Charlie Huston - My Dead Body

She stops rocking.

– Normal.

She laughs.

– Yeah.

She puts her head on her knees.

– I was so lonely.

She closes her eyes.

– I was alive. I wasn’t dying anymore. I was alive. But I was so lonely. And I thought to myself sometimes, If I was back in the hospital, Joe would come see me.

She opens her eyes.

– I was so lonely.

She unwraps her arms, touches the wound in my side.

– Hey.

I wince.

– It’s OK.

She puts a hand on my stomach.

– Joe.

– Baby. I need to. I’m. Sorry. I think.

She pushes a hand under my shirt.

– I was so lonely.

She runs fingers along the healing scar in my stomach.

It hurts, but I don’t stop her, I just try to get the words out before I can think about them anymore.

– There were these kids, and, they were in a hole, and, I didn’t. I could have, like you here. I could have helped. But I didn’t. And then I gave up. I went and hid. Kids. But. I don’t want to lie. Because. Baby, I don’t care. I don’t. I did what I could for them when I could and if I was a year too late for some of them. I don’t care. What I care about. What matters to me.

I grab her wrist.

– I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I am.

I touch her face.

– Baby, I’m a killer.

She covers my mouth with her hand.

– It’s OK. I am too.

She takes her hand away from my mouth and exhales.

– And, Joe, I’m a Vampyre, we can totally have sex now.

She’s not in the mood to wait.

Everything hurts.

Nothing feels good. Nothing but her.

I don’t tell her what Amanda said, that we could have been having sex the whole time we knew each other. Something like that could kill the mood. Such as it is. And sure, holding that back after just apologizing for years of lies, that’s maybe not how you put your relationship on a healthy new footing. Figure I’m not really looking for a healthy relationship. I just love the girl. So I do what seems the right thing to do at the time. The other stuff, we’ll sort that out later.

It doesn’t take long.

Who wants to linger over it in a place like this.

– Baby.

She pulls her face from where it’s buried in my neck.

– M’tired.

I touch her cheek.

– Favor to ask.

She sits up.

– Don’t push it.

I kick off the jeans that are still around my ankles.

– Got anything I can wear?

– Well, white’s not really your color.

– I’ll manage.

She stands.

– Anyway, I have a jacket that’s all you.

She starts for the stairs, picking her way, naked, through the dead.

I stand myself up, my body mostly shocked still to be here.

– Another thing.

She’s on the stairs, waiting to hear it.

I give it to her.

– We got to get out of here.

She looks around the place.

– Well, I didn’t plan on staying at this point.

– Yeah, but I mean the Island.

She folds her arms.

– Manhattan?

I raise my hands.

– I know.

– Leave Manhattan?

I drop my hands.

– I got to ask you to trust me on this.

She frowns and raises a finger.

– You ask a lot, Joe Pitt.

– I know.

She unfolds her arms, swats the air, turns and climbs the stairs.

– I won’t go to Jersey.

I don’t say anything. I just stand there. And look at her ass. There’s not much left to it, but what’s there is choice.

I’m at the door.

White painter’s pants, white T, white boat decks, and my old black leather jacket. Not the palette I’d choose for myself, but I make it work. Evie’s dug in her basket and found white tights, white jersey skirt, white V-neck sweater, white hoodie and white Chuck Taylors.

We’re a pair.

– It took me so long to feel like a New Yorker.

– Baby, I get it. But an island has tunnels and bridges. Tunnels and bridges can be blocked.

– I know.

– Not like my first choice is someplace where the bars close at midnight.

– I’m not complaining, Joe. I just.

She looks out the door at the streets starting to show signs of morning.

– I love this city.

– Yeah. Me too.

The street rumbles, I look up to the corner, and thirteen bikers in top hats, aviator goggles and long duster coats round onto Little West Twelfth and roll up to the loading dock.

The lead rider lifts the goggles from his eyes and lets them hang from his neck.

– Joe.

– Christian.

He puts a hand at his ear, like he’s holding a phone.

– Got a strange call. Said you’d been up to some crazy shit. Said getting lost was a good plan. Said you were the man to talk to about finding a lost place. Said find you here.

He lowers the hand.

– Can’t say I’m pleased about any part of that.

I limp onto the loading dock, packing nothing but attitude.

– Got a problem with it?

He puts a hand in the pocket of his duster, comes out with a pint of Old Crow.

– No one told me I’d live forever.

He takes a drink, screws the cap back, tosses it to me.

I offer it to Evie.

She takes it, flicks the cap with her thumb and it spins up and off and onto the ground and rolls away.

– Fuck yes.

She drinks.

– Man. Whiskey.

She hands it to me.

– Almost as good as blood.

Christian fake-shades his eyes and squints at her.

– How’d you lay your hands on that one, Joe?

I take a drink, pass him the bottle.

– You know me, lucky in love.

He shakes his head.

– Not sure I like the idea of you riding with us sporting that look.

Evie gives him the finger.

– Says the man in a top hat.

He nods at me.

– Hang on to her, Joe.

I’ve got her hand in mine, it’s a two-finger grip, but that’s what I got to work with.

– That’s the plan.

A Duster named Tenderhooks lends us his bike, climbs up behind Christian to a chorus of whistles and limped wrists. Evie hikes her skirt a little and gets behind me.

And we ride.

Over the bridge there’s a lady who runs the Bronx. Chubby did as I asked, she’ll know we’re coming. She did like Chubby asked, she’ll have a place for us to hide out the day. And she’ll have made a call of her own. They listened to her, she’ll have a tribe of filed-teeth savages standing by. Match the Mungiki with the Dusters, put them on one side of a thing and anything else on the other side of a thing, I know where I’ll put my money.

Close to the Island, but we’ll be good for the one day.

After that?

What do you do when you leave home?

Figure you put it together. New world. No telling which way it turns on its axis. When it faces the sun, when it turns away. A whole new clock to the day and the night.

New rules.

Terry and Predo, even Digga and Enclave, things running on their rules, I knew where I stood. In the middle. No future. And no room for the lady behind me on the bike.

Want to make room for yourself, knock down what’s there.

I want room for two. I got no other reason to be if it’s not her. If it’s not because she knows me. She knows what I am inside. Vyrus or Wraith. Whatever you believe. Killers both. She knows what I am now.

And the girl likes me that way.

I gun the throttle and she wraps her arms tighter around my middle and all the holes that got stuck in me the last night ache like hell and I hit it again to make her hold tighter still.

It just feels better that way.

A few blocks from the bridge I pull to the curb outside a deli. When I come out I have five packs of Luckys. I peel one open and stick a smoke in my face and my girl digs my old Zippo from my jacket pocket and gives me a light.