Half the Blood of Brooklyn

  It looks like shit. Looks like a shit kill by an asshole who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

  Fuck do I care? I’m a new fucking man.

  The holes in my body are sealed tight and they flush warm and tingle as they heal. I can smell the crisp night in every detail. I can see the stars that were invisible before. I can hear the tics and fleas that infest Chester’s clothes start to suck at the blood I’ve left for them. I can feel the vibrations of the cars climbing the ramp to the bridge blocks away.

  I leap to the top of the fence and perch there.

  I’m a monster in the city at night. And I can do what I fucking please.

  It’s Brooklyn. Burn it to the ground and see if anyone pisses on the fire.

  Two drivers and the dispatcher at the car service sit behind a Plexiglas partition playing dominoes on a card table with a crooked leg, filling the office with smoke.

  The dispatcher looks at me and the mess I am and shakes his head.

  —No cars.

  I go in my pocket and come out with more of the Society’s cash and put four twenties on the counter and slide them under the partition.

  He shakes his head again.

  One of the drivers calls domino and slaps down and they total their points and the other driver curses and looks at my money.

  —Where?

  I tell him and he takes the eighty bucks and gives sixty to the guy who just skunked him and pulls on a parka and the dispatcher buzzes him out of the booth and we walk into the cold and he unlocks his Lincoln.

  I start to get in and he holds up a hand and gets a blanket from the trunk, spreads it across the backseat so I don’t get blood on his cracked and faded leather.

  I get in and pull a beer from the bag and put a fresh smoke in my mouth.

  He turns in his seat and looks at me.

  —No smoking. No drinking.

  I hand him my last twenty and a beer and he pockets the money and opens the beer and drives.

  He drops me off next to the Field and I walk across it drinking my last beer and toss the empty can at the bottom of the fence and jump it and hit to the ground on the other side and weave through the headstones.

  I find the freshly dug graves of Chaim and Selig and Fletcher and Elias and whatever parts of the Strongman that made it into the ground here. I have to dig with my hands, but the dirt is loose and I’m strong and it doesn’t take long. I get to the corpse I want and I take his long knife and his little axe. I brush dirt from them and test their edges and find them honed.

  Cypress Ave.

  cuts through the cemetery. I walk along it and settle into some bushes at the base of a tree where I can see the end of 57th Street and the lighted upper windows at the rear of the house with the small temple in its backyard, and the young man in a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat walking back and forth next to the fence that separates it from the cemetery.

  I think about Lydia and what a pain in my ass she is.

  I think about Predo and Terry and the way it feels when they jerk my strings and my arms and legs jump and I dance dance dance to their tune.

  I think about Daniel and things he’s said to me over the years about what Enclave is and what they want and how I’m one of them.

  I think about Rebbe Moishe and what he had to say about love.

  I think about love and what you sacrifice for it and what you do to keep it in your life.

  I think about Evie.

  I think about the only way you can stay with the person you love forever. How you have to die to do that. I think about how close Evie is to death. And what it will be like when she’s gone.

  I think about what’s expected of me. How little.

  I think about seven hundred left-handed warriors.

  And I walk out of the bushes and use the long knife and the axe to kill one.

  He fights quiet.

  Mostly he fights quiet because I come at him from behind and he smells me too late and when he turns the axe cuts through his windpipe. After that his screams don’t do much except whistle and spray blood. He reaches for something riding on his hip and I stab the long knife through the back of his hand and into his gut. His right hand comes at my throat, but I’m bringing the axe back around and I imbed it in his shoulder and I know I cut something important because his fingers won’t squeeze when he gets them on me. I push him up against the fence and he gurgles and leaks all over the place. He jerks his left hand free of the knife, losing his thumb as he does it, and goes for my eyes. I pull the axe and the knife from his body and looks like I was the only thing holding him up because he slides down the fence and onto his back and his limbs pedal at the air like a dying bug.

  I leave him where he is, close to all the other dead people in the cemetery, and go over the fence and the guy on the other side is waiting for me and I find out what the Rebbe was talking about when he said they can sling stones at a hair breadth, and not miss.

  The half-inch steel bearing this guy whips from his sling hits me in the left kneecap and the bone turns to a fistful of gravel and I swing the leg out in front of me and step on it and it makes me want to scream but I won’t do that and I walk on the fucking thing and it makes me pay for it, and it looks to me like the problem with a sling is that after you fire your first shot you have to get another stone or whatever cradled in that little pocket and spin the thing up to speed and if the asshole you just nailed keeps coming at you and chops your arm off before you can do all that, you’re fucked.

  So that’s what I do.

  This one makes some noise, until I put him on the ground and stomp on his head a couple times.

  My knee hurts like something my dad did to me once when I was too young to know that pain stops. But I’m older now. And one way or another I won’t have to worry about the knee much longer.

  Two more boys come out of the house.

  One has a spear. The other one is in his underwear and his yarmulke and doesn’t have shit.

  I worry about the one with the spear.

  He rushes me and plants his feet and thrusts just like someone has trained him to do and I drop the long knife and grab the spear shaft behind the point and it slips through my fingers and about three inches of steel slips into my stomach and I bring the axe down and the shaft splinters and the guy who had a spear now has a stick and I have the axe and the business end of a spear and I pull it out of my belly and flip it in the air and catch it and hold it out and the guy in his underwear has already leapt into the air and is coming down at me and can’t do shit about it and the shock of the impact tears the spear from my hand and he hits the ground and starts trying to pull it out of his chest but it’s in deep and lodged tight in his breastbone and he rolls around and dies and the guy with the stick turns to go back in the house and trips over the arm of the boy who had the sling and I limp over and swing the axe once and swing it a second time and the second time does the trick and I go inside the house with the axe in one hand and a head in the other.

  The door leads into the kitchen. The boy in the kitchen is the head scratcher.

  And he has a bow.

  His hands shake as he tries to knock an arrow into the bowstring.

  I hold up the head.

  —Hey.

  He flinches and the arrow slips loose and the string twangs into his forearm.

  —Uh.

  I point the axe at the head.

  —Where’s the girl?

  He points at the floor.

  —Uh.

  —Basement?

  He nods.

  I lower the head.

  —You can run if you want.

  He drops the bow and turns and runs through the doorway into the livingroom and I throw the head at his legs and he goes down and I walk over with the axe and put my foot in his back and raise the axe to get my second head.

  —A message is meant to be heeded, yes?

  The Rebbe stands halfway down the stairway in his trousers and slippers and untucked shirt, a pra
yer shawl draped over his shoulders, a Colt Defender in his hand. I notice a black cloth draped half over a mirror on the wall next to him. A basin of water at the end of the hall near the front door.

  The Rebbe tugs the cloth over the mirror, but it falls away again.

  —For my son.

  He looks at the head scratcher.

  —Coward.

  He shoots the head scratcher and I throw myself up the stairs and swing the axe in a high arc and I crash into the stairs and the blade rakes his leg and hooks in the meat of his thigh and I heave and the leg folds under him and he’s falling backward, two rounds punching through the ceiling, and I pull the axe from his leg and put it in his stomach and pull him down the stairs toward me and the gun comes at my face and the barrel smashes my cheekbone and it goes off and the muzzle flash sears my eye and the bullet splinters the banister and I pull the axe free and put it in his chest and pull him closer and I’m on top of him now and his face is in front of me and I know what I love and what I’ll sacrifice for it and I don’t care when he fires again and the bullet tears my neck open and I pull the axe free and I bring it down and I bring it down and I bring it down.

  —Moishe.

  His wife stands at the top of the stairs.

  Covered in her husband’s blood, I pick up his gun and shoot her dead.

  I pull off the Rebbe’s shawl and wrap it around my neck. The wound is growing hot as the Vyrus clots the blood. My left eye is blind and blistered. I sit on the stair and smoke, my head listing to the side where the bullet ripped a hole in the thick muscle that connects it to my body.

  When the cigarette is finished I go to work, dividing the Rebbe together with his bones into twelve pieces.

  I don’t bother to send the pieces into any place. I’m pretty sure his people will get the fucking message.

  —Where is that fucker?

  Lydia takes the long knife from me and cuts the bindings from her feet and sits up on the cot in her basement cell.

  —Where’s the fucker that thought he was gonna turn me into a rape slave?

  I pick some dead skin from my blind eye.

  —I got him.

  She stands, totters, puts out a hand to brace herself and grabs my shoulder.

  —I want to see.

  I flick the skin from my fingers.

  —No, you don’t.

  She looks me over, standing crooked on my one good leg, dressed in one of Axler’s too-tight black suits and my sticky leather jacket, the rest of my clothes up in the house, soaked in half the blood of Brooklyn.

  She grits her teeth.

  —He deserved it.

  I cough up some blood. I don’t know whose.

  —No doubt.

  She looks at the hand on my shoulder, pulls it away.

  —You OK?

  —No.

  She nods.

  —OK. Let’s get going.

  I push off the wall and we both limp out the door and she stops and looks at the other cell across the basement.

  She steps that way.

  I don’t.

  —Lydia, I need to get out of here.

  She looks me over.

  —You’ll hold up a little longer.

  She walks, holding her belly.

  —Fucking arrows. Who uses arrows, Joe? Savages, that’s who. I mean, no disrespect to any native peoples intended, but arrows are for savages. These people are savages. They have the same superstitions as savages. And they treat women like savages. And I’m not leaving these women here to be baby incubators for savages.

  —Open that door and untie them and they’re just gonna try and kill you.

  I come up behind her.

  —You killed their father, Lydia.

  She looks at the lock.

  —All the more reason that I won’t leave them here, Joe. If that means we carry them out of here hog-tied, then that’s what we’ll do.

  She looks at me.

  —Do you have anything to get the lock off?

  I hand her the axe.

  —Try this.

  She brings it down on the lock and it tears loose and she pushes the door open and light hits Vendetta and Harm, hanging from the water pipe that runs across the ceiling, nooses tied from their head-scarves knotted around their swollen necks.

  Lydia stares at them.

  I make for the stairs, glad that something was easy for a change.

  —I don’t know how they did it.

  I steer Axler’s mom’s Caddy up onto the bridge.

  She rubs her forehead.

  —They must have hung there forever.

  I push the dash lighter in and put a cigarette in my mouth.

  —They were tough little tarts. And they knew what they wanted. Want it bad enough and you’ll do anything.

  She watches me take the lighter from the dash and use it.

  —Fuck you, Joe.

  I push the lighter back in its socket and drive.

  —Yeah, fuck me.

  Over on the horizon, something a little like dawn shows upriver.

  I pull to the curb, back on Society turf.

  —Where’s this?

  —I got things to do. You can keep the car.

  Lydia looks out the window.

  —No. Absolutely not.

  I open my door.

  She grabs my arm.

  —I thought we talked about this. I thought I was clear about where I stand with this kind of thing.

  I pull loose and step out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition.

  She comes around from her side and stands in front of me.

  —This is not OK. You are not thinking straight. And it’s not even remotely the time to have a debate on the subject. We have to go to Terry and tell him what happened. Regardless of who was to blame, what happened out there was a fiasco and there will be consequences, and we have to begin to prepare for them right now.

  I jam the Rebbe’s Defender into her stomach.

  —Lydia, get out of my fucking way.

  She looks down at the gun.

  —Don’t be ridiculous, Joe.

  I shoot her.

  She goes down on the sidewalk and I scoop her up and stumble into the emergency entrance screaming and we’re mobbed and they pull her from me and I cling to her and someone tells someone to get rid of me and I let them drag me to a little room down the hall past the security desk and a guy tells me I have to be calm and I punch him and he goes down and I limp out of the little room and to the elevators and go up and the night nurse is behind the desk with her wrist in a brace and she looks at me and I look at her and she looks back down at her computer and I walk into the room and there’s my girl.

  She comes out of the drugs a little when I’m detaching all the wires and hoses, and looks at me and touches my face.

  I put a finger over the end of her trache tube and she smiles and her voice scratches its way out of her throat.

  —Hello, handsome.

  —Hello.

  —You don’t look good.

  —Yeah.

  —You should go to a hospital.

  —I should.

  I pull the blankets and sheets away and she winces as I pull out her catheter and air whistles from the trache.

  I help her to sit up.

  —Sorry.

  She covers the end of the tube.

  —I’m gonna make a mess now.

  —That’s OK.

  I go to the closet and find her big leather jacket and tuck her into it.

  —We going somewhere?

  —Yeah.

  She points at the bed table.

  —My present, my present. I want to wear it.

  I pick up the candy necklace and rip the package open with my teeth and stretch it and put it over her head and around her skinny neck.

  She cocks her head and touches it with her fingertips.

  —Am I beautiful?

  —Hell yeah, baby.

  I pick her up and put her in the wheelchair at
the foot of the bed.

  And the night nurse is gone from her desk, hiding. And the intern in the elevator ignores us and leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes. And the security guards on the ground floor are all outside looking for the gutshot woman who climbed off her gurney and threw one of them into a wall and ran out the door and drove off in an old Cadillac and must be on more PCP than the devil. And the cabby that stops for us doesn’t know how to fold the wheelchair and neither do I so we leave it at the curb and when he drops us off on Little West 12th Street I carry Evie in my arms to the door and kick it until someone slides it open and I stagger in on a ruined leg and someone catches me and takes my girl from me and I try to take her back and Daniel cradles her gently and smiles.

  —Simon, you made it.

  —L’chaim.

  I take the Dixie cup of blood from Daniel.

  —Is that supposed to be funny?

  He hands the small pitcher of blood back to the Enclave who gave it to him.

  —Sorry. Was that in bad taste? After your story, I couldn’t quite resist.

  I drink the blood and tear the cup in half and run my finger over the insides and stick it in my mouth and suck it clean.

  —Glad I could lighten your load.

  He blows out his sunken cheeks. —Lighten my load.

  He holds a hand to the candle that sits between us on the floor and his skin goes translucent.

  —My load is amply light these days.

  I crumple the cup and drop it.

  He points at my knee.

  —Any better?

  I give it a poke with my index finger and the pain jumps up my spine.

  —Feels like a hot-water bottle stuffed full of broken seashells.

  His eyebrows rise.

  —Oddly, I have no idea what that would feel like. May I?

  I shrug.

  —It’s your place.

  He pokes my knee. I flinch. He smiles.

  —You know, I think you’re right. A hot-water bottle full of broken seashells. You’re showing a touch of the poet this morning, Simon.

  —Want me to stick a finger in the hole in my neck and come up with a nice simile for that sensation?