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
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.
I went Rogue, left the Society and tried to make it on my own. But you can't make it on your own as a Vampyre. You can't because the Clans don't want you out there on your own where you might cause trouble. So I kept running errands for Terry because I wanted to keep living on Society turf.
And when the Coalition came calling with their first little job, I did it. Because I know what's good for me. They knew about me going Rogue just like they know most things. And they knew I could move around below 14th. They figured to get an agent, a turncoat in the Society's house. They offered to pay for it, pay well. I counter- offered. So now they like to pretend they're pulling all my strings, and I like to pretend they're not. Who's to say who has the right idea?
I do favors for the Coalition because they have the juice to get rid of me if they decide they really want to. I do favors for the Society because this is their territory and they'll run me to the Outer Boroughs if I don't. Me, I get to stay Rogue, and that's the way I like it. It's my life, I can live it any way I want. And if I ever get tired of it, all I have to do is open the door and walk outside on a nice sunny day.
When I look in the mirror I see a face about twenty-eight. Under it I know I'm forty-five. I could stay younger. All I have to do is drink more blood. A guy like Predo, who knows how much he sucks down? But then again he has the resources of the Coalition. Sometimes the Coalition pays me off with a few pints, but mostly I scrounge my own blood, and the less I consume the less attention I draw to myself. It is our greatest vulnerability, our thirst. It identifies us and leads hunters to us. It forces us to live in highly populated areas where our foraging and aversion to the sun will draw less attention. Some run to the country and live like hermits, feeding off the occasional stray backpacker. Some move to rural communities, feeding sparingly, becoming emaciated and hiding their true nature behind a facade of eccentricity. The suburbs are hopeless, the population neither thin not dense enough to provide cover. Vampyres in the suburbs last less than a year.
Plus those places are soulless pits. Christ! Strip malls, housing tracts, business parks? Might as well pound a stake through your own heart and save some Van Helsing the work. Talk about a land of the undead.
Anyway, Joe Pitt isn't my real name. I threw away my real name. A guy like me doesn't need a real name.
In the morning I think about having a pint to help with my ribs, but I've gorged the last couple days and I don't want to overdo it. The ribs will take care of themselves. So I just hang out and watch some movies.
I mostly watch horror movies. I don't really like the things very much, but they're good research. Left to my own devices I'd probably take a look at
