Half the Blood of Brooklyn

  I roll back onto my side.

  She stands there for a minute, then I hear her walking to the door. Stopping. Turning back.

  —I saved you once already. I don’t owe you anything.

  I tug my shit-stained jacket closer.

  —Lydia.

  —Yeah?

  —You’re an alright chick. Too bad about the whole dyke thing.

  —Fuck off and die, Joe.

  —Sure. In the morning, babe. In the morning.

  When she’s gone I think about getting up and going to the window over the sink. The nails she pulled out when I was smoking are still on the sill. I think about pushing it open and rattling the security gate accordioned across it.

  Then I try to get up. And I can’t. I try again. Terry did a new number on my knee when he threw me. And the ribs. And everything else.

  I look at the door.

  I drag myself over to it and try the knob. It’s unlocked. I ease it open.

  Hurley is on a chair in the hall, reading the funny pages.

  —Joe.

  —Hurl.

  —Ya wanta be gettin’ back in der?

  —Not really.

  He pulls a .45 from inside his jacket and points it at my hand.

  —Bang.

  I close the door a little.

  —Got a smoke, Hurl?

  —I said, Bang.

  I close the door.

  I look at the nails way up there on the sill. I get a grip on the counter and pull myself up and snatch the nails and fall back to the floor. I wrap my fingers around the nails. When they come for me I might get lucky. I might get to put someone’s eye out before Hurley shoots me in the legs and drags me in the sun.

  I think about the usual.

  I sit in the dark kitchen and think about killing things.

  Evie.

  Oh, baby. I’m sorry.

  An hour later there’s gunfire and screaming in the hall and then silence and then Hurley backs through the door and drops his .45s on the floor and puts his hands in the air and looks over his shoulder at me.

  —Someone ta see ya, I tink.

  And Sela walks in with a machine gun.

  I look at the machine gun.

  —Jesus, where the hell did you get that?

  —You coming?

  I get to my feet. And I fall back down.

  Sela waves the gun.

  —I’m gonna pick him up, Hurley. Don’t move.

  I point at him.

  —Fuck, just shoot him.

  She looks at me, and Hurley makes his move, and she jerks the trigger and rakes him with bullets and sidesteps and he hits the floor bleeding from a dozen holes.

  —Fook, ah fook. Not again.

  Sela grabs my hand and hauls me up and I wrap an arm around her and she gets me in a hip carry and we make for the door.

  Hurley writhes.

  —Gah, shite. Mither. Ah, mither, does it got ta hurt so?

  I drag my feet.

  —You should kill him.

  Sela looks out the door into the hall, looks back at Hurley.

  —He’ll die soon enough.

  —No he won’t.

  But we’re in the hall, passing the ripped-open bodies of three dead Society partisans, and Terry is stepping out of the room where we slaughtered the Docks Boss.

  —Stop, Sela.

  Sela doesn’t stop.

  —Get out of the way, Terry.

  I try to pull free of her.

  —Shoot him.

  He holds up one hand, the other is hidden by the edge of the doorway.

  —Let’s just all, you know, cool it here before this goes too far.

  Sela doesn’t stop.

  —Back off.

  I point.

  —His hand, what’s he got in that hand? Shoot him!

  He starts to bring the other hand out.

  —It’s all cool.

  Sela shakes her head.

  —Don’t bring the hand out.

  I wrap my fingers around her gun hand and squeeze and she mashes the trigger and bullets rip the hall to splinters as we fight over the gun and Terry dives back into the room and the door slams shut.

  Sela pulls the gun away.

  —Hell. Hell. Hell.

  She drops me and ejects the empty clip and takes a full one from her pocket and snaps it home and opens up on the door and Terry comes through the wall next to the door in a cloud of plaster and lathe and Sela turns toward him, but it’s too late as he brings up the fire axe Hurley used on the Boss and I’m still on the floor so I shove one nail in his inner thigh and rip open the artery and I put the other one in his foot and the axe swings wide and hits the wall and Terry goes down with empty hands and Sela has me again and makes for the door as Terry pulls his foot free of the floor and tries to stop the jet of blood from his leg and she takes me out and down the steps and throws me in the waiting white-on-white ’78 Thunderbird, ignoring my screams.

  —Killhimkillhimkillhimkillhim!

  —Joseph, you look like you could use something to drink.

  Amanda scoots across the huge rear bench seat.

  —Of course, you also look like you could use a bath.

  She opens the compartment built into the middle of the seat back and takes out a glass and pours bourbon into it from a full bottle of Wild Turkey and puts it into my hand and wraps my fingers around it.

  I try to bring it to my lips and the glass slips from my fingers and spills over my lap.

  Amanda picks it up.

  —Lightweight.

  She refills the glass and holds it to my mouth and I drink and the alcohol burns the cuts in my lips and tastes good.

  Sela opens the driver’s door and climbs back into the car.

  —No one coming after us.

  —Good job, baby.

  Amanda takes the empty glass from my lips.

  —More?

  But she’s already put the glass aside.

  —Not what you really need, is it?

  She eases closer, her thigh against mine.

  —No, not what you need at all.

  She reaches a hand into the front seat and Sela places a butterfly knife in her palm.

  I shove myself into the corner of the seat.

  Amanda puts a hand on my wounded knee.

  —No, it’s OK, Joe. It’s really OK.

  She flips the knife and twirls it and the blade and the handles flutter and she snaps the handles tight under her fingers and shows me the blade.

  —Sela taught me that. Cool, huh?

  She looks at Sela.

  —Is there time?

  —There’s time.

  Amanda lifts a black denim-wrapped leg and swings it over my lap and settles there.

  —That OK? Hurt anywhere?

  I pull my face back, away from her and her smell.

  She twirls the knife and stabs it into the white leather upholstery I’ve already smeared filth over. She grabs the bottom of her sweater and pulls it off and tosses it aside and draws the knife free of the seat back.

  She adjusts the strap of her black tank top and looks down at the knife.

  —It’s not that weird, Joe. It isn’t. You did something for me once. I just want to do something for you. I just want. Well. Just let me do this for you. Please.

  She puts the blade to the palm of her hand and slices across it and the blood comes and she puts it in front of my face.

  —Please, Joe. I’ll beg if you want. Please.

  But she doesn’t have to beg, I’m already drinking.

  And when I start to bite and try to widen the wound and she gets scared and pulls free and tumbles off my lap, it’s only because Sela is in the car that I don’t break her in half and drink the rest.

  Amanda plays with the ivory cameo hanging from the black velvet choker around her neck, the bandage Sela applied wrapped tight over her hand.

  —She must have a thing for you. Lydia must have a thing for you.

  I look forward and
catch Sela’s eyes in the rearview and she looks back out the windshield, starts the T-bird and pulls out of Shinbone onto Great Jones.

  Amanda reaches out and squeezes Sela’s shoulder.

  —Laugh if you want to, baby, but dyke or no dyke, she just must have a thing for Joe. I mean, come on, this is what, like the second time she’s bailed him out? And that’s not even counting when she hid me from Dexter Predo. She’s got a total straight crush on him.

  Sela pats the girl’s hand.

  —Sweetheart, the woman wouldn’t know what to do with a man.

  Amanda takes her hand away.

  —That’s just stupid. She would too. And you can act like she’d never go there, but people are weirder than that. I mean, look at us. And I don’t mean me. I’m a poor little rich girl orphan whose father was a pederast and whose mother was a tramp, of course I fall in love with a chick with a dick. But all you ever wanted was a boyfriend who’d treat you like a woman and instead you end up with a little girl who treats you like, well, Joe doesn’t want to hear what I treat you like.

  She ruffles her hair.

  —Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is she likes him. Whether she wants to or not. That’s how it works. I mean, come on, would you have fallen for me if you could have helped it? Please don’t tell me it didn’t fill you with just a little self-loathing when you first realized you had a thing for me. The little lost girl. The innocent you had vowed to protect.

  Sela maneuvers the long car around a double-parked delivery van.

  —I got over it.

  Amanda scratches the back of Sela’s neck with her fingernail.

  —Yes you did.

  She takes a jar of olives from the bar compartment and twists the lid off.

  —Me, I never had any question about what I felt. First time we were in the sauna together I knew I had to have you.

  She plucks an olive from the jar and pops it in her mouth.

  —My God, Joe, have you ever seen her naked? You are missing out.

  Sela ducks her head.

  —Stop it.

  Amanda wiggles her finger into the hole of one of the olives.

  —Am I embarrassing you, baby?

  She leans forward and wraps her arm around Sela’s neck and puts the olive at her lips.

  —Are you blushing?

  Sela sucks the olive from her finger and Amanda giggles and falls back in the seat.

  She holds the jar out.

  —Olive?

  I don’t say anything and she shrugs and closes the jar and puts it away.

  She moves close and leans on me.

  —You’ll get over it.

  She perches her chin on my shoulder.

  —Not just drinking my blood, I mean.

  She puts her cheek to my arm.

  —I mean family. I mean what it’s like to have family. That’s what we’re gonna make, Joe. Family. Sela and me, we talk about it all the time. Right, baby?

  —That’s right, hon.

  —Like, how the Clans, they’re just organizations. They treat everybody like they need the Clans more than the Clans need them. Which you don’t even need to think about to see that it’s so wrong. But we’re gonna be different. We’re gonna treat everybody like family.

  Sela has the car pointed east, taking us back the way we fled, heading for the avenues that will run us to the Upper East Side.

  She brakes for a stoplight.

  —It’s true, we’re going to start a new Clan. No dogma. No enforcers. No racial barriers. No superstitions. Just support. Just a place for everyone who needs family to have it. Know why it’s gonna work? Because Amanda and me are going to be running it. Infected and uninfected. Together.

  Amanda tilts her head back to look up at me.

  —It’s going to be called Cure, Joe. That’s what we’re calling the Clan. So everyone will know what we’re doing. What we’re working for. Cuz there’re so many that need it. And not just for the obvious reasons. Think about it. Sela, if she ever went to go post-op and get her equipment changed. And I am voting against that. If she ever did, know what would happen? They’d cut her dick off and do all that work and the Vyrus would treat it like a wound and heal it. Not, like, grow her a new one, just close up the hole between her legs. Leave her with, like, a patch. Gross. So, yeah, infecteds want a cure. Lots of them. But they also want other things.

  She wraps her fingers around my arm and squeezes.

  —We’ll be a family. We’ll all take care of each other. And I’ll have more money than God pretty soon and can make sure everyone has the blood they need. And in a few years, I’ll have a cure. Because there has to be one. It’s just a virus. No matter how you spell it. It’s biological and science can explain it. And I can cure it. You just have to isolate it and study it. You have to know it. Be with it. Get inside it. I can do that. Daddy couldn’t. But I can.

  She reaches up and runs a finger over the healing cuts that cover my face.

  —Lydia told Sela what you did. That you tried to save your girlfriend. That’s got to suck. And now you’re alone again. But you don’t have to be. Nobody should be alone if they don’t have to be. So what if we’re not normal? Normal bites. We can have our own kind of family. All we have to be is strong enough. I think you’re strong enough, Joe. I really do. And you don’t have to be my daddy or anything. Just, whatever, my big brother or something.

  She plants her face tight against my arm.

  —I just, gah, I love you no matter what.

  I look at her.

  She’s young and healthy and rich and brilliant and beautiful. And her blood is tonic. She’ll spoon-feed it to me if I ask because she’s as crazed as her parents ever were and I helped her once and she thinks that’s love.

  Shit. Maybe it is. Like I’m a fucking expert.

  It would be easy. An easy life. Can you imagine such a thing?

  But Evie would still be in the warehouse.

  And I’ve had a family. One was enough.

  I shrug off the girl and push the passenger seat forward and lean and yank the door handle and the door swings open and Sela is rounding onto Park Avenue South and I roll from the car onto the pavement and find my feet and limp into Union Square and hide in the tent city of the homeless until Sela pulls the crying girl back to the car and drives off with her.

  On the border of Society and Coalition, the park is not safe.

  I walk back onto Society turf.

  No one will be looking for me. I couldn’t be so stupid as to come back here after what happened at the Society safe house. They’ll be locking up tight and stripping the house and piling out the back, leaving wreckage that cops will read as a drug deal gone bad. They’ll be busy setting up shop at one of the buildings Terry bought with the Count’s money. The money he no longer has.

  I have time.

  I believe that right up until I stand at the corner of Second Avenue and 10th Street and see the fire engines two blocks away and the flames pouring out the windows of my apartment.

  Exile, I head south, away from home.

  —A nail in the leg?

  I take the beer Christian offers me and suck half of it down.

  —And one in the foot.

  A few Dusters move around the clubhouse garage. One cracking the gearbox on his Indian, another throwing knives at a paper cutout of bin Laden, two are rewiring an old component stereo system they found scrapped in a dumpster.

  Christian sits down on the edge of a fat, balding tire from an old dune buggy he’s been tinkering with for a year.

  —And she really shot Hurley?

  —Yeah.

  —And took a crack at Terry?

  —Yeah.

  —And left them both alive?

  —Yeah.

  He drinks some beer.

  —Jesus. Dead she-male walking.

  —Yeah.

  The guys with the stereo twist a last couple wires together at the back of a speaker and open the clamshell top of the turntable a
nd drop a vinyl disk on the spindle. It’s Television’s Marquee Moon. “See No Evil” plays.

  We listen to the song.

  Christian taps the heel of his boot.

  —The classics.

  —Sure.

  He stops tapping his heel.

  —A nail.

  —Two nails.

  —Fuck me.

  —Yeah.

  He works a hand inside his leathers and pulls out a pack of Marlboros and offers it to me. I take one and break the filter off and find my Zippo and light up.

  He takes a light from me and blows a smoke ring.

  —You’re fucked.

  —Yeah.

  —Tenderhooks made a run up to Fourteenth right before dawn. Said the fire was out at your place. Said partisans were out.

  —Yeah. No doubt.

  He’s not wearing his top hat. The crown of his head is bald and weathered. He scratches it.

  —Seem to you like it’s getting weirder out there, Joe? Scarier?

  I look at the big roll-up doors that block out the killing sun on the other side.

  —It’s getting weirder. Scarier? I don’t know.

  He spits between his boots.

  —Feels scarier to me. Like shit that’s been building up is about to cut loose.

  —Terry says there’s war coming.

  He smears the saliva across the floor with the toe of his boot.

  —Shit.

  —Yeah. Shit.

  He looks over at me and smiles.

  —He mention that before or after you stuck the nails in him?

  —Must have been before. He wasn’t waxing too conversational after.

  He leans in and clinks his bottle against mine.

  —Tell you, man, I would have liked to see that. Smug bastard that he is. I would have liked to see his blood.

  —Just like anybody else’s.

  —Would have liked to see it for myself.

  We drink another couple beers and someone flips the album.

  I flex my knee and it hurts like hell, but not as bad. The ribs are burning as the Vyrus heals. Some are gonna knit crooked. The cuts and holes are all coming together, along with whatever Lydia did inside my gut, and I’m starting to see some blurs from my burned eye. Still, I only got two pints off the girl. Enough to get me going and to make her talk crazy talk, but I could use some more.

  Who couldn’t use some more? We all want more.

  I think about her. Young and hungry. I know how that feels. Even if it was a long time ago.