STONEWALL by CARMILLA

STONEWALL
By Carmilla

What she asked for: “I want a companion story to Age of Aquarius, on the theme of: “While Spike is having fun in Woodstock…where the hell is Angel?”
To Liz. She’s the only one to double dare me.
What she asked for: “I’d like a study of Angel. A POV without the usual, boring love story”
To Emmy. She commands and I obey.



Author’s note: The characters are as usual the property of GOD JOSS and ME, but this time, the events are real. On 27th June, 1969, in a famous club in Greenwich Village in New York, the Stonewall Inn, there was a real riot, the “Stonewall Riot”. This event spurred a large part of the gay population in NY into action against police abuse and discrimination. Several initiatives were born, leading to the creation of the Movement for Homosexual Rights. These events have been presented as a stage play and on film. Check this link: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/case1.html

Translator: Rogiari (contact me at rogiari@fastwebnet.it; www.rogiari.altervista.org)

Beta: PAT OLVER

Make yourself comfortable and….enjoy the read.


Greenwich Village (NY), 1969

No one knew his name.
That was both normal and extraordinary at the same time.
Normal for the Stonewall, where names were like a crazy dance impossible to decipher, and identities disappeared in the harsh light of day, hand in hand with used condoms and melted make–up; extraordinary, because the Stonewall was one big tribe where all the members wore their warpaint.
And their scars.
Michelle rubbed her left wrist absentmindedly, where two parallel lines were covered with jingling bracelets.
The ice was melted, by now, and Ronnie’s cocktail had a sweet, sickly taste.
Ash and regrets.

The stranger didn’t have this sort of problem. He came in, as he had for the last three weeks, exchanged a greeting with Ronnie and sat down at the corner table, the darkest one, next to the bar.
Ronnie took him a bottle of Bushmills and a glass, no ice to be seen.

And then he vanished.

Curious.

There were people who had been coming to that bar for years and still were strangers.
Truckers, whores, thieves, clerks and salesmen Michelle could easily imagine living out there.
They could enter the Stonewall and lose their inhibitions, money, dignity, mental health; and then, like snakes, they could shed their skin as soon as they stepped outside, and go back to taking care of lawns, robbing old women and all that other shit they were doing out there.
Just like that.
This immunity, which Michelle envied with all of herself, made them outcasts, and embarrassed them.

Then you had the people like her, Ronnie, Babette and Jack, the stocking salesman, a kind little man with a shrill voice who always had his suitcase at his feet like a pet.

Regulars.
The Stranger was one of them.
That was a certainty which didn’t stem from any visible evidence, but it was embedded in feelings. It came from the inside. It was just like that.

Babette called him the Prince, thanks to his elegant stroll, his detachment from all and sundry. He was fully included in the “Regular” category.
His chiseled face, which provoked admiring and envious glances from all around.
Broad shoulders, statuesque, as rare as a precious hidden treasure.
He couldn’t have gone into any other club without stopping all conversation dead, or left without making people sigh with relief.
He was apparently in the prime of life, nearer to his twenties than his thirties, judging from his face. The eyes, on the other hand…betrayed something different.
Age, experience. The Prince might be young, so to speak, but he had come through…well, Michelle couldn’t fathom what.
The Swinging Sixties, probably.
Fuck, she just knew it. Life leaves scars…

A regular, anyway.
Although he had first entered the club only three weeks ago.
Michelle couldn’t be wrong about that.

Three weeks ago Randy had gotten the card from the Army. He had to attend for a routine medical appointment. Destination: Vietnam.

Three weeks ago Randy had left.

Three weeks ago Michelle had slit her wrists.


She remembered it all so clearly.
Running to the hospital, having her wounds stitched up – it’s never worth it, you know! – and the elderly paramedic who shouted Next time do it right, fag!
The problem with Randy, however, pre-dated this.
Like the pink big elephant in the kitchen that nobody wants to see, that problem had weighed on their living together in the last few months, and Michelle couldn’t honestly – Honesty is the most important thing, you know! Yes, Father Flannery – pretend it was just Randy’s fault.
Everybody kept repeating that, girlfriends, babes at the Blue Fox in the pauses between rounds, Ronnie.
And Babette too had told her the same, with a glance in between pity and impatience.
“Thieves, killers, pimps…all alright. Junkies too, dear, if the monkey isn’t deep inside them…they’re okay” the blue smoke of her cigarette had softened her still attractive figure’s contours. “But honey…a confused hetero…stay away. That’s a bet you can’t win”

Michelle was in love, indeed. And she was obstinate. This combination had prevented her from picking up the signals, shaky glances, silences.

Even slaps, at first rare then commonplace, a habit like turning off the gas before leaving, looked to her like a proof of love.
Michelle shook her head and downed absentmindedly what was left of her drink.
Now, there were just the three of them left. Time to go home to bed.
Alone, wearing the t–shirt Randy had left behind.

It was then that all hell broke loose.

“What a shitty place!” the three strolled in, the woman in between the two men. She knew them, two stooges who made their living by stealing and being the muscle for Big Al, the boss who controlled the Village from 19th Street to Broadway.
The woman, though…
Dark haired, high cheekbones, an air about her that was wild and sensual like an eastern gipsy woman, the kind where you never know if she is about to kiss you or cut your throat.
Teeth too white, lips too red, face too chalky, and something terribly wrong about her that Michelle couldn’t pinpoint.
But the Prince…oh, he could. He raised his beautiful face….too beautiful to be true, Babette had said the first time she saw him…and a strange expression shadowed his eyes before he assumed his usual poker face.
“Get the hell out of here, you two” Ronnie’s tired voice spoke of sleeplessness, too many cigarettes and a nasty headache. “We’re closing”
“Shut your trap, fag. The lady here wants a drink and this place stays open for her” One of the two jerks leaned on the bar an arm’s length from Michelle and faced Ronnie, baring his yellow teeth with a sneer. He loved crack.
“Let’s see your panties, daddy, we might even give you a tip!”
Obscene laughs followed this sentence, and a strange look in those eyes.

Michelle felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.
The jerk’s face had changed, and there was enough light in the room to see: she couldn’t attribute it to alcohol, smoke, or pot. She really couldn’t.
Something was wrong.
Steering her attention to Ronnie, Michelle understood he had seen that too. He was hurrying to open a bottle and fill three glasses.

You couldn’t survive bloody Marines for twelve years and then run a gay bar in the Village without having a great instinct for self-preservation.
“What the hell are you looking at, hon?”
Michelle lowered her eyes, remembering her last nights with Randy when that type of question, in that tone, were usually the prelude to some shitty scenes.
Or worse.
“Maybe she likes you, Jay. Maybe she wants you to kiss her”
Laughter again.
A soft hand, a dirty one (and Michelle didn’t want to guess where the dirt came from) caressed her face, like a parody of courtship,.

“Do you like Jay, honey? Let me see how much you like me, dear…” the hand had reached her shoulder and rested on the green silk ribbon around her neck, recalling the green of her dress. “I can make you feel a real woman…if you want it” the sound of cloth ripping echoed in the silent room.
“What the fuck, Bobby. She’s not a woman. She’s a fag”
Don’t say a word, honey. Babette’s advice sounded in her brain. Don’t react, don’t cry, don’t breathe…and never give those cryptoqueers the idea they really hurt you.
Michelle felt naked without her ribbon, her male neck reminded her of what she wasn’t. Michelle Williams was a cute, special girl, Michael Williams was just a pathetic gay guy who had been abandoned by his suddenly male boyfriend.
Although he loved to be ass fucked.

It wasn’t Michael who rose from the stool, ignoring Ronnie’s warning glances, and adjusting his dress, smoothing nonexistent creases.
It wasn’t Michael who took off with a flick of the head his strawberry wig, $84.57 dollars on sale at Tony’s in Hell Kitchen, which suited him so well.

It was Michelle who picked up a bottle with a soft movement and stared at the jerk, still laughing, before breaking it across his jaw.
The painful cries of that man made the couple laugh even more. “Jay, fag or not, she ditched you”
Christ, the man was taking out shards of glass from his face, Michelle could see through to the bone. But he was still standing. And he was approaching.
“You hurt me, bitch!” he shouted, but his face was different now, there were fangs and yellow eyes and claws. “I’ll take your eyes out, fag. And I’ll eat them like they were nuts!”


“No, you won’t’”

The Stranger was standing now and he wasn’t looking at Michelle, or even at her aggressor, but he was staring at the woman.
Her laughter died.
“Take your toys and go. Your evening ends here”

So calm and cold, his voice was exactly as Michelle had imagined it, deep, imperious, terribly sexy.
He towered over all of them.
“What the fuck? Who the hell are you, dickhead?”
The stranger ignored him, keeping his gaze fixed on the woman. “I don’t want trouble”
“Is this your playground, Liebling?” The woman caressed her companion’s face with a finger. She lifted the finger to her mouth, sucking the trace of blood.
Michelle felt a wave of nausea, while Ronnie was whispering a prayer to Holy Jesus, Mary and Joseph…
“As you say. I like this place. It’s quiet here. I want it to stay that way. Tell this to the others, too”.
“Who says there are others?” the tone was nonchalant but her posture had changed, it was tense now and her two companions felt something of that, since they fixed their eyes on the Stranger.
“There are a lot of them. Those like you”
“Those like me, Liebling?”
The Prince shrugged. A casual movement, his hands still deep in his dark coat’s pockets.
“You’re strong enough to gather minions. Not enough to understand when it’s time to leave”
“Let me break him, hon” Bobby didn’t like her wavering glance.
“I’ll eviscerate him, and then I’ll give you his heart as a souvenir”
The Prince laughed, a rich, masculine, open laugh.

An insulting one.

“It’s true. Stupidity knows no bounds. Not even those of Death” In a heartbeat he was beside Michelle’s aggressor. “Let’s make it clear…a heart like this?”
Michelle had just a moment to savor the jerk’s surprised glance and something red dripping from the Prince’s fist before all crumbled into ashes in front of her.
“Shit!” the other said, with wide, incredulous eyes, like a child beaten for the first time by loving parents. “He made a hole in his chest, did you see it? He ripped out his heart!”
Don’t all men do that, sooner or later? Michelle thought, stupidly, as she heard Ronnie’s labored breathing and inhaled the acrid smell of his fear.
The woman had lost her brazen face and was nervously wetting her lips, dropping her eyes with a subdued attitude.
“Forgive us. We didn’t know you were here. I’ll tell the others”
The Stranger stared at her bowed head and at the survivor’s obtuse look. He had gaped during their exchange and he probably hadn’t understood half of it.
Surprise, dickhead. You just discovered you’re not top of the food chain anymore.
Michelle had to stop herself from breaking into laugher.
That was not the case.
“Out” The Prince turned his back to them and sat down at the table.

As if nothing had happened.

The woman lingered a bit on the threshold. “Master….when I pass the message to the others…what name shall I tell them?”
The pause lasted a few of Michelle’s frantic heartbeats.
“Angelus “ A breath.
Michelle saw pure terror in the woman’s eyes.



What do you say in those circumstances?
Thanks, my dear, for eviscerating him, he was a nasty piece of work; and could you avoid doing the same to me? Please?
”Get out” Ronnie took her by an arm but Michelle freed herself.
“Don’t be stupid. If he wanted to hurt us, do you think we’d be here now?” her comment provoked an inquiring glance from their savior and a sigh by the barman.
“I always thought you were crazy. Now I’m sure of it” Ronnie passed a hand over his face. “Christ, I need a drink. Something strong. With a spray of Valium in it”
“For two, please”
“I’d better close. Just in case….”
“They won’t be back” The Prince’s voice had a certainty to it which reassured them. “She’s not stupid. She’s the brains for both of them” He seemed to weigh Ronnie up. “But should anybody like that present themselves again….”He took out of his pocket a long, pointed object and put it on the bar. After some hesitation, the barman took it in his hand and weighed it. “A stake?”
The other quirked his lips up at that incredulous tone. “Through the heart. A classic. Otherwise, fire, beheading. Or, I guess, having a flamethrower under the bar, as a lighter would be…icky”
“Man, I almost preferred when you were quiet and distant” Ronnie breathed deeply. “Tell me just one thing. I have to expect others like that?”
Michelle appreciated the Prince’s delay in answering.
“I don’t think so” He slowly stated. “They know now I’m here and who I am”
The implication of what he didn’t say made sweat burst from Ronnie’s bald brow, and Michelle felt a cold, ghostly finger across her spine.
“You got a hell of a reputation, man. Those things….”
“Vampires”
Michelle inhaled sharply.
The Stranger went back to his seat and the scene became oddly familiar.
The Prince’s tone was empty now. “Vampires. That’s what they are. Demons, soulless and pitiless demons. They’re stronger than men. More resilient too. They don’t fear anybody or anything. They’re monsters”
”How come we’re still alive, then?” Michelle said without thinking.
The black glance of the Stranger wavered. Gold and amber glints appeared in his eyes. Michelle felt a woosh like dead leaves or broken twigs, and Ronnie cursed violently.
The beast’s eyes in an inhuman face didn’t leave hers, not even for a moment.
“Because there are even worse things. And I’m one of those”
Ronnie gulped.



Nothing changed in the Stonewall’s routine in the following days.
Or maybe, everything changed, but that was debatable, obviously.
Lupe was in town. Lupe had met her at the Stonewall, and Lupe had licked her lips when she had seen him.
She was crazy about him, although Michelle had warned her.
Lupe was a kid, she would be always like that, a kid with enormous tits and a cartoon body, wide hips and tasty as an apple, able to hook anybody just with a glance.
“If he’s not gay and he’s not a cop, maybe he just wants a ride. Shit, I’d ride him all night long” she had concluded, tottering towards her prey.

She returned to Michelle and Babette wearing a strange expression.
Confusion.
The Stranger hadn’t refused or ignored her, but all of sudden, as she would repeat later to Michelle once they were at home, Lupe thought that if she touched him…she wouldn’t be able to stop. Thoughts bigger than her fought inside her, finding the way out in words.
She asked herself….she had kept on speaking, like in a stream of consciousness….if she had to knock.
That stayed in Michelle’s mind when, the night after, she greeted the not–so–strange–anymore with a wave.
His shining smile disappeared as swiftly as it had appeared from the prison of his severe appearance.

But it had been there.


There was the usual crowd of people coming in and out, cops still infested the place, but after a bottle of beer, two blow jobs and two hundred bucks they were more than happy to leave this 3rd rate Sodom to a Superior Being’s care.

God, or maybe the fucking Municipal Commission.
Michelle kept on living, working, crying during the coffee breaks thinking of Randy, taking home strays who departed the morning after, leaving some coins on the kitchen table and a different smell on her sheets.

Everything seemed blurred to her, like looking through stained glass or under water, where sounds were muffled and images distorted.

The Prince had gone back to his apparent uncommunicability, Ronnie served cocktails with little umbrellas to hairy, heavy truckers and Michelle prayed every single night to stay like that, with confused thoughts and a cloudy head full of purest Novocaine.

Happy not to live the various, unhappy aspects of her life, but only to pass through it.
Like a ghost.


She caught herself studying him, looking at him with an abstract concentration which had nothing sexual about it, like studying a piece of art.
He was all she had always believed she was waiting for.
He was all she would like to be.
Since then, Michelle vibrated with energy, and with the passing of days that energy became rage, an insane, lonely , constant rage which touched people, clients, friends, sexual partners.
Pleasure grew solitary and wild, and her dreams were inhabited by golden eyes and musk.

“Does it feel better?”

The Vampire raised his eyes from the bottle.
“As you are….is it better?”
Golden liquor swirled slowly, in large, hypnotic circles.
“We have the power. We are immortal. Eternal. And we can do all we want. We continuously challenge God’s and Man’s Laws”
“It it’s so bloody fantastic…why don’t I see you on the pages of Newsweek preaching?”
Pain had a color, she found out, staring at his eyes.
Caramel and chocolate.

“I’d give all I have to remember just once the rhythm of my breathing”
That night Michelle threw her Seconal and razor blades in the trash.




Greenwich Village. 27th of June.

New York drowned in humidity. The heat wave gave an insane look to streets where the asphalt melted like the tires.
Even the air fans swirled more slowly, dampened by the incessant heat.

And the Stranger, Angel, as he had called himself, still wore that heavy coat.
“You should go around with a notice: Look at me, I’m weird. You’d be less distinctive” Michelle told him, rolling her eyes when he appeared not to have understood any of that.

He was a supernatural and mysterious creature with some brain damage, obviously.

“Tonight something is happening”

Perfect.
Exactly what we need.

“Did you foresee…what?” Who knew what extraordinary powers he might have…

“I saw several police cars in the street”

…such as normal sight and the incredible ability to look around.


Michelle shook her head, smiling bitterly.
“It means we’ll have more work to do. Sometimes I think I’d be better off as a nun. I’m down on my knees half the time anyway…”
The vampire shot her a strange glance.
“Why?”
She looked at him, confused. “Why…what?”
“Why do you do it?”
Rage and hopelessness crystallized inside of her and became alive. Michelle eventually had an aim.
His voice was sand. Raw, abrasive.
“Maybe, this is what I deserve. Maybe this is the reason why I’m like that, as they keep telling me. Wrong. Like you, right?”
It was a suicidal spin, but she couldn’t stop. “Instead of staying here you could go around doing something. Saving kittens up trees, catching criminals, playing Bingo with old women. But you’re here, doing nothing. Not every club has his vampire bouncer, right? Usually, in those other places vampires go in quietly and the expression the house offers gets a whole other meaning, uh?”
Let’s go, Michelle thought, listening to the glass breaking. “Give us the evidence I’m right”
The vampire stood still.
Michelle had never been so afraid before.
Words came out as heavy as stones. “People don’t want to be saved. I tried. I didn’t get anything out of it….” His voice died.
“Did you give up after the first time? Christ” Michelle shook heavily her head, the rage was gone. “You’re even deader inside than you think” she downed her vodka in a gulp. “And maybe you’re right. It’s not worth it”
Michelle saw a mysterious brutality in the way he took the bottle.
She had the ludicrous feeling that she had irritated him more with her acquiescence than with her former attack.
She turned and saw Babette, waving to her.
And she heard the sirens.
Fuck.
A couple of cops entered indolently, swirling their batons and throwing carefree glances to the clients.
The older stayed in the middle of the room, while the younger looked around with a disgusted face.
“Tonight you got lucky, gents. Get out of this cruddy place while we clean it up. You, you and you…” indicating Michelle, too…”are going with us to headquarters” Then he went to Ronnie to collect his payoff.
While the clients filed out, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you going to go?”
A strange kind of calm fell over her. “I don’t think so” she smiled, ironically. “Tonight is face-pack night”
And as she said it she felt free….for the first time ever.
“I must go”
“Where?” she already knew the answer.
The smile was in his voice, now. “Somebody told me there are lots of kittens caught in trees”
When she turned, he was no more.
In the distance, Michelle heard thunder.
The wind was changing.

THE END.