No Dominion

by Charlie Huston

  —That’s kind of the point.

  I pull Shades’ ski mask over my face. I slip on his gloves and his shades.

  —That the A stop across the street?

  Digga watches me.

  —Yeah. Got the train fare?

  —Got that grand you bet for me on your weak-ass dog?

  He fishes his hand in his pocket and comes out with a roll.

  —Here’s the G.

  I take the money.

  He thinks about something, licks his thumb and peels off another thin sheaf of bills.

  —Here’s another G. For yo trouble.

  I take it.

  He puts his roll away.

  —Kind of throwin’ good money after bad on my part. Seein’ as how you ain’t gonna live ta see nightfall. But you did yo part. Guess you deserve to least hold it for awhile, ’til whoever takes you down pulls it off yo corpse. That train takin’ yo ass nowhere, Pitt. Only place they can watch with the sun up is the hole. ’Tween here an 14th, gonna be nothin’ but hell to pay.

  I open the door.

  —Got no choice. My girl, she hates to be stood up.

  I get out of the car and walk into the daylight.

  It’s the direct UVs that get you. Uncovered skin gets hit by the direct rays of the sun, you cook like that boy got cooked in Vandewater’s apartment. Keep covered, stay in the shade, get lucky, and you can get by. You’ll burn alright; you’ll burn, and the more you burn the more you’ll push the limits of the Vyrus. But stay covered and you can get by. I am far too well protected by my covering for the sun to do any permanent damage here. I would have to walk in the direct rays, unshaded, for blocks before the UVs could do serious damage through all these layers.

  And yet.

  One step out of the garage, walking in the sun-protected lee of the mall, I feel it. Its pressure and heat. Like a Russian bath, a Russian bath that causes cancer. I feel the heat straight through the mask and gloves and every other stitch of clothing on my body. Sweat erupts across my scalp and rolls down my sides. My mouth goes dry and I feel a hot flash that ripples out from my gut, rolling through my organs and my blood. The Vyrus writhes inside me, confused, threatened, ready to kill me, kill itself, rather than endure the sun.

  Crossing the street, trotting between the cars so I don’t have to stand on the corner and wait for the light to change, I remember something. I remember being a sixteen-year-old runaway, how I spent that summer, every day in Tompkins Square. I remember sprawling drunk and shirtless on the brown grass and waking, my skin so deeply burned it radiated heat. The girl I was with that night, holding her hand an inch from my stomach, warming her fingers. I poured ice-cold beer over my chest. For days the skin flaked and peeled. I picked at it, teasing off leafs of it and burning holes in them with the tip of my cigarette to gross out my friends with the smell. When the burned skin was dead and gone, I was browner than the grass in the park. That winter I was infected.

  I look at the subway entrance just ahead. All things being equal, I’m going to die down there, somewhere between here and home. I stop at the top of the stairs.

  I look up at the blue sky.

  And pay for it with boiling tears and blurred vision.

  Half blind, I stumble down the stairs into the hole in the ground, cursing myself.

  The platform is crowded. My vision is still clouded, but I run my eyes around, looking for any of Papa’s ton tons macoute. Nothing.

  I pull up the ski mask. Doesn’t matter who sees my face. The ones I’m most concerned about will smell me anyway.

  I stand on the platform, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing the tears from my eyes, blinking away the blur. The platform grows more crowded. I put my back against one of the green girders that lines the platform. I breathe deep, smell the rats on the track along with all the other stinks of the station. I watch the faces, not caring if I catch anyone’s eye. Never certain if I have because of my fogged vision.

  I squint at a map of the system. It’s a jumble of wavy lines: blue, orange, yellow, red, and green. Meaningless. That’s OK, I know the tunnels, I know the lines. I can picture the A in my head. The express down to 59th, to 42nd, to 34th, to 14th. I sniff again. Still smells clean, clean of what I’m looking for anyway. If the ton tons macoute want me, they’ll have to do it here, make their move in this station. Then again, they could try it on the line, move close to me on the packed train and…and what? What are they going to do on a packed train? Nothing. Nothing that won’t cause a scene. No, it has to be here.

  Or.

  Or Papa could have a deal with Predo. Percy said Papa might be dealing with him, might be on Predo’s tip. Figure it could be that bad. Figure ton tons could ride with me right onto Coalition turf. They could hang back, wait till we’re below 110th and show me their colors; do it just to drive me, herd me off the train, right into Predo’s enforcers.

  The air moves in the station; a stale breeze blowing in from the tunnel, pushed ahead by the train. This is a bad play. I should be aboveground. Duck into a bar and call a car service. Get a limo with tinted windows. Yeah, sit in a bar on Hood turf and wait for a car. Bad call. A cab? Traffic, clear windows. Excuse me, cabbie, but would you mind driving exclusively in the shade? I’ll make it worth your while. No. A bus? Jesus fuck, what am I thinking, a bus? This is the way to go. It’s this way or it’s Digga’s way, on his tip. And enough guys got a handle on me, I don’t need anyone else thinking he can give me a ring whenever things go shitty on him.

  The train squeals into the station. People cram themselves up close to the doors, staring at the folks on the inside, also packed at the doors. All of them sizing each other up, challenging one another for space. The doors slide open, the speakers crackle, there’s a brief free-for-all as the people on the train and the people on the platform trade places. I wait for the last possible second, looking for some danger more obvious than what I know is already out there, and push my way aboard.

  The doors snap shut and the train jerks and rolls. I scent the air in the car and find it safe. My eyes are clearing quickly now, my vision all but normal. I look around and catch sight of a service advisory, a sign telling me at once why the platform had been so crowded. Telling me the C and B trains are out of service and that all express trains are running local. Local, as in hitting every stop between here and home. Slow and steady all the way.

  A long slow train through the gauntlet. And me, no cigarettes at all even if they would let you smoke down here.

  Stopping, starting, pausing in the middle of the tunnel for a red signal, rolling. The train takes its own goddamn sweet time. 116th, a college kid with a sketchbook in his lap, drawing the passengers seated across from him, just their feet. 110th, last stop in the Hood, people cramming on and off. No ton tons macoute. 96th, back on Coalition ground, a guy walking the center aisle, a display of Duracells in his hand, incanting, Battery one dolla, battery one dolla, battery one dolla. No enforcers. 81st, a DJ and his crew, still coming down from last night’s gig, shoving each other back and forth, showing off for a cute girl in their midst. 72nd, the speaker squawking, endlessly repeating its message that this train is running local. 59th, a homeless guy that reminds me of the Renfield that fingered me on the way up, but it’s not him. 42nd, man with a baby carrier on his chest, the baby’s eyes returning again and again to my face. 34th, a woman overloaded with Macy’s bags. My eyesight clear by 23rd, I see a subway card above the seats; a stanza of Dylan Thomas:

  Dead men naked they shall be one

  With the man in the wind and the west moon;

  When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

  They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

  Though they go mad they shall be sane,

  Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

  Though lovers be lost love shall not;

  And death shall have no dominion.

  And I ride the rails, straight down to 14th Street. Straight down and free and cl
ear. And I just know that it’s gotta be bad news.

  At 14th, my nerves shot to hell, I get off. I transfer to the L line, cross over to First, and walk out of the station and back into the day.

  The sun presses on me just the same as it did Uptown, but here it is almost a relief. As if it were a different, more familiar sun. I walk quickly to 10th, stopping in at my deli. I grab a six-pack and a carton of Luckys. The guy gives me a book of matches and I light up. I walk the last half block to my front door. I step into the vestibule and check my mail. Just a couple things for occupant, same as always. I go down the hall to my apartment, unlock the three deadbolts, go inside, turn off the alarm, close the door, snap the locks, rearm, and lean my forehead against the wall. I stay like that ’til I know I have to move.

  I walk past the couch, wanting nothing half so much as to sink down onto it, drink my way through the six and smoke Luckys one after another. Instead, I go down the stairs into the basement apartment and get my other gun.

  There’s nothing wrong with the 9mm I took off Shades, it’s just that I know this gun, I trust it as much as a gun can be trusted. Being a gun, it’s more than likely gonna end up in someone else’s hand being pointed at me someday, so I don’t trust it too much. But it’s mine and I’ve used it to kill people before, so I know it works. I leave Shades’ piece in the gun safe and pocket my own. Then I crack the fridge.

  The bag of anathema is still in my jacket. I take it out and give it a sniff. I have no way of knowing for certain if it’s still potent, but it sure as shit smells like it is. I stick it in the fridge. I don’t want anyone smelling that stink when I come through the door. I look at my own last pint. The blisters on the backs of my hands throb. My whole body feels baked and dry, skin bright pink. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Fuck it.

  I pop the pint open and suck it down. Once it’s in me, I wonder what the hell I was debating about. Of course I’m drinking it now, you should always drink it now. Drink all of it you can whenever you can. Anything that makes you feel like this, you should drink it. I drain it, slice it, lick it clean. It’s good. The blisters don’t go away, but they feel a fuck of a lot better. Everything feels better. We’ll see how good it feels in a couple days, if I’m still alive and haven’t scored. I toss the empty into the biohazard bag and close up.

  In the can I give my face a good splash, wash away the last bits of scab clinging to the inside of my mouth. Some of Vandewater’s blood is on my shoulder. I towel it off. I see the hole she ripped in the collar of my jacket. I stick my finger in it. Gonna take a pro to make that look OK again. I put the jacket back on. I toss all of Shades’ sun-gear in the trash and dig out my own, tired of the stink of someone else’s sweat in my pores.

  I slam one of the beers and put the rest in my normal fridge, the one with actual food in it, or stuff with mold growing on it, anyway. I grab my picks and I stick a couple extra packs of smokes in my pockets. Wishful thinking on my part, hoping I might actually get to smoke all of them. I leave.

  The Count’s place is where I left it. I could lurk outside, wait ’til someone goes in and slip in behind them. But lurking and the sun don’t go together. Instead, I go next door to the El Iglesia de Dios.

  Churches don’t bother me. Some guys, they do. Some make a big show of it, avoiding places like this, part of the scene they think. Some are genuinely freaked out. Those are the ones that are sure we’re all cursed. They may not say it out loud, but they think it. Most of those kind, they don’t last. Who can last walking around thinking their immortal soul has been consecrated to damnation? Except the folks who think that way and really dig it. Those ones are out there, too. They bug me. Who’m I fooling? They give me the willies. But churches don’t bother me one way or another. Just four walls and a roof. And maybe a big wooden cross with a guy nailed to it. Nothing I haven’t seen before.

  I go into the church. There’s a couple old ladies in there, kneeling, heads bowed on folded hands. Could be praying. Could be junkies on the nod. Churches are good for that also. I walk past them, right up the aisle and through the door behind the altar. There’s a corridor. At one end an office door, at the other a stairwell. I take the stairs.

  I run into a guy in a coverall. He’s carrying a toolbox. He gives me and my ski mask and sunglasses a look.

  I point up the stairs.

  —All done?

  He looks blank for a second then nods, hooks his thumb back up the way he came.

  —Yeah, yeah, all set. Where’s the?

  —In his office. He’ll have your check.

  —Oh. Really? OK. Thanks.

  We edge around each other and I keep climbing, going past a couple landings and whatever he may have been repairing in here. The door at the top is padlocked. I don’t bother with the picks here, just grab the lock and give it a good yank and the screws holding the hasp fast to the door frame tear loose. I push the door open. Jesus, it’s bright out there. I go out on the roof and close the door behind me.

  There’s a gap of about six feet between me and the fire escape next door. I jump it. I don’t need a running start. I come down on the escape, making a lot of noise, and have clambered up the iron ladder to the roof before anyone can peek out their windows.

  No shade at all. I scoot around on the verdigrised copper sheeting. I find a window that looks in on darkness. I break it and go in. It’s some kind of hut, a storage and service unit of some kind. Cobwebs and boxes and gardening tools, of all things. But no door into the building.

  I sit in the darkness and smoke. I drop the spent butt and stomp on it. My foot lands on a trapdoor. Fuck, Joe, take a better look around next time. It’s one of those spring-loaded jobs. I give it a push. No luck. It’s locked on the other side. I stomp on it. Something gives. I stomp again. Something rips loose and the trap swings down and a ladder unfolds and bangs into the floor. Subtle. I go down. Just a tiny landing at the top of the stairs. One door. No one looks out of it to see what the noise is about. Lucky them. I fold the ladder and close the trap and go down a couple floors.

  The Count’s door is locked. Well, no shit. I take out the picks. They’re good locks. It’s an expensive building, they should be good locks. But I’m up for the game. Fresh pint just down the hatch, I can feel and hear every pin as I tease them into alignment. I pop the first. I pop the second. I draw my gun and go inside.

  They’re all on the nod, heaped half naked or more in Poncho’s door-walled room. If they hadn’t been high when they crashed, they would have woken up the second I came through the door. Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe when you live like this, with people, lovers, maybe when you have a Clan to watch over you, you sleep easier. Maybe I’m the only one whose eyes snap open five or six times a day, when a car with an odd sounding engine drives past or a rat rustles the garbage out front or a kid laughs on the sidewalk. Maybe that’s it. Maybe my life sucks just a little more than everybody else’s. But I doubt it. I think all our lives suck about the same amount. Just in different ways. I look at The Count, Poncho’s legs wrapped around his, Pigtails and PJs jumbled next to them.

  This guy, I’m about to make his life suck in all kinds of brand new ways.

  I nudge the sole of his foot with the toe of my boot. He stirs, they all stir, but only his eyes open.

  —Wha? Hunh?

  —Morning.

  —Whan? Joe?

  —Yep.

  —Hey. What’s up, man?

  —You.

  He cracks a tired smile.

  —Not really, man.

  I show him the gun.

  —Count. Get up or I’m gonna start shooting your girls.

  Poncho’s eyes fly open at that.

  I level the piece at her face.

  —Stay there.

  She stays there. The Count gets up. He’s wearing blue and white briefs and a girl’s T-shirt that rides too high on his skinny belly, Buffy silkscreened on the front.

  I point at the girls, all of them stirring now.

  —Te
ll them to stay put.

  He runs a hand through his tangled hair.

  —Yeah, no problem.

  He looks at them.

  —Chill, ladies. This is cool. Just a misunderstanding. Nobody lose it. Me and Joe are gonna figure this out.

  He looks at me.

  —Right, man?

  —Sure.

  I let him lead the way over to the kitchen. Behind us, the girls press their eyes against the cracks between the doors that screen Poncho’s room.

  The Count points at a coffeemaker.

  —You want some?

  —No.

  —Cool if I make some?

  —No.

  —OK. OK. So what’s the deal?

  He leans his skinny butt against the counter, arms folded, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

  —This a jack? You after my stash?

  I point at his shirt.

  —That supposed to be funny?

  He looks down at the picture of the vampire slayer on his chest, shrugs.

  —I don’t know. I guess so, maybe.

  —I hate that shit. That self-aware, ironic, pop culture Vampyre shit. I hate it.

  —I.

  —Like it’s a game.

  —It’s not supposed to mean anything. Just a shirt.

  I bang the barrel of my gun across the bridge of his nose. The nose breaks and bloods runs out. He barks, goes to his knees, hands over his face. Another of those kids who hasn’t figured out the pain thing.

  —Fuck! Oh fuck!

  —That funny, Count? That fit in with your hipster Vampyre lifestyle?

  I kick him in the gut. He rolls onto his side, curled in a ball.

  One of the girls hisses. I don’t bother to look. I put the gun to The Count’s head.

  —Stay in that fucking room or the gravy train goes off its rails right here.

  The hissing continues, but quieter.

  I grab some of his hair and pull his face out of his hands.

  —Those supposed to be your brides, those girls? They complete the scene for you? Help to polish your image, Count?