Joe Pitt 3 - Half the Blood of Brooklyn (19 page)

He raps the hammer against the floor.

--Sure you do. Three sweet little things, wanted nothing but to party, have a good time,
give a man some comfort. Well, how could you forget, what with the way you shot them down?

He puts one end of the tube at his eye and looks down it at me.

--That was not cool.

He takes the tube away.

--But I'm off topic. Check it. Daniel was even more impressed that I'd infected all three
on my own. Hey, granted I broke a few eggs before I had my girls. There were definitely
some that didn't make it on the way to that ideal three, but it was still pretty unusual.
The fact that I could infect three out of a pretty small fucking sample was beating the
hell out of the odds.

He taps his temple with the tube.

--And here I am, dropped on Daniel the night before he's going to try and take the next big
step in his evolution? Well, he was a man who believed in signs and that kind of shit.

He looks at Evie.

--And then there's her.

He holds up his index and middle fingers.

--Two new Enclave. Coming in, just like that. Bang and bang. I don't need Daniel to tell me
that's got to be some kind of record. That's got to mean something. That's got to be an
opportunity
for something. To
learn
something.

He pulls Evie's blanket down.

--'Cause a man can have all the potential in the world.

He places the pointed end of the tube at his heart.

--But that's just meaningless.

He hefts the hammer.

--Unless he does something with it.

He strikes the end of the tube and it pierces his chest and blood shoots from the end and
he bends and places it over Evie's trache and the blood fills it and it spills over her
neck and face and her heels bang against the floor and her arms tremor and her throat
works.

And she's swallowing.

And she doesn't die.

She doesn't die.

And I try to get past the Enclave to kill the man doing what only I ever should have done.
But I can't. I'm too weak.

So I fail.

--That was doing it old school.

He's balled his shirt and uses it to mop blood from his chest, carefully circling the hole
he's tucked a finger into.

--Mean, you don't
have
to do it that way, but from what I gather it's something they respect around here.

He drops the bloody shirt and puts his back against the wall and shakes his head.

--Which stands to reason, right? I mean, if punching a hole in your own heart doesn't say
something about who you are, I don't know what will. Shit hurts, I can tell you that.

I sit across the room from him, watching the place on the floor where Evie was before they
took her away.

--Heart's blood. No reason why it should make a difference, but Daniel mentioned it a few
times. Said it made for a closer bond between whoever was spilling their blood and whoever
was drinking it. What do you think? Me, I can't see why that'd be. But who knows. Mothers
say they can tell when their kids are in trouble and shit, even when they're hundreds of
miles away. Maybe it'll be like that. Maybe I'll know when she's in trouble. Or happy. Or
sad. Maybe I'll just kind of always know what she's feeling. What about that?

I touch the finger I've stuck in the wound I reopened in my neck, the scabs have sealed
tight against it. I ease it out and some blood leaks and then stops.

The Count pokes at his own wound.

--About that time, huh? Well, let's see.

He draws his finger free and the clean edges of his unscarred flesh suck closed.

He looks around the empty room, hushes his voice.

--Truth, I didn't hit my heart. Fuck that. Sometimes a little medical training comes in
handy, let me tell you. Hey, would I have been surprised if my aim was off and I stuck
myself in the fucking aorta? No. But there was no way I wasn't gonna try and miss. We can
theorize all we want about what the Vyrus will heal and what it won't, but that was a
chance I wasn't interested in taking.

I put my hands on the floor and push myself up and work my back up the wall until I'm
standing on my good leg.

The Count gets himself up.

--Yeah, getting late here, isn't it? Probably time to call it a day. Things are gonna be
plenty interesting for me. Should be getting my beauty sleep. Sure you don't want to stay
and see how this is all gonna work out?

I head for the door.

He walks behind me.

--Yeah, kind of what I thought. You got places to go, things to do, people, no doubt, to
fuck up. Too bad. Things are gonna be getting very interesting around here, Joe. I mean,
they got no one. I mean, no one on deck to take Daniel's place. And here am I. Just
arrived out of the cold dark. Overcoming terrible struggles in my first night.
Representing by sticking a fucking pipe in my heart and successfully bringing a new
Enclave to the Vyrus. Got the inside track, man. Got influence already. Like, the king is
dead, long live the king, right?

At the landing we look down. The Enclave at meditation, arrayed on the floor below, seated
and silent, the most withered at the front, the robust at the rear.

The Count points.

--I'll have to start in the back with the guys who are still kind of getting the hang of
fasting and all, but that won't last. There's no seniority here. Just willpower. Whoever
can take the most, push the Vyrus the furthest, and live, they go to the front row. After
that last year riding the bad dose, I can take a lot.

He places a hand on my shoulder.

--Thanks for that, Joe.

I ignore his hand.

I inhale. Smell her. Her new smell.

Knocking his hand away, I go past him. I smell her again. There's a door between us. I
make it go away.

She's in there. Sitting, back against the wall, legs sprawled in front of her. She's
pulled the trache tube from her throat and holds it and stares at it, as she fingers the
already healed incision just above the candy necklace that is speckled with blood. She
looks up at me and shows me the tube.

--It itched.

--Sure it did.

She drops it and touches her head.

--My hair feels weird. It feels like it's growing.

The sores on her face have started to fade. Purple to pink.

It hurts lowering myself to the floor, but I do it.

She wrinkles her nose.

--You smell funny, Joe.

She sniffs.

--Everything smells funny. It all smells bad here.

I look at her neck.

Thinking.

You don't change things by wanting them changed. You change them by knowing what to do and
when to do it. And by doing it.

I never seem to know what to do until it's too fucking late.

She pinches her nostrils closed.

--I don't like it here. I want to go home. Can you take me home?

I nod. But I'm lying.

I'll never get her out of here. I'll never get her past the maniacs down there. I'll never
get her away from the psycho setting up to take over this madhouse.

I touch her neck.

--Hey, baby, know what?

She covers my hand with hers.

--What?

--I love you crazy.

She smiles at me and opens her mouth to say something and I start to squeeze and this is
what I know how to do and this is what I have to do and it is not too late to make this
better and she looks at me like she suddenly doesn't know who I am and grabs my fingers
and I can do this I can do this and she looks at me and I can do this and Enclave come
into the room and pull me from her and my fingers hook the strand of candies around her
neck and it snaps and they scatter over the floor and she screams at me.

And I'm gone.

The Count looks down at me.

--Know much history, Joe?

I sit in two feet of dirty water at the bottom of the sewer shaft where they threw me and
look up at him.

He points at himself.

--Not my best subject, but there's stuff you connect with, right? Like even in the lamest
class, there's bound to be something you get a rise out of. History of Western
Civilization was like that for me. That class was like nap time.

There is no ladder. No way back up.

--Monday, Wednesday and Friday, one to two-fifty for an entire year, man. Professor Hocker
would start droning and, like, fifty undergrads would simultaneously nod off. You could
sell that guy's lectures on CD and make a fortune from insomniacs.

A feeder runs through here, washing the cold water around me, the occasional clump of
waste getting lodged against my back.

--Only time I perked up and took notice? When he started getting into the Roman emperors.

I sit in the water, it soaks my clothes and makes my knee hurt worse.

--Those guys, once they got rid of the senate, know how they ruled? They ruled by caveat.
Know what that means? Means they ruled by fear. Means they did whatever the fuck they
wanted to.

The water is dirty. Does that mean it's on its way to the river, or away from it? I don't
know.

--Hey, you know that fear rules the brain? Seriously. Our brains, this is amazing, they
devote more space to dealing with fear than to any other emotion. Because, hey, fear is
what makes us learn shit and survive. It's fucking key. Know where it lives? Fear lives in
this little thing, 'bout the size of an almond, called the amygdala. Fear in the brain.
Something bad happens to you, you got no choice but to be afraid of it happening again.
Until it happens so many times that you get used to it.

Iron grates on concrete as he drags the shaft cover to the edge of the hole.

--So tell me, how many people who you love do you think you have to have taken away from
you, before you stop being afraid that it'll happen again?

He looks over his shoulder, looks back down at me.

--Oh, hey, and can you guess which of the emperors was my favorite? No? Give up? OK, I'll
tell you.

He sticks his head into the shaft.

--Caligula.

He laughs through his nose and shakes his head.

--Yeah, sick but true. I am so fucking predictable, right? But I tell ya, once I get my
thing going up in here, that's gonna be the scene. I'm gonna introduce a whole new way of
doing things around here. I mean, everybody is scared shitless of these dudes, how can I
not find a way to make use of that?

He pulls his head back.

--So anyway, one last thing about fear in the brain. When you fuck up around here, like say
you maybe try and strangle a fellow Enclave or something? They don't kill you. No
beheadings or getting put out in the sun. Instead they drop you down this shaft into the
sewers. Maybe it's symbolic. I don't know. Doesn't happen often. I mean, really rare. What
I gather, mostly when they get cast out they just kill themselves.

I hear something splash in the water. Rats.

--But the story is, at least one of them is hanging on down there. Has been for years. Lone
ex-Enclave looney wandering the sewers and living off God knows what. Could be like that
alligators being flushed down toilets thing. Urban Vampyre legend. If you get me.

He starts to move the cover over the mouth of the shaft, stops and puts his face into the
last remaining gap of candlelight above me.

--Still, pretty fucking scary, huh?

The cover slides and drops into place.

Whatever moves in the water isn't a rat.

It's fast and it's strong and as soon as the darkness is total it's on me and I'm being
dragged through the water, banging off the tunnel walls, hauled up black shafts and flung
across chasms I know are there only by the echoes of my screams.

--Hey, buddy, hey, buddy, hey. Got a smoke? Man. Got a smoke?

I can't see anything. My eyes are open, but I can't see a fucking thing.

But Jesus I can smell.

Stench. A river of sewage flowing somewhere below where I'm huddled. The stink of the
city. Raw. Crackling taint of electricity from the subway train that rumbles past
somewhere behind thick concrete. A puff of warm air carried out of the MTA tunnel brings
oil and diesel fumes from a service train. Wet, meaty rat fur. Rot in too many hues to
separate. And the Vyrus. Boiling and thin as steam.

--Asked do you have a smoke, buddy? A cigarette?
Parlez vous?

I don't say anything. I don't move.

--Buddy. Buddy. I know you're alive, buddy. You tryin' to possum me? Huh? Want me to come
over there so you can get a bead on me and grab me by the balls and rip them off, buddy?
That what you got goin' through your head? That's it, ain't it, buddy? Don't bother to
deny it, nah, don't bother. I know that's what you're thinking. I know it is. Cuz, buddy,
I can see it, I can see just exactly what you're thinking. And you're 'bout as interesting
as last month's fucking
Post.

Something moves.

--Here, let me make it easy on you, buddy. Let me get up close.

He comes close. I feel him first. The heat. He smells like the sewer. And the Vyrus.
Burning.

--How's that, buddy? Better? Want to take a shot?

Water dribbles out of my hair and into my eyes. I wipe it away.

--No.

He shifts.

--Yeah, right. Good thinking. Sharp. You're a sharp one, buddy. So?

--What?

--You got a smoke or what?

I reach in my pocket and find the Luckys.

--They're soaked.

--That's OK, buddy. I forgive you. Pass 'em here.

--I can't see.--
Can't see. Can't see.
'Course you can't fucking see, buddy, it's darker than a nun's virgin anus down here.
Just hold the fucking things out.

I hold out the pack.

--Filterless? Hell, buddy, what you trying to do, kill yourself?

He gurgles.

--That's a joke, buddy. Ah, never mind. These'll do. These'll do.

He shuffles. --
Can't see.
Right, right. Well, we'll see if we can do something about that.

Light explodes.

I cover my eyes, a purple burst on the inside of my lids.

--Whoops. Got you by surprise there. Sorry 'bout that, buddy.

I take my hands away, crack my lids.

He's across from me on the shelf of brick that juts from the mouth of a dry spill tunnel
over the river of shit below us. Hunkered on spider legs, white to the point of
transparency, bald and huge-eyed, he thrusts his face into the beam shooting from his
flashlight and bares his teeth.--
Gollum.

He gurgles.

--That's another joke, buddy. Another joke. Read that in a book. That one kills 'em. Kills
'em every time, buddy.

He tucks the wet pack of Luckys into one of the pockets of the vest that hangs open over
his withered torso and waves the light down the tunnel.

--C'mon, buddy, I ain't carrying you this time.

I keep close to the jet of hot air blowing from the louvered slats at the bottom of the
switch-room door.

--Cold? Sure you're cold, cold as hell down here, ain't it? Not that I feel it. Not that I
feel it a'tall, buddy.

He reaches over and moves the cigarettes around, rotating them in the hot air, helping the
tobacco to dry.

--Yeah, just about right, yeah. Just about there.

I rotate myself, straightening my bad knee in front of the vent. The bone is knitting, it
grinds when I move it.

He plucks at my damp slacks.

--What's with the getup?

--Dead guy's clothes.

He strokes his neck, his skin reflecting the blue of the light above the switch room.

--Didn't ask from who, asked what's up. Where's your whites, buddy?

I look at his own clothes, the soiled cargo vest and painter's pants. Both were once
white, I suppose.

I rub my knee.

--Never wore whites.

--Never, huh?

His arm snaps out and he lays a finger along my chin and turns my head.

I don't flinch.

He looks me over.

--Yeah, but you're Enclave. Way you're looking at me, you're too fucking mean to be
anything else.

He drops his hand.

--Didn't take to the warehouse, huh, buddy?

--Never tried.

He fingers the cigarettes.

--Good call, that. Yeah, sure, sure, good call, buddy. This one's done. That thing working?

He points at the open Zippo next to the smokes.

I pick it up and flick the wheel and sparks jump, but no flame.

--Still too wet.

He digs fingers into one of his pockets and comes out with a folder of matches.

--Hate to waste these things. But the need is urgent, buddy.

He tears out a match and lights it and brings the flame to the dirty, bent cigarette in
his lips and inhales.

--There you go, that's it, sister, come to papa.

He drops the match and holds the smoke for a second and blows it out.

--Well, tastes like shit, but that comes as no surprise, buddy. Here.

He offers it to me and I take a drag. He's right, it tastes like shit.

I take another drag and pass it back.

--Daniel went out in the sun this morning.

His hand freezes. He takes the smoke, looks at it.

--He make it?

--Fuck do you think?

He sucks smoke.

--I think he got burned and died, but a man can hope, buddy. Even down here, a man can
hope.

A train blasts past just beyond the alcove that hides the door, and I watch the real
people flick past inside.

--They got me off the street. Long time gone, long time, buddy. Know how long?

--Nope.

--Neither do I, buddy. Neither do I.

He puts a hand out and we drop back between girders and wait as an MTA service crew in
orange vests and helmets crosses the tunnel dragging tool bags over the tracks and cursing
and telling dirty stories.

He waves and we start walking again, following the line of the third rail.

--Saw I was Enclave one of them did, buddy. Saw me wandering out of a saloon down the
Bowery and saw it in me. Well, Vyrus don't lie. So I was told.

He stops and points at the tunnel where the service crew disappeared.

--That's a dead tunnel. Probably, buddy, they're scrapping something down there. That or
goin' off to get high. Bums live down there mostly. Couple of 'em will get scared out by
the crew. Crew loves to shove the bums around. Bums, buddy, bums in all the dead tunnels.
'Cept mine. Nothing lives in my tunnel but me and the rats, buddy. Me and the rats.

He starts off again.

--Daniel was the one bled into me. That meant somethin'. Not to me. Did to him. Tried not
to make a big deal of it he did, but it mattered to him, buddy. All us he put the Vyrus
in, we were kind of special to him. Didn't make much difference. I never took to it.

He stops again and squats and I lean against a girder, not wanting to bend my leg.

--The quiet's what got to me, buddy. Ever notice how quiet it is in there?

--Yeah.

--Too fucking quiet. Everyone meditating. Pondering. Thinking on the Vyrus. Fuck. I wanted
some chatter. Buddy, I tell you, it drove me just about out my fucking head.

He spreads his arms.

--Now look at me. Know how often I get to have a conversation, buddy? Just about never.
Talk to the rats, buddy. Tell them everything on my mind. Know what's on my mind?

--No.

--What's on my mind is the fuckers finally drop someone down that hole doesn't kill himself
first chance he gets, someone a man might expect to have a word with, and I end up with a
monosyllabic son of a bitch like you, buddy. That's what's on my mind.

--Huh.

--Yeah.

--I was a discipline problem, buddy. Same way I was in the army. Know how many times I got
the stockade? One time, buddy. Just the one time after I got drunk and cut my bunkmate's
ear off with my bayonet. When I got out of the stockade it was just in time for me to get
kicked out. Buddy, that warehouse, it's a fucking miracle I lasted a day. As it was, I
made it a couple years. But only because of Daniel. You know the old man well, buddy?

He climbs up on a dead platform and reaches down to me.

I take his hand and he pulls me up.

--We talked some.

--Riddler he was, wasn't he?

--Yeah.

--The sun, huh?

--Yeah.

--Crap.

He leads me to a rusted gate and yanks on it and it scrapes open.

--Down this way.

I follow.

He looks back at me.

--You need the flashlight?

The blue and yellow and red lamps of the tunnels fade behind us.

--Yeah.

--Here.

He passes it to me and I point it straight down, the reflected light more than enough for
my eyes.

He kicks a pile of rags from his path.

--If the old man hadn't had a feeling for me, I never would have lasted. Tell ya, buddy,
sure seemed as though he liked the trouble cases. Seemed to have a taste for the ones that
didn't fit right in there. What would he make of me now, huh? Tell ya, he wouldn't
recognize me at all, buddy. Not at all.

He touches his stomach.

--I was fat. I mean, by Enclave standards, I was a damn pig. Fasting. I came from an
ass-poor family. Why I went in the army the first place was to have all I wanted to eat.
They
wanted me to
not eat
on purpose. Know what kind of sense that made to me?

--None at all.

--Yeah, you got that one, buddy, none at all. But. Here I am.

He runs a fingertip down his ribs, like raking a washboard.

--I didn't grow up with any religion to speak of. But I got a feeling, if I had, it would
have stuck deep. Would have been one of them people strays hard from the way, only to come
back to it twice as hard in the end, buddy. 'Cause living down here, with no one and
nothing to keep an eye on me, with hot and cold running bums wandering around ripe on the
vine, with no reason to do anything but feedfeedfeed, I found faith. How's that for a
pisser?

He stops.

--Yeah, you tell me that Daniel went out in the sun, my first thought is,
Shit, that sad sorry fuck finally went and did it and got himself burned.
But what I'm really thinking under that is,
Please let it be real. Please let him be the one who makes it. Please bring me home.
Buddy, I am one lonely fucking man.

He takes out the cigarettes I gave him and puts one in his mouth and I flip the Zippo open
and it lights this time.

He blows the smoke down into the cone of light at our feet, watches it swirl.

--In the end, buddy, I'll do it too, ya know. When I can't hold it in anymore, when the
Vyrus says,
Shit or get off the pot,
I'll climb up there and take a crack at it. Daniel, he probably thought he'd make it.
Right till he cooked, that SOB probably thought he was gonna cross. Me, buddy, I'll do it
knowing I'm gonna burn. So you tell me.

He offers me the smoke.

--Which of us is crazier, buddy, me or him?

I take the smoke, drag and give it back.

--Got me.

He taps ash.

--Yeah, it's a puzzler. Crap. Always had a hope I'd see the old man again. Show him that I
turned out OK. Show him that I took it to heart in the end. That I believe. Even if I
don't want to. Wish I could tell him I was sorry for the trouble I caused him. Buddy, I
tell you, in the end, when I blew, I blew hard. Went spastic and grabbed a blade and
started cutting. Killed half a dozen Enclave. Half a dozen of my own, buddy. Know how many
killed half a dozen Enclave?

He taps his chest.

--Me. That's how many.

He smiles.

--Not that I'm proud of it or anything.

He loses the smile.