Every Last Drop jp-4

by Charlie Huston

  platforms can they cover? How many trains can they ride looking for refugees? Coalition cant keep everybody from crossing their turf, someone always slips through the cracks. Coalition has cracks, the Hood has to have holes you can walk through. All I'm asking is, Where are the holes? I get snatched, I get taken to Digga, I got a history with the man. Maybe he cuts me loose. Doesn't matter. Time is an issue. Sides, I don't want anyone to know I'm over there. I don't want anyone to know I'm back.

  She touches her earlobe. -What's that about?

  I smile. -I'm hoping to surprise a couple people.

  I hold out my pack and she comes over and takes a smoke.

  She leans in to the lit match and looks at me. -That's a nasty smile you got, Pitt.

  The smile stays where it is.

  She blows out the match. -I like it.

  She takes a deep drag and exhales.

  — That girl you got over there. Turns out she don't know what she has in you, you bring that smile back over to this side of the river. We could get some things done here.

  I put the smile away.

  She lifts her shoulders. -And there it goes.

  She reaches past me and pulls open a drawer and takes out a pair of knee-length cutoff jeans. -They move around.

  She puts the smoke between her lips and pulls the cutoffs on. -Only got so many people to watch their border, so they move them around. Got apartments they move in and out of with views of the bridges. Shift others from station to station and line to line, sniffing for refugees. Buses and trains. Got some guys work the graveyard in the toll booths. Hows that for security? Others got MTA jobs, down in the tunnels. Conductors. Motormen. Maintenance. Only the Hood can do that. What's the last time you saw someone white working the subways? First of never, that's when. Coalition tried to put one of theirs in a job underground, everyoned be like, What the fuck?

  She points at a Starks jersey on the back of the chair. -Toss me that.

  I toss it to her and she peels off her WNBA top. -Don't be staring at my tits. You had your chance.

  I take a drag and look away as she pulls on the jersey.

  She's right, I had my chance.

  And I passed on the best the Bronx has to offer.

  So.

  Back to the fire.

  I stand at the foot of the Macombs Dam Bridge, leaning against one of the Tudor abutments, smoking, looking down the length of the swing bridge at the Island, a little over two thousand feet away.

  Esperanza watches the approach. -Should be a gypsy around anytime. -They don't like to stop for me. -Why not? — Why do you think? I'm white. They think I'm a transit cop or something.

  Looking to bust them for hacking without a medallion. -I can flag one for you.

  I flick my butt over the rail of the bridge. The wind off the Harlem grabs it and spins it away. -III walk.

  I take the cash Predo gave me out of my pocket. -How much?

  She shrugs. -Guy I called, he'll need a couple bills.

  I peel off two hundred. -And you?

  She points over the river at the FDR. -That stretch of road, just that couple blocks, know what it's called?

  I look at it. -Nope.

  — Three Hundred Sixty-ninth Harlem Hellfighter's Drive. Black regiment. First fought in World War I. Spent one hundred and ninety-one days under fire. Suffered over fifteen hundred casualties. Guy named Private Henry Lincoln

  Johnson, and his buddy Private Needham Roberts, they fought off twenty-four Germans. Just the two of them. When Roberts was shot, Johnson used his bolo knife and rifle butt to hold off the krauts.

  She turns, looks over the Bronx. -Johnson won the Croix de Guerre. First American ever.

  She looks at me. -Good to have someone to put your back against when the close work starts.

  She spits over the rail.

  — So how about you owe me on this one. Sometime I need someone to have my back, maybe I give you a call.

  I fold the bills over.

  — Can't say It's a safe bet III be around long enough to pay off. -Ill take that chance.

  I put the money in my pocket. -If that's how you want it. -That's how I want it.

  She starts to walk backward, away down the bridge approach. -Guy said the bridge was clear. No watchers. Grab yourself a ride on the

  other side. Said steer clear of Marcus Garvey Park. Said Malcom X is clear all the way to One Ten. Once you cross to Coalition turf, who knows what the hell you find. But in a car, I don't know how they go about spotting you.

  I raise a hand. -Stay alive.

  She raises a hand. -That's the plan.

  She turns away, takes a couple steps, turns back. -Joe. -Yeah. -Little advice. -What's that?

  She points at my trousers. -Lose the khakis. They do nothing for you.

  She turns again and breaks into a trot, jogging smooth and easy till she boosts herself over the rail, dropping into Macombs Park, lost from view.

  I find a cigarette to put in my mouth and start over the bridge.

  Summer wind is blowing, taking the smoke downriver. A couple cars roll

  past, vibrating the bridge plates. I slap one of the beige-painted trusses and it tolls like a low bell. I cross the midpoint, feel my feet start to hurry, make them pace slow.

  Is my breath short?

  It is.

  Past the little stone hutch where the operator sits when the bridge swings open, I hit the western approach. Look down, see the river disappear behind me, land under the bridge.

  Crossing Hellfighters, coming onto the Island, fingering the straight blade in my pocket.

  At Adam Clayton Powell Junior and One Fifty-three I raise my hand in the air then step in front of the gypsy that tries to drive past me. The driver looks at the color of my skin and his door locks snap down. I show him the color of my money and the locks pop up.

  He watches me in the rearview as I slide into the back.

  I point. -South.

  He starts rolling. -How far?

  I lean into the leather, light a smoke. -Not too far. But take Malcolm, will you.

  He takes the left onto One Forty-five. -Right. The scenic route.

  I roll the window down and smell the summer stink of Manhattan. -Sure. The scenic route. Why not.

  How you know you're being watched is, you have clandestine arrangements with someone you don't trust under any circumstances that don't involve that individual being tied up and held at gunpoint. It also helps if the individual involved shares a similar attitude toward you.

  The rest is easy.

  See, once you've established a level of trust like that, the only question you have to ask yourself is, Assuming I don't want to be followed, where do I go?

  The obvious answer being, / go where they expect me to go.

  And then I go somewhere else.

  The gypsy drops me at the corner of Second Avenue and Seventy-third. For a

  moment I sit there with one foot out on the sidewalk, thinking about pulling my leg back in, closing the door and telling him to roll farther south.

  It passes, and I get out and close the door and he drives off.

  No. That's a lie.

  I get out and he drives away, alright, but it doesn't pass. The gravity pulling from below Fourteenth doesn't go away. Back on the Island, it just pulls harder than ever.

  How you ignore a thing like that is, you move. Create momentum. Build velocity to carry your mass outside the influence of the body pulling at yours.

  I walk east on Seventy-third, aligning myself with a new trajectory, knowing that what happens beyond the event horizon cannot be described until you are caught in its tide.

  The building is mid-block between First and Second, only four stories, but stretching the width of three tenements. Big ground-floor windows covered in sheets of dark paper in a manner to suggest some kind of renovation within. A half-full construction Dumpster at the curb. Upper-story windows heavily draped.

  A double stoop leads up to a portico entrance
.

  The sky's holding the day back yet.

  Time enough to make a courtesy call and be on my way. I go up the steps and push the buzzer.

  It's a mess.

  Like there was ever any doubt, right?

  Something like this, the only way you think its going to be anything but a mess is if you re one of those people they call an idealist. Those people, I generally prefer the word asshole when I describe them. Not that I fault a person for doing their own thing, but assholes of the Idealist strain have a habit of fucking things up for everyone else.

  Nothing like a person with a dream and a vision for getting a load of people all fucked up.

  But Jesus its a mess.

  It reeks. Rank with overcrowding.

  Fear. Desperation. Misery.

  All these most pleasant human emotions have a smell. None of them enjoyable. The air in here is heavy with all of them. A man could gag. -Urn, mind your step there. Just. Yes. Just kind of, urn, step over them and. Obviously these are less than ideal conditions. You're certainly not seeing us

  at our best. But I, urn, assure you that this state is only temporary. Once the renovation is complete we'll have these people housed, urn, properly.

  I follow his advice and just kind of step over the people sleeping in the hallway. Not that they're actually sleeping. What they're actually doing is watching us pass, tracking us through slitted lids. I hear one or two sniff at me as I weave through their jumbled limbs and bodies. -Hey, hey, man.

  I look down at the hairy face looking up at me from his spot, reclined along the wainscoting.

  He scratches his fat belly through his Superman T-shirt, pointing a rolled-up copy of Green Lantern at me. -You got anything?

  I step past him. -No. I ain't got anything.

  He sits up, waves his comic book at me as I follow my guide. -Bullshit, man! That's bullshit! I can smell it on ya! I can smell it, man! We can all smell it!

  Bodies rouse, the more lively ones tilt their faces up and inhale.

  My guide tugs at the shirttails that hang ever so stylishly from the bottom of his argyle sweater. -Urn, just a little, urn, more briskly here. Just up here.

  He picks up the pace, doesn't pay enough attention, steps on someone s fingers. -Hey, fuck! — Sorry, urn, so sorry. -Watch where the fuck, Gladstone. -Yes, urn, sorry.

  The comic book geek is on his feet.

  — Can't get away with this shit, Gladstone. Come through here, stomp on people, bring some asshole that's holding and won't share out.

  More sniffing from the bodies.

  Voices.

  — Who's holding? — Fuckin Gladstone. -Holdin?

  — I smell it. I smell it.

  Gladstone stops at the door at the end of the hall, sorts keys. -Yes, urn, so sorry, yes, my mistake, didn't mean to. Yes, urn, just in here if you will.

  He slips a key in the lock.

  — Just, urn, in here and. Urn. Yes, if you'll all please just be patient, I'm sure we'll have something for you all just as soon as, urn. Yes. Urn.

  I pass through, glancing back, seeing the comic book geek flipping us off. -Fuck you, Gladstone!

  The others in the hallway settling back into torpor and misery. These being easier and more comfortable than action and rage.

  The door closes and Gladstone locks it tight.

  — Urn, Sorry, urn. Normally wed have taken the elevator to the office level. Not walked through the, urn, residences, but, urn, the elevator is out and, well, there are some difficulties involved with getting it serviced. So, urn. Up here and, yes.

  He pulls at his lower lip. -By the, urn, way, are you holding any?

  I walk past him, up the fire stairs. -No. Just I couldn't get all the blood out of my jacket when I cleaned it last.

  He comes after me. -Oh, yes, that would, urn, explain it.

  — It's a fucking mess.

  — I know.

  — And it's getting worse.

  — I know.

  — And it's going to happen again.

  — I know, Sela.

  — Urn, yes, excuse me.

  I watch Gladstone's back as he sticks his head a little farther into the room beyond the door he cracked open only after knocking politely about ten times and finally deciding the people fighting beyond it had not heard him.

  The folks inside take note of his presence. -What? What? — Urn, I. So sorry, Miss, but I, I did, urn, knock, and.

  — What, Gladstone?

  — Nothing. I mean, urn, someone, a, urn, new, urn.

  His arm is waving at me, indicating my presence, despite the fact that it is invisible to the people he's speaking with.

  — A new, urn, applicant. And I, urn, know you like to greet each one, urn, personally, so I.

  — An intercom, Gladstone. We have a perfectly good one. Or has that broken now too?

  — No, I, urn, I. I buzzed and. Would you like to, urn? — Wait. Gladstone.

  The other voice has taken over, the one that shares my opinion about things around here being a mess. -Urn, yes?

  — Is there someone out there? — Urn, I.

  He pulls his head back, looks at me to make sure I'm still there, then sticks his head back into the room. -Yes, urn. There. Yes.

  — Motherfucker! See! See! A mess! These people. No regard for security. No

  understanding of protocol. Is it any wonder things like this shit come up?

  — They're not these people. They're our people. You, of all people, should get

  that.

  — Don't, not now. This is no joke. And it's no time for remedial lessons in

  compassion and understanding. You!

  Gladstone s back stiffens. -Urn, yes?

  — You bring someone up here again without clearing it through me, you'll be back in the dorms.

  — I, urn, yes, I. It's just, I did buzz and, urn. -Shut the fuck up. -Urn.

  I grab the edge of the door and pull it open, move Gladstone out of the way and step into the room.

  Sela goes for the piece strapped into the shoulder holster she's wearing over her tank top.

  Her hand freezes on the butt.

  — Oh Jesus.

  I raise a hand. -Yeah, good to see you too.

  Her hand stays on the gun. -Did I say it was good to see you, Joe?

  — No, but I always try to read between the lines. Figured you going for your gun was how you express affection these days. -That not how she expresses affection at all, Joe.

  The girl comes out from behind her desk, puts a hand on Sela's arm, rubs her thumb across a vein that swells down the muscle. -Chill out, Sela.

  Sela takes her hand from the gun, but I'd be hard-pressed to describe her as chilled out. -Don't get too close to him.

  The girl comes toward me. -Don't be silly, it's Joe. What's he gonna do, kill me?

  She comes closer.

  — He'd never do that. He'd never hurt me at all.

  She smiles. -Well, except for maybe that time he slapped me.

  She squishes her face. -But I was being pretty bratty. Giving him a bad time about things.

  She stops in front of me. -Well, come on, Joe. What do you think?

  She gives a little spin, displaying her slacks, French-cuffed shirt, suit vest and expensively shorn hair. -Have I grown up right?

  I take off my huge sunglasses and show her the fresh scar tissue. -I don't know, maybe I need a better look.

  She claps, wraps her arms around me, turns her face into my chest and inhales. -Oh, Joe, you always know just what to say to make me feel safe.

  I stand there with her arms around me, my own arms at my sides, looking at Sela.

  She shakes her head. -She her own thing, our girl, isn't she, Joe?

  — The logistics of it are just devastating. I mean, it was one thing to say we were going to establish a Clan, take in anyone who wanted to join, supply them with blood, and then make the cure available to them once I find it.

  She points at the twin flat-screen
computer monitors on her desk, the piles of paper. -But it is so another thing to actually be doing it.

  She flops back in her leather office chair and kicks her heel against the floor, spinning slow and lazy.

  — Don't misunderstand, I do not have any regrets. I'm young, I have the energy, God knows I'm smart enough to handle it all, but III totally fess that it's way harder than I expected it to be.

  She stops spinning, launches herself from the chair and begins circling the desk, plucking papers at random.

  — I completely miscalculated demand. I mean, the numbers are way out of whack. There's only a few thousand infected on Manhattan, right? The ones aligned with Clans, why would they take a risk, move over to us? We assumed

  mostly wed get Rogues. How many could that be? With a food source strictly limited by the land available, its just common sense that predators not operating with a pack are going to get squeezed out. So we assumed a couple dozen Rogues, at most, a like amount of crossovers from the Clans, people willing to take that chance because they were committed to the idea of a cure, and some refugees who got the word and managed to make it over to the Island.

  She shakes one of the papers.

  — At this point, in our first year, we were assuming a max membership of eighty. We prepped for one hundred. Just to be safe.

  She crumples the paper and throws it on the Persian rug underfoot. -Two-hundred and sixty-one.

  She shakes her head.

  — I mean. Holy shit. The renovations. The initial renovations were hard enough. But you buy a building, grease the right palms, bribe the tight asses on the neighborhood committee and get to work. Once the materials start moving in and out, the people on the street have no idea what you're actually doing inside. The rooms were so nice. We really went the extra mile. No Pottery Barn or IKEA crap, really nice beds, furnishings. Tried to give each room a character. Like a boutique hotel. That's what the builders thought we were

  doing.

  She goes to the door, opens it and points at her outer office. -Now? Did you see it? In the halls. On the stairs. How do we bring a crew in here to tear out the walls and turn the second and third floors into the barracks we need? How do I take delivery on a hundred bunk beds? Like no one is going to notice and ask what the hell is going on. Little things. The elevator. I cant get a repair service in because I don't have room to hide all these people. A building this size, things are constantly breaking, wearing out. Were taxing the plumbing like you wouldn't believe. The longer these things go without maintenance, the worse everything gets.