CHAPTER NINE

Editor's Note: The recorded version of the song lyric in this chapter can be heard for free on http://www.ukejackson.com

NINE
This is getting tiresome. Another message on
my computer screen tonight when I returned:
You are becoming dangerous. You must cease
revealing your thoughts and actions in writing.
That is not going to happen. If anything, these
intrusions on my private ruminations are provoking
me to go further in my explanation of vampires.

It is my considered opinion on the origin of my
species – and I certainly have had plenty of time to
reflect on the question – that as people gained more
and more consciousness and intelligence, and evolved
away from animal-like hairiness and brute force,
so too vampires gained intellectual capacity from
the ingestion of the blood of our two-legged prey.
Personally, I can attest that my consciousness and
intelligence grew at a gradual pace, then there was a
sudden quantum leap.
I can recall feeding on the early natives of this
country as a fully formed being. But in a dullard state,
as were the blood sacks which sustained me. Then one
night it was as though superior intelligence clicked
into operation upon my consuming enough blood, or
the right blood.
Blood – it adds a relentless quality to my
existence. The hunger goes on and on, apparently without end.
I trace the beginning of my memories as a being of enlightenment to a night when I was feeding on a tribesman, where previously I had fed on members of close knit, often inbred cave-dwelling clans. This tribesman’s blood was coupled with an awareness of concepts and power as something that could be wielded with a deftness and precision that far exceeded the capabilities inherent in instinct.
As the natives replaced instinct with intellect, I too became more aware, more cunning, stronger and smarter. It was an exponential growth pattern. I should note that the arrival of the first Europeans, in the form of Irish monks, produced the occasional genetic anomaly physiologically – red heads and blue eyes – among the native people up and down the Eastern seaboard but otherwise had no impact on the gene pool, or none that I could discern.
It is now my opinion that, had the monks arrived in their little leather boats with books, and taught the natives to read, the ships arriving centuries later would have found quite a different place. Reading lights up the mind and this light, if you will, is passed from generation to generation, as long as it is nourished.
At the time these young believers set sail from Ireland, however, books were sacred texts copied and made ornate, all by hand, not the mass produced information storage and retrieval systems that they would become a few centuries later. All these young adventurers brought with them were their passions and their words of faith remembered by heart. For the most part, the passions won out and the monks went native.
Centuries later, the arrival of big ships brought me blood that glistened with a new intensity that arose from a belief in the power of humanity that was nurtured by reading. No longer was Nature to be worshipped, feared and respected. The natural world was simply an untamed frontier to be dominated, and once dominated to be put to work on behalf of humanity. Eventually I would come to feed on European blood more than any other.
With the arrival of the Europeans, it was inevitable that candles and oil lamps would impact my nocturnal existence. I taught myself to read with a Bible. That led me to believe for quite awhile that the angels so often referenced in the Old Testament were in fact vampires. Perhaps they were.
I filched other books whenever I could find them. It was clear to me very early on that the native tribes would be assimilated or destroyed. There was nothing that could stop human beings who could light up the night.
Once this clash of cultures came to its conclusion, and the natives were herded onto remote reservations, the advances in technology began to border on the miraculous. Electric light, telephones, the combustion engine, radio, air conditioning, television, flight through the air -- with each new advance came greater ease, and intelligence shone brighter in humankind. It seemed that these evolutionary advances would continue forever.
However, it now seems that humanity is on a devolutionary track. I can taste it in the blood and feel it coursing through me. While technological advances have become greater and more widespread, people have become duller. They lost their sense of the miraculous and it was replaced by a jaded expectation and unending greed.
Will elegance, art, gentility, and wisdom be wiped out? More and more it seems this very well could be what is happening, at least here in America – which is the only place I know. People are getting stupider. Or put another way, my food doesn’t taste as good as it once did.
In the 1980s, a cultural shift took place. Large sums of money began to be publicly equated with more intelligence. The acquisition of large sums of money requires a willingness to take something from someone else by whatever means available. Believe me, I know. I am an expert at these things.
Of late, Wall Street bankers have been compared to vampires. There’s even a song out titled Vampire Bankers.
Come on, let’s give it to the bankers
Let’s give them exactly what they need
Come on folks, money’s not the answer
That will only further fuel their greed
We’ll throw a shoe or two
We’ll all shout “Screw you!”
And drive wooden stakes right thru their hearts
Vampire is a banker’s middle name
They feasted on our blood for too long
Let’s put an end to their nasty game
Bankers been swaggering far too long
We’ll throw a shoe or two
We’ll all shout “Screw you!”
And drive wooden stakes right thru their hearts
Hank Paulson was Treasurer of Death
Wanted us to pay until we die
Get close, you’ll smell blood on his breath
Hank Paulson, yeah, he’s a Wall Street guy
We’ll throw a shoe or two
We’ll all shout “Screw you!”
And drive wooden stakes right thru their hearts
Tim Geithner – is he any better?
All of us better keep an eye out
Is this tax-dodging go-getter
Giving his friends more money and clout?
We’ll throw a shoe or two
We’ll all shout “Screw you!”
And drive wooden stakes right thru their hearts
Banking’s now called a public service
And all those suits they think that’s just fine
Don’t ever make a banker nervous
Or on your heart and dreams he will dine
We’ll throw a shoe or two
We’ll all shout “Screw you!”
And drive wooden stakes right thru their hearts
I take exception to this song. It is insult added to injury. I lost fourteen million dollars in the stock market crash of 2008. Foolishly, like so many humans, I believed I was smarter than the system. Belief is a costly indulgence.
I know that I am a monster. Wall Street executives and traders delude themselves into believing that their deceitful finagling in the service of unmitigated greed is a noble and necessary calling. They cite the huge amounts of money they make as proof of their nobility of purpose. They believe their intellect is superior and that this entitles them to their piles of loot. Well, I’m here to tell you – I’ve fed on some of these Wall Street types, and they are not what they claim, at least not in terms of intelligence. Greedy does not mean smart.
At the same time that Wall Street greed began to be equated with intellectual acuity and America elected an actor as President, Hollywood began its wholesale undermining of the culture. Bullets and blood got to the point a lot quicker than words. Jokes were supplanted by violent physical comedy.
Then came computers and the sense of the miraculous died completely. Technology is providing more and more distractions of less and less quality. Expectations are being lowered among the general populace. The ability to concentrate for long periods of time – a requirement of any serious intellectual pursuit – is being undermined without surcease. The draining passivity of watching stupid videos of water skiing squirrels on YouTube alternates with the interactivity of on line networks where people snipe at and attack their confreres when they are not congratulating each other for lame amateur accomplishments in music, writing and art.
Why do I care? As people become less intelligent and more confused, I fear for the light of my mind. Even scarier, though, is the idea that people in their greed have reached a point where they can destroy themselves by abusing their environment. What happens if humanity dies out? What am I to feed upon then? What will be the blood source for any of us?