A Vampirism Case from California

There was a story on the Reuters news wire sometime around the first of August that caught my eye. And long after catching my eye, I noticed, it was still sticking with me. I come across a handful of weirdies every day, but few of them stick with me for more than a few hours. And none of them the way this one did. ðnð This particular story went a little something like this:

Near the end of July, a 28-year-old man named Joshua Roise was driving his 1976 Toyota pickup truck north through Santa Cruz, CA, on his way to San Francisco. Near Santa Cruz he stopped and picked up a hitchhiker?one Eric David Knight, age 39.

The two men drove the 60 miles into San Francisco apparently without incident or reason for concern on Roise's part. When they entered San Francisco and hit the Haight-Ashbury district, Knight told Roise that he wanted to be dropped off in a supermarket parking lot (I suspect it was a specific one they were passing at the time, and not just any random supermarket parking lot). That's when things get funny, in an ugly sort of way. Or vice versa.

According to the police report, Knight made no move to get out of the truck after Roise had parked. Instead, he leaned in toward Roise, as if he were going to "hug him good-bye."

I'll let the Reuters account take it from here.

Then Knight allegedly bit Roise in the neck, near his jugular vein, and sucked his blood.

Roise told police that it took him two minutes to struggle free.

Roise suffered a severe bite, police said, but he was able to flag down an officer and help locate his assailant on a nearby street. Roise was treated at a hospital and released. Knight, identified as a transient, initially resisted arrest, police said. He told an officer that he was sick with an unidentified illness.

"I need the cure...I need blood," he said, adding that he had an "inability to consume food."

Police said Knight was barefoot, wearing at least eight layers of clothing, and had raggedy shoulder-length hair and an unkempt beard.

Now, let's think about what happened here for a minute. This whole scene. First, you have some youngster driving through California, where he stops and picks up a hitchhiker.

I'm sorry, but Roise is about 10 years younger than I am, and I grew up in an age in which it was made perfectly clear that you never, ever, ever stop to pick up hitchhikers?that they will always, without fail, rob and kill you.

But we'll ignore that for a second. Perhaps times have changed, and perhaps I'm just being an old fuddy-duddy, and people really are more trusting than they were when I was a kid. Or maybe Roise was just trying to be one of those newfangled, post-Jerry Garcia Deadhead types, in which case that sort of behavior can almost be understood.

Still, given that, Knight was described as not only having "raggedy hair" and an "unkempt beard," but as wearing eight layers of clothing. Okay, long matted beard, and wearing eight layers of clothes, in California in July in the middle of a heat wave and draught? Of all the people Roise could've stopped to pick up along the way, he chose him.

Knight might've been a little down on his luck and funny in the head, but this Roise kid isn't striking me as being the brightest bulb in the box either. A little weak under the rafters, you might say.

Then comes the whole Martin routine (and I mean the movie, not the tv show), which I think pretty much speaks for itself in madcap, low-comedic terms. Even during the whole "biting the jugular/sucking the blood" shtick, Roise reports that it took him two minutes to struggle free. Two minutes. When someone is biting you on the neck and sucking your blood, two minutes is an awfully long time. Either Knight had a vampire's superhuman strength, or Roise is weak as a little girl. A little girl with polio, even.

But enough of all that. There's a reason why this story has stuck with me, and a reason, apart from simple cheap yuks, why I'm bringing it up now.

When I first read that story, my initial thought was, "Yeah, I've had days like that." And in the ensuing weeks, I've had quite a few more. No big deal there?we all have and we all will?except that in my case, I mean "days like that" from the perspective of both men.

The idea of vampirism?in the metaphorical, psychic sense?is an old one, and has been discussed in great detail and at great length by folks who are much smarter than I am. That kind of vampirism is especially rampant in a town like New York (and, I imagine, San Francisco, as the story goes to show). We spend our days surrounded by people?strangers and non-strangers alike?out to bore us into submission, demand the impossible from us, suck us dry. They latch on tight, on trains or on the telephone or in the office, leaving us with no viable means of escape. No choice but to sit there as the brain goes dry.

Come to think of it, maybe I shouldn't be making sport of Roise for taking two minutes to fight his way free from his assailant?Lord knows I've found myself on the phone for an hour or more with people who had nothing to say and yet found it simply impossible to shut the fuck up.

Things get trickier and more dangerous when I start thinking about the Knight (and what a name for a vampire!) side of the coin. Perhaps as a direct result of being subjected to so much psychic vampirism lately, I've been experiencing more?pretty much daily?flashes of unprovoked savagery. Unlike similar instances in the past, however, these I can't pass off as simple electrochemical mishaps around that brain lesion of mine. These aren't seizures so much as they seem to mark some kind of return of the pure, invigorating youthful hatred of 15, 20 years ago. Everything from back then?attitudes, memories, tastes?and it's a little scary.

I sit on the train, I step out of the office to get a sandwich, I walk home from the tavern, and suddenly I find it there with me, crouched on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, encouraging me to just take a swing at that guy?or that one. Not people who are getting in my way or looking at me funny?just people trying to mind their own business as much as I am. I get home at night to discover that my jaw and fists have been clenched for Lord knows how long. And I wonder why I'm so fucking wiped out.

There are times, most of the time, even, when I'm not feeling it at all. When I'm sitting at the bar with Morgan, or at home with my Beasts, or...

Well, okay, come to think of it, those are about the only two times of late.

Two nights ago, I found myself stalking around the grocery store in my neighborhood, looking for beer and a few other things, breakfast cereal, growling audibly, muttering to myself, repeating lines of dialogue from angry movies. By the time I got home, the effort of trying to hold it all in left me exhausted.

And I think that's part of the reason why I think I understand, maybe even empathize with, this Knight character. From his perspective, who really knows what went on in that car during that hourlong drive into San Francisco? Maybe Roise just wouldn't shut up?being so happy and pleased with himself for picking up a hitchhiker?especially one who looked so, y'know, authentic?that he wanted to make the whole experience as real as possible, and as a result, just gabbed and gabbed and gabbed. Maybe by the time they reached that parking lot, Knight simply couldn't hold back any longer, and had to strike out in the only way that made sense to him.

That's just the way I'd like to picture it?which gets us no closer to understanding the whole "I need the cure" business. Unless he'd accomplished what he wanted, and now was just having a little fun at the expense of the police. Or maybe he'd just seen Martin too many times, the way I've seen too many movies too many times. Lord knows what sort of shit would come out of my mouth at a time like that. Or perhaps I should say, the way things are going, will come out of my mouth when the time comes. Something just as obvious and embarrassing, no doubt.