In the Mystique

Originally written Thursday, January 5, 2006

“To not scare people away. Sure. But I’m not exactly a regular there, and I don’t plan to be. You can tell me. But,” she acknowledged, “I guess you already did.”

“Yeah, I did,” I confirmed. She’s a philosophy professor. She doesn’t need a direct answer. But she being a philosophy professor, split infinitives notwithstanding, it also wouldn’t hurt to give her a little more to munch on and a reason why I wasn’t being direct. “But it’s not about scaring people away. Real vamps would be a draw for at least as many people as they’re a drawback for. Have you read much ________?” I named a theorist she’d probably be familiar with. When in doubt, appeal to an academic’s intellect.

“A bit.” Already I could see the kind of recognition in her face that suggested I’d taken the right direction with this. “I know he talks about how uncertainty and ambiguity can have a stronger impact than certainty. That it leaves things open for interpretation, and people are likely to interpret knowledge the way they want to.” And being good at what she does, she was able to go from there to the conclusion I’d hoped she’d draw. It wasn’t just the fact that having competing discourses at the club allowed people to believe what they wanted to and thus either go to the club to rub shoulders with actual vampires or to pretend they were; after all, we weren’t talking about whether clubbers knew or not, we were talking about Jeanine’s investment in this information. “So the ambiguity at the club is not just about whether vampires exist or not but about what exactly they are.”

“Yeah, I agree,” I said. I meant—and could have said—that she was right, but it seemed better to choose words that didn’t formally position us as teacher and student. “Like, are the vampires the ones that dress like it? That wear fangs or even get dental work to look like they have them? Are they the ones that inject heroin into each other’s necks? Do they drink blood or just bite?”

“What does Trudy do?” That’s what I was going for. It wasn’t about what she was. It was about what she does and what she’s like. Vampires are a lot of different things in a place like the Crypt. This was a question I didn’t mind answering directly.

“She drinks blood. But she doesn’t have fangs.” I smiled. I hoped I could make it sound like a simple yet morbid fetish. Jeanine wasn’t letting me off the hook, though.

“Is she immortal?”

“In theory.”

“Can’t go in the sun?”

“Not comfortably.”

“Would die from a stake through her heart?”

Here I was able to break the tension with a chuckle. “Wouldn’t most people?”

She humored me with a smirk. “So that’s what one kind of vampire is like. Others just wear lots of black and cake on the pale makeup. And they all contribute to the mystique.” I was a little bit disconcerted by how unsurprised she seemed to be, but then she leaned back in her chair, two ribs of pizza crust left on her plate, and added, “Gotta admit, she plays the part well.”

I didn’t ask her to explain that remark. There’s more impact in ambiguity.