The Vampire Takeover that Failed

It concerns vampires. I suppose you think of these creatures as horror figures. Yes. And perhaps you have trembled in suspense as the story moves toward the moment of truth. All that blood being sucked away.

Well, this story has none of the usual features. It also happens to be true. No other vampire stories can make that claim.

The drill for the vampires in this story involved a need for blood well beyond the sips that come from the ordinary neck clinch of fictional vampires. You know the scene. With the alleged liberation of women, it could be a he or a she vampire.

But let me imagine a scene that must have occurred for this particular story to have taken place. Somewhere high above Wall Street. An exclusive gathering. Present would have been the chiefs of certain mega-financial institutions.

Ardent, one of the big CEOs, spoke. "Can you produce forty or fifty goth kids?"

"Absolutely," said Oswald Horvath of Vampires, Ltd.

"Fine. Bear in mind we need impact. We cannot allow this to fail."

Within a few hours, as darkness fell over the city, the said goth kids, in full vampire regalia, set out for Times Square. It was summer and you no doubt have heard that the Mayor designated a substantial part of Broadway, from Times Square down past Macy's as a pedestrian mall. It is fitted out with metal tables and folding chairs. It seems most innocent really. Claiming a portion of our public ways for actual people. Traffic is diverted. The streets are quieter, more peaceful.

Slowly the goth kids, their gums a bit pained, as they were fitted out with fangs that would do Dracula proud, proceeded north .

Why, you might ask, would these hired children -- none exceeded the age of 18 -- be aimed in the direction of a thousand or so residents, commuters and tourists taking their sweet time to savor the city from streets once occupied by mostly cabs, private cars, buses, trucks and official conveyances?

Well, cut back to that Wall Street meeting. With the evening's plot hatched and in progress, Ardent and his fellow CEOs shared some Lafitte-Rothschild and had a serious conversation.

"That SOB mayor thinks he can survive economically if this pedestrian rights crap catches hold?"

"You got that right, chum."

"Well we are taking a hit from Washington and now another one, worse, from the Mayor. If he succeeds, the entire economy could be in the toilet. We are cars and oil after all."

Millie was only 14 but for twenty bucks she had no intention of short-changing her Wall Street employers. As a hired goth, she was determined to sink her phony fangs into the first target that presented a desirable neck. She was hoping it would be a guy, though a lissome girl would be OK too. She just did not want some jowl-impaired old man. Or old woman, for that matter.

I should tell you that the experiment in being nice to pedestrians and ceding them a major thoroughfare where they could sit and watch the world go by was going very well. Indeed, the Mayor said he was going to close some of 34th Street too.

When Ardent heard that he said, "In a pig's eye."

Through Soho and then through Chelsea the goth group marched on. It was a perfect evening. Soon Greeley Square came into view. Its triangular park sits between 32 and 33 Street The goths were instructed to fan out among the people and bare their fangs menacingly. It was assumed people would recoil in fright and that word would spread that vampires had poisoned all of Times Square, making it no longer a place to be.

I don't think you will mind if I jump ahead. You probably have already figured it out.

The vampires were a bust, Once they got into the thick of Times Square, they bared their fangs but no one paid them any mind. There were enough odd-looking people around that they blended right in.

Millie was set on doing more than baring her fangs, sharp instruments, just as lifelike as what you see in the movies. But the only time she got close enough to sink them into the neck of a victim, the intended recipient of the bloodletting burst into paroxysms of laughter. He was a handsome young man from somewhere in Iowa. Once he extracted Millie's story he lost little time in attracting her big time. They were soon clicking beer glasses in the ESPN Zone.

Ardent, in the meantime, met a man on the train back to Greenwich that very evening. The man convinced Ardent that he could make a bundle with this no-car idea. It was, he said, the wave of the future.

The moral of my story is that, just as vampires are losing real world traction, so too are cars. Indeed, we may not be far from a time when Americans will concede that cars need to suffer the fate horses did when cars came along. There are still horses and there will still be cars. Just not on our precious rights of way.

The real money, the man on the train said, is in a world beyond an exclusive commitment to cars.

Over time, Ardent made a mint building car-free communities.

Millions of new jobs emerged. The nation cheered up.

And, most importantly, Millie widened her social world, sans fangs.