Charlie Huston - My Dead Body

He circles the table and leans his hip against it.

– How long, if you were to make a guess, how long would this kind of dissent take to travel uptown? I’m talking about the awareness of it, not the dissent itself. Which would make no sense at all.

I scratch my knee.

– Things were normal, maybe a day before word got out. Way things are now, word is already on its way.

– Yeah, that’s my thought.

He looks down at Lydia again.

– And when Predo hears we’re all tied up here, and that’s not meant at your expense, Lydia, he’ll jump. Move his people down. You know, the Coalition owns property here. They hold leases. So, while we’re fighting with ourselves, he’ll literally bus his people down and put them in those properties. By the time we can, if we can, come to terms, we’ll have at least two hundred Coalition members housed on our turf. That’s if he doesn’t just come at us here. Attack Lydia’s Bulls from the rear while they’re focused on us, and then. It’s all so. Things just. I’m.

He takes off his glasses and covers his eyes.

– I’m at something of a loss.

Eyes still covered, he raises a finger.

– Even if we avoid Predo’s involvement, a division like this is, I don’t know, has the potential to be mortal. Man, it’s like, how do you restore confidence in your leadership when they’ve just gone toe-to-toe in a power struggle? Because, our people, they’re out there, watching how this resolves. If we can’t, if Predo knows, all the Society knows, and that just. That just.

He takes his hands from his eyes.

– Cripples us, man.

My stuff is on a shelf across the room. Keys, wet matches, knife, saw, tobacco. I stare at the tobacco. I’m getting crawling claws in my belly again and a smoke sounds better and better.

– You need a symbol. Something you can rally around, show unity with. Something that gives people hope that you can move forward. That kind of thing.

Terry raises his eyebrows.

– That’s some interesting thinking, Joe. Did you have something in mind?

I point at my tobacco.

– I might think more clearly with a smoke.

He shakes his head.

– Should have picked Camel as your last name instead of Pitt.

I get up and go for the Bugler.

– Sure, except I’m a Luckys man.

– And Joe Lucky wouldn’t have fit at all.

I flick out a paper and wave it back and forth. It crinkles enough to let me know it can be rolled.

– Doesn’t seem so.

He rotates a finger.

– Your thought, Joe.

I get another of my crippled jobs rolled, but the match heads are just smearing on the striker. I cross to the little propane stove in the corner, turn on the gas, hit the sparker, wait for a flame, and light up.

All is right in the world.

– My thought is, Predo’s not worried about you right now. What he’s worried about is the hit he’s about to lay on the Cure house. Got a heavy contingent ready to go in sometime after midnight. His back is the one that’s turned. You kids can settle your differences, you can slide up there and put a hurt on him while he’s trying to clean up Horde’s mess. As a bonus.

I suck smoke, let it go to work on my lungs, and kick it back out.

– Chubby’s daughter and her beau are sitting tight up there too. Complete with their handy little symbol of unity right in her stomach. All you got to do is stop sweating out past scores with me and go get it.

I get some more of that smoke inside me.

– You can keep from killing me too soon, I’ll even show how to get up there without anyone seeing you at all.

Terry runs a hand down his ponytail, purses his lips, walks over to the shelf where my stuff is and picks up the amputation blade. Taking it from the rubber sheath, he steps to Lydia, squats, places the tip of the blade against the racquet ball in her mouth, and stabs an inch of the blade into the ball. Putting the knife aside, he pokes his finger into the slit he’s made, hooks it, and gives a hard pull, popping the saliva-covered ball past her teeth and dropping it on the floor.

– Can I interest you in a negotiated settlement, Lydia? She spits.

– You can fuck off and die, Terry. You and your hypocritical dialectic bullshit can fuck off and die.

He picks up the blade.

– My options are limited here, Lydia, and in deference to our working relationship, I’d like to avoid doing anything that I can’t, you know, maneuver around. Anything with irreparable consequences. So if you’ve got your knee-jerk anger reaction out of your system, do we have room to talk here?

Through her teeth.

– After Predo and the Cure house, we go to Queens. The hole. The kids. No discussion. No compromise. We save them. The right fucking thing, Terry. With no gray.

He shrugs.

– Hey, man, that’s the kind of opportunity I’m looking for every day of my life.

He starts to untie the twists of coaxial binding her, looking over his shoulder at me.

– Joe?

– Old buddy.

– Why’d you let Selby go?

I drop my butt and crush it.

– To see if I could get away with it.

He yanks a loop of cable free and rises.

– Yeah. I was right. Should have killed you then.

I start pocketing my keys and such.

– Think of all the fun you’d have missed out on over the years, Terry, without me around. Like a king without a court jester.

Nobody will give me a gun.

– Wasn’t for me, Lydia, you’d still be hog-tied on the floor.

– I don’t see the connection.

I fumble with the buttons of the clean shirt Terry had someone dig up for me.

– Just saying you might have one of your Bulls lend me a piece for this gig. Seeing as how I’m the one talked Terry around to not killing you.

She shrugs her chiseled shoulders into her Carhartt jacket.

– Last time I saw you with a gun, Joe, you were shooting me in the stomach with it.

– Well, if you’re gonna dwell on the past like that, we’ll never have nothing to build a relationship on.

She shakes her head.

– You need help with those?

Buttons with one thumb, think about it. I’m gonna be a T-shirt and zipper guy for the rest of my life. Should I have a chance to worry about a change of wardrobe.

I look down at the three I got fastened, all in the wrong holes.

– Rather have the gun, but I’ll take what you’re giving.

She comes over, undoes the button on the old black corduroy, starts to do them up straight.

She’s looking at the buttons, focused.

– I’m wondering.

She pops another button into its hole.

– Do you think you have a plan? Because I look at you sometimes, and that’s the feeling I get. Joe, he’s got this all worked out . But when I see you like this, carved up like this, like you’re trading body parts for time, I think, Joe, he’s just thrashing in the water, drawing the sharks.

She does the top button.

– But as if maybe you’re drawing them away from someone else.

I take a step back, use my good hand to undo that top button.

– Trying to choke me, Lydia?

She’s not looking at the buttons anymore, she’s looking at my eye.

– Whatever you’re after, Joe, it doesn’t have to be just the one thing.

I pull out my tobacco.

– Don’t suppose your charity extends so far as to roll me one?

– What I’m saying, I think I know you have something you want, something you care about.

I pull out a paper.

– I care about getting a smoke rolled.

– And if that’s true, if I’m right about that, you caring about something, then there could be room for more.

I shake out some tobacco.

– Sure, I care about maybe having a drink too.