Charlie Huston - Half the Blood of Brooklyn

He slides the knife from his belt, pulls his son’s head back, baring his throat, and he pushes the knife through his neck, much as Axler did to murder his friend; a killing stroke he must have learned from his father.

I’m about to come off the floor and grab the Rebbe’s head and twist his neck and drag Lydia the hell out of this madhouse when the boys come back in and I have to put that particular plan on hold.

– And so we are diminished. Four sons of Benjamin. All with the blood of Gibeah in their veins. All killed in one night. And Abe as well. We must not forget Abe, yes? Not a Benjaminite, true, but he carried Gibeah in him. And he fathered two girls both strong enough to carry Gibeah themselves. A rare thing. Here, lift him.

He tucks the tail of the shroud around his son’s body and gestures to two of the boys and they lift Axler and carry him to the front of the temple and lay him at the foot of the altar.

Another boy comes back from the errand he was sent on and places a large bucket of soapy water and a pile of rags where the Rebbe points.

– There. No, leave them. All of you. Just. Sit please, yes? And be quiet for a moment. If this is not too much to ask? Yes? Thank you.

The boys take seats in the last row of the temple.

Rebbe Moishe takes one of the rags and dunks it in the water and starts to wipe up the blood of his son and his sister’s husband.

– And now the girls are of more importance than ever, yes? Daughters of their mother and of Abe. We’ll need them not only because they can produce true sons and daughters of Benjamin, but because they come of such strong stock. With luck, perhaps one or both of them will give us a boy who can carry the blood of Gibeah.

He twists the rag over the bucket and it rains red.

– But, this doesn’t matter to you, yes? You have heard enough of our problems. This our life, to sustain a history and a people that we trace back before Christ and Moses. What is that to you? Nothing. To you there is one question, yes? Coalition or Society, What is to be done with us now? is your only question.

He scrubs the temple floor.

– What is happening here, here in our land, in New Gibeah, this is for us, not for anyone else. If some others here who carry the blood of Gibeah do not wish to remain in the city, they may do as they please. They may leave. Provided, this is no surprise by now I think, provided that like Abe they do not try to take our daughters with them. But to leave is one thing, yes? To bring outsiders here is another. It invites misunderstanding and chaos.

He holds out his arms, the rag dripping.

– Chaos. War. Death.

He wrings the rag and bends to clean.

– We do not want these things brought here to our doorstep. Nor do you, I think, want them brought to yours. The Gibeahans, the seven hundred left-handed warriors we can muster, brought to your house, would not suit you.

He looks at us.

– Yes?

He cleans.

– Shht. Of course not. So a message must be sent. A message clear and without ambiguity must be sent.

He drops the rag in the bucket and comes to his feet.

– You remember the message that was sent, yes? When Gibeah was destroyed by the children of Israel, you remember? The concubine, divided together with her bones into twelve pieces and sent into all the coasts of Israel.

Lydia and I are on our feet, the boys are on theirs.

The Rebbe raises his hands.

– No. No. That will not be the message tonight. No. There has been enough. No. Not tonight. If you come again, if any of you come again across the river, yes, that is the message we will send. That is the warning we will send, the promise we will make and keep.

He looks at the body at the altar.

– But not tonight. For love’s sake we are done with that tonight.

He walks to me and holds out his hands.

– Come.

I don’t move.

He takes my hands and squeezes them both.

– Go to your home, tell your people this is our land, our home. Ours to defend and do with as we wish. No one else’s to give. We don’t ask for permission to do the things we do. We do them. For our protection, for God, we do them. Tell them the strength of our resolve, yes?

He looks over his shoulder to his dead son.

– The lengths we will go to here. Tell them the story of what we do here to be certain the tribe is safe. The sacrifices we make. Our willingness to cull our own herd of the weak to make the strong stronger.

He squeezes tighter.

– Yes?

I nod.

– Sure.

The boys start down the aisle.

– They’ll take you to the edge of Gibeah. From there you find your own way home.

I nod.

Still he holds my hands.

– The lecture on war was wasted on you, yes? You know what war is already. But perhaps not the one on love? I think not.

He squeezes tighter.

– Know what you love best before you sacrifice on its behalf.

He looks at the boys, and they are on Lydia, one on each limb, another to bind her while they hold her down and she screams.

I jerk my arms back and the Rebbe turns them under and lifts them and I freeze.

– Think what you love best.

Lydia is on the floor.

Screaming.

– Joe! Joe!

I relax my arms.

Moishe eases his grip.

– Good, yes? Think, yes? You know this is as it must be. Her mother was Jewish, she said, yes?

– Joe! Don’t you let these fucking lunatics keep me!

– Her mother was Jewish. Perhaps not of Benjamin, but a woman of Jewish blood, descended of a woman of Jewish blood. And she has the blood of Gibeah. She is ours. You know this, yes. Even if she does not, you know this.

– Fucking, Joe! Joe!

– Her children will make the tribe stronger. Her children will be clean. Can carry blood for the sons and daughters of Gibeah.

– Oh no, fuck no!

Her arms and legs are bound. One holds her head, another gags her. She twists and struggles and keens through the gag.

The Rebbe raises a finger.

– Know what you love best, and what you are willing to sacrifice for it.

I look at all the blood smeared in this temple. I look at Lydia.

And I know what I love best. The only thing I love. And what I will do for her. And how little time I have left to do it.

I stop looking at Lydia and look at him instead.

– Hey, man, I barely know the chick. All I’m interested in is a ride home.

The boys hoist her high and bear her out of the room.

They keep my blade and my works and my guns, but they give back my money and my keys, and they let me ride in the backseat instead of the trunk.

One of the boys on either side, two more up front, they drive me in Axler’s mom’s beaten Caddy.

Out Ocean Parkway to the Prospect expressway and the BQE, we trace back the route I took with Lydia through Red Hook. No one says anything. The car smells like the blood we’ve all spilled. Dry and crusted to our clothes. It burns the nostrils, as if someone had spilled a can of paint thinner in the car. One of the boys keeps his window down and rides with his face tilted into the wind.

At Hicks, the driver swings off the expressway and pulls to a corner and one of the boys gets out and holds the door for me as I climb out. It’s the head scratcher. He avoids my eyes, but I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at the ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge, the walkway that spans its length, the dark sky above it, starless.

He gets back in the car.

I rap a knuckle on the door before he can close it.

– Got any idea what time it is?

He looks at me, looks away.

– Just go around to the other side of the ramp. Some stairs are there. You have plenty of time to walk back.

– Sure, but do you know what time it is?