Read Online Lust for Life by Jeri Smith-Ready - Free Book Online

first person I’ve met who didn’t know me
     as a human.
    The lightness he leaves me with doesn’t last, though. Within minutes, the dread of
     what I learned from Lanham last night forces its way into my mind, laying a heavy
     gray blanket over every thought.
    I’m going to fade.
    Suddenly I know who I need to talk to.
    •  •  •
    In the downstairs lounge, I make a new pot of stronger-than-dirt coffee, then pour
     two cups.
    In the adjacent hallway outside the studio, I find Shane and Monroe in quiet conversation.
     They look at me, faces tight with tension.
    “You told him?” I ask Shane.
    “Was I not supposed to?”
    “I was just coming down here to do that.” I hand the extra coffee mug to Monroe, who
     takes it with a kindly nod.
    Shane leans forward and kisses my temple. “I’ve gotta get back in. Song’s ending.”
    My maker and I walk in silence down to the heavy steel door that leads to the DJs’
     apartment. It’s almost too heavy for a human to budge, and even I have to pull with
     both hands. Monroe opens it with one dark finger curled around the handle.
    The apartment has six small dormitory-type rooms that lead off from a common area,
     which includes a small kitchen to the left and a big living room to theright. Most of the decor is vintage seventies, though the kitchen appliances hail
     from the late nineties, when this bunker-style apartment was built beneath the ancient
     shack upstairs. Beyond the kitchen is a small hallway containing the bathroom and
     laundry area.
    The apartment isn’t glamorous, but it is safe—from fire, the sun, probably even a
     nuclear detonation. Best of all, there’s always music playing.
    I sit at the small dining table across from Monroe and wait for him to speak first,
     which is usually a losing bet.
    “I’m sorry, child.” He takes a sip of coffee. “It ain’t easy getting old at any age.”
    Monroe still has the face of a twenty-seven-year-old man, though he comports himself
     like the ancient vampire he is. An aspiring Delta-blues guitarist back in the thirties,
     he went to a Mississippi crossroads at midnight to meet the devil, in the hopes he’d
     become a prodigy. Instead he found the vampire who would give him a different kind
     of immortality.
    “What do you do to stay sane?” I ask him. “You’re almost a hundred now, and you’re
     not crazy like Jim was.”
    “I probably am, just in a different sorta way.”
    “In a way that doesn’t kill people and make a million maniacal progeny.”
    The station’s phone rings. I glance at the extension on the nearby side table. It’s
     the studio line, probably someone making a request. I let Shane answer it.
    “One thing I do,” Monroe says, “is I keep to myself.”
    “I’ve noticed that.”
    “It’s hard when you got friends. They take it personal,like you don’t like them anymore. But you gotta take care of yourself first. No one
     else will.”
    “Shane will.”
    “For now. But he’s fifteen years older than you. What if he fades first? What if he
     dies?”
    It’s hard to breathe when I picture that. “I can’t think about it when I’m trying
     to survive myself.”
    “That’s what I’m saying. Let him worry about him and you worry about you. Then you
     worry about each other.”
    That makes a strange kind of sense, and reminds me of the way I used to think years
     ago when I was a con artist. I put myself first, but I wasn’t a total bitch. I cared
     about people. I had Lori.
    “So you’re saying if I want to stay sane, I need to be alone?”
    “Not be alone. Be by yourself.” Monroe sets down his coffee cup and slides it slowly
     across the table, just past the halfway mark. It comes to a halt two inches from mine,
     his fingers still resting on the handle. “You ain’t never gonna be alone.”
    I slide my own mug to close the gap, leaving my hand on the smooth ceramic surface
     after the soft clink.
    The phone rings again. Shane is still on the line with