Charlie Huston - Half the Blood of Brooklyn

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.

– And it made a pile of problems for Daniel. As he’d been nursing me along all the while.

He drops the butt and grinds it under a bare leathered foot.

– Bitch’s bastard, I wish I could have a word with the fucker. I really do, buddy. Still. You never know.

He squints at me.

– Ever seen one of them things, buddy?

I play the light over the floor, don’t say anything.

He nods.

– Yeah, you seen one. Scary as all hell, yeah? Know what’s scarier? Nothing. Nothing in this world scarier than a Wraith, buddy.

He moves closer.

– I watched it happen once. Watched Daniel and a couple other of the old-timers sit and meditate for days, none of us allowed a drop of blood while it was goin’ on. Watched a crack open. In the air. A crack in the air. Know what that looks like, buddy? Looks like nothin’. Looks like what nothin’ looks like. Watched one of them things squirm out of it.

Closer.

– And then I stopped looking. ’Cause I didn’t want to see anymore.

Closer, whispering.

– Know what they say? Say about them? What Daniel said they are, buddy? Know what they are?

He licks his lips.

– They’re what happens. They’re what happens when the Vyrus is done with us.

He points at himself.

– They’re what’s gonna happen to me.

He points at me.

– And they’re what’s gonna happen to you, buddy.

He leans his mouth close to my ear.

– They’re what we become.

He puts a hand on my shoulder.

– So you never know, buddy, we both may get to see Daniel again.

He leans away and looks me in the eye.

– Boo!

I jump.

He laughs.

– Sorry, sorry, buddy, it’s the prankster in me. I may be a true believer now, but I still got discipline problems.

I crack a knuckle.

– Yeah. I can see that.

He stops laughing.

– Buddy, they call it a sense of humor. Look into it.

– Sure, as soon as you show me how I get the hell out of this place.

He points up.

– There. Up the ladder, buddy.

I rake the light up the wall and see the rungs bolted into the concrete, leading to a trap.

– It’s an alley up there. Might be a couple garbage cans on top of the trap, but no lock. That work for you?

I shine the light back at the floor.

– Yeah, that’ll work.

He reaches out and takes the flash and switches it off and we’re in darkness again.

– Well, up you go, then.

I climb.

At the top I put my shoulder against the trap and heave and some cans crash to the ground and it swings open and flickering Manhattan night light fills the narrow sky above the alley.

– Buddy, hey, buddy.

I look down into the black tunnel.

– Yeah?

– You sure about that, goin’ up there, you sure? ’Cause think about it, what’s gonna happen sooner or later?

– What’s gonna happen?

– Buddy, what’s gonna happen is that sooner or later they’re gonna find us out. Shit, buddy, they may already know about us. Seems kind of far-fetched to think they don’t, huh? And when they’re ready, when they got things set up for us exactly how they want, they’re gonna hunt us all down. Right, buddy, that sound about right? Sure it does. My religious zeal aside, I got no illusions. Why do you think I stay down here? Up there, what you got? Think. It’s not even natural. Trying to live a life that isn’t yours anymore, right? That’s all it is, buddy. Down here, I’m safe as houses. No one hunting me down here. I hit a bum for some blood, no one cares. No one calls the cops. Buddy, down here, I’m the top of the food chain. Down here, I can last forever. If I want to. Think about it. Down here is where you belong. It’s where we all belong, buddy.

I look up at the sky.

– I’m not saying you’re wrong. But I got someone up here.

– Huh. Well, that’s different, then.

I look back down into the hole.

– What’s your name, old man?

– Joseph. Yours?

I blink.

– Simon.

I hear his feet padding away.

– Be seeing you, Simon.

I climb out into the alley and close the trap.

I make for home, my stink clearing the sidewalk ahead of me.

I make for home.

Where I have blood and guns.

I want them so bad, I want blood in my gut and a gun in my hand so bad that I don’t even see Lydia’s bulls coming for me. Just the tattoo across the biggest one’s knuckles before her fist lands in my face.

FURY.

– I try, Joe. I try harder than most to take your smartass bullshit and not lose my cool. I try to understand that something made you the way you are, but there are limits to my compassion and my patience.

Lydia points at a chair and her bulls drop me in it.

– You push and you push and you push. You do just enough to make me think you might have an ounce of decency, and then you fuck it all up.

She leads the other women to the kitchen door and ushers them out. She closes the door behind them and turns to face me.

– What I really can’t stand is that you insist on engaging in behavior that forces me into taking actions that aren’t part of my nature. I end up doing the kind of things Tom would have done. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? Unhealthy. That’s how. I hate it. But let me tell you.