My Favorite Fangs: The Story of the Von Trapp Family Vampires (13 page)

He then glanced to his left, and drank in the breathtaking sight that was the Baroness. An Aryan ideal, Frau Schrader was blonde, blue-eyed, and bodacious, a delight to look at, to touch, and to hold. The Captain was so enamored with her face and body that he ignored the fact when she became angered, the whites of her eyes turned red, and, when she was really perturbed—which happened on a semi-regular basis—multi-colored smoke poured from her ears.

After a particularly harsh bump, the Baroness cocked a thumb over her shoulder and said in a tone that if one were listening carefully, one might interpret as sarcastic, “Great route, Georg. Those Alps sure are swell. Reeeeally swell. Sweller than Max’s breath…”

“Those are not the Alps, per se,” Georg interrupted.

“What do you mean?”

“This is the Untersberg.”

“
Oy, Gott
, here we go with the useless trivia,” the Baroness said. “Fine, I’ll bite: Georg, please, for the sake of all that’s good in the world, tell me what the Untersberg is?”

“The Untersberg,” Georg said, “is a mountain massif of the Berchtesgaten Alps that straddles the borders of Berchtesgaten, Germany, and our very own town of Salzburg. The Berchtesgaten Alps are popular with tourists and Austrian Vampires alike because they’re a mere sixteen kilometers to Salzburg. The first recorded ascent of the Berchtesgaten Alps was in the first half of the twelfth century by Eberwein, a member of the Augustinian Hydra Monastery at Berchtesgaten. As you may recall, the mountain lent its name to an 1829 opera by Johann Nepomuk, Baron of Poissl.” He gave her a meaningful, lovelorn look. “I had them put up just for you, darling.”

The Baroness said, “There’s no way you could have had them put up for me, Georg. You said there was a recorded ascent in the twelfth century. I know for a fact that you were not alive in the twelfth century.”

“Maybe I was,” he said.

“No. You were not,” the Baroness said in a tone that made it clear that she was right, and this topic was off the table. Then, in an overly cheery voice, she asked, “And what’s this talk about Austrian Vampires? What do you know about them? Ha ha ha ha ha.” (It should be noted that she didn’t actually laugh. She literally said, “Ha ha ha ha ha,”
sans
smile.)

Max said, “Yes, Georg, what do you know about Austrian Vampires? I’m always interested in new acts.” Max was a concert promoter who fashioned himself an impresario put on Earth to make the dreams of artists everywhere come true. The rest of Austria, however, fashioned him to be an exploitative scumbag who took advantage of those so desperate to perform that they accepted Max’s contract terms without question, terms that could be summed up in seven words:
Everything for me, and nothing for you
.

“I know nothing about Austrian Vampires,” the Captain said. “This is becoming a ridiculous discussion, and unless you cease with this line of questioning, Max, I shall revoke my invitation.”

“You didn’t ask me to your villa,” Max pointed out. “I asked myself.”

The Baroness sneered, “As usual.” (The Baroness and Max had a love/hate relationship, in that he loved her, and she hated him. That didn’t stop them from making love once a week, couplings that inevitably ended in a plethora of pain and humiliation best not recounted here.)

Ignoring her, Max said, “I need some booze.” He paused, then added, “For free.”

“Max, you’re a
ficken
sponge,” the Baroness said under her breath.

The threesome rode in near silence for the next several minutes; the only noise heard from any of them was the tiny moan that escaped the Baroness’s mouth when the Captain ran his hand high up her thigh. Soon, however, the quiet was broken by singing off in the distance.

Max stood up in the back seat and screamed, “Holy
scheisse!
What’s that lovely sound?”

The Baroness leaned over to the Captain and whispered into his ear, “That’s the sound of me becoming moist,” and then she squeezed his man-parts, which almost led to an accident.

Von Trapp flicked her hand away, then told Max, “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the Klopmannsteinberger Temple Young Young Young Girls Choir. Lord knows why, but they like to rehearse at the foot of the mountains.”

“I bet it was Hammerstein’s idea,” the Baroness said.

Max leered. “Young Young Young Girls Choir, eh? They sound quite … chipper. Would you agree?”

“Chipper, no,” the Baroness said. “Like a bunch of jailbait, yes.”

“You say chipper, I say jailbait. You say to-
may
-toe, I say to-
mah
-toe.”

The Choir sang, “Wrooonngggg mussssssicalllll, whorrrrrrressssss!”

“My point is,” Max continued, “I could take them to the Graz Gala of Gaiety and make them stars!”

“Stars who’ll line your pockets.”

“It isn’t just about money, Georg. I’ll also get … well, what I’ll also get is between me and those singers. And don’t give me that look, both of you—they’re all sixteen going on seventeen. I think. I hope.”

“You sicken me, Max Detweiler,” the Baroness said.

Max grinned. “Funny, Elsa, if I recall, that’s exactly the same thing you told me last weekend right after we…”

She spun around and glared at Max, the whites of her eyes as red as blood. “That will be enough out of you, Maxwell.
Enough
.”

The Captain laughed. “Oh, you two, always bickering like an old married couple.”

The Baroness and Max exchanged a nervous look. “Old married couple?! What ever do you mean by that, Georg? Ha ha ha ha ha,” Elsa said. (It should be noted that again, she didn’t actually laugh. She literally said, “Ha ha ha ha ha,”
sans
smile.)

“Good question,” Max coughed. “What on Earth are you talking about, old friend, old buddy, old pal?”

“I was making a joke,” the Captain said. “I make those once in a while, you know.”

They simultaneously said, “Ha ha ha ha ha.” (It should be noted
again
that they didn’t actually laugh. They literally said, “Ha ha ha ha ha,”
sans
smiles.)

The Captain stared at them both. “It wasn’t that funny.”

The “laughter” ceased abruptly. “You’re right,” Max said. “It wasn’t.”

“Not even a little bit,” the Baroness said.

Max said, “Unless you want us to think that it was funny. If that’s what you want, then yes, it was funny.”

“
Very
funny,” the Baroness added.

Shaking his head, the Captain sped by a meadow, in which seven pale children clad in some truly dreadful sailor suits were engaging in activities that, from this distance, appeared to be otherworldly. The fact that there was a young woman wailing away on a saxophone made the scene that much odder.

The Baroness stared at the children and swallowed hard. “Georg,” she said nervously, “what do you think is going on over there?”

After a quick glance, the Captain said, “No clue. Street urchins? Street performers? Street sweepers? Street repairs? Whoever it is, they’re wearing the
Hölle
out of those sailor suits. Nothing says class like a sailor suit. Man, woman, boy, girl, everybody looks good in…”

“I don’t care for the looks of them,” the Baroness interrupted.

Max said, “Me neither. It looks like a bunch of acrobats and saxophonists. Not my cup of tea.”

“Not my cup, either,” the Baroness said, glaring at the scene. “Not one bit.”

“Now tuba sextets,” Max said, “are a whole different story. The marvelous tuba sextet I’ve been trying for months to steal away from Herr Don von King…”

“Who’s Herr Don von King?” the Captain asked.

“An underhanded promoter with bad hair. The kind of person who would rob you blind, and have you thanking him for doing so. The kind of person who would steal your grandmother’s purse, then use the money to buy a kitten and kill it.”

The Baroness mumbled, “Takes one to know one.”

“Bite me!”

“You wish!”

“You wish that I wish!”

And so on.

Two montages and a pointless musical number later, they pulled into the von Trapp driveway. Gazing at the empty backyard, the Captain said, “I wonder where those brats of mine could be.”

As the trio walked toward the front door, Max offered up a sardonic grin. “They must have heard I was coming and are off somewhere plotting ways to kill me.”

The Baroness said, “I can’t say I blame them.”

Max said, “Nice mouth. Now, changing the subject, let me ask you both a question: Are you lovebirds ever going to make it official?”

“Apparently not,” the Baroness said, glaring at Georg. “They’re writing songs of love, Max, but not for me.”

“Wrong musical, whore,” Max whispered, so quietly that the Captain couldn’t hear.

The Baroness, however, did hear. “Don’t call me a whore!”

Georg asked, “Who’s calling who a whore?”

“Forget it,” Max said, then asked, “So what’s the problem, Elsa? Why haven’t you been able to tie down our Captain von Trapp? Are you not satisfying him in the bedroom? Tell me every teensy weensy, intimate, disgusting detail.”

Her eyes flashed red, and a guttural sound came from, well, her gut. “Leave it, Max.”

The Captain said, “I need a drink.” And then, because it was a day that ended in the letter “y,” he went into the house to get a drink.

“I won’t leave it,” Max said, once he knew the Captain was out of earshot. “Do you do to him what you do to me? Like the thing with the paddle and the spikes?”

“No.”

“How about the thing with the silk ropes, the feather, and the ball bearings?”

“No.”

“The sauerkraut and the bratwurst?”

“No.”

“The chains, the gasoline, and the matches?”

“No, no, and no.”

Max shrugged. “His loss. So what
do
you do with him?”

“Not enough,” she simpered.

“So why do you want to marry him? For that matter, why are you with him?”

“He’s special, Max. Very, very special.”

Max pointed at his own crotch. “You mean down there?”

“No, that’s average at best. By
special
, I mean
rich
. When his wife bit it, er, passed away, she left him with a pile of loot, and all he does with it is buy booze and cars.”

“Sounds good to me,” Max said, then added, “When
your
last husband bit it he left
you
a pile of loot. So did the one before that. And the one before that.”

The Baroness grinned. “Which is why I know
exactly
what to do with Georg’s money.”

“What’s this about Georg’s money?” It was Georg, drink in hand.

“Nothing,” the Baroness sang.

The Captain took a staggering step toward Elsa, but came to a halt when he heard a light, rapid knocking on the front door.
It sounds as if somebody is throwing pebbles
, he thought, then turned back around, staggered through the living room, opened the door, and was promptly hit in the head with a boulder. “What the
Hölle
!” he yelled, rubbing the raw wound.

Rolfe said, “Oh. Captain. Apologies, mein Herr.” He then offered up the Nazi salute, and goosestepped around the front lawn, chanting, “Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!”

After Rolfe returned to the porch, von Trapp asked, “What can I do for you, young man?”

“You can Heil Hitler, is what you can do!”

The Captain shook his head. “There will be no Hitler heil-ing in this house, Rolfe.” He peered at Rolfe’s face; pointing at the numerous cuts, he asked, “What happened to you?”

“Military business, mein Herr. Is Liesl here?”

“I have no idea where Liesl is. But you best stay away from her. She’s only sixteen, going on…”

“Going on seventeen, I know, mein Herr, I know. I have no interest in what I believe that you believe I’m interested in.” He absently rubbed the biggest of his facial wounds and said, “I have other matters to discuss with her.”

“As I said, she isn’t here. Now is that all?”

“No,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out an envelope. “I have a telegram for Herr Detweiler.”

The Captain snatched it from Rolfe’s hand. “All right. You have delivered your telegram. Now get out of my sight, you Nazi snot.”

Rolfe nodded, raised his hand in salute, then resumed his Heil Hitler chant, as he goosestepped his way off the property.

“Why were you so mean to him, Georg? He’s merely a child.”

He spun around; it was the Baroness. “I don’t care if he’s sixteen going on seventeen, or five going on six, or three-million going on three-million-and-one. He’s a Nazi snot, and doesn’t deserve my kindness … or, for that matter, anybody’s kindness.”

Max called from the backyard, “If the Nazis take over the world, the Nazis take over the world. What’s going to happen is going to happen. Accept it. Embrace it. If you can’t beat them, join them. Maybe those clowns’ll do some good. I hear the trains in Germany are finally running on time. And look at your pal Rolfe. His hair is perfectly coifed. And his goosestep is a thing of beauty.”

The Captain crumpled up the telegram and said, “Max, you’re an idiot,” then turned to the Baroness and said, “Right?”

“Right,” Elsa said, “but he has a decent
schv
—” Before she could finish her thought, a high-pitched cry of
meeraydoe, meeraydoe, meeraydoe
came from the front yard. “Sounds like your children have arrived.”

The Captain winced. “Indeed. Lucky us.”

Led by Maria, the kids marched up the sidewalk, through the living room, and into the yard—almost goosestepping, but not quite—chanting, “
Doerayme
,
fahsola
,
teeraydoe
.
Doerayme
,
fahsola
,
teeraydoe
.”

The Captain called, “What in the name of
Gott
are you brats saying?” Then he turned to the Baroness and asked, “What are they saying?”

“I have no idea.” But it looked to the Captain like she had plenty of ideas.

After the brats semi-goosestepped to their respective bedrooms, Maria wandered over to the Captain and said, “Welcome home, sir. I love you most of all!”