Half the Blood of Brooklyn

by Charlie Huston

  FURY.

  —I try, Joe. I try harder than most to take your smartass bullshit and not lose my cool. I try to understand that something made you the way you are, but there are limits to my compassion and my patience.

  Lydia points at a chair and her bulls drop me in it.

  —You push and you push and you push. You do just enough to make me think you might have an ounce of decency, and then you fuck it all up.

  She leads the other women to the kitchen door and ushers them out. She closes the door behind them and turns to face me.

  —What I really can’t stand is that you insist on engaging in behavior that forces me into taking actions that aren’t part of my nature. I end up doing the kind of things Tom would have done. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? Unhealthy. That’s how. I hate it. But let me tell you.

  She crosses the room.

  —Shooting me was the fucking limit!

  She’s spent a day getting straight. Drinking from some crazy stash of cage-free, no-hormone-injected, organic blood that she keeps around so her sensibilities won’t be offended. She took too much hurt in Brooklyn and from my gun to be a hundred percent. But she’s close enough. The fist she plants in my gut tears something in there. Something that hurts a lot. Her next punch might just put a hole in my stomach and go right out my back.

  Fortunately Hurley comes in and pulls her off me.

  Hey, I’m a lucky guy.

  She jerks free of him.

  —Don’t, Hurley, don’t ever touch me.

  He rubs a hand over his whiskers.

  —Sure, Lydia, don’t mean nuttin’ by it, I know I ain’t yer type a feller an’ all. Just dat Terry asked I should see ya don’t kill him none. An’ looked fer a moment dat der might be some danger of ya gettin’ carried away some.

  From the floor I look up at her.

  —Hey, Lydia.

  She looks at me.

  —What?

  —I could have swore you told me never to threaten you again. I didn’t think actually shooting you would be such a big fucking deal.

  Hurley shakes his head.

  —Shut the fook up, Joe.

  And his boot puts me out.

  —This is getting a little old, isn’t it, Joe?

  —Don’t know what you mean by that, Terry.

  —Us sitting around the table. You with your back to the wall. Me and Lydia spelling out how things are. You finding a way to live with that and get a little of what you want from the situation. How many times we been through this?

  —Put it that way, a few.

  —More than a few, Joe. Many more than a few. And let me tell you, I am getting, man, I don’t know, weary of the dynamic.

  Lydia stops staring at her hands resting on the tabletop and looks at him.

  —Weary of the dynamic, Terry? Come on. Can we cut through the crap?

  Terry rubs his forehead.

  —Yeah, yeah. I’m just trying to create a little context for the discussion. I just want us all to understand that we’ve been this way before and maybe we won’t be able to sort things quite the same as we have in the past. Things change, you know, and it may be that there’s a sea change happening here that won’t allow us to deal with this situation in the same manner as we would have in the past.

  —I said, Cut through the crap, Terry.

  —I know what you said, Lydia.

  —Well then?

  He starts to raise a finger, drops it.

  —OK. OK. The direct approach. That’s really your style anyway, isn’t it, Joe?

  I’m on the floor in the corner of the kitchen, Hurley seated on a stool next to me. Not that he needs to keep an eye on me. Not that I’m gonna do anything. Not that I can do anything.

  I touch the welt Hurley left on my forehead. I think I can feel the pattern of his boot tread impressed in torn skin.

  —Sure. The direct approach.

  I take my hand from my forehead.

  —You sent me to Brooklyn and I got all fucked up and caught in the middle of some crazed holy war, and I killed a bunch of people and chopped a Rebbe into pieces so they’d know not to fuck with us. And if you didn’t want it to turn out that way you should have sent someone else.

  Terry clears his throat.

  —Well, yeah, man, that’s all, I don’t know, good as far as it goes. Lydia covered that part for me already. Except, you know, the chopping into pieces stuff. But I can see that. I can see how that will be effective. But, you know, having done all that, and having, and this was impressive, having saved Lydia, you, well, man, you shot her.

  I look at her.

  —She got in my way.

  Terry folds his arms.

  —Thing is, Joe, it’s not the first time you’ve shot a member of the Society council. And, sure there were extenuating circumstances the last time, but it’s not the kind of thing we can let roll by. And then there’s this other thing Lydia mentioned.

  He looks at her.

  She looks at me.

  —Where is she, Joe?

  I count heartbeats, get to twenty before Lydia gets tired of waiting.

  —What did you do with your friend, Joe?

  Terry has his elbows on the table, he leans his forehead into his hands.

  —Did you infect her, man? Did you do that, Joe? Did you consciously and willfully go into the uninfected community and infect someone with the Vyrus?

  I count fifteen this time.

  Get tired of counting.

  —I didn’t infect her.

  Lydia and Terry look at each other.

  Terry rotates the little gold hoop in his earlobe.

  —Tell me you didn’t try, man. Just, please, man, tell me you didn’t try.

  I count one heartbeat.

  —I did try.

  —Ah, fuck.

  Lydia stands.

  —You killed her. You. You tried to infect her and you screwed up and you fucking killed an innocent woman, you stupid little. Joe. You. Damnit. Damnit.

  Terry takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, slips them back on.

  —Did you do it? Is that how it happened?

  I don’t count anything this time. But I don’t say anything either.

  Lydia comes around the table and makes for me.

  —What are you? What are you? We’re trying to change things. We’re trying to change and you. You.

  Hurley is in front of her.

  She stops. Looks at the floor. Walks back to the table and sits.

  Terry watches her. Waves Hurley to the side. He taps the tabletop.

  —This is a big deal, man. So, you know, I need you to tell me, Joe, is that what happened?

  I think about what happened. I think about the Count’s blood in Evie. Instead of mine. I try to think of a way of saying it out loud. But I don’t have to. Because what happened is so very simple.

  —I tried to infect her. And it didn’t work.

  He takes off his glasses again and covers his eyes.

  —Ah, fuck.

  Lydia walks to the door. Stops with her hand on the knob.

  —The sun.

  And walks out.

  Terry takes his hands from his eyes and looks at Hurley.

  —Hurley?

  Hurley stretches his neck.

  —Whativer you say i’tis, Terry, so i’tis.

  —Not this time, man, you got to make the call for yourself.

  Hurley looks at me, shrugs.

  —Sun i’tis.

  Terry nods.

  —Yeah. The sun. Unanimous.

  Hurley rises.

  —Ya want I should lock him away till mornin’?

  —No. That’s cool. Leave us alone for a bit. We’ve got stuff to kick around.

  —Sure.

  He gets up and tips his hat at me.

  —Too bad ya fooked up like dat, son. Fer a woman an’ all. Still, nuttin’ personal.

  And he’s out.

  Terry stands.

  —Joe. Man. What can
I say? I mean, it’s not like you gave me any choice. I make an exception on something like this, well, where’s it gonna end? Lydia? How long do you think I can keep her loyal to the Society if we start bending on basic principles? No. It’s greater-good time, here. Time to. Ah, shit.

  He walks to the door and stands there for a moment with his ear against it and locks it and stuffs his hands deep in his pockets.

  —When I found you, Joe. Man. You were. I don’t know, you were an animal. You were.

  He smiles.

  —Such a classic punk. Like, you know, like you had invented attitude and had to show it off. Pure promise. Made for those days. All that rough and tumble. I never regretted bringing you in. Even after you left the Society. Even then I.

  He comes away from the door and crosses toward me.

  —Well. You know. And when I got you to come back in last year? That was, that was like a dream come true. But. Then. I guess you could say I was living in the past maybe. Well, no maybe about it. I was living in the past. You can’t go back. That is the truth. It’s a cliché, but it’s the truth. All that stubbornness you had when you were a kid, all that attitude, I thought you’d outgrow it.

  He laughs.

  —Wow, was I wrong.

  He’s in front of me. He looks over at the door. Looks back at me.

  —I want to do something for you here, man. But you got to tell me something.

  He takes his hands from his pockets.

  —Where’s the Count, Joe?

  I almost laugh. But it would hurt too much.

  —Took you long enough, Terry.

  He squats.

  —Uh-huh, and now I’m asking. Where is he?

  I look around the room.

  —Notice you waited till we were alone to get into this.

  —Joe.

  —Still hiding the delicate inner workings of the ecosystem from your nearest and dearest.

  —This is, man, this is very serious. So I’m, you know, clinging to my cool here and asking politely. Where?

  —Hey, man, here’s a question for you.

  —Not now, man.

  —What was it like when you were in the Coalition? What was it like being all cronied up with Dexter Predo, you fucking fraud?

  He puts a hand to his temple and rubs.

  —I’m wondering, Joe. I’m wondering if you can possibly be as stupid as so many people think you are. I’m wondering if I have been wrong about you all these years and you really are the idiot people talk about you being, you know, behind your back.

  He picks me up and throws me across the kitchen and I smash into the cupboards and hit the floor and shattered dishes rain over me.

  He comes for me.

  —I mean, hey, man, do you really think anyone would give a shit about that crap?

  He grabs me by the ankle of my bad leg and swings me around and my back hits the table and it explodes around me and I keep going and I put a dent in the refrigerator door and eight of my ribs break.

  He comes for me.

  —Think about it, man, you know, the Society, it was created by a revolution against the Coalition. You know who starts revolutions? Citizens! Yes, I was in the Coalition. Everyone was in the Coalition. You think that’s a secret?

  He takes me by the hair and punches me in the face twice and shakes his bloody fist.

  —It’s not a secret. Yeah, I was an enforcer for the Coalition. I don’t, you know, go advertising it around or anything, but it’s not a secret. How do you think I learned about power, Joe? How do you think I learned about corruption? And when I learned those lessons, know what I did? I, you know, matured and changed. Like a normal fucking person. You think Lydia doesn’t know? She knows. But that’s because she bothered to learn some history. That’s because she knows something about Hegel and revolutionary dynamics. She knows that every thesis has an antithesis and that if you want to get anywhere you have to, man, you have to create a synthesis. And that, you know, that doesn’t just, like, happen. That takes work. And you need tools to get it done. So I’m asking you, Joe, seriously now, to drop the crap before I lose my cool.

  He jerks my head from side to side.

  —Tell me where the Count is.

  Somewhere inside the fridge a bottle broke and OJ is leaking out onto the floor. I watch it drip.

  —Yeah. Alright, I get it. I get it. I’ll tell you.

  I look at my oldest friend through the blood in my good eye.

  —He’s gone Enclave on you, Terry. So, you know, all you got to do is run over there to their turf and grab him.

  He lets go of my hair.

  He rocks back on his heels and drops to his ass.

  He looks at the floor between his legs.

  —Joe. Oh, man. Oh, man. Man. Do you?

  He looks up.

  —Do you not get it at all? Has it all just gone over your head, man?

  He waves a hand above his own head.

  —Is it all just up here in the ether? Because let me break it down. There’s a war. There’s a war being fought and it’s heating up, man. The new faces from Brooklyn, why are we trying to sort through all those rejects for the ones we can use? Because we’re gonna need them. It’s getting unstable. The Island is getting unstable. And it can’t last like this. We have to have, man, this is the deal, we have to have something new. It can’t go like it has forever. We have to try something new. And we need every resource. We need, God, I wish it were not so, but we need money. We need the Count’s money. And. More than that.

  He touches the blood on his knuckles. The Vyrus.

  —They are trying to figure this out.

  He shoves his hand at me.

  —Predo and the Coalition. They are studying this. And they have resources that we don’t have. The Count. We needed him to learn shit. We needed his, you know, expertise. Such as it was. We can’t. If you want synthesis to happen, man, if you truly want two things to become one new stronger thing, the two have to be balanced and equal. Otherwise you just get one thing eating up the other. And shitting it out.

  He lowers his hand.

  —So please, man, please, tell me, you know, tell me you’re fucking with me.

  I look him over. This man. He took me in. He found me dying on the floor of a toilet and took me in and kept me alive. He taught me what I needed to know. Without him, I would have died that first night. Without him, I would have died a hundred times. Without him, I’d have been dead years ago and Evie would be in a hospital bed right now.

  Like that’s his fault or something.

  I want it to be, but it’s not.

  Like it would change something about where we are now.

  —I’m not fucking with you, Terry. He’s in the warehouse. He’s Enclave. They got him.

  He flops on his back and stares at the ceiling.

  —Shit. Shitshitshit.

  —And Daniel is dead. So things are likely gonna get much more fucked up over there very soon.

  He levers himself up on his elbows. Looks at me. Shakes his head. Gets to his feet and toes some of the wreckage from the table.

  —OK, Joe. I guess that covers it.

  He bends over and picks up the broken halves of his glasses.

  —This, man, this is so perfect.

  He drops them.

  —Shit. Well. We’re gonna put you in the sun in the morning.

  He walks to the door.

  —I’ll see you, then.

  Alone again. Which is actually nice. Because I am so fucking tired.

  Naturally, I dream about Daniel.

  Or a thing that used to be Daniel.

  A black tendril of it worms from a split in the air and it shivers and peels its way from one world into this.

  The old man of the subways points and laughs.

  —See, buddy, see? Like I said. Looks like nothing, that rip in the air. Nothing a’tall, huh, buddy?

  I study the rip. It’s doesn’t look like nothing. It looks like a rapidly healing scar in the t
hroat of a sick girl.

  Evie folds her arms on her chest.

  —Why’d you lie to me, Joe? Why’d you lie about everything?

  She cries a little and wipes the tears and puts a hand on my face.

  —You didn’t have to lie like that.

  Purple sores rise across my face and over my scalp and my hair falls out and the Wraith shudders from the scar in Evie’s throat and leaves her empty and it goes through me and freezes my blood and its passing whispers to me.

  Be seeing you, Joe.

  —You saved my life, you asshole. You saved my life and got me away from those animals and. I would have called it a wash. I would have said, Yeah, the asshole shot me, but he also saved my life. I would have said, Let’s just call it even. Where’s your humanity, Joe? Where is your damn humanity? You had to infect that poor woman? She wasn’t sick enough? You had to try and do that?

  I open my eyes and look at Lydia sitting in the dark kitchen on one of the chairs from the ruined table.

  —You gave her no chance. No choice. Just made it for her. Just. Look how small it makes us. Look how small our lives are. Look what we’re fighting over. The things we do to one another. You chose this for her? This little life, or an awful death. Awful.

  I uncurl from the ball I’ve twisted into on the floor and my knee snaps loud twice and I wince and put my hands behind my head.

  —Lydia. Do me a favor, go whine somewhere else.

  She doesn’t go.

  —I already saved your life once, Joe.

  —Sure. Why else would I come back for you?

  —Right. Was there ever any question. So, debt’s all paid up? All square up? The way you like it?

  —Far as I’m concerned.

  —Except maybe I owe you a bullet.

  I shift, try to find a position where something on me doesn’t hurt.

  —You’re gonna have to hurry if you want to get that in.

  She stands over me.

  —They would have used me. They would have raped me and made me have babies they could bleed.

  —Yeah, so what?

  —Never occurred to you?

  —Just evening accounts.

  —And now they’re even.

  —Yeah. You’re doing nothing wrong. So stop wringing your hands and let me get some sleep.