Half the Blood of Brooklyn

  —Your mom’s act.

  She stops wiping her face, walks around me behind the bar, drops a couple ice cubes in a glass, pours some kind of triple-distilled boutique vodka from Romania or someplace over it, and tosses the drink down her throat and pours another.

  I smoke the cigarette I took from her mouth.

  —See, that’s not bad. You got the drinking down pretty good. Except your mom probably wouldn’t have bothered with the ice. But you’re what, seventeen? So you got time to develop. Another twenty years and you’ll be a perfect Upper East Side white trash burnout with a real grown-up booze jones, a trophy husband, a stable of gigolos, and a perfect ass.

  She sips her second drink, her breath raising mist from the ice.

  —And when I’m just like my mom, will you kill me just like you killed her?

  I take a drag. Taste her lipstick. Remember her mother’s kiss.

  I drop the butt in the bar sink.

  —One other difference, she would have offered me a drink.

  She finishes her own and puts the glass on the bar.

  —Well, like you said.

  She starts for the door at the far end of the room, unbuttoning her blouse as she goes.

  —I’m not her. Get your own drink. I’m gonna go change.

  —I won’t be here when you get back.

  She stops at the door and drops her blouse on the floor.

  —Now who’s pretending, Joseph? I mean, of course you’ll be here. You just can’t wait to hear why I had Sela bring you up here. And to see how I’ve grown up.

  And so Amanda Horde goes out of the room smiling, wearing thousand-dollar jeans, a scrap of black lace, and the handcuff I once took from my own wrist and put on hers.

  Damn me. Damn me if she isn’t right.

  Yeah, I killed her mom.

  Sort of.

  Mostly she was dead before I broke her neck. Mostly she was infected with a bacteria that was turning her into something. Something you can call a zombie. For lack of a better word that describes something that goes around eating people’s brains. Mostly she wanted to die. Afraid as she was that if she was around much longer she’d eat her own kid.

  Far as I’m concerned, parents eating their kids sounds like more of the same. Doesn’t mean I want to watch it happen or anything. Killing the woman just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The right thing, or the best option.

  But she did ask me to do it.

  And she did kiss me.

  It was a complicated night.

  Think about a night like that often enough, you’ll ask a lot of questions. Most of them about yourself. The kind of person you are. What you’ll do and why and when you’ll do it. What you believe in. What you really believe in.

  In the movies, a vampire can’t see himself in a mirror. Just because I can, that don’t mean I got to like looking. What’s inside is inside for a reason. Because you’re not supposed to see it.

  The girl, she’s a girl. A kid. She doesn’t know any better. And I know fuckall about what she really wants because she’s a teenage girl and who the hell knows what goes through her mind. Figure she wants everything. She wants to see everything the world has to offer. And being a rich kid, she wants to own it all.

  Ah, youth.

  I make myself a drink. She comes back after I’ve made a couple more.

  —Sela can’t get drunk.

  I watch her come to the bar; she’s kept the jeans, pulled on a tight pink tuxedo shirt with ruffles down the front, reapplied the makeup, and resprayed her retro-80s-rocker-grrl-shag cut.

  I top off my bourbon and cross to the windows and look down at Park Avenue.

  —Then she’s not trying.

  Amanda laughs. —Seriously, she can’t.

  —We can all get drunk. We just have to work real hard at it. Get enough booze in the system before the Vyrus can clean it out.

  —Yeah, sure, she told me that, but I mean in a normal way she can’t get drunk. Because she’s an alcoholic. So she doesn’t drink. That’s what I really meant, she can’t drink. Alcohol, I mean. Not the other stuff. She drinks that.

  I drink whiskey, pretend to watch the street while I look at her reflection in the glass, next to mine.

  She crosses to the Eames and drops into it.

  —But she has to drink that.

  I keep my back to her.

  She opens a box on the table next to the chair and takes out a clove cigarette.

  —Which, it doesn’t gross me out or anything, but I do think it kinda sucks. No pun or anything. I mean, really, when you think about it, people eat cows and chickens and pigs and whatever they want, so what’s the dif? Especially with someone like Sela who’s totally got her shit together. I mean, with what I pay her as my trainer and my bodyguard, she can just buy what she needs. She never has to think about hurting anyone. It would just be so much easier if she could go to a store or something.

  She lights her clove with a silver table lighter shaped like a thorn-circled sacred heart.

  —Can you imagine, like, blood boutiques? People would get all sniffy about where they bought their blood and stuff. And someone would be making money. And, like, anyone could sell their blood and make some money and it wouldn’t matter if they were sick or anything because you guys can’t get sick.

  She blows a cloud of smoke without coughing.

  —But it will probably never happen that way.

  She sticks her tongue out, an onyx stud dots its tip.

  —Because most people are such fucking prudes. They don’t get anything. They think that if something’s different, that means it’s like it’s abnormal. Like there’s any such thing as normal.

  She leans back in the chair.

  —Like when people see me and Sela out. If they see us having dinner together, a teenage white chick and a big black woman, they can’t help but think it’s all fucked up. And if they notice her Adam’s apple? If they’re clued in enough to know she was born with a penis, you can see the freak-out all over their faces. And the way they love it. The way they just love staring and whispering and thinking how much better than her they are. People just suck that way.

  I don’t argue with her about it.

  She pulls her bare feet up on the chair.

  —So it will probably never be like that. Like with all of you getting to live like everybody else.

  She hugs her legs to her chest.

  —Not unless someone finds a cure.

  I turn around.

  She rests her cheek against the tops of her knees.

  —Did you know I just won a lawsuit? It was kind of a big deal. In the Journal and everything.

  —Must have missed it on my way to the funny pages.

  —Uh-huh. Well, I won and I got the terms of my trust altered.

  She winks at me.

  —You’re right, you know. I mean, I’m kind of surprised you remembered, but you’re right, I am seventeen. But in a couple months, I’m gonna be eighteen. Know what that means?

  She bites her lower lip.

  —It means that since I won my suit, I start to come into my inheritance. It means all the lawyers and all the board members and all the presidents and the CEOs and everybody has to get out of my ass. It means that all the business and finance classes I’ve been taking at prep, all the biochem courses I’ve audited online, all the tutors I’ve run circles around because they can’t keep up with how smart I am, it means that’s all gonna pay off.

  She smiles ear to ear.

  —Because when I’m eighteen, I’m gonna exercise my voting shares and take over Horde Bio Tech Incorporated. And I’m gonna put it to work finding a cure for the Vyrus. Because, you know what?

  She takes a drag.

  —I’m not just my mom’s daughter. I’m also my daddy’s little girl.

  She blows smoke out her nostrils.

  —And he was a genius.

  I polish off my drink.

  —He was a fucking loon.

&n
bsp; She flutters her fingertips.

  —Well, yeah.

  I head for the bar.

  —And you’re following right in his footsteps with that crap.

  She puts her feet on the floor.

  —Where are you off to?

  I put my glass on the bar and look at her.

  —Figure I know now what you wanted to talk about. Figure I know you’ve grown up spoiled as your mother and whacked as your father. Figure my curiosity is sated and I’m leaving now.

  —No, that’s not it.

  I snag the bottle I’ve been drinking from off the bar and turn my back to her. I’m on my way out.

  —Mind if I take this for the road?

  —Oh, Joseph, you’re just afraid.

  I hear her stand behind me.

  —Is it the girlfriend thing?

  I stop.

  I turn.

  She drags off her clove.

  —Cuz I get that. Sela says that Lydia says that you have a girlfriend and Lydia thinks that she has AIDS and that you take care of her. Which Sela says Lydia can hardly believe and she thinks you must be using her as a Lucy or something, but I totally believe it because I know what you can be like. I know you like to have something to take care of. But what I don’t get is, Do you really not fuck her? Because that’s what Sela says Lydia thinks because of the way you talk about the Vyrus like it’s something you can catch from a toilet seat or something.

  I think about the night I saved her life. I think about that, and it keeps me from doing something to shut her up, something to shut her up forever.

  She stubs her clove in the silver ashtray.

  —Because you can’t, you know. You can’t get the Vyrus from a toilet seat. Or from fucking. If you could, Sela would have given it to me by now. Not that that’s scientific or anything. But it’s true. You can only get it from the blood. I’ve learned that much so far. But you’re probably just scared of fucking her because you’re scared of, you know, intimacy and all that. Because you know you’re gonna die horribly and you don’t want to take her with you or whatever stupid cliché. But here’s the cool part.

  She walks toward me.

  —If you did give it to her, if you bled into her and made her like you, that would cure the AIDS. And then.

  She stops and reaches for the bottle in my hand.

  —If I really can cure the Vyrus like I think I can.

  She takes the bottle from me.

  —You could give her the cure. And she wouldn’t be sick at all anymore. And neither would you. And you could do anything. You could be as normal as anyone, whatever that means.

  She taps the stud in her tongue against the mouth of the bottle and drinks.

  —If normal’s what you want.

  This child, standing in front of me, talking about things I might want, talking like she knows something about anything, talking about my little life like she understands what any of her words mean or could mean to me.

  This child, I do my utter best not to kill.

  But that doesn’t stay my hand.

  I slap the bottle from her and it shatters against the wall and I bring my palm across her face and send her to the floor.

  She looks up at me, blood trickling from her nostril and the corner of her mouth.

  —Who’s my mama now?

  I’m on my way out when Sela comes through the door. Her jacket’s off, she’s wearing a leather vest over her implants, the muscles in her shoulders and arms cut by iron.

  I plant myself and get ready to put my boot in her balls and she blows past me straight for the girl.

  —Baby.

  —I’m OK.

  —Stay there, I’ll get some ice.

  —I’m OK.

  She props herself up on her elbows.

  —He didn’t do anything I haven’t had done to me before.

  Sela comes from the bar with a towel full of ice and cradles the girl’s head.

  I start for the door.

  Amanda bares her teeth, blood smeared across them.

  —Don’t leave so soon. We haven’t even talked about what happened that night.

  I’m on my way.

  She’s still talking.

  —I always thought they were nightmares. Till Sela told me what she knew.

  Halfway to the door.

  —But she doesn’t know much. Only you know all of it. Do you know what I dream about? I bet you do.

  At the door.

  —Do you dream about it? Is the cold shadow in your dreams too?

  I stop.

  I turn.

  I wish again for a gun, to shut her up.

  —Don’t talk about it. It knows you. Never talk about it.

  She touches the bracelet on her wrist.

  —I dream about you too, Joe. Should I be afraid of you?

  But I’m not listening anymore. I’m gone.

  What’s inside is inside for a reason.

  What’s hidden is hidden for a reason.

  What’s buried is buried for a reason.

  The cab gets me back down to 10th Street

  . The keys get me back in my apartment. The code turns on my alarms. The trap door takes me down to the basement room where I live in secret. The combination opens the safe and puts a gun in my hand.

  But none of it will protect me.

  It’s been in here before.

  Doors and locks don’t matter. Hiding places are where it lives. A gun won’t stop it. But I stand there in the middle of the room with a gun in my hand anyway, scenting for it. Searching for dead spots in the air, places where odor has been drawn from the atmosphere by its passing. Dreading that talking about it might have brought it back. Keeping myself from diving beneath the covers to hide from it.

  The Wraith.

  And to hide from the other things little Amanda Horde had to say.

  To be normal.

  Like I was ever normal. Like I was ever any different from how I am now. A cure won’t make me better. It’ll just make me more like a regular son of a bitch. Like the Vyrus makes you into something else. It doesn’t. If you get it, if you survive, it’s because you were already the kind of person who will drink blood.

  And how do you know if you’re that kind of person? You don’t, not till your mouth covers a fresh wound and you find yourself jamming your tongue in it and sucking.

  Is that the kind of person Evie is? If there was a cure, I maybe wouldn’t have to find out.

  If a cure is possible.

  Now that I got a gun in my hand, I’m gonna go talk to someone about it.

  —Jeez, Joe, am I glad ya came by. Been calling you since I got here.

  —How long’s he been this way?

  —I don’t know. I came around, he was like this.

  —Uh-huh. You just dropping by?

  Phil rubs his nose.

  —Sure, I guess. Just paying a visit.

  —’Cause you guys are tight that way. You pop in every now and then.

  —Well. Well. Didn’t say we were tight. Sure we’re friendly, but tight might be a little of a, you know, an overstatement.

  —You carrying, Phil?

  He runs hands over all his pockets.

  —I look like I’m carrying? Don’t I wish.

  —Not for you, for him.

  He reams out his ear with a fingertip.

  —Aw, well, not, not just this moment. But, sure, from time to time Mr. Bird passes me something to bring up here. Not that I know how he comes by the stuff.

  —Mr. Bird.

  I size him up. A pasty jumble of limbs in latex-tight sharkskin slacks with three inches of white socks showing at the ankles above two-tone patent leather, a jacket matching the slacks stretched over narrow shoulders and an embroidered cowboy shirt with silver caps on the points of the collar, a bolo tie featuring a cockroach frozen in amber snug around his throat.

  He fidgets with the bleach-blond pompadour that crests his head and adds eight inches to his height.

  —
So, long as you’re here to, you know, make sure he’s OK and all, I should get going.

  He jitters toward the door.

  I clear my throat.

  —Phil, you got any idea how many times tonight I’ve wished I had a gun and didn’t?

  He flashes eyes at the door and back to me.

  —Uh, no, no, got me.

  —A lot. Know what else?

  —Um, no.

  —If you piss me off and make me start wishing I had a gun in my hand so I can shoot you in the knee just because it will make me feel better, my wish will come true.

  He chews a fingernail.

  —So, um, you’re saying you’re packing, right?

  I nod.

  —That’s what I’m saying.

  —And I’m supposed to stay here, right?

  —Yeah, that’s it.

  He swallows a piece of cuticle.

  —Well, just threaten a man, why can’t you? You make it all complicated like that and I sometimes don’t know what I gotta do to keep from getting slapped around.

  I walk toward the Count where he’s pressed naked into the corner of the loft, his lips moving, a jumble of syllables pouring out between them.

  —My bad, I figured it’d just be an instinct for you by now.

  Phil follows behind.

  —Hey, I appreciate the benefit of the doubt and all, Joe, but really, man, unless I’m high you really shouldn’t count on me thinking too straight.

  I stop outside the circle of symbols the Count has scrawled in his own blood and feces.

  I point with the toe of my boot.

  —Any idea what this shit is?

  Phil gives a little sniff.

  —Just regular old shit, yeah?

  —The pictures, Phil, not what they’re drawn in.

  —Right, uh, no, no clue. Just crazy stuff, right?

  Crazy stuff. Sounds about right.

  I squat and put myself on eye level with the Count. His eyes keep spinning, dancing around the patterns on the floor and walls and ceiling, resting for a beat of every orbit on the blade of the knife pressed to his wrist.

  —Count.

  His eyes flick over me, pass back, continue on their way.

  —Count.

  No reaction at all this time.

  I look at the maul of flesh where his right foot used to be. The knob of half-healed meat, nubbins of bone poking out of it where the Vyrus tried to sprout new toes. But it was too much damage, shattered bone and muscle and skin ripped away, the kind of wound even the Vyrus can’t make entirely right.