Monday, April 5, 2010

Armand


Armand—the Deadly Angel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW5J3QNTYfI&feature=related

I met Armand—during Mardi Gras. He was still an eternally young, auburn-haired, adolescent vampire—who’d been 17 since the fifteenth century.

Louis met him on the streets of Paris one night—their relationship was, well, troubled. Armand was an actor—both innocent and cruel, simple yet deceptive. By the time I encountered Armand—he was running Lafitte’s in New Orleans. He’d got bored with Paris and transferred his coven from The Theater of the Vampires—over to the Big Easy.

New Orleans was rich with new young Creole blood—his brood was like a busy flock of oil derricks pumping it out barrel after barrel. They were wealthy French bloodsuckers—ending up like lucky Texas oil millionaires. So many partygoers disappeared during Mardi Gras at Lafitte’s—that there was a Most Wanted Poster up on the walls. Armand gave the partygoers what their death-wish desired—the exquisite Long Goodbye through tears and laughter.

Vampire love-affairs are always unrequited—even when they succeed. Louis got booed in the Castro Theater—by all the chic knowing San Francisco queens. He was simply too maudlin and melancholy—to be believed by all the cynical Baghdad queens when compared with their all-too-knowing weltschmerz Lestat look on life & death.

True, Brad Pitt was cute—but saccharine tricks get rather tiring and despicable after a century or two. When it comes to passionate sex and the chic Vampire’s Kiss—nothing tastes as sweet as fresh sociopathic liars and desperate young killer meat. It never gets old or changes overnight—there’s always a fresh Bad Seed bunch of Badboyz ready to be had every Mardi Gras.

There’s nothing actually very new under the Sun—but beneath the Vampire Moon there’s always new Creole romance. Nothing much changes over the centuries either—so why have a Brad Pitt moping around and being a moody companion all the time? Why be stuck with a petulant party-pooper—when you can be the bloodsucker life of the party every eternal Night?

Armand, like Lestat, was a filthy little elegant punk—who got lucky and kept tricking in the Night for 600 years. First tricking beneath Les Innocents cemetery in Paris—then expanding his haunts to the New World. He was much more realistic than Louis—his move to New Orleans simply pragmatic rather than romantic. He had the hots for rich thick Creole blood—spurting like snot from the inflared nostrils of Nouveau Zydeco boyz.

Armand went shopping one night—and ended up buying a shrunken head. He bought me amongst all the other curious voodoo curios—there at Madame Gris-Gris’ quaint little out-of-the-way Voodoo Shop. He was curious about nelly college boyz—he wanted to be entertained by more convincingly intellectual telepathic images and a good lying storyteller like me.

Armand had been abducted as a boy in Russia by savage Tartars—who sold him to a brothel in decadent Constantinople. A portrait of him exists called “The Temptation of Amadeo”—before he became a vampire. Even after the change—there was something wounded, bitter and full of simplicity that made him hard to resist.

Armand was a greedy bloodsucker—the embodiment of Thirst itself. He seemed to fall under the spell—of any rough trade number who showed up at the bar at night. Being butchy rather than fem—was a human quality Armand worshipped. Their blood tasted somehow differently rich, more exotic and virile—he opined to me over cognac one night.

Armand had no substance at all—except for the very last shuddering drop he’d drain from some young handsome sailor. All the Creole boyz who were French Quarter hustlers—knew and feared him. He’d drain the heavy thick burden of their precious immortality from them—then toss them in the gutter after he was done with them.

Eventually Armand got bored—tired of the same old cheap Lafitte tricks and theatrics. He spent more and more time deep in the bayou swamps—patiently looking for a miracle. That’s how he found me—it was a beautiful disaster.

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