Every Last Drop

even if it's a total front, even if you've made a life out of doing just enough work to get by, even if all you re really thinking about is how cool its gonna be when you're in charge and get to call all the shots and cut this hard shit from the activities list, you keep doing it for all the wrong reasons, and it doesn't fucking matter. Because, dude, you are doing it.He spreads his arms. —I'm saying, Look at me, man.I look at him. White skin to match the suit. Bald. His once skinny frame, now a coat hanger for the designer threads.He claps.—I was trying, I was trying to front, and the whole time, what was really happening was I was becoming, man. I'm saying, to play the role, I had starve the Vyrus, yeah? And that required some effort. So next thing, I'm in themeditation down there, and I'm really thinking about it. And all that shit I learned about it before, when I was studying it from the scientific angle, using my med-school chops to try and break it down, all that started to fade.He puts his hands on his head.— Cause I'm telling you, if this shit can really change an asshole like me, then it is not of this earth. Hear what I'm saying?His hands shoot over his head. —I am a believer, man! I am in! And I love it!He cocks a grin.—And, Joe, all our shit, all our background and complication and all that shit, I am over it.He reaches for me. —And I want you to join us, man!I punch him.And he rolls with it. Falls away from the blow, tumbles backward, and comes to his feet still grinning, and points at me. —I love you, man!He comes at me faster than I can do anything about and wraps his armsaround me.—I love you, Joe Pitt!Put a crazy man in an asylum, then lay your money on the odds he gets worse. Closest thing to a sure bet.—It's not like I'm just filled with crazy Vyrus-love and I want everyone to feel it, yeah? This is about something more tangible. Take a look and see if you get it.We stand at the rail of the lofts, looking down at the pairs sparring in the middle of a circle of kneeling Enclave.I look at them. I don't say anything.Why bother? You want to know what's on the Count's mind, you wait for him to inhale before he blows the next load of words at you. —OK, so you're looking. And you re seeing it. There's way more of us.He shows me five fingers, then shows me five more.—We're doubling in size. It's crazy in here, all the new Enclave. We can barely find room for the new believers. Even with fasting as our primary tenet, we still have problems getting enough blood in here.He points at a far corner where an Enclave has pulled the cover from a large sewage drain and another drops a sagging body down the exposed hole.—Fast as we can drain one and toss it down there, we need another. Growth comes with costs, man. I learned that in school.He shakes his head.—But that's not the point, I'm getting off it again, the point. The point is all these new people were getting in. This new belief and energy. These people who need something in their lives, what we can give them.I find a crack to fit a word in. —Thought the Vyrus did the choosing and the giving.He looks around.—Well, yeah, man, sure. But situations, they evolve. So in the past it was Daniel who saw when someone was Enclave or not, now someone else has to fill that role.I look at him.He gives a modest head shake.—Hey, I didn't nominate myself. But like I said, I'm a changed dude, and I got some credibility around here. And, OK, I don't want to dis the big man's memory, and I'm not, but I'm saying that maybe in Daniels case that when he was looking for the Enclave in someone and there was a shade of doubt, maybe he gave them a pass. And maybe me, maybe I'm more inclusive. Like Iwant these people to have what they need. Belief, change, newness. Transmutational experiences like mine.He holds a hand parallel to the ground and waggles it. —And maybe, OK, maybe some around here don't feel this is the way.He makes a fist and pops his thumb out of it and at the sky. —But there's more that do. Daniel, he was the man forever, and he was loved, still is, but he was on the conservative side. A lot of these brothers and sisters, they've been waiting to grow, they want change in their lifetimes. Sure they want to meditate and learn the nature of the Vyrus, but they also want to be here when it's time for the purge. When the world is remade to the Vyrus. They don't want to miss out. And I am down with that. It's a matter of how you come at your faith. I come at it like we need to spread it, we need to make it happen, that's what the Vyrus wants from us, that's why it makes us feeders, aggressors. It wants us to be aggressive. Yeah? So I say to these guys, Let's fucking aggress, manHe points at the street door.—Action like that tonight? Sending those hitters out to pick you up, giving them a weapons-free license to take care of any shit out there? That wouldn't have happened with Daniel. And they like that new attitude in here. They like that we stepped out and took care of some business on our own doorstep.I raise a finger.He bobs his head.—Yeah, yeah, man, questions. Fire em up. —Just wondering how you got wind of me.—Easy, man. Had an eye out for you the whole last year. You hit downtown, that news got to me in a hurry.I grind my teeth. —Fucking Philip.—Yeah, man, fucking Phil. That guy, again, there's a dude Daniel would never have had anything to do with, but me, having had a history with him, I was prepared to make use of his eyes on the street. He saw you, gave me a call. After that.He leans his arms on the rail.—Well shit, Joe, after that I knew it was a matter of time before you crossed no-man's-land to come here. Only thing I had trouble with was figuring out why it was taking you so long.I watch another body go down the hole. —I had some things to do.—Hey, don't we all?He puts a hot, dry hand on mine. —But here you are, man. And that's good. That's good. That's really good.I pull my hand away. —How's that, Count?He scoots closer, smiles.—Wanting you to come inside with us, man, that's not just about spreading the joy. Like I said, yeah? Like, Daniel fingered you as Enclave. That means something. That's credibility. So, things are going on here. Like.He frowns.—Like, sure, most of us are down with expansion, down with action, down with bringing on the purge. Like, in my interpretation of everything, maybe the final transmutation were supposed to make, maybe that's already happened. Maybe that's not supposed to be literal and physical like they've been thinking, maybe it's more a spiritual thing. And if that's the case, well, man, like I said, I've made that transmutation and then some.He purses his lips. —It's a puzzler, and I don't want to sound full of myself, but I may just be theVyrus messiah.He shakes his head. —I don't know for sure. Have to meditate on that shit some more. Anyhoo.He snaps his fingers.—Some others, a few, they don't believe in a need for speed, they think were going too fast. They think Daniel would disapprove. And that, that just causes all kinds of fucking problems. So having a guy like you, with Daniel-cred behind him, that's always a help. In this case, you can help big-time with a particular problem. But there's more to it. Like that's a surprise in our world, yeah?He strokes his bald scalp, watching as one of the sparring Enclave below has his jaw shattered.—These guys, when they go out as a force, once they start smelling the blood out there, they could go a little over the top. And that's not the point. We don't want a bunch of random spastics launching themselves into crowds and going off like bombs, rending folks limb from limb till the SWAT bullets take them down. The whole point is, this is a crusade; when Enclave kill, it's not like a retribution thing, it's a cleansing. And not just cleansing the world, but cleansing the people who get killed. So it needs to have some order to it. So to keep the warriors that go out in line, Joe.He sidles very close. —I'm gonna need a field general.I poke the barrel of my gun into his ribs.He looks at it.I look at him.And I ask the only thing that matters. —Is she alive?He looks up, rolls his eyes. —is she alive? Dude, have you been listening to me at all?The hand of one of his bodyguards whisks between us and takes the gun from me.The Count bugs his eyes. —Whoops! Whered that go?He laughs.—Yeah, so anyway, dude, is she alive? Like, that's the whole point here. The tension I'm talking about. Old-school attitudes versus new-school attitudes.He looks at me.I look back.He sighs. —No comprehension at all, huh?He takes my arm. —Come here.He pulls me to the corridor that runs the length of the loft, between rows of cubicles.—The rest of this shit, the field-general gig and all that, well sort that out later. For now.He points at the end of the corridor where four Enclave stand outside a closed door. — For now, you go have your reunion.He gives me a shove in the back.—Do me a favor while you're at it and try and talk some sense into fucking Joan of Arc for me, will ya?He turns, heads down the stairs to the floor below.I look at the door.Legs like stilts, holding me wobbly ten feet above the ground, I walk to theend of the hall.These Enclave are a little on the beefy side. Looking like maybe they've only been in a concentration camp one year instead of five. They stand back from the door, one of them knocking before pushing it open.I go in.She's sitting on the floor, holding a little cup in her left hand, eyes gliding over the handwritten pages of a book lying open in her lap.Her eyes stop moving.Her finger marks a spot on the page.And she looks up.She's sitting on the floor, like the last time I saw her, but everything else is different. Then shed just got over being about to die. Withered and hollowed out by AIDS and the chemo they'd pumped into her, red hair falling out in fistfuls. A fading ghost.And look at her now.All bones and alabaster skin, freckles bleached away, hairless.Vibrant.She looks back down at her book.—Hey, Joe. Come to try and kill me again?—It was hard. Of course. And I thought I was crazy. I thought they were all my hallucinations. This whole place. Like it was the pain medication. Then I thought, and it was probably all the white clothes they wear, I thought that maybe I was dead. And this was like a test or something. It took a long time.She flips a couple pages in her book.—That was why they started paying attention to me. Because I went so long before I tried it.She shakes her head. —Blood.She bites her lower lip.—Its funny to think how long I waited. Cause I was never religious. But I thought, What if the second I try the blood I get sent to hell? It was too weird to be real. But whatever I was thinking, they thought I was special, for fasting so long right after infection. And then I couldn’t hold off anymore. I'd smell it when they all broke fast. And it smelled so damn good. And then I thought, This is bullshit. This isn’t real. I'm on a morphine drip and I'm never waking up and I'm gonna try some of that. I'm not going to hell. And I tried it.She shakes her head. —And after that, I didn't care if I went to hell.She looks into the cup in her left hand, the few tablespoonfuls of blood it bears. —Do you think were going to hell, Joe?I take a drag, think about Queens.