So, more to do.
Always more to do.
At Fifty-ninth I jump off the train as it eases to a stop. I find a service ladder up an air shaft to the yellow line above. Hopping a line can only help if someone saw me on the Six train. Five minutes’ wait gets me an R going downtown. I take another break at Fifty-seventh, jumping tracks to the express side, and hunker down. Seven minutes and a Q rolls in. Expressed past Forty-ninth, and held up at Times Square. I jump off again, waiting deeper in the tunnel this time. Some kids at the end of the platform are throwing snappers up the track. Little bundles of black powder and sawdust wrapped in white tissue, tiny flat cracks when they hit.
The Q jerks forward, I run, coming out of the dark, the kids jump up and down, peppering me with snappers, screaming almost as loud as the things in the basement of the Cure house, pointing as I jump onto the back of the train and grab hold, people all along the platform turning to stare as I roll past and back into the dark at the far end of the station.
They won’t stop between stations, I don’t think. They won’t want to chase some loon through the tunnels. At Thirty-fourth we roll, slowing just slightly to pass through, and I think I see a couple cops at the end of the platform, craning to get a look at the end of the train, but I’ve moved to the roof already. Using my seven fingers and a stub to find a grip in the grooved steel, trying not to skid to the edge and over on the curves. Twenty-third and we roll.
Fourteenth Street next. Big station. Trying to figure if they’ve had time to clear the platform before we pull in. Won’t want to try and deal with a guy riding the open back of a train with people around. Guy that crazy could be any kind of trouble.
I don’t know. And that’s not good enough. So I jump off.
No good way to do it. I just try not to stab myself with my blade as I hit and tumble. And make a point of jumping away from the third rail. Not too bad all in all, but those ribs break one more time. Got a feeling they won’t be knitting again. Not soon, anyway. Not unless I get some more blood.
I get up, go through my pockets to make sure I haven’t lost anything, and something stabs me in the gut and stirs around. I sit, hold my middle, grit my teeth and wait for it to pass.
It does.
I’ve felt it before, the jabs the Vyrus gives you, telling you to kill something and drink it. I just wasn’t expecting it so soon. Just yesterday I took care of the guy who killed the cripple. Should have lasted. Would have lasted if I hadn’t spilled so much of it all over the place. And the healing. Puts a strain on the Vyrus, all that clotting and growing new cells.
I get up and turn around and look back up the tunnel and think about Phil.
Should have never listened to him.
Even dead he’s fucked me again.
I know what I’m doing.
It’s simple.
I’m trying to stay out of the worm’s mouth.
Not forever. The worm always gets you in the end. I’m just trying to stay ahead of its mouth for a little longer. The way you do that is you run up the tail as fast as you can. Real question is how you’ll play it when you come back around and find yourself standing on its neck. Jump again and you’ll be right where you started, mouth about to snap down on you. Stay where you are, and it’ll be there soon enough to do the same.
Jump in its mouth and get it over with.
Stay still and let it get to you in its own time.
Or keep running in circles until it takes that last bite of itself, you included.
The worm gets it all in the end. Lucky man has options about the how and the when, but that’s really all that’s in your hands. How and when.
I’m playing for fast and in just a little while longer.
Just long enough.
Truth is, I get that part of it, keep the worm off me just long enough for that last thing I’m gaming for, I’ll give ground on the how and take it however it comes. Fast, slow, easy, hard. In the worm’s mouth is in the worm’s mouth.
I feel its teeth in my gut again. Telling me how close it is.
OK. I got moves left. I’ve run this circle before. Jumping at the last second to clear its open jaws, landing and sprinting. Around and around. I know the route.
I know what I’m doing.
Really.
I do.
Tell myself that as I come out of a storm drain at the end of an alley off Avenue C. Tell myself that as I walk from the alley into the middle of the vomitorium the bar hoppers and college kids have turned my old neighborhood into. Stinking filthy drunk, limping and shuffling, trying to roll a cigarette from a damp paper. Getting plenty of berth on the sidewalk, right till I pull myself up a stoop at the end of the block and find a couple skinheads blocking the door.
They move to shove me back. Then they get a whiff of what’s under my stink and hands go inside the vintage peacoats they both wear.
I raise my hands.
—You wouldn’t shoot a cripple, would you?
—Ta, an sure dey would, Joe, sure dey would.
I look up at the monolith standing in the open doorway at the top of the stoop.
—Hey, Hurley. You look good. Huge. As usual.
—An you, Joe, you look a little worse fer wear. As usual.
I lower my hands.
—I’m a creature of habit.
He pushes the brim of his hat a little higher on his forehead.
—Well come inside, ya sorry fooker. Force of habit an all, I suppose you’ll be wantin’ a severe beatin’.
I go up the steps.
—Don’t waste it on me, Hurl, it never seems to do any good.
He pats my shoulder as I pass inside.
—Not ta worry, Joe, I got one ta spare fer an old friend like yer-self. Not ta worry a’tall.
There was a time I was a very bad person.
If you can imagine.
Funny thing is, that time of my life, I was never so sure I was doing the right thing as those few years.
Soldier in a cause. Society. Soldier in the Society. Front lines, pushing back the dark. Making the world a safe place for infecteds to live openly. A goal like that requires unity first. Everyone has to be pointed in the same direction. Can’t have Vampyres going around killing indiscriminately. That kind of thing creates the wrong impression.
You have to have rules. Rules about where and how you feed. Who you feed on. How often you can get away with it. Strict policy of non-infection. Don’t want to be perceived as spreading a plague or anything like that. Since you’re trying to preach this gospel against the Coalition’s dominant philosophy of keeping a lid on all things Vyrus-related at all times forever, you also have borders to secure. The occasional incursion to deal with. Advents of diplomacy.
Fine detail work. But that wasn’t my bag. I didn’t make policy, I rammed it down throats. More often than not, I simply tore out the throat in question. Anything more complicated would mean I’d have to understand something. Explain it. Might have required nuance.
Terry did the explaining. Explained to me when he picked me up off the floor in the can at CBGB. Told me what had happened to me. Told me what my choices were. Offered the Society to me.
So let’s just say I hadn’t been offered too many chances to be a part of anything. Not that I was last picked for softball games, just more that I was likely tied up by my wrists and hanging from a steam pipe in my folks’ bedroom closet, somewhere between a good solid belt beating and having some scalding water poured over my feet, when the sides were being chosen up.
And before you get all sobby and sympathetic for my plight and put a hand to your brow and realize how much it all explains, keep in mind that whatever got done to me, I’ve done worse to others. It don’t balance out. Whatever my parents were, at least they kept it in the family. No one out for a walk at night had to worry about them jumping from an alley and thumping them on the head and cutting their neck open.
So they said I was a monster and they were only punishing me for my own evil
deeds. So what. Turns out they were right.
So being asked to join someone’s club, say that was a new one on me. Had to be a mistake. But I wasn’t going to let on. Tell me the Society was going to lead the way to a brighter future? Great. Keep the details to yourself and tell me what to do. Tell me what you want is for me to go see a guy who’s been making waves and make sure he doesn’t make any more? Great. I’ll keep the details to myself and get it done.
Put yourself in some asshole’s shoes.
You’re just trying to get by. You’re living downtown, Society turf, things aren’t too well organized. Lots of rules they want you to follow, but they’re not exactly helping you to make ends meet. Not like someone drops in once or twice a week with a little blood to ease you through, like the way they do it up on Coalition turf. So say you make a deal here or there. This instance, say you sneak above Fourteenth and trade some Society gossip for a couple pints. Maybe you share one with a buddy who’s down on his luck.
Asshole.
That’s where you went wrong. Your buddy, he’s in the same grind as you. Your handout aside, he’s dry more often than he’s wet. Smart boy that he is, he slides over to Society HQ in some dingy basement, drops a dime. Exits with tangible appreciation in the form of a pint of his own.
Next things next, you’re feeling no pain. Well fed for the first time in weeks or months, hanging at your flop, thinking you’ll take a stroll and enjoy this nice little blood high you’re riding.
Knock at the door.
Who could it be?
Take a look out the peephole. It’s that kid who’s always at Terry’s side. That punk with the tight plaid pants, calf-high Doc Martens, loose suspenders and surplus flight jacket covered in Sharpied anarchy symbols and Bad Brains stickers.
Joe Pitt.
Two things you can do. Let him in, or pretend you’re not home. What you hear is, pretending you’re not home pisses him off. So you open the door, let him in, give the big smile, try to play it all off. But before you can start acting all casual and social and put him off the scent like you got planned, he’s grabbed your hair and pulled your head down and put his knee in your face three or four times.
See, he’s not there to ask questions about what happened and why. He’s not there to be coy and put it all together and tease it out. He’s there to do what he’s been told to do. And he doesn’t see any reason to waste time.
Besides, he likes doing it.
He’s good at it.
And it feels good to do what one is good at.
And since he’s so good at it, he tends to improvise a bit. Where a knife or a gun might get the job done in a hurry, he’s inclined to hold your ear against a gas burner. Got a steam pipe in your closet, he knows just how to rig a belt to hang you from it and use you like a punching bag.
All in all, it probably would have been better for you if this guy’s parents had finished the job.
But they didn’t. So you pay the price. Along with a lot of other people.
That went on for years.
Then somewhere in there I lost my taste for the work. Got bored with the same old thing. And tired of being told what to do. Time goes by, you see how things are done, even someone like me can get the idea that the system is being gamed in someone’s favor. Most times, you look at the top of the pile and you’ll find where the favor lands. I’m not saying I was shocked, I just didn’t like what my slice amounted to. Thought I could do better on my own.
Thought maybe I’d like to walk in a room and not have people scatter like roaches from a light. Maybe have a conversation about something other than war. Know something more than how long it takes a guy to grow back all three layers of his skin before you can peel them off again.
Maybe I got soft.
That was the word. Not to my face, but that was the word.
Anyhow, all this reminiscence, it’s by way of saying I have history with some people. Way it works for us, there are only so many who have what it takes to stick. What I found out, the longer you stick, the more history you get. With everyone. But with some people you have more history than with others.
With Terry, I got enough history to choke on.
—It’s not like I go in for torture or anything, you know? Counterproductive. What’s the point, is what I always ask myself. You get into that game, you always have to, you know, ask more questions of yourself than the person you’re torturing. And I’m not just speaking to the inherent unreliability of information received under duress, yeah? That goes without, I hope in this day and age, that goes without saying. What does not go without saying is that torture forces the torturer to ask him or herself more question than he or she is asking the torturee. Tortured? Whatever, doesn’t matter. So, you get into this cycle, because, follow me around here, because if your information is unreliable, how do you make it more reliable. Do you retorture? Ask, Hey, guy, were you just lying to me? Tell the truth or I’ll put you on the rack. Is that it? I don’t think so. And the whole time you, you know, you have to ask yourself, What am I doing? Am I accomplishing anything here? Am I just becoming, you know, the enemy? Ends, and yes, this is hard for some people to swallow, but the ends do sometimes justify the means. I believe that. Warts and all. But damn, it’s a tough call to make. And you got to live with it. Got to own up to it. So that, yeah, while torture is not really my thing, I have to admit that right now, I’m looking at you, and I’m thinking to myself, Hey, I’m kind of glad Predo left Joe a couple fingers for me to cut off. If you get me.
Terry looks up from the copy of the I Ching he’s flipping through.
—The thing is, based on past experience, any answers I’d get would be about as reliable with or without torturing you. And, sorry to say it after all these years, Joe, but, you know, I don’t think I’d have too much soul-searching to do over the moral issues involved.
I look at Hurley, waiting by the door.
—Old friends. How we kick around old times, huh, Hurl?
He shakes his head.
—Don’t fook aboot, Joe, tis not da time fer it.
I look at Terry.
—When’d Hurley get so serious? Used to be such a light-hearted fella.
Terry picks up the three coins next to his book.
—Serious times, man, require serious thoughts. An attitude like yours, it’s counter to everything that’s going on these days. Hang on now, I need to frame a thought.
He starts tossing the three coins, picking them up, tossing again, until he’s done it six times.
—Oh, man. I know this.
He flips through the book.
—You’ll like this, Joe. Listen.
He finds the page, adjusts his wire rim glasses.
—Hexagram thirty-six. Warmth and light are swallowed by deep darkness.
He looks at me over the tops of his glasses.
—This is one of those modern versions that offers analysis. Seriously, you’ll like this.
He looks back at the page.
—You have been deliberately injured. Going blow for blow will only escalate the war. Abstain from vengeance. Sidestep your aggressor’s headlong charge, giving him the opportunity to fall on his face.
I hold up my hand.
—So I get to keep my fingers?
He looks at Hurley.
—Hurl, how hard can you hit Joe without killing him?
Hurley rubs his chin.
—Well now, Joe, he’s a purty tuff nut an all. An I’ve some experience hittin’ him. That helps. I’d say, if pressed, I’d say I could hit him damn hard an not do more than break several bones an rupture an organ or two. At most, I’d say.
Terry looks at me.
I lower my hand.
—Yeah, sure, I’ll shut the fuck up.
And I do.
Terry sets one of the coins on edge and gives it a flick, setting it to spin.
—What I asked the Book of Changes here is, I asked it how I should respond to a new threat that has recently entered
an already complex situation.
The coin starts to slow a bit.
—Here we are, at war for the first time in decades. All quiet on the northern front for now, but still, you know, it’s a hot war, shots have been fired. We’re facing all the past issues we could never resolve with the Coalition. Thanks to, you know, thanks to you telling everyone about the blood farm.
Hurley makes a tsk sound and shakes his head.
Terry ignores him, watching the coin begin to list.
—Which, yeah, I’ll agree, that was information that wanted to be free. Sure, yeah, OK. But still, bad timing there. So we’re people, we can adapt, and we do. Diplomacy, it wasn’t an option. No one was in much of a mood to talk. Converse. Work it all out.
I cough.
—Lydia wouldn’t shut up, would she?
The coin falls and Terry slaps it flat before it can wobble down.
—Hurley.
He doesn’t hit me hard enough to kill me, as promised, but I cross the room and put a good dent in some drywall and spend a second being grateful that he didn’t punch me in the ribs and that the wall isn’t brick.
Hurley comes over and offers me a hand.
—An did I break anything?
—No.
—An will ya shut it fer a bit?
I have to think about that one, but I get it right.
—Yeah.
He pulls me up, rights my chair and drops me in it.
—Be good.
Terry spins his coin again.
—Yeah, man, Lydia. You told her about the blood, she opened her mouth and kept it that way. Which, you know, it’s her prerogative to speak her mind and all, but, in a situation where restraint can really reward the restrained, she could have been a little less, I don’t know, strident, maybe. That would have helped. Still, I was able to convince her that a full frontal assault on the Coalition was not a viable option.
The coin slows again.
—We’re no match militarily, that’s not like a secret or anything. We’re getting constantly harassed by the Wall Streeters and Chinatown crews in the south. Christian and his Dusters are clinging to some kind of neutrality. We’d like them to skirmish down there, but they refuse.
My Dead Body Page 14
