Half the Blood of Brooklyn

  He releases the arm and straightens. But Axler stays as he is.

  —My son.

  He walks to the fallen knife and picks it up.

  —My pride and joy.

  He comes to me with the knife.

  —Do you know how many older brothers he had, this one?

  He slips the blade between the straps on my ankles and parts them.

  —Six. Six boys older. And perhaps wiser, yes? How could they not have been?

  He slips the blade between the straps on my wrists and parts them.

  —But only this one survives. When he reached the age when I could pass the blood of Gibeah, only he had the strength for it. Of seven, only this one of my sons.

  He tucks the knife in his belt, crosses to Lydia, puts a hand under her arm, helps her to her feet, leads her to a pew and seats her.

  —It’s not carried in birth, the blood of Gibeah. Even though his mother and I both have it, our children were born without it. The act of love, it will not carry this warrior’s blood.

  He finds a handkerchief in his trouser pocket and wipes spots of Stretch’s blood from Lydia’s hands.

  —But the ones who have the strength, they take the blood young. After the bris, of course.

  He tucks the handkerchief away and looks at me as I sit up on the floor.

  —Imagine, if we put the blood in them before the bris? The mohel’s dismay. Wait, didn’t I just cut that off?

  He smiles with half his face.

  He gets up again, goes to his son, rests a hand on his back.

  —Get up, Axler. Get up. There is shame in what you have done, but there is also pride. You are my son, yes? Nothing you do, nothing I do changes this. We cannot change this.

  Axler lifts his face from the blood, looks up, raises his hands, holds his arms to his father.

  —Papa.

  —It’s OK, boy.

  —Papa.

  The Rebbe takes a step forward and presses Axler’s face to his stomach and Axler wraps his arms around him.

  —Papa, I killed Selig. And Chaim. Chaim died. And their bodies. Chaim was burned and. Fletcher. Fletcher was also killed. Pieces of him were lost. And Elias, his body. And another. We didn’t know what was his and. And the others, they came because I told them it was alright. That if the girls drove and we didn’t use guns, the sins would be less and. I killed Selig, Papa.

  —Shht. Shh.

  He holds his son’s head and looks at me and Lydia.

  —This is what war does to us, yes? Our principles, our love, everything is tested. We find out everything there is to know about ourselves in two things only. In war. And in love.

  He puts a hand under his son’s chin and lifts his face and looks at him, tear tracks cut through the blood on the boy’s cheeks.

  —My son has just learned that he is not so strong as he thinks.

  He glances at Lydia.

  —As have you.

  Axler sobs, coughs.

  —I’m sorry, Papa.

  Moishe shakes his head.

  —No, no, don’t be sorry to me, be sorry to God. To God you owe your apologies. Apologize now to God.

  Axler nods and closes his eyes and begins to whisper.

  The Rebbe looks down at him.

  —And, you see, tonight you find out more than that you are weak in war. You find out you are strong in love. The love for your friends. It was too strong for you to lie. When the time came, your love was too strong not to do what you had to. Not to face the truth, yes?

  He runs his fingers through his son’s hair, straightens his yarmulke.

  —This is the nature of love, to shine a light. To show us all what we really feel and want.

  He looks at the ceiling.

  —We have only to open our eyes and look, to see what love demands of us.

  He slides the knife from his belt, pulls his son’s head back, baring his throat, and he pushes the knife through his neck, much as Axler did to murder his friend; a killing stroke he must have learned from his father.

  I’m about to come off the floor and grab the Rebbe’s head and twist his neck and drag Lydia the hell out of this madhouse when the boys come back in and I have to put that particular plan on hold.

  —And so we are diminished. Four sons of Benjamin. All with the blood of Gibeah in their veins. All killed in one night. And Abe as well. We must not forget Abe, yes? Not a Benjaminite, true, but he carried Gibeah in him. And he fathered two girls both strong enough to carry Gibeah themselves. A rare thing. Here, lift him.

  He tucks the tail of the shroud around his son’s body and gestures to two of the boys and they lift Axler and carry him to the front of the temple and lay him at the foot of the altar.

  Another boy comes back from the errand he was sent on and places a large bucket of soapy water and a pile of rags where the Rebbe points.

  —There. No, leave them. All of you. Just. Sit please, yes? And be quiet for a moment. If this is not too much to ask? Yes? Thank you.

  The boys take seats in the last row of the temple.

  Rebbe Moishe takes one of the rags and dunks it in the water and starts to wipe up the blood of his son and his sister’s husband.

  —And now the girls are of more importance than ever, yes? Daughters of their mother and of Abe. We’ll need them not only because they can produce true sons and daughters of Benjamin, but because they come of such strong stock. With luck, perhaps one or both of them will give us a boy who can carry the blood of Gibeah.

  He twists the rag over the bucket and it rains red.

  —But, this doesn’t matter to you, yes? You have heard enough of our problems. This our life, to sustain a history and a people that we trace back before Christ and Moses. What is that to you? Nothing. To you there is one question, yes? Coalition or Society, What is to be done with us now? is your only question.

  He scrubs the temple floor.

  —What is happening here, here in our land, in New Gibeah, this is for us, not for anyone else. If some others here who carry the blood of Gibeah do not wish to remain in the city, they may do as they please. They may leave. Provided, this is no surprise by now I think, provided that like Abe they do not try to take our daughters with them. But to leave is one thing, yes? To bring outsiders here is another. It invites misunderstanding and chaos.

  He holds out his arms, the rag dripping.

  —Chaos. War. Death.

  He wrings the rag and bends to clean.

  —We do not want these things brought here to our doorstep. Nor do you, I think, want them brought to yours. The Gibeahans, the seven hundred left-handed warriors we can muster, brought to your house, would not suit you.

  He looks at us.

  —Yes?

  He cleans.

  —Shht. Of course not. So a message must be sent. A message clear and without ambiguity must be sent.

  He drops the rag in the bucket and comes to his feet.

  —You remember the message that was sent, yes? When Gibeah was destroyed by the children of Israel, you remember? The concubine, divided together with her bones into twelve pieces and sent into all the coasts of Israel.

  Lydia and I are on our feet, the boys are on theirs.

  The Rebbe raises his hands.

  —No. No. That will not be the message tonight. No. There has been enough. No. Not tonight. If you come again, if any of you come again across the river, yes, that is the message we will send. That is the warning we will send, the promise we will make and keep.

  He looks at the body at the altar.

  —But not tonight. For love’s sake we are done with that tonight.

  He walks to me and holds out his hands.

  —Come.

  I don’t move.

  He takes my hands and squeezes them both.

  —Go to your home, tell your people this is our land, our home. Ours to defend and do with as we wish. No one else’s to give. We don’t ask for permission to do the things we do. We do them. For our protection, for God
, we do them. Tell them the strength of our resolve, yes?

  He looks over his shoulder to his dead son.

  —The lengths we will go to here. Tell them the story of what we do here to be certain the tribe is safe. The sacrifices we make. Our willingness to cull our own herd of the weak to make the strong stronger.

  He squeezes tighter.

  —Yes?

  I nod.

  —Sure.

  The boys start down the aisle.

  —They’ll take you to the edge of Gibeah. From there you find your own way home.

  I nod.

  Still he holds my hands.

  —The lecture on war was wasted on you, yes? You know what war is already. But perhaps not the one on love? I think not.

  He squeezes tighter.

  —Know what you love best before you sacrifice on its behalf.

  He looks at the boys, and they are on Lydia, one on each limb, another to bind her while they hold her down and she screams.

  I jerk my arms back and the Rebbe turns them under and lifts them and I freeze.

  —Think what you love best.

  Lydia is on the floor.

  Screaming.

  —Joe! Joe!

  I relax my arms.

  Moishe eases his grip.

  —Good, yes? Think, yes? You know this is as it must be. Her mother was Jewish, she said, yes?

  —Joe! Don’t you let these fucking lunatics keep me!

  —Her mother was Jewish. Perhaps not of Benjamin, but a woman of Jewish blood, descended of a woman of Jewish blood. And she has the blood of Gibeah. She is ours. You know this, yes. Even if she does not, you know this.

  —Fucking, Joe! Joe!

  —Her children will make the tribe stronger. Her children will be clean. Can carry blood for the sons and daughters of Gibeah.

  —Oh no, fuck no!

  Her arms and legs are bound. One holds her head, another gags her. She twists and struggles and keens through the gag.

  The Rebbe raises a finger.

  —Know what you love best, and what you are willing to sacrifice for it.

  I look at all the blood smeared in this temple. I look at Lydia.

  And I know what I love best. The only thing I love. And what I will do for her. And how little time I have left to do it.

  I stop looking at Lydia and look at him instead.

  —Hey, man, I barely know the chick. All I’m interested in is a ride home.

  The boys hoist her high and bear her out of the room.

  They keep my blade and my works and my guns, but they give back my money and my keys, and they let me ride in the backseat instead of the trunk.

  One of the boys on either side, two more up front, they drive me in Axler’s mom’s beaten Caddy.

  Out Ocean Parkway

  to the Prospect expressway and the BQE, we trace back the route I took with Lydia through Red Hook. No one says anything. The car smells like the blood we’ve all spilled. Dry and crusted to our clothes. It burns the nostrils, as if someone had spilled a can of paint thinner in the car. One of the boys keeps his window down and rides with his face tilted into the wind.

  At Hicks, the driver swings off the expressway and pulls to a corner and one of the boys gets out and holds the door for me as I climb out. It’s the head scratcher. He avoids my eyes, but I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at the ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge, the walkway that spans its length, the dark sky above it, starless.

  He gets back in the car.

  I rap a knuckle on the door before he can close it.

  —Got any idea what time it is?

  He looks at me, looks away.

  —Just go around to the other side of the ramp. Some stairs are there. You have plenty of time to walk back.

  —Sure, but do you know what time it is?

  He closes the door and they drive away, the right front tire grinding against the crumpled fender when they turn at the corner.

  The ice air off the river burrows into the wound in my ribs and the holes in my leg and arm. I pull my coat closer around me and walk a block to Cadman Plaza West and limp across it in front of some traffic and follow a path around a little park and hit the sidewalk on the other side and walk down it and find the staircase cut into the stone footing of the bridge and I go up and stand on the wood planks of the walk and look at downtown Manhattan about twenty minutes away. At the other end of the bridge somewhere is a yellow cab waiting for a fare, waiting to take me the fuck home.

  I turn around and go back down the stairs.

  Jesus loves me and I find a 24-hour deli on Henry Street

  .

  A crackhead skips from foot to foot in front of the door. He skips a little farther to make room for me.

  —Pennynickledimequarterdollarmilliondollars?

  I walk inside.

  —Catch me on my way out.

  He skips and smiles toothless.

  The beer cooler is locked. I look for the clerk, see that no one is in the store. I think about breaking the glass, remember the precinct house we passed as we came off the expressway just down the street. I smell something and walk to the counter and lean over it and see the guy on his knees, curled over, his forehead touching the prayer mat that covers the floor. I wait a minute while he chants.

  He stands, rolling the mat and putting it and a copy of the Q’uran on a shelf above the condoms and hangover cures.

  —Sorry. These hours. I have to sneak it in when I can. My imam would shit.

  He looks up and sees my scab-crusted face and the blood-soaked shirt stuck to my chest and his eyes drift down and he sees the hole in my pants and the bloody denim.

  —Uh.

  —The cooler’s locked.

  He looks up.

  —Uh.

  —It’s not mine. The blood.

  —Uh.

  —In an accident. Driver got messed up bad. Most of it’s his.

  —Uh.

  —I could use a beer.

  He nods.

  —Right.

  He comes from around the counter.

  —Sorry. Have to lock it while I’m at prayer.

  He unlocks the cooler.

  —Chester out there would come in and try to clear out every forty in the place if I didn’t.

  I reach in the cooler and grab a six of Bud and a 40 of Old English 800.

  At the counter he bags the beer and tosses in the two packs of Luckys I ask for.

  —That it?

  There are some odds and ends hanging on wire hooks above the candy racks. Scotch tape, blunted scissors, notepads, sewing kits, playing cards, a spatula, toilet plunger, screwdriver. I take down a sewing kit and a serrated kitchen knife shrink-wrapped to a piece of cardboard and he rings it up.

  —Thirty-seven, eighty-nine.

  I dig the crumpled bills from my pocket and give him two twenties and he gives me the change.

  —You OK?

  I pick up the bag.

  —I’m gonna be.

  —You live around here?

  —I live around.

  —You need a ride, there’s a car service up the street.

  —Thanks.

  I go out.

  —Pennynickledimequarterdollarmilliondollars?

  I pull the 40 out of the bag and show it to Chester and tilt my head up the street and he follows me away from the storefront. I hand him the 40 and watch while he unscrews the cap, gives the mouth of the bottle a wipe with the greasy XXL sweatshirt that hangs off his skin and bones, puts it to his mouth and watercoolers half of it.

  I put one of my beers down my throat.

  Chester swirls the beer at the bottom of his bottle.

  —Lookin’ fera rock?

  I nod.

  He tilts his head back, goes at the bottle, his Adam’s apple bobbing, drops the empty on a littered patch of dirt at the foot of a sick tree and skips toward the corner.

  —C’mon.

  I follow him onto Orange Street and in the middle of the blo
ck I punch him in the back of the neck just at the base of the skull and his head snaps forward and he takes another step and then his feet stop moving and I fist a wad of his sweatshirt before he can face-plant on the pavement and drag him to an iron fence and hoist him up and throw him over into the small churchyard it encloses.

  I drop the plastic bag between the bars and climb over and jump to the ground, the holes in my body bitching at me. I grab Chester and my bag and drag them into the darkness at the foot of a statue of someone who was probably really important once, but now he’s just dead.

  I crack a beer and take a sip and set it aside and get the kitchen knife from the bag and tear it from the plastic and cardboard and thumb the serrated edge. It’s dull. Sharp enough for bread, but little else. I pull up the sleeve of Chester’s shirt and spill a little beer on his wrist and mop it away with the paper napkins the clerk tossed in the bag. I open the sewing kit and thread a needle and set it close by.

  And I pick up the knife and put it to his skin and cut quick and deep, the blade sharp enough for this.

  My mouth is over the wound, and Chester’s diseased and ravaged blood is pumping into me and the Vyrus goes into it and feeds on it and I don’t feel the cold anymore and I don’t feel my wounds and the hairs on my stomach and chest stand up and my eyes roll up in my head and I almost laugh at myself for buying the sewing kit.

  He’s not empty when I’m done. Not for lack of trying. But after I start gagging up blood for the third time I drop his arm and find more of the napkins and wipe my mouth and rinse my face with beer.

  I look at Chester. There’s still blood in there, but none of it’s coming out, his heart having stopped pumping after the first three or four pints ran down my gullet.

  I pick up the knife and hack his arm with it a couple times, creating something that might look enough like stress cuts to make the cops shrug and say junkie suicide and not give a fuck. I wipe the knife handle and wrap his fingers around it.

  I squat there and drink another beer and smoke and try and remember if there was a video camera in the deli. If there was, I should go back and make the clerk show me where the recorder is and take the tapes and kill him. But I don’t think there was.

  I collect my empties and butts and the sewing kit and stand and look at Chester again and put my foot on his chest and pump it a few times to force more blood from his wound so there will be some pooled on the grass when he’s found.