Sometimes Even Vampires Die

We both have old eyes, eyes that have seen too much. Sad brown eyes that glint with golden flecks – when the sun hits them just right. And, our hair. goodness, do we have great hair.

People assumed that because we both looked back at them with eyes that churned like a river turned to chocolate milk after a cold winter rain that he and I were alike.  We weren’t a damn thing a like –  old man and me.

For most of my life he was the blood thirsty vampire who I blamed for greedily gobbling up the golden ones that I loved.  My hatred for my father burned like a shot of cheap tequila.

However, not long after we had lost my mama and my little brother, I sent him a letter. He was in prison. I don’t know why. It didn’t matter anymore. I had two objectives: to forgive him and to get our story. 

I didn’t expect him to write back. He did. 

We became very odd penpals.

I took note of his grammar and spelling. They were solid from his years of reading one paperback after another

His letters were filled with guilt and regret. Tremendous, soul-shaking guilt and regret.

“You know of all the hell that me and Starr went [thru], and the hell we put you kids [thru] was all about the drugs we were addicted to. That was the cause of all the fights, that and not being faithful to each other.”

“I did my best to not take it out on you kids. I thought as long as I did not hit yall, that I wasn’t abusing yall, but I know that abuse comes in a lot of different clothes. I have always loved you kids more than life, but just loving is not enough, you do have to be responsible.”

“The last thing Zack said to me was, ‘Pop, give me $20.00 and I’ll go get us a pizza’.”

He gave him the $20.00, but the pizza nor his son made it back.

He asked for forgiveness. Asked about Conley.

“I swear she looks just like you did at that age. I mean, her hair, even the way she stands. I know she is all of your world.”

He wrote that he had been arrested 27 times and spent 17 years incarcerated.

Eventually, I started to see him as a human. I looked forward to his letters. We talked about books. We both had an affinity for Larry McMurtry and I introduced him to Toni Morrison. After he read “Beloved”, he wrote to tell me that “that book was bad ass”.  

In one of the last letters that I sent him, I asked him if he thought that he could ever get his life on track; perhaps get to know his grandkids.

He replied, “Well, you, the person who I thought hated me most in the world, is writing me letters and talking about books. So, crazier things have happened.”

It never worked out for us.

And, that is ok. I forgave him. I understood him a little. I saw him as a human. Although I often joked that he truly was a vampire because he had escaped death so many times that he had to be immortal.

However, sometimes even vampires die. And, at midnight, December 10, 2021, the minute his 62nd birthday ended, the man who did his first shot of dope at 14, had his first kid (me) at 17, lost his right hand at 28, always had a paperback tucked in the back pocket of his Levi’s, and had the prettiest damn head of hair, died. Steve should have been gone days before that, but proving that even as death sat on the edge of his bed, impatiently checking his watch, he was going to once again out hustle the reaper for a couple more days. He was going to get one more birthday in just to show how stubborn he was. 

When he died, we hadn’t spoken in almost a decade. However, I told my sister to tell him that he and I were a’ight and I hope that he finally got some peace.

I have no idea what happens to us after we die. However, I like to think that we get to go somewhere untroubled and be with those that we loved dearly…even if we didn’t know how to show them when they were here.

I hope that he is with my mama and my little brother and the three of them are living the life that they never got to around here.

Thanks for the letters. They brought me answers. They brought me peace. I’m gonna do something with them one day…let people into our little prison book club, let them see that even old junkies have a story worth telling. 

We were a little bit alike, the old man and me.

Rest easy, vampire!

Soshally Awkward

Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.