Jules Duchon was a real New Orleans vampire. Born and bred in the working-class Ninth Ward, bitten in and smitten with the Big Easy. Driving through the French Quarter, stuck in a row of bumper-to-bumper cars that crept along Decatur Street like a caravan of bone-weary camels, Jules Duchon barely fit behind the steering wheel of his very big Cadillac taxicab. Even with the bench seat pushed all the way back.

Damn, he was hungry. His fat fingers quivered as they clutched the worn steering wheel more tightly. It was only nine P.M.; early yet. He didn't used to get this hungry, back in the old days. Could he be coming down with diabetes? Jules thought about this. Could somebody like him get diabetes? Half the population of New Orleans over the age of forty had it, and Jules was well past forty. He had half a mind to drive over to Charity Hospital and get himself checked out. Yeah, right, he thought to himself. He rubbed the side of his nose and tilted down his sun visor, forcing himself to look at the clipping from last week's Times-Picayune he'd pinned there. NEW ORLEANS FATTEST CITY IN NATION, STUDY SHOWS. Front-page news. Talk about restating the goddamn obvious. Them scientists actually get paid to tell us this stuff? He glanced quickly at the visor's lit vanity mirror, where his reflection would be, if he could still cast one. What the hell; he knew what he looked like. He still had the delicate, whitish complexion that women had made such a fuss about during his younger days. Back then, they'd said he looked like Rudy Valentino in The Sheik. Now he looked more like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

"Diabetes or no diabetes, if I don't get something down my gullet, I'm gonna keel over." Waiting at a stoplight, Jules considered his options. The streets and sidewalks of the French Quarter, glistening with a recent rain, were bustling with tourists. But that was the problem. Too much of a good thing -- there were people and eyes everywhere. The light turned green, and Jules crossed Canal Street, heading for less popular parts of town. He would have to dig into his wallet for tonight's meal.

A few minutes later he was trolling past the New Orleans Mission, a soup kitchen and homeless shelter. It squatted in the shadow of the Pontchartrain Expressway, an elevated highway that separated the business district from a vast slum called Central City. Jules chewed his lower lip as he scanned the long line of human refuse that waited on the broken sidewalk outside the mission's door. Then he spotted her, standing near the end of the line. He'd seen her around town before, sitting on bus shelter benches or panhandling in front of fried chicken joints. A big-boned woman, as his mother used to say. Her thick, chocolate-brown neck was nearly hidden by a motley heap of metallic beads left over from last winter's Carnival parades, and her upper body oozed out the armholes of a tank top several sizes too small for her. Yeah, she fit the bill.

Jules stopped his cab, a Caddy Fleetwood of mid-1970s vintage, pressed the wobbly rocker switch that jerked his electric windows reluctantly to life, and stuck his head into the humid night air. "Hey, baby. You interested in some dinner?"

The woman swung her head around, her sparse eyebrows raised in surprise. "You talkin' to me?"

"Yeah, baby. I asked if you were hungry. You look hungry."

The woman took half a step toward the cab, giving its vast white bulk the once-over, then eyeing the equally imposing white bulk of its driver. "What you selling, mister? You a dealer? I ain't got no money to be buying no drugs, now."

Jules sighed heavily. His hunger was growing exponentially. "You hear me say anything about crack? I want some company, is all. I wanna buy you dinner."

The woman crossed her big arms in front of her ample chest. "I got me dinner right here, thank you. An' it's free."

"C'mon, you don't want to be eating the slop they got here. I'll get you some real food. An oyster po' boy and all the fixin's. We'll have us some fun, maybe take in some music afterward. Give a lonely guy a break, huh? How about it?"

The look of resistance on the woman's face softened as she contemplated a belly full of fried seafood. Wavering, she turned to her friend standing in line ahead of her, an older woman missing most of her front teeth. "Miss Gloria, whatchu think?"

The old woman appraised the Cadillac for a few seconds, then gave her friend a shove toward the street. "Go on now, Bessie darlin'. Dat's the best offer you be gettin' all week."

Her beads jangled loudly as Bessie made her way slowly around to the passenger's side. Jules leaned over and opened the door for her. Before getting in, she said, "Now, if I go with you, I get me a comfortable place to sleep for the night, right? That's the deal."

Jules licked his lips as he drank in her large figure, silhouetted in the weak glare of a streetlight. "Sure, baby. You'll be sleepin' real comfortable tonight. Deal. Now slide on in."

They drove back through the deserted central business district to a sleazy stretch of St. Charles Avenue. Jules parked in front of the Hummingbird Grill and Hotel, a brick-faced, 150-year-old building that had once been part of a row of luxury town houses. Its once pristine bricks were now coated with decades' worth of grime. Rattling air-conditioning units dotted the building's facade like mechanical zits. Jules liked the Hummingbird. It was cheap, it never closed, and it was a century past its prime. The place had character.

Jules popped open the Caddy's electric door locks. "Here we are, baby."

Bessie was unimpressed by their destination. "Shee-yit," she said, a petulant frown pulling down the corners of her mouth. "I thoughts we was gonna eat someplace nice."

Jules was already halfway onto the sidewalk. "The Hummingbird is nice. Food's real good here. 'Specially the seafood. You'll see. C'mon."

Jules tried hard to remember his manners. He held the restaurant door open for his guest. She walked infuriatingly slowly, waddling through the foyer like an obese seal. It took every bit of his fading willpower not to nibble her neck as she paused to peek up the dim, narrow stairway that led upstairs to the hotel; but he reminded himself that good things come to those who wait.

Jules selected a table close to the kitchen, as far from the windows as they could get. He wanted nothing to distract her from her meal. While waiting for the waitress to bring menus and silverware, he amused himself by rereading for the hundredth time a handwritten sign posted near the pay phone by the cash register: NO TALKING TO IMAGINARY PERSONS. Jules got a kick out of that, being kind of an imaginary person himself. He wondered whether the waitress would be breaking house rules when she came over and asked him for their order.

After a couple of minutes of waiting for a server to come and furtively admiring his companion/dinner, Jules lost his patience. He half stood and snapped his fingers loudly, finally managing to catch the eye of one of the two waitresses on the floor. "Sweetheart. We need dinner here, not breakfast."

The waitress favored him with a half wave. "Hold your horses, dawlin'. I got ten other customers to take care of. Be right with you."

By the time she brought over the menus, Jules had made their selections off the chalkboard posted by the kitchen door. "The lady here'll have an oyster po' boy with a helping of red beans and smoked sausage and a side of corn bread, thanks."

Bessie thumped the table in protest. "Hey, what's wit' you? Don't I get to order what I wants?"

Jules quickly patted her arm. "Baby, it's more classy when the man orders for his lady. You want that po' boy dressed?"

Slightly mollified, Bessie turned to the waitress and said, "Dress it with tartar sauce and my-nezz and tomatoes and pickles, and don't skimp on them ersters!"

The waitress scribbled a few abbreviations onto her pad. "Got it, dawlin'." She turned back to Jules. "And what can I get for you?"

Jules frowned slightly. "Umm. Just good, hot coffee for me, sweetheart. And keep it coming."

"Sure thing."

Bessie's eyes widened. "What? You mean you just gonna sit there and watch me eat?"

"I'm not hungry, baby," Jules lied through his sharp teeth. "But it does my soul good to watch a pretty lady enjoy a big meal."

"Whatever floats yo' boat." Bessie took a long sip of water, staring at Jules over the rim of the glass. "Say. Y'know, you jus' about the whitest white man I ever seen."

Jules smiled, careful not to expose his teeth too much. "Yeah. I get told that a lot. Got a history of skin cancer in my family. So I tend to stay outta the sun."

The waitress brought a heaping basket of corn bread and placed it in front of Bessie. Jules grimaced when he glanced at the dish of spreads she set down. "Miss! Hey!"

The waitress turned back toward their table. "Anything the matter, dawlin'?"

"Yeah. Dump this low-cal margarine crap. Bring us some real butter, huh?"

"Ho-kay." She raised an eyebrow as she scooped the dish up from the table. "Some people worry 'bout their calories, nowadays. Rest of the food'll be out in a second."

Jules decided to ignore the insult. He gulped down his first cup of coffee as he watched Bessie slather great hunks of corn bread with butter. The po' boy sandwich, when it arrived a few minutes later, was more than a foot long -- thick slices of French bread embracing dozens of deep-fried oysters, the whole concoction dripping with gobs of mayonnaise and creamy tartar sauce. The generous portion of syrupy red beans was replete with fat logs of sausage that overhung the bowl. Jules watched the light of the green neon sign outside the window glisten off the pools of grease that floated atop the red beans. His date appeared to have an appetite as fierce as his own. Already the po' boy was half gone. Jules's eyes half closed with pleasure as he imagined his repast to come. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small shrill voice repeated the headline of the newspaper article he'd pinned up in his cab. Really, he shouldn't be doing this to himself anymore. But he buried the annoying voice with an avalanche of delicious anticipation. Hell, he could start dieting anytime. Why tonight?

By the time Jules was halfway through his third cup of coffee, Bessie had finished her meal. She wiped a few crumbs from the corner of her mouth, more crumbs than remained on her plate. Jules pushed aside his coffee cup and patted her plump hand. "Man alive, I love seein' a woman eat. You all filled up? Want some dessert?"

Bessie patted her round stomach and grinned. "No thanks, baby. I be stuffed solid."

"Good." He grabbed the check off the table. "Let's go, then."

She paused in front of the stairs by the cash register after he paid the bill. "Ain't we goin' upstairs? I could use a little lie-down after that meal."

"No, baby. We're goin' for a little drive. I've got me a nice cozy camp out by Pass Manchac, on Lake Maurepas. We'll have our lie-down out there."

Copyright © 2003 by Andrew Fox