Joe Pitt 1 - Already Dead (6 page)

She pulls one out, pops the cap and slaps it down.

--Man of discriminating tastes.

--Yeah.

She moves off to work the bar and I find a corner a little less crowded than the others. I
do like she said, stay quiet, have a drink and listen to the music. And maybe sneak a look
at her from

time to time. There's a jam session going. Bunch of bluegrass sidemen pick'n and grin'n
and playing up a storm. Not my usual bag, but they know what they're doing.

An hour goes by like that before I catch her looking over at me and she waves me to the
bar. I squeeze through the hicks and nod. She tilts her head to the opposite side of the
bar where a thick crowd of people are stuffed together.

--Over there.

--Where?

--The little guy.

--What little guy?

That's when I realize that a dude I had taken to be over six feet is actually a pudgy
midget standing on the bar telling jokes to a group of seven people. She looks at me and
gives me a twisted little smile.

--So how you gonna handle this one, tough guy?

I look the midget over, taking note of the large bulge in the back of his pants. I smile
at her.

--What's your name?

--Evie.

--Nice name.

--Thanks.

--You got a bouncer in here?

--No, just me.

--Got a policy on fights?

--Why do you ask?

--Well I think I'm gonna have to rough that midget up and I'm trying to figure if I should
do it in here or outside.

--Well, you do it in here and you're gonna get eighty-sixed.

--Uh-huh. Well I guess I better take care of it outside.

--Why's that?

--I think I'd like to come back in here sometime so I can see you again. Here's for the
beer and the help. My name's Joe by the way. See you around.

I left a fifty on the bar and went outside to wait for the dead-beat. He came out a bit
later with some of his normal-sized pals and there was a ruckus. He pulled a gun. I took
it away and thumped him a few times. The normal-sized people got outraged and I thumped
them. In the end I got the money, threw the gun down a storm drain and went home. The next
night I went back to the bar and sat there and listened to the music. Evie did her job and
barely looked at me, but when her shift was over I walked her home.

We sat on her stoop for awhile and talked about a book she was reading and a movie I
liked. Then she got up to go in and I stood and she moved to the step above mine so she
could look at me without craning her neck. She told me she was going up. She told me she'd
like to see me again. She told me she had HIV and doesn't have sex with anyone under any
circumstances. Then she kissed me hard on the mouth and went in. I never even had a chance
to explain to her that I don't have sex either.

It's hard to explain this kind of thing to a person. That this thing called the Vyrus has
taken up residence in my body. That it feeds off my blood, scours it of all impurities and
weaknesses. That it wants only to survive, and to do that it needs more blood, so it gives
me the instincts, strengths and senses of a predator. That if I don't feed it more blood,
human blood, it will burn my body and scorch my veins and leave me a dry husk. That
exposed to the UV radiation of the sun, it will rack my immune system and tumors will riot
through my body in minutes. That it pumps me full of adrenaline and endorphins. That it
clots in seconds and knits my flesh and that if you want to kill me you will have to blow
up my heart or head or cut me in half or otherwise annihilate my body in one blow before
it can heal. That I am a secret in the world and that the greatest defense I have is to
remain unknown. For we are few and we are rotted by the light of the sun. That my body is
as close to dead as living can get, and is kept moving only by the will and appetite of
another organism. That I could walk through a ward of AIDS patients and drink their blood
and the Vyrus would eat the HIV and leave me with clean healthy blood. That I could walk
through the same ward and infect the patients with my blood, and it would cleanse and heal
them, but leave them with a hunger and thirst for more. That I could heal
her.

One day, when I am a braver man, I will tell her these things, and then I will look her in
the eye and tell her I love her and ask her to be only mine. But until that day, we're
just friends.

In the late morning the phone rings.

--
This is Joe Pitt. Leave a message.

--Mr. Pitt, I have a call for you from Mr. Predo. Please pick up if you are in.

Oh, shit. It's the bodybuilder from the Coalition.

--Very well, Mr. Pitt. Please be certain to return this call at the earliest possible
moment.

I'm fighting to untangle myself from the sheets, grabbing at the phone. I snatch it off
the cradle and drop it on the floor. I fumble with the phone and try to switch off the
answering machine at the same time.

--Hello. I'm here. Hello?

The bodybuilder's voice comes over the line and I can hear his exasperation in the way he
breathes.

--Good morning, Mr. Pitt, I have a call from Mr. Predo. May I connect you?

--Shouldn't you make sure it's really me, just in case"?

--If I had any doubts, Mr. Pitt, you have just relieved them. I'm connecting you now.

There's a little click and then I hear you know who.

--Good morning, Pitt.

--Morning, Mr. Predo.

--All is well, Pitt? Here it is.

--Well sure, I guess all is well.

--Then you have disposed of the problem and we can expect no further difficulties'?

There are two things you do not want to do with The Coalition.

The first is fail an assignment. The second is He to them.

--Yes, Mr. Predo, all cleaned up. No problem.

--Good. In that case, I think I may have some work for you. Shit.

--Truth is I'm pretty busy right now. Not sure I can take on anything new.

He pauses for a half moment.

--There are two ways to look at this job, Pitt. On the one hand, it is an opportunity, an
opportunity you might say yes or no to as you wished. On the other hand, the cleanup we
arranged after you bungled things at the school was quite expensive. In light of that, you
might look at this job as a favor you owe the Coalition in return for taking care of your
mess. I think the latter of these two versions may be the more accurate interpretation.
What do you think?

Having just lied to the man I know that this is not the time to let pride have its say.

--I imagine you're right about that.

--That would be yes, then?

--Right.

--I thought that might be your choice.

--Yeah. So what's the job?

--A woman is going to call you today with a problem. You will offer her your assistance.
Whatever it is she asks of you, you shall do it. Efficiently and, need I say it,
discreetly. Yes?

--Right.

--The woman is of some prominence and breeding. Try to be polite.

--My specialty.

--Yes. Well, once again, my congratulations on taking care of the problem, and my best
wishes on the swift resolution of this new endeavor.

--Thanks.

--Good-bye.

--Right.

He hangs up. I sit there on my bed and bang the back of my head against the wall over and
over again. Predo thinks the carrier is dead and the fact is I don't have the slightest
clue where it is. And if any new zombies start stumbling around before I find the damn
thing it won't be hard to figure out where they came from. And after that it won't be long
before I'm spiked to the tarmac in some New Jersey parking lot, watching the sun come up.

Joe Pitt isn't my real name. I grew up with a different name, but I changed it when I got
infected. Lots of us do. It's not a rule or anything, not like you need to pick your
secret-sacred Vampyre name. It's just that most of us leave our old lives behind, and the
first thing to go is the name. Anyway, I grew up with a different name.

There are some great parents out there; parents who know a thing or two about loving and
nurturing. I had the other kind of parent.

I was born in the Bronx in 1960. By 75 I was on my own, living with a bunch of other punk
squatters in the East Village. It was alright. I panhandled and robbed, wore a Mohawk;
drank, shot, snorted and sucked anything I could get. I got a rep for being twice as sick
as any other punk on the scene. I'd fuck or fight anything that stood still.

In '77 I go to see the Ramones at CBGB. Great show. I get drunk, get stoned, eat speed,
and in the bathroom some guy in a suit offers me twenty bucks to let him suck my dick. It
was a different time. Suits would come down to slum and check out the scene, and some of
them were trolls looking for rough trade. And I liked having my dick sucked; the money was
icing.

He gets my tight plaid pants unzipped and goes down on his knees with a handkerchief on
the floor to protect his slacks. Through the walls I can hear Joey and the band swing into
“Now I Wanna Be a Good Boy” and I come in the guy's mouth. He stands up, pulls out another
twenty and offers it to me if I suck him. I say no, but that I'll give him a hand job. He
gives me the twenty. My hand is in his pants and he's leaning against me, his face tucked
against my neck. I'm jerking him in time to the music pounding through the walls, thinking
about the booze and drugs I'm gonna buy with the forty bucks. I'm so fucked up it takes me
a few seconds to realize he isn't just trying to give me a hickey. By the time I try to
scream he's chewed a hole in my neck.

He was sloppy. He left me folded up on the floor, didn't try to get rid of me or disguise
the wound or even drain me and save some of the blood. A fucking slummer out for a cheap
thrill. I lay there on the floor while people came in and out of the can, stepping over me
to get to the pot. Some guy passed out on the bathroom floor was no big deal at CBGB, not
even one that was bleeding. I don't know how long I was there before Terry Bird came in
and saw me. He picked me up and carried me out through the crowd. I think he was just
planning to dump me, but then he saw how much life I had left and took me home instead.

Terry got me healthy, explained what had happened. I didn't believe him. Big scene, lots
of freaking out involved. Then he fed me blood for the first time, and I didn't care about
anything else.

I was with Terry for three years. He told me about the Clans, how they run different
chunks of territory in Manhattan and make sure things stay quiet, how they keep the
Vampyre a secret. He told me about the Coalition.

The Coalition used to run the whole island, except for the West Village; the West Village
has always been Enclave. But things changed for the Coalition in the sixties. That's when
the Hood seized everything above 110th and Terry formed the Society and took the East Side
turf from 14th down to Houston . That left the island's bottom cut off from the rest of
the Coalition. Now all that turf down there is run by minor Clans and Rogues. As for the
Outer Boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx? From what I hear, it might
as well be a jungle once you cross a river. Who knows what the savages are doing out there
in the bush? And who cares? But the real turf still belongs to the Coalition. They took
some lumps in the sixties, got whittled down a bit, but they still control everything
river to river between 14th and 110th.

They have the big turf because they have numbers. They find a role in their Clan for any
Vampyre who wants to join, and keep all their members supplied with a ration of blood
equal to their contribution to the Clan. And that's their real power, all that blood they
get their hands on. Somehow. They'll keep you supplied so you don't go Rogue and feed on
your own and cause any trouble, but only as long as you toe their line. And their line is
invisibility. They cultivate influence in the uninfected world, but only to protect the
Clan and its interests. Or, as Terry would say, the interests of the Secretariat.

Terry gave me the history and he explained his own philosophy,

his plans to unite all the Clans and bring the Vampyre above ground. How this could never
be done until the Coalition's power was broken, and that their ultimate power lay in their
control of a vast and secret supply of blood. So I fought the fight, did what I could to
bring all of us under one banner so we could step into the public consciousness together;
undeniable and deserving the same rights as any uninfected person. I went to the meetings,
helped to organize, and to find the new guys before they got themselves killed. Spent a
lot of time huddled in basements talking newly infected fish off the ceiling. Spent a lot
of time in those same basements hiding out from Coalition agents. Those were rough years
at the end of the seventies. The Society was still coming together. The Coalition had
lost
control of the turf, but that didn't mean Terry had
taken
control of it. Wasn't until the mid eighties that he had enough of the smaller Clans
pulled together into something big enough to be a major Clan. But now that turf is Society
through and through. Me, I went my way when I figured what Terry had me lined up for.

Started with a couple jobs taking care of Rogues who were on the turf but didn't want to
join the Society. Then there were some new fish that had trouble making the transition and
needed to be put out of their own misery. Then there were members of different Society
affiliates who maybe didn't always want to do things Terry's way, and they needed taking
care of, too. So I took care of them. A lot of them.

One day I show up at a guy's place, a guy I know and like. I'm there to see if he wants to
grab a beer, but when he sees it's me, he gets a look on his face; a look like he doesn't
want to turn his back. That's when I got it that Terry was turning me into his whip, his
cop. And I ain't no fucking cop.