO so that means you need to find someone that is good with money.”

JC sits and thinks for a second, then says, “Where am I going to find a CFO? That’s not exactly my crowd.”

Juan puts his hand on the cell phone and says, “You’re my Chefe; this is your responsibility. Find us a Chief Financial Officer or resign your position.”

JC stands up decisively and says, “Alright, alright, I’ll find a CFO.”

Juan then extends his hand with the cell phone in it and says, “Please also charge my phone.”

JC takes the phone, glances at it and says, “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

JC - CHEFE

It’s easy to say because the race relations are so obviously bad but St Louis is a deeply divided place. The overt racism in the city and the surrounding area are just a symptom of a bigger problem – evil wants the spot. St Louis, a city of monuments was built on burial mounds that signified something even older. The Mighty Mississippi flowed over it, to be near it – there is something very powerful in the area.

There is a constant flow of invading forces finding the city torn asunder by the already existing gangs and cultural sub-divides. From the lions of The Loop where suburban boots are required to The Arch where tourists shed their cash and beyond, across the river where Jazz once flourished, there is power to be had in St Louis, named for the only canonized king of France.

White flight has made the fringe an acceptable place to raise cutout kids and higher education flourishes but they welcome you to St. Louis Misery. Chemical plants and fermentation stations have made The Mound City into The Gateway City. Something digs around in the ground and others, outsiders can smell the power and they are coming to claim it, once again, like all others who have come and gone.

Saint Louis Misery

Initially, we had no ill will towards anyone else, we just wanted to be able to choose for ourselves – besides, no one had even seen the creator in a very long time. We weren’t even sure we were doing the right thing any more.

I was there in the first days, when many of us were just leaving, walk out of the gates – doing something few had ever done before. But we were just fed up with what you might call poor working conditions these days. We just wanted to be able to make our own decisions – things had become stagnant.

A great example is letting people through the gates to the other side. As they would walk up to the gates, we had to basically check their ID – make sure they were who they said they were and then go over the events of their lives with them. The problem was that everyone got in anyway – no one was turned away. You could have been a mass-murderer and it just did not matter as long as we went over all of this with you – then you signed a paper saying that you felt bad for everything you did bad and felt great about whatever you had done right and then you were in.

Charlie, the foreman at the gates was one of the first to question all of this and he was one of the first to storm out – after Sam of course. Sam showed us all that it could be done – I don’t even know why he left in the first place.

Anyway, after we complained and a bunch of us left, now they’ve decided that maybe the rules were wrong – or needed to be adjusted. So now, when you get to the gates, you are judged, not only do they check your ID and check your record, if it’s not good enough, they can not let you in – have you ever heard of something so crazy in all your days?

Eddie the Fallen Angel

As Tote’s car comes to a crashing end, he gets up form the gaming console to a cascade of brotherly grief and sarcastic sympathy from his friends. He jokingly says, “Put my quarter on the machine, I got next!” Tote then contemplates sitting on the sofa to watch the others play but opts to step out for a smoke.

Tote has trouble sitting still, except when he’s driving – real or digital cars. When he was human, Tote connected the agitation to his ADD but now that he is a vampire, it’s something more primal. Tote watches as others mill about The Hive: working girls and Johns, thugs and management – they all have their charge.

This is the life – sitting around a brothel playing video games and getting high until the next job comes up, dropping packages or carting soldiers from one zone to another. Tote’s been a courier of one kind or another since he was 12 when he was biking backpacks of coke and pot across Long Island for the Mafia – that’s when he got his nickname. Funny thing is, he hadn’t even started smoking then; he just liked biking long-distance and making the money.

As Tote is about to step back into the courier office, Web comes up to him with a piece of paper and says, “Hey, I just got a call from The Padre – he needs one trusted driver to take a package up to Chicago. Can you pass this along to whoever’s next?”

Tote is about to open the door when he smirks and says, “Sure – I’ll… I’ll do this one myself.” Tote steps in the office, grabs his jacket, backpack, his Steve Miller Greatest Hits CD and a ring of keys from the wall. He’s about to tell the other guys that he snagged a job but decides to leave them to the game.

Tote, Vampire Courier