Jules Duchon was a real New Orleans vampire. Born and bred in the working-class Ninth Ward, bitten and smitten with the Big Easy. Driving through the French Quarter, stuck in a row of bumper-to-bumper cars that crept along Decatur Street like a caravan of bone-weary camels, Jules Duchon barely fit behind the steering wheel of his very big Cadillac taxicab. Even with the seat pushed all the way back.

Damn, he was hungry.

Jules stopped his cab, pressed the wobbly rocker switch that jerked the electric windows reluctantly to life, and stuck his head into the humid night air. "Hey, baby. You interested in some dinner?"

--from Fat White Vampire Blues

Vampire, nosferatu, creature of the night--whatever you call him--Jules Duchon has lived (so to speak) in New Orleans far longer than there have been drunk coeds on Bourbon Street. Weighing in at a whopping four hundred and fifty pounds, swelled up on the sweet, rich blood of people who consume the fattiest diet in the world, Jules is thankful he can't see his reflection in a mirror. When he turns into a bat, he can't get his big ol' butt off the ground.

What's worse, after more than a century of being undead, he's watched his neighborhood truly go to hell--and now, a new vampire is looking to drive him out altogether. See, Jules had always been an equal opportunity kind of vampire. And while he would admit that the blood of a black woman is sweeter than the blood of a white man, Jules never drank more than his fair share of either. Enter Malice X . Young, cocky, and black, Malice warns Jules that his days of feasting on sisters and brothers are over. He tells Jules he'd better confine himself to white victims--or else face the consequences. And then, just to prove he isn't kidding, Malice burns Jules's house to the ground.

With the help of Maureen, the morbidly obese, stripper-vampire who made him, and Doodlebug, an undead cross-dresser who (literally) flies in from the coast-- Jules must find a way to contend with the hurdles that life throws at him . . . without getting a stake through the heart. It's enough to give a man the blues.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Jules Duchon was a real New Orleans vampire. Born and bred in the working-class Ninth Ward, bitten in and smitten with the Big Easy. Driving through the French Quarter, stuck in a row of bumper-to-bumper cars that crept along Decatur Street like a caravan of bone-weary camels, Jules Duchon barely fit behind the steering wheel of his very big Cadillac taxicab. Even with the bench seat pushed all the way back.

Damn, he was hungry. His fat fingers quivered as they clutched the worn steering wheel more tightly. It was only nine p.m.; early yet. He didn't used to get this hungry, back in the old days. Could he be coming down with diabetes? Jules thought about this. Could somebody like him get diabetes? Half the population of New Orleans over the age of forty had it, and Jules was well past forty. He had half a mind to drive over to Charity Hospital and get himself checked out. Yeah, right, he thought to himself. He rubbed the side of his nose and tilted down his sun visor, forcing himself to look at the clipping from last week's Times-Picayune he'd pinned there. new orleans fattest city in nation, study shows. Front-page news. Talk about restating the goddamn obvious. Them scientists actually get paid to tell us this stuff? He glanced quickly at the visor's lit vanity mirror, where his reflection would be, if he could still cast one. What the hell; he knew what he looked like. He still had the delicate, whitish complexion that women had made such a fuss about during his younger days. Back then, they'd said he looked like Rudy Valentino in The Sheik. Now he looked more like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

"Diabetes or no diabetes, if I don't get something down my gullet, I'm gonna keel over." Waiting at a stoplight, Jules considered his options. The streets and sidewalks of the French Quarter, glistening with a recent rain, were bustling with tourists. But that was the problem. Too much of a good thing-there were people and eyes everywhere. The light turned green, and Jules crossed Canal Street, heading for less popular parts of town. He would have to dig into his wallet for tonight's meal.

A few minutes later he was trolling past the New Orleans Mission, a soup kitchen and homeless shelter. It squatted in the shadow of the Pontchartrain Expressway, an elevated highway that separated the business district from a vast slum called Central City. Jules chewed his lower lip as he scanned the long line of human refuse that waited on the broken sidewalk outside the mission's door. Then he spotted her, standing near the end of the line. He'd seen her around town before, sitting on bus shelter benches or panhandling in front of fried chicken joints. A big-boned woman, as his mother used to say. Her thick, chocolate-brown neck was nearly hidden by a motley heap of metallic beads left over from last winter's Carnival parades, and her upper body oozed out the armholes of a tank top several sizes too small for her. Yeah, she fit the bill.

Jules stopped his cab, a Caddy Fleetwood of mid-1970s vintage, pressed the wobbly rocker switch that jerked his electric windows reluctantly to life, and stuck his head into the humid night air. "Hey, baby. You interested in some dinner?"

The woman swung her head around, her sparse eyebrows raised in surprise. "You talkin' to me?"

"Yeah, baby. I asked if you were hungry. You look hungry."

The woman took half a step toward the cab, giving its vast white bulk the once-over, then eyeing the equally imposing white bulk of its driver. "What you selling, mister? You a dealer? I ain't got no money to be buying no drugs, now."

Jules sighed heavily. His hunger was growing exponentially. "You hear me say anything about...

 

 

Fat White Vampire Blues by Andrew Fox
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