[In confession] I'm a drunk, Lord. I'm a liar. I am a thief, Lord. I profit off the miseries of other men, and I do it easy. Drugs, liquor, women. I lure them in and grab what they got, Lord. I take daughters with no homes and I put 'em out on the street, Lord, and I lie to myself sayin' I'm givin' 'em roof and food and dollar bills in they pocket, but I look in the mirror, I know what I am. The big man in the big house, stuffin' cotton in my ear so I can't hear their cries. And, Lord, I dragged my family into this mess with me. I shame my father. I failed my brother. I lost my mother and sister, and rather than fix it like a man should, Lord, I run like a coward. I run to the bottle. I run to the grift. I run to bad beds. I laid down with a man. I laid down with the Devil. And he has roots in me. All his spindly roots in me. And I can't think nothin' anymore but his voice and his words! Please! Help me! I am weak! I wanna die!
[Voiceover] Dear Mr. Molloy, I hope this letter finds you safe and thriving, if such a thing were a possibility in this bleak hour. I've been following your career with some interest since our last meeting. Please allow me to congratulate you on all your successes, those professional and those personally redemptive. The passage of time and the frailties that accompany it have provided me perspective. And I suspect the same might be true for you as well. I'm hoping health and pride won't deter you from the following proposal: In a week's time, in a setting of my choosing, we revisit the project boyish youth prevented us from finishing. Forty-nine years and thousands of miles removed from the room we shared in San Francisco, I offer, for your journalistic pleasures, my full attention and my life story. All affinities, Louis de Pointe du Lac.
It is difficult to explain how his words disarmed me, how efficiently succinct and impenetrable his argument was. All my conceptions, even my guilt and my wish to die, seemed utterly important. And I completely forgot myself and the barbaric scene that surrounded me. For the first time in my life, I was seen.
He drained me to the very threshold of death... The blood, it came as a dull roar at first. And then a pounding, like the pounding of a drum, growing louder and louder as if some enormous creature were coming through a dark and alien forest. A huge drum. And then, there came a pounding of another drum, as if another giant were coming behind him, each giant intent on his own drum, giving no notice to the rhythm of the other. Throbbing in my lips, fingers and flesh of my temple. Above all, in my veins. Drum and then the other drum. I opened my eyes, and it was then that I realized the drum was my heart and the other drum had been his. I saw him sitting a length away from me, radiant. And we sat there for some time... in throes of increasing wonder... The end. The beginning.
My business and my raised religion were at odds. And the, uh, latencies within me, well, I beat those back with a lie I told myself about myself. That I was a red-blooded son of the South, seeking ass before absolution.
He had a way about him those first years, Lestat. Preternaturally charming, occasionally thoughtful. He was my murderer, my mentor, my lover and my maker -- all of those things at once. He didn't choose me to be his doormat. I knew he enjoyed it when I fought back, but there was present a kind of worship on my part. The earth beneath me always felt liquid.
I ran from the Quarter that night. Ran to where the violence spread most wild. I stumbled through the streets like an irrational child who had tested his strength on a small bird and now asked, 'Can I make it whole again?' Their faces raced past me like snow in a terrible wind, unaware that it was I who had brought this retribution, it was I who should pay for this sin. And then... one of those inconceivable moments where who you were before and who you'll be forever after is marked in time. A rooming house, now a fire trap. I could not save the Azalea. I could not save Storyville. I could not save the aunt on the wrong side of the wall, but I could save her. My light. My Claudia. My redemption.
When your mother sees the Devil in your eyes, it's a hard assessment to abandon. Am I from the Devil? Is my very nature that of the Devil? I had hedged against the question, but now it completely overwhelmed me.
And music, that was where Lestat separated man from food. Music pierced his damned soul, and any humans who were involved in the creation of it existed on an elevated plane in his eyes. I was moved to see he too had his human attachments.
'Exceptional Negro.' 'Thank you, sir.' It was the call and response of my entire life. I had let them talk to me like that so long, I stopped hearing it. 'Yes, sir.' 'Of course, sir.' 'Subject-verb agreement, sir.' Smile, nod, 'yes, sir.' They all came from the same organ inside me. An organ unknown to science at the time because what scientist would look for an organ found only in Black men who use their weakness to rise? But I wasn't a man anymore. I was something else. I had powers now and decades of rage to process, and it was both random and unfortunate the man picked that night to dabble in fuckery. If not him, it would've been the next man.
Interview with the Vampire · 220 quotes
Louis de Pointe du Lac
