“Are you too cool for vampires? Don’t be such a hipster snob. That isn’t very punk of you, Art. The first punks, the original ones—and I know I’m being a hipster snob about punk, but shut up—were all about trashy or low culture and used it to sell records. It’s okay to like things, Art. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Hey, relax. I’m clearly not too cool for anything. What makes you think I can write a book? Or write anything anyone would want to read?” Self-pity aside, I was already considering her idea.

“Trying something new creatively could only help recharge your music batteries. Frankly, listening between your lines, you sound worn down, fed up, and cynical about the music scene and your place in it. I want you to be … fulfilled, Art. Not happy. No one knows what being happy means. I don’t know, don’t listen to me. I’m kinda drunk.”

I didn’t argue with her. She was drunk. And yeah, her between-the-lines reading of my disillusionment and disappointment was spot-on. I wasn’t going anywhere with music, and worse, I didn’t know where I wanted to go with it anymore. My bands weren’t making the music I wanted to make. I was going through the motions, like a programmed drum-machine version of a plug-in guitar player. I said, “Maybe I could write a Gen-X memoir about my time in shitty bands.”

“That would be cool, but I’m thinking it’d be a tough sell. Readers want plots, plucky do-good characters and inspiring arcs, and tidy, happy endings. They probably don’t want to read the music unsuccess story. No offense. Not even if it has vampires. Sorry, I’m bumming you out with this, aren’t I. Forget I said any of it.”

“When someone says ‘forget I said that,’ it usually guarantees the opposite.”

“See? That’s some keen, observational wisdom right there. Thinking like a novelist already.”

Dude, I can’t even. You’re blaming me for this book too? Yes, I made a friendly, what-if suggestion, but it was obviously the throw-away kind.

Was she being serious or was it more fucking with me?

[Now? Now, I’m convinced she was seed planting. Was it an act of braggadocio or ego? Did she want me to write the book because she’d be the star of it? That’s part of it, maybe even a big part of it. I keep going back to her obsessive search for photographic “proof,” and I keep going back to the sleepover night in 1989, after the graveyard fiasco and before we got to my house, when we drove around and she went on an epic rant about not knowing the why of the vampire. I think she wanted me to write the book because maybe I could somehow stumble upon answers to some of those whys for her. If nothing else, the act of writing this book would be, for her, a permanent engraved invitation into my life. As aloof and above-it-all as she was (is), Mercy has always been cosmically alone, and she wanted me to be cosmically alone with her.]