Charlie Huston - My Dead Body

Terry looks up from the copy of the I Ching he’s flipping through.

– The thing is, based on past experience, any answers I’d get would be about as reliable with or without torturing you. And, sorry to say it after all these years, Joe, but, you know, I don’t think I’d have too much soul-searching to do over the moral issues involved.

I look at Hurley, waiting by the door.

– Old friends. How we kick around old times, huh, Hurl?

He shakes his head.

– Don’t fook aboot, Joe, tis not da time fer it.

I look at Terry.

– When’d Hurley get so serious? Used to be such a light-hearted fella.

Terry picks up the three coins next to his book.

– Serious times, man, require serious thoughts. An attitude like yours, it’s counter to everything that’s going on these days. Hang on now, I need to frame a thought.

He starts tossing the three coins, picking them up, tossing again, until he’s done it six times.

– Oh, man. I know this.

He flips through the book.

– You’ll like this, Joe. Listen.

He finds the page, adjusts his wire rim glasses.

– Hexagram thirty-six. Warmth and light are swallowed by deep darkness.

He looks at me over the tops of his glasses.

– This is one of those modern versions that offers analysis. Seriously, you’ll like this.

He looks back at the page.

– You have been deliberately injured. Going blow for blow will only escalate the war. Abstain from vengeance. Sidestep your aggressor’s headlong charge, giving him the opportunity to fall on his face.

I hold up my hand.

– So I get to keep my fingers?

He looks at Hurley.

– Hurl, how hard can you hit Joe without killing him?

Hurley rubs his chin.

– Well now, Joe, he’s a purty tuff nut an all. An I’ve some experience hittin’ him. That helps. I’d say, if pressed, I’d say I could hit him damn hard an not do more than break several bones an rupture an organ or two. At most, I’d say.

Terry looks at me.

I lower my hand.

– Yeah, sure, I’ll shut the fuck up.

And I do.

Terry sets one of the coins on edge and gives it a flick, setting it to spin.

– What I asked the Book of Changes here is, I asked it how I should respond to a new threat that has recently entered an already complex situation.

The coin starts to slow a bit.

– Here we are, at war for the first time in decades. All quiet on the northern front for now, but still, you know, it’s a hot war, shots have been fired. We’re facing all the past issues we could never resolve with the Coalition. Thanks to, you know, thanks to you telling everyone about the blood farm.

Hurley makes a tsk sound and shakes his head.

Terry ignores him, watching the coin begin to list.

– Which, yeah, I’ll agree, that was information that wanted to be free. Sure, yeah, OK. But still, bad timing there. So we’re people, we can adapt, and we do. Diplomacy, it wasn’t an option. No one was in much of a mood to talk. Converse. Work it all out.

I cough.

– Lydia wouldn’t shut up, would she?

The coin falls and Terry slaps it flat before it can wobble down.

– Hurley.

He doesn’t hit me hard enough to kill me, as promised, but I cross the room and put a good dent in some drywall and spend a second being grateful that he didn’t punch me in the ribs and that the wall isn’t brick.

Hurley comes over and offers me a hand.

– An did I break anything?

– No.

– An will ya shut it fer a bit?

I have to think about that one, but I get it right.

– Yeah.

He pulls me up, rights my chair and drops me in it.

– Be good.

Terry spins his coin again.

– Yeah, man, Lydia. You told her about the blood, she opened her mouth and kept it that way. Which, you know, it’s her prerogative to speak her mind and all, but, in a situation where restraint can really reward the restrained, she could have been a little less, I don’t know, strident, maybe. That would have helped. Still, I was able to convince her that a full frontal assault on the Coalition was not a viable option.

The coin slows again.

– We’re no match militarily, that’s not like a secret or anything. We’re getting constantly harassed by the Wall Streeters and Chinatown crews in the south. Christian and his Dusters are clinging to some kind of neutrality. We’d like them to skirmish down there, but they refuse.

Hurley nods.

– Well an dem, dey do have dere own problems just now an all. Not dat I don’t say it’s time fer ‘em to stand up and pick a side, but dey do have dere hands full wit dat udder stuff.

I raise my eyebrows.

Terry flicks eyes from Hurley to me to the coin.

– Something out in Brooklyn is causing problems. The Chosen, they’re having internal conflicts. Seems that when you were there, you did serious damage to their power structure. Left a vacuum. And, you know, I don’t know, nature may abhor a vacuum, but chaos loves one. Infighting. Someone, we get very little information from that quarter, but from what I gather, someone over there, one side or the other, has used a nuclear option.

The coin goes to its side, he watches it wind down this time.

– Making golems.

I can’t help myself.

– What the fuck?

Terry shakes his head.

– I said the same thing. I don’t know, all that East European mythology, mixed with all that biblical mythology. Mixed with, you know, us. Anyway, seems the confusion is just a matter of semantics. What they call a golem , we call a zombie is all.

Hurley pulls down the corners of his mouth.

– Nasty creatures. Imagine, usin’ such a ting ‘gainst yer fella types. Be a special punishment waitin’ fer dem when the final horn blows an all dat. Zombies. Detestable is what it is.

Terry spins the coin, stops it, looks at Hurley.

– No telling what pressures they were under. Not for us to judge a course of action. Right and wrong, absolutes, that gets us nowhere. Some liberality of mind, some flexibility of spirit, it all helps to keep us out of outmoded practices. Thinking forward, that’s where we need to be. Condemnation is a losing proposition.

Hurley shrugs.

– Say what ya will, Terry, an ya know I know ya know an all. But still, zombies. Dere’s a limit ta what civilized folks should be will-in’ lay hands to. Dat, I’d have ta say, dat would be my own.

Terry looks at the coin, rubs his thumb over it.

I tilt my head Hurley’s way.

– Got to say I’m with you on this one, Hurl. Making shamblers, that’s a scummy business to be in. Let alone sicking them on anyone. Open the door to brain-eaters, it’s all downhill from there. How you figure that, Terry, someone making zombies?

Terry raises his eyes to me, looks back at the coin between his fingers, nods, gives it a spin.

– It’s all theory, anyway. I think, and this is the theory, I think someone caught a zombie and stuck it in a basement and kept it alive. A process that, I don’t know, I don’t want to think about. And they used it like a deterrent. Like, Don’t fuck with me or I’ll start making more golems and sending them onto your turf. So, again the biblical thing, they did it. Now they got them over there, golems in Brooklyn, started in Gravesend, but, these things, now a couple have wandered over the Manhattan Bridge. Duster turf.

Hurley raises a finger.

– It’ll end poorly fer dem dat done it. Mark me. Bound ta pay against ‘em. An it should if dere’s any justice a’tall.

Terry puts a finger in the spinning path of the coin and it bounces off and falls.

– Anyway, as if we didn’t have enough complications. I don’t know, you know, our visibility factor now, we’re just below the skin of things, one pinprick away from a gigantic pop that blows it wide open and just this chaotic mess with no sense of control, no order, and I am a big fan of things taking their course, but I’m trying to forge, you’ve heard this, trying to make a dialectic here. That’s what we’re about. We’re a counter-argument to the Coalition. We’re antithesis. For this to work, for us to achieve a synthesis, there has to be a degree of control in the conflict. Otherwise everything is destroyed. No synthesis, just a fucking mess. So. Here I am, consulting the I Ching, looking for clarity of thought, trying to illuminate my consciousness and see a way out of the fog, what they call the fog of war, and, as if you’ve been summoned to add darkness, you come and knock at the door.