The Blind Vampire Hunter (6 page)

This was great. But what about those visual
devices to aid me in my work? Calls to my rehab counselor all were
the same, “Lack of funding, complain to your local
Congressman.”

Following such a call, I received another
call from my mother, who could hear the disappointment in my voice
from my talk with my rehab counselor. After asking about my “moody
mod”, she asked for my counselor’s name and phone number.

The next day, my rehab counselor called me at
my apartment because I had been up all night with a migraine
headache and had called in sick to get some sleep. She set up an
appointment at my apartment for that very afternoon to discuss my
needs and to give me a required IQ test. Before the meeting, I
called my mother who informed me that when the counselor gave her
the “Lack of funding, complain to your local Congressman.” My
mother responded with, “I work with Congressman so-n-so,
Congressman so-n-so and Congressman so-n-so. Which one would you
like me to
have call you?
”

During the IQ test, Miss May made the
observation that I would make a great programmer because I think
like a computer. During one part of the test, the person tested is
supposed to look at a circle and check the chart to see what the
number for that circle is (for example “1”), record it under the
circle, go to the next figure (for example, a square), check the
chart to see that the number for squares are (say “2”), go to the
next (for example, another circle), check the chart to see what the
number is and so on..

I looked at the circle, checked the chart and
put a “1” under all the circles, checked the chart for squares and
put a “2” under all the squares and checked the chart for triangles
and put a “3” under all the triangles and so on. Miss May commented
that my system was the fastest she had ever seen, I had handled it
like a computer would have. I should make a great programmer.

This was the early 80’s. Computer-wise, this
was still the time of mainframe computing. There was no such thing
as PCs. Dumb terminals connected a human to one very big computer
and that was all the terminal could perform. All the real work was
done at the mainframe computer, hence the term “Dumb Terminal.”

The Corporation, note the corporation, not
Maryland Rehab., got me the first talking terminal on the East
coast, so of course they also got me a news reporter to report the
event. The interview went well—almost. I thought the reporter had
left, so I was quite surprised when a question my boss asked just
after the interview was printed in the article...

My hearing impaired boss asked, “Does this
terminal have both voice input and output?”

Having a little fun with the women
programmers within our department, I pointed at the large speaker
under the CRT screen and answered, “No. It’s like a woman, all
mouth—no ears.”

Later, when the article was printed, my
girlfriend read it to me, rolled up the newspaper, and hit me over
the head with it. I will not tell you what my mother had to say
when she read the article, but no, she did not cry.

A teacher of the blind after reading the
article called me for permission to bring her students out to see
my equipment and to allow her blind students a chance to talk with
a visually handicapped professional. I told her it was fine with
me, but she most likely would have to talk to Employee Services
(previously known as Employee Assistance Dept. through corporate
restructuring) either for permission or to be referred to the right
people to give her such permission. The next day she called again.
She had received permission and wanted to set up a day and time
that was good for me. After all the details of the visit were
accomplished, she added, “I have a new student, who just lost her
eyesight as a result of a drunk driver. She sees no future ahead of
her without sight. Her name is Mary. Could you possibly spend a
little time with her?”

“Sure. No problem.”

The teacher and her young class of blind
students arrived and for the most part showed great interested in
the equipment and what I had to say about working, even though I
had very poor eyesight. There was this one little girl who was a
noticeable recluse. Remembering what the teacher had said about a
particular little newly blind girl named Mary, I touched her
shoulder and asked, “What is your name?”

Shyly she answered, “Mary.”

Setting the terminal controls to read what I
typed, I typed and the computer said, “Hi, Mary. I’m the computer
talking to you.”

That put some life into her.

The entire office got quite a laugh when
after the students had left, and after they had had a real good
look at the terminal, blind style. The boss got out some cleanser
to clean off all the many little fingerprints to be found all over
the computer.

Later I got a call from the teacher of the
blind students. “I just wanted to thank you for your time. The kids
were fascinated by the whole visit. By the way, Mary has gotten
into the program, she says ‘So I can be a programmer like Mr.
Poisner and his talking computer.’”

With the realization that this Christmas
might be the last Christmas I could enjoy
seeing
Christmas
lights I developed a new admiration for all the many Christmas
illuminations and the many fancy lit displays of Christmas.

Eventually I finished school, got my degree
and became a full programmer. With the increase in pay, I moved to
a larger apartment, which was even closer to work. After I moved
in, I discovered one major problem. I now had to cross two major
highways to get to work. My biggest problem was crossing George
Ave. and living long enough to get to the other side. As trained, I
would listen to the traffic pattern and when the parallel traffic
moved, I would point my white cane out and move into the
crosswalk—where more often than not an impatient driver would
violate my right to the crosswalk and cut me off. Sometimes they
would get so close as to hit my white cane. Sometimes they would
get so close as to smack my white cane right out of my hand.

One morning, such a driver smacked my white
cane clean out of my hand. I heard his car brake and thought,
well, at least this driver is going to be nice enough to help me
find my white cane.
Instead, this male driver got out of his
car and yelled angrily, “You just hit my brand new car with your
stick!”

I called back, “No sir, you just smacked my
white cane with your car, while violating my right to this
crosswalk. You do know what a crosswalk is, don’t you?” Changing my
tone gradually with each word from nice to angry, I requested,
“Sir, would you mind helping me find my white cane so I can wrap it
around your neck?” He just got back into his new car and sped off.
Someone else helped me find my now “L-shaped” folding white cane.
My cane was bent so badly I had to feel my way back to my apartment
and get out my fiberglass straight cane, my backup cane.

One morning my boss and I got inundated with
phone calls from customers, work-related friends, etc. All of them
wanted to know if I was alright. Seems a local radio station
reported, “A blind man was killed last night crossing George Ave.”
I later found out the blind man was a fellow member of my Chapter
of the NFB and a friend.

Later it got out that he was killed by a
drunk driver who was racing another car, and that the police did
nothing about it, because the victim’s dog guide had him outside
the crosswalk, despite the fact that the victim and his dog were
next to the crosswalk.

From that incident, the NFB got busy and
prevailed in getting a law passed that basically says, “As neither
a white cane nor a dog guide can differentiate the white lines of a
crosswalk, if a visually handicapped individual is adjacent to a
crosswalk, legally it is the same as if the visually handicapped
individual is in the crosswalk.”

Chapter
Three

Going, Going, Gone

Meanwhile in Louisiana...

Sitting behind her plush desk within her
luxurious office with a diffident French feel to it, her current
endeavors in business accounting were rudely interrupted by the
often hot-blooded Hank crashing into the room. He was her driver
and her only employee (not including his temporary replacement
while Hank was out sick).

“Hank, you’re looking much better, but what’s
with the gold chain and cross? Your latest attack of Swamp Fever
give you religion?”

“You could say that, demon bitch.”

Confused by his rude mood, and using her
heightened vampire senses, she could quickly evaluate that her
single employee was not under any mental confusion brought on from
any medical fever—his body temperature was around normal. It was
quite obvious that his anger was very real. She could sense it from
his elevated heartbeat. He smelled temptingly of fear, and it was
truly making her hungry. Making an effort to keep her calm, she
asked, “Hank, I don’t know what crawled up your butt hole, but I
strongly suggest you calm down.”

In a voice still reeking of anger, Hank
replied, “Remember when you stole me from Jo-Jo, to be your driver?
Remember how I said it was ‘fate’ that you chose me?”

“Yes, but...”

Deliberately interrupting his lady boss, a
first ever...

Rosy couldn’t help the distracting thought,
He really does have a head of steam on.

Taking no notice of his boss’s momentary
distracted thoughts, he went on, “When I was just a tadpole living
with my parents, and while I was very sick with the swamp fever,
someone...or something visited my parent’s bed-n-breakfast back in
the bayou. Up in my room, in the loft of the house, I could not see
this new visitor, but I could hear its distinctive voice, a very
horrifying voice that could only come
from a creature of
hell
. I also heard, and to this day can still hear, that demon
kill both of my parents. That demon or vampire, afterward, bled
both my parents dry, then left me still alive.”

Hank continued, with fevered hatred, “Last
week when the swamp fever took me again, I heard that demonic
voice, yet again—

your voice, your true voice.” He removed a
wooden stake from behind his back, where she knew he usually
carried a pistol, for protection. With a stake displayed in his
hand, her only employee continued, “It was fate that brought us
together, and fate has brought me to the very monster that killed
my parents, to the monster who bled my parents dry, to the monster
I gave an oath to kill someday. If I should fail this night, I have
sent off a message to my kin, telling them that you are my parent’s
killer. If I should fail this night, they will come after you to
grant my parents their due rest.”

With the memory of how she used to visit the
bayou from time-to-time for the thrill of the hunt and the crimson
meal, she decided she had heard enough. With blinding speed, truly
supernatural, she hurdled over her desk (sending her forgotten
accounting paperwork flying in all directions), and planted herself
in front of her soon-to-be ex-employee.

Hank suddenly felt a vise grip clamp on his
throat and another on his wrist. The grip on his wrist crushed
bones, causing searing pain, and he dropped the weapon to the
floor, where itrolled harmlessly away from the fray, as if it did
not want to be around to see what horror would follow. Hank’s
shocked mind tried to process, through the pain, the fanged
revulsion in his eyesight. This fanged creature of disgust still
had some disturbing resemblance to what had been his most lovely
boss.

Unable to move his head due to the vise grip
on his neck, Hank’s bulging eyes moved to his hand, which no longer
held a weapon. When his boss released her grip on his crushed
wrist, his eyes bulged even more at the sight and the pain of his
limp hand falling forward. He would have screamed at either the
sight or the pain of the involuntary movement, but the scream was
still being choked off by the vise-like grip still around his neck.
The grip was so tight that his shocked mind had not yet registered
the lack of life preserving air, like he was going to live long
enough to worry about a lack of air.

A demonic voice ordered, “Hank,” in a command
voice that was not to be ignored. Hank turned his gaze back to the
demonic version of his once beautiful boss. She (it?) continued,
“Hank, crosses only affect vampires with a guilty conscience; I
have no such weaknesses. I’d have you for dinner, but I don’t want
to take a chance at receiving your swamp fever. It really is a
shame you had to lose your head. But, wait, you haven’t totally
lost your head.” With a laugh Hank hadn’t heard since the feverish
night his parents were both killed, Rosy brought her other hand up
to Hank’s neck. She unscrewed his head until it popped off like a
bottle cork releasing a spray of blood, like crimson champagne
bubbly, a bubbly she would have gladly sunk her demonic lips over,
but even a demon does not want to battle with swamp fever.

Changing back to her mortal appearance, she
laughed again at her little jokeas she tossed her ex-employee away,
just as if his limp hundred-something pound body was nothing but an
oversized rag doll. Hank’s version of champagne had made quite a
mess of the rich office interior, but that really was no concern
for Rosy. Rosy Báthory was busy giving real consideration to her
ex-employee’s unintended warning of the possibilities of additional
foes [“kin”].
It’s time to move on. Lady, it’s not like you have
not performed this dance before.

When her headless, expired driver crashed
backward into a wall, only to slide to the floor, his forgotten
head rolled away. She was already making plans to gather up her
liquid assets, her package of new identities (including new names).
She was going to have to get her clothes together and decide how
she was going to travel and to where?