Nevermind that if she was infected with the Vyrus it would cure her of the HIV. Nevermind that she could go on living pretty much just as long as she wanted to, as long as she kept the Vyrus fed. Nevermind that we could be together that whole time and fuck to our hearts’ content. It doesn’t matter. It’s still not the kind of thing you tell the woman you love. It’s not the kind of choice you ask someone you love to make. If you’re a man, you make it for them.
And now I guess we’ve settled what I am. Or at least what I’m not.
So yeah, the relationship is all fucked up. No reason why it shouldn’t be, it matches the rest of my life that way. Besides, yours any better?
Not that Evie knows any of this. Not that Evie knows shit about me. Three years running and I’m still keeping secrets. It’s what you’d call a sore point between us, her not knowing enough. Can’t blame her for being curious, girl’s got reasons to be. Like why I rent two apartments: the one-bedroom upstairs and this studio below it. Why I nailed the studio door to the door frame and installed a panel in the lower half that I can kick out in an emergency. Why the little spiral stair that leads from the upstairs living room to the studio is concealed by a secret trapdoor. And why, with all that space up there, I do most of my living down here in the basement where the only window has been drywalled over. She’s willing to accept it when I tell her it’s because of my work, cuz of some of the enemies I’ve made. But she’d sure like to know more about that work. She knows I’m kind of a local tough guy, a guy who collects some debts, does some unlicensed PI work, that kind of thing. But it doesn’t seem to warrant the security in this place, the secret room, the multiple locks, the alarm. What can a guy do? He can’t tell her about the Van Helsings running around with a hard-on for people like me, those self-righteous busybodies looking to sprinkle me with holy water and drive a stake through my heart. Not that the holy water would do anything, but the stake sure as shit would. Hell, a stake through the heart will kill anyone. They don’t really need it; a few bullets will do just as well. But a guy can’t explain something like that. In the end she doesn’t buy it, the whole I got enemies, baby thing. She maybe figures it’s drugs.
Drugs would make sense. It would explain the security. It would explain my total and complete paranoia. It would explain why I don’t have a regular job of any kind. And it would explain the little dorm fridge in my closet with the padlock on it. By now she’s pretty certain that if she looked in there she’d find a whole selection of exotic pharmaceuticals that aren’t carried by your garden variety, street corner dime-bagger. She would find my stash in there, but it’s not anything anyone can get high off of, unless they’re like me. Just three pints of healthy human blood mixed with the necessary anticlotting agents so it’ll keep. Three pints. About seven pints less than the minimum I like to have on hand. Thinking about it makes me feel itchy.
Yeah, drugs would be fine as far as Evie is concerned. The blood? Figure it’s a safe bet that would freak her out.
Funny, one of the things that should be toughest to explain is one of the easiest. How I never go out in the daytime? Solar urticaria. A sun allergy. I go out in the sun and rashes will break out all over my body and my skin won’t be able to regulate my internal temperature and I’ll black out and all kinds of bad shit. She buys it. And why not? She’s looked it up online. Besides, it’s not far from the truth. I do have an allergy to the sun. But if I go out and start sucking up UVAs, I won’t just get all itchy and pass out. Me? The Vyrus will go haywire; tumors will erupt and riot throughout my body and over the surface of my skin. Bone cancer, stomach cancer, gum cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer. Think of a cancer, I’ll get it. Fucking eye cancer. And all of those cancers will have a race to see which can kill me first. Might take fifteen minutes all told. Less if it’s a really sunny day. By the time everything runs its course, there’ll be nothing left but a big blob of cancer cells. Biopsy that thing and it’ll look like a giant, man-size tumor with maybe a couple teeth stuck in it.
I’ve never seen it happen. But the stories are more than enough to keep me from rolling the dice on a day at the beach. That’s why I have to spend the rest of the day indoors.
I kill the time.
I shower and shave. I go through my DVDs and watch Vanishing Point. I go upstairs and find some old takeout from the Cuban place around the corner. I listen to some music and try to read a book. All I’m really doing the whole time is thinking about those last three pints and how I need to get some more.
It’s been four days since my last pint. That’s part of the reason The Spaz almost had his way with me last night. When things are good I like to hit a pint every two days. Keeps me sharp.
Four days? No wonder I’ve been crabby. I’ll need to drink one today if I don’t want to start jumping down everyone’s throat. Figuratively speaking. Maybe I can get away with just a half.
I also spend a fair amount of time wondering how things went with Evie at the doctor’s office. But she doesn’t call to tell me. Which isn’t a real surprise after the way she left. And that means I’ll need to go by her work if I want to get the news. Which means I better just drink a whole pint so I’m not on edge when I see her. I don’t need to be picking any more fights with the only person in the world who gives a shit about me.
Around four-thirty I open the closet. I flip the dial on the fridge padlock back and forth and snap it open. I used to have a key-lock. Then I lost the key. It was the middle of the day and I couldn’t run out to the hardware store for a bolt-cutter. I just about chewed through the fucking thing before I got my shit together enough to find a hammer under the sink and use it to claw the hasp free. It can be like that when you’re hungry. Simple shit just plain escapes you. Now I got the combination lock. God save me if I ever forget the combo. I open the fridge.
Times like these, opening the fridge is like the third or fourth time a gambler checks his betting slip to see if maybe he really had his money down on the winning horse instead of that nag that finished way out of the money. I know what’s in there, but maybe, just maybe, I did something right without knowing about it. Like maybe I laid up a dozen extra pints that are just somehow hidden in the back. Something like that. So I open the fridge. No dice. Wrong horse.
I take out one of the three pints. I take out the scalpel I keep in the fridge. I poke a little hole in the bottom of the pouch and place my lips around it. I squeeze the pouch and a thin stream of cold blood squirts into my mouth. When it’s warm it’s better. When it’s hot, say 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s best. But well chilled is just fine. I try to sip, but who am I fooling? I tilt my head back, hold the pouch upright and poke another hole at the top. It drains in a single rush, flooding my throat. Then I carefully cut the bag open and lick the inside clean. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel alive.
It is keeping me alive after all. Giving the Vyrus something else to gnaw on, something fresh. Keeping it from ranging further and further into the blood-making parts of me. Keeping it from digging into the little blood factories inside my bones and scraping them clean. Keeping the Vyrus healthy and happy so that it doesn’t rampage through my brain, randomly hitting switches as it looks for more of whatever it is it wants. It’s keeping me alive. But only if you call this life.
When I’m done I tuck the pouch into one of the red biohazard bags I keep in the fridge. There’s only a couple empties in there, so I leave it be for now.
The nice thing about winter? The sun goes down early. I love that. Add in all the overcast days and those three months are my favorite. I pull on a sweater, lace up my boots, grab my jacket and scoop keys and change from the top of my desk. I also flip through a thin fold of bills: just over a hundred bucks. I got another grand stashed in the toe of a shoe, but that’s for emergencies. And it won’t cover half the rent on this place, which I’m two months overdue on. Blood ain’t the only thing running short around here.
Depending on who I’m doing a job for, I might get paid
in either one: blood or money. But I haven’t had a job for awhile now. I can hustle for the blood, dig up a pint here or a pint there on my own. But, in a way, money is riskier. I knock out some guy, drag him in an alley and tap his veins, I know I’m gonna come away with a pint or two. But as to what’s in his wallet? The kind of guys who look like they might be sporting a good roll are the ones you least want to hit. Those are the ones that might make noise after the fact. Don’t want a guy like that finding holes poked in his arms after he’s been rolled, asking his doctor what the hell that’s about. And there’s just no point in robbing a man if you’re not gonna tap him as well. Just no percentage in the risk if there’s no blood. I mean, money is money, but blood is blood.
And don’t even think about a real robbery. Walk into some liquor store and point a gun at someone? Try to do a little housebreaking? Anything like that leaves behind a profile and physical evidence. Start getting a file at the precinct, an MO in some computer database. Show up on the cop radar and you can just cash in. No blocked up windows in the holding cells. No blood in the chow line. Just a matter of maybe a week before you starve or get hit with some rays.
What I need is a real gig. A deal that will pay off big in both categories. I need something besides all the nickel-and-dime crap I’ve been hitting for the last year or so. The year since I pissed off the Coalition and they stopped dropping their loose ends on me. I never realized just how much I relied on the scraps from their table ’til they were gone. But I sure as shit miss them now.
For the thousandth time I think about giving them a call. Ringing up Dexter Predo and telling him I made a mistake. Telling him I can make it right; I’m ready to toe their line. I think about it. But the phone stays right where it is.
Fuck those assholes.
I walk out of my place and down the block to Avenue A. I hit the deli around the corner for a pack of Luckys and a beer. I cross the avenue, find a bench in Tompkins Square and drink and smoke and think about my problem. My problem is jobs.
My work comes to me by word of mouth. Problem is, word hasn’t been getting around much lately. No straight citizens showing up with a deadbeat dad to track down, none of the smaller Clans calling to have a Rogue swept off their turf. Just me picking up bouncer shifts at Niagara and some arm-twisting for a couple shylocks. Shit work. Fucking Coalition. When I finally bit back at those guys, I maybe bit a little too hard; bit clean through the hand that fed me.
The Coalition is the only game when it comes to booking a heavy gig, but they always got to rub your face in the fact when you come calling. Kind of makes you resent them for being the only Clan that has the juice and the resources to drop a couple grand and a dozen pints on a guy on anything like a regular basis. And Predo? He just plain hates me. That’s what happens when you land in the middle of the Coalition spymaster’s plans and end up screwing them up all to hell. He hates you. He wants your head. He has papers on his desk he thinks it will maybe look good holding down.
I suck down the last of my beer, toss the empty in a trash can and start walking. The Coalition is the only outfit that could hook me up regularly, but there are other Clans, and you never know when they might have some dirty work lying around. And I may have been avoiding this play for a good long while now, but the two pints left in the fridge are a pretty compelling argument to bite the bullet. So I head east, toward Avenue C and Society headquarters, biting that motherfucker all the way.
—Hey, Hurley.
—Joe.
—Read any good books lately?
—Fuck yas.
—Yeah, I like that one, too.
It looks like your average Alphabet City tenement, but it’s not; it’s a fortress. I don’t know exactly what kind of security or how many partisans they got holed up here, but Hurley is all they need. He stays in front of me, slouched against the door frame, threatening to bring the whole building down if he leans a little harder.
—Sumtin’ on yer mind, Joe?
—Terry around?
—Yeah.
We stand there, me on the threshold, him blocking my way. I want in, but I don’t think I could ever want anything badly enough to try and force the issue with Hurley. Guy’s been around at least since Prohibition. I can’t begin to calculate how tough a Vampyre thug has to be to last as long as he has. As for him, he’s in no hurry to move himself. He could stand there all night waiting for me to get down to business and never move an inch. It’s not that he’s possessed of Zenlike patience, it’s just that he’s too stupid to ever get bored.
—Think I might talk to him?
—Gotta appointment?
—An appointment?
—Yeah.
—Since when does Terry make appointments?
Someone steps out of the shadows behind Hurley.
—Since I took over security.
I look him up and down.
—Evening, Tom. See you finally got that promotion you been bucking for.
—It wasn’t a promotion, asshole. The Society isn’t a fucking corporation, it’s a collective. I was elected to the post by my peers.
—Yeah, sure. Anything you say. I’m sure Terry backing you had nothing to do with it.
He starts to come outside, but stops himself.
—OK. OK. You know, you can say whatever you want, Pitt. Doesn’t matter to me. Know why?
—No. Tell me, please.
—’Cuz you’re just a slob on the outside who’s trying to get inside, and all I have to do to get rid of you is this.
And he slams the door in my face.
Well, shit, I’m a bigger pain in the ass than that.
I cover all the buttons on the intercom panel, push them down and hold them there. It takes about a minute for him to open back up.
—Knock that shit off, Pitt!
I take my hands off the buttons.
—Hey, Tom. Terry around?
—You don’t have a fucking appointment. No appointment, no Terry.
He slams the door. I hit the buttons. He opens the door.
—Hey, Tom. Terry around?
—Hurley, get rid of this guy.
Hurley comes out onto the porch.
—Time fer ya ta go, Joe.
—Hey, Hurl, that rhymes.
He points at the steps.
—Ya want ta walk down ’em, or ya want ta fall down ’em?
I stand on my tiptoes and look over his shoulder at Tom.
—So if a guy wanted to make an appointment, how would he go about it?
Tom smiles.
—A guy like you? An old friend of Terry’s?
—Yeah, a guy like me.
—Well, I’d say all a guy like you has to do is pencil something in for a week past fucking never.
—That’s a long time.
—Hurley.
Hurley turns around and looks past Tom.
—Yeah, Terry?
—What’s the hassle about?
—Joe here wanted ta come in.
—Well, why’s the man standing out there?
—Didn’t have no appointment.
—That’s cool. Let him in.
Tom spins, dreadlocks flying.
—What the fuck? He’s got no appointment.
—No problem, Tom. I’m not really busy right now. Just taking it easy.
—That doesn’t matter. I’m supposed to be clearing people in advance.
—Sure, but we got to stay flexible, too.
—But security.
—Sure, sure, we want to be safe. But that’s Joe. We all know Joe.
I hold my hand up.
—Hey, Terry, I don’t want to cause trouble. I can make an appointment. No problem.
—No, man, no. Come on in.
—You sure?
I take a step toward the door. Hurley moves to the side, but Tom steps in front of me.
—Security is supposed to be my job. And this asshole hasn’t been cleared by security.
Terry takes off his Lennon glasses
and wipes them on his Monterey Pop Festival T-shirt.
—Yeah, man, you’re security and all, but we got to remember this is a community organization. You know, it’s all well and good for us to be safe, but we have to be able to respond to the needs of the community. Otherwise, man, what’s the point? And Joe here, he’s a member of the community. So let’s, you know, let’s just bend a point here and let the man in.
—Fucking. I was duly elected and I’m taking this shit seriously. I’m drawing a line. No appointment, no meeting. Especially for a security threat like this guy.
Terry puts his glasses back on.
—A line. Uh-huh. A line. OK. OK. I get it. You and Joe have history. Some, you know, some difficult history. Some unresolved conflicts. That’s cool. So I tell you what, why don’t you and Hurley go do a perimeter check?
—What?
—You know, go, like, check the perimeter. Make sure it’s secure or whatever.
—My post is—
—Tom, really, go check the damn perimeter and stop acting like a storm trooper.
Tom opens and closes his mouth a couple times, looks at me, looks back at Terry, looks at me again.
—This goes on the list, Pitt. Right near the top.
And he storms down the steps, making sure to hit me with his shoulder on the way.
—What list is that, Tom?
—Fuck you, cocksucker. Come on, Hurley.
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