Me and the Prince

My Spanish teacher is named Bladimir, Blad for short, pronounced Vlad, and the only other Vlad I know of is Vlad The Impaler, Prince Dracule, later known simply as Dracula. I think Bram Stoker called him a Count, but Bram didn't know him as well as I did. Back in the fourteenth century the prince and I were tight. We used to hang together and party on the weekends. We'd fly down the mountain from Drac's place and drop in on one pub or another for a brew and a game of darts. Everyone knows that Drac didn't drink wine in those days, but I'm here to tell you he could put away the suds. He was a pretty good hand with the darts too and was a fierce competitor. Beating him was not a good thing to do because Drac would get real surly after a loss and was easily provoked to violence. We'd end up throwing people around the room like ragdolls, which usually got us eighty- sixed and damn, we'd have to cross another good watering hole off our making the rounds list. I tried to point this out to the prince when we lost The Hungarian Rhapsody Bar and Barbecue, but sometimes there was just no talking to him. Around an hour or so before dawn, we'd both get real hungry and have to go in search of food. We were on the Transylvania Diet at the time, trying to stay fit and all that, and as you know that diet only allows for the blood of ripe young women. Try finding that an hour from dawn in the Carpathian Mountains! I tell you we went hungry many a night and our exploits were wildly exaggerated. We thought about moving to London where we were told the pickings were easier, but the prince was a homeboy and truly loved his castle. A few centuries later, he did make his way there when food was scarce locally, but I've heard it didn't go well for him. Anyway, when we did stumble on a fair damsel prowling the night, we'd play the paper, rock, scissors game to see who got to gulp the jugular. The loser had to make do with a wrist which was more suited for sipping and not very filling. If we'd gone several days without a thirst quencher, the prince would cheat and hypnotize some sweet thing early in the evening and then call her out later in the night. They'd waft right out of bed and zip right up to him like they were on a string. I was never able to do that. Of course I was a lot younger than the prince as he'd only made me a century before and I lacked both experience and a title. He promised to show me the trick one day, but he never did. After that we'd call it a night and head back to the old coffins to sleep through the day. It wasn't the greatest way to live, but, you know, it was fun and it worked for us. Even though he was a prince, old Vlad was a regular guy. I wonder if Bladimir is related. He seems like a regular guy too.