Necropotence

VI.


I always had an inkling that my own blood wouldn’t work if the target of the stone was myself. It’s much worse than I imagined.
Here’s the last part of my daily routine. I know you have no interest in it, and that by now you’ve certainly heard enough of my babbling about how terrible normal can really be. I need this from you, and you can skip ahead to the end of the grimoire if you’d like, but it will help me to write it down. I feel so old that I can’t keep it straight in my head anymore.

When I pull in to the driveway on Nutwood Street, Margerie meets me when I open the garage. She tells me whatever concoction she’s left in the oven for me. It’s a game of mundane surprises. Tonight it’s meatloaf.

Before I can open the door in the garage that leads to the kitchen hallway, I have to shell out some cash for my darling wife. She’s most fond of Ulysses S. Grant and Bejamin Franklin, but today, Roosevelt will have to suit her.

To this day, I truly have no idea where my wife takes that money, or what she does with it. I’ve never asked, and I never will. This is possibly why I’m in my third marriage, but the intensity in life that I crave does not come from prenuptial feuds and accusations of infidelity. She shows me the movie tickets and provides better reviews than Ebert and Roeper. I’ve grown quite fond of her cinema rants.

After I pay my wife and she leaves, I spend a brief moment of time at the dinner table. Usually, I attempt to eat the food as quickly as possible, and I rarely finish half of it. Mostly, I’m looking forward to the after dinner valium and a glass of wine.
When I finish dinner, I watch recorded episodes of Jeopardy on the DVR with my new mutt, Sasha. I have her trained to bark in time with the bells when someone hits the Daily Double. Usually by Final Jeopardy, I’ve fallen asleep, but sometimes I keep my eyes open long enough for the Skinemax porno. More often than not, I fall asleep with my cock in my hand, and Margerie wakes me up to escort me upstairs for a goodnight romp.

You think these nights of the routine don’t sound so bad, but after so many years, it gets vicious. You can substitute Margerie for my first or second wife, change the house, and put new cars in the driveway, but the routine will never, ever change without something drastic to pour in to the mix.

Tonight, after forcing half of her dry meatloaf down my throat with a generous helping of Heinz 57, I opt to place the rest of the scraps on the kitchen floor for the dog before I lock the house. I grab this grimoire of my darkest confessions, and then I get in to my Saab and start the engine. I rarely see the dashboard lights and I’ve driven the Saab after the sun goes down less than a dozen times.

Driving on the open road with a dying sun rehabilitates my sense of danger and excitement. Not a single human soul knows where I am right now.

My first destination is the vast library at my country club. I haven’t used my membership in three years. My second destination is a back alley by the corner of Norfolk and Phelps Avenue, where the railroad tracks intersect the city between the haves and the have nots. There, I will surely find a soul in desperate need of my resources.

I’ve read enough, researched enough, and toyed with this stone enough. I should have known you can’t drain yourself to make yourself younger. It’s like moving money from your checking to your savings and saying that you have more money, when really, nothing changes. Eventually, if you do it enough times, the bank will get pissed off at you.

It won’t go from soft to hard again. It’s sitting here in my pocket, gaping wide open, expecting what it knows it’s eventually going to get.

I need someone else’s blood to make the magic truly potent.

(This is part 6 of a series of journal entries for this story, written by Violent Harvest)