The Blue Kind

Going nowhere fast

Cory wakes me up like the theater is on fire. I sit at attention although I am still asleep. He’s hopped up on jumping beans, pacing the room, and talking a mile a minute about vampires. Not your everyday garden-variety vampires, but ones who know Edith and have some sort of mental puzzle for us. “This will make you understand,” he says and hands me a squishy bean that tastes like ash when it dissolves. He says he needs my help because he’s not good at mental puzzles that let you access the corners of your mind. Suddenly, with the help of the jumping beans, Cory is making perfect sense.These people with sharp teeth can help us find Edith. Edith is what’s missing in our lives. Our lack of Edith is what’s wrong with us.We must do this; it is our destiny. We’re ready for the challenge. We feel like we can take on anything. Luckily, all my clothes are the same color and match beautifully as I throw on layers of clothing.Ray is so anxious to get moving, he almost jumps out the window. We could take the train, but hell no, we flag down a cab and race to the vampire’s address.We pull up to a flimsy little brown 84 T h e B l u e K i n d house. No castle for these vampires, I guess. A husky woman answers our knocking. Her skin is deathly pale, and her teeth are sharp and yellow. Her vampire man is tiny and thin with the same skin.They could use some sun.They lead us into their dark house, all the windows boarded up, and offer us a seat on furniture that makes a crackling sound when you sit. These people are clearly not vampires. They’re just a couple of drips who went to a wacky dentist to screw up their teeth. The vampire-poseur lady is giving some long, drawn-out speech that I am having a hard time following . She is trying to speak, I suspect, with an accent from an earlier era—but I lived through that time and nobody talked like that. The little vampire guy pipes up, his balding head glowing in the light of a black candle. My mind wanders around their messy room, complete with a cluttered dusty shrine in the corner, loaded up with murky crystals, medieval knickknacks, and other clichés. I wonder if they worship Satan. I wish she would get to the point. She’s saying something about how the answer to what we’re looking for is deep inside our minds, and we need to go through a maze to unlock ourselves—and that’s how we’ll find Edith. Cory is bouncing his knee and biting his fingernails clear off,and Ray is nodding his head to some very fast beat only he can hear. The little guy leans over to me. He’s so creepy.“The secret of Edith,” he whispers, “is in the soul of thee, thee needeth only to speak to thy soul.” “So what’s your point?” I bark. The vampires seem a little shaken.I think we were supposed to be spellbound by their little talk. I hope to hell Cory didn’t give them any coins for this. They explain there is a labyrinth we must go through. 85 “So is Edith at the center?” Cory asks. “No,” she whispers,“but at the center you will know.” “How? Is it written down or something?” “Trust us,” they say in unison.“You will know.” This sounds like a big pile of horseshit to me, yet we still go into their cruddy, overgrown backyard. They have set up a white paper structure, as tall as our bodies and supported by dowel rods and clear tape. “Go in and you’ll see,” they say from the doorway of their dark house. They need to add some vegetables to their diet. We start the paper maze, shuttle down a white paper hallway , and turn, then turn again. It breaks off in two directions. Cory asks,“Which way should we go?” “How should I know?”I say and look to Ray,who just shrugs. We pick a direction, then pick another. We hit a dead end and all explode in anger.Maybe on Tin Tin this could have been...