Half the Blood of Brooklyn

carried out of the MTA tunnel brings oil and diesel fumes from a service train. Wet, meaty rat fur. Rot in too many hues to separate. And the Vyrus. Boiling and thin as steam.

– Asked do you have a smoke, buddy? A cigarette? Parlez vous?

I don’t say anything. I don’t move.

– Buddy. Buddy. I know you’re alive, buddy. You tryin’ to possum me? Huh? Want me to come over there so you can get a bead on me and grab me by the balls and rip them off, buddy? That what you got goin’ through your head? That’s it, ain’t it, buddy? Don’t bother to deny it, nah, don’t bother. I know that’s what you’re thinking. I know it is. Cuz, buddy, I can see it, I can see just exactly what you’re thinking. And you’re ’bout as interesting as last month’s fucking Post.

Something moves.

– Here, let me make it easy on you, buddy. Let me get up close.

He comes close. I feel him first. The heat. He smells like the sewer. And the Vyrus. Burning.

– How’s that, buddy? Better? Want to take a shot?

Water dribbles out of my hair and into my eyes. I wipe it away.

– No.

He shifts.

– Yeah, right. Good thinking. Sharp. You’re a sharp one, buddy. So?

– What?

– You got a smoke or what?

I reach in my pocket and find the Luckys.

– They’re soaked.

– That’s OK, buddy. I forgive you. Pass ’em here.

– I can’t see.-Can’t see. Can’t see. ’Course you can’t fucking see, buddy, it’s darker than a nun’s virgin anus down here. Just hold the fucking things out.

I hold out the pack.

– Filterless? Hell, buddy, what you trying to do, kill yourself?

He gurgles.

– That’s a joke, buddy. Ah, never mind. These’ll do. These’ll do.

He shuffles. -Can’t see. Right, right. Well, we’ll see if we can do something about that.

Light explodes.

I cover my eyes, a purple burst on the inside of my lids.

– Whoops. Got you by surprise there. Sorry ’bout that, buddy.

I take my hands away, crack my lids.

He’s across from me on the shelf of brick that juts from the mouth of a dry spill tunnel over the river of shit below us. Hunkered on spider legs, white to the point of transparency, bald and huge-eyed, he thrusts his face into the beam shooting from his flashlight and bares his teeth.-Gollum.

He gurgles.

– That’s another joke, buddy. Another joke. Read that in a book. That one kills ’em. Kills ’em every time, buddy.

He tucks the wet pack of Luckys into one of the pockets of the vest that hangs open over his withered torso and waves the light down the tunnel.

– C’mon, buddy, I ain’t carrying you this time.

I keep close to the jet of hot air blowing from the louvered slats at the bottom of the switch-room door.

– Cold? Sure you’re cold, cold as hell down here, ain’t it? Not that I feel it. Not that I feel it a’tall, buddy.

He reaches over and moves the cigarettes around, rotating them in the hot air, helping the tobacco to dry.

– Yeah, just about right, yeah. Just about there.

I rotate myself, straightening my bad knee in front of the vent. The bone is knitting, it grinds when I move it.

He plucks at my damp slacks.

– What’s with the getup?

– Dead guy’s clothes.

He strokes his neck, his skin reflecting the blue of the light above the switch room.

– Didn’t ask from who, asked what’s up. Where’s your whites, buddy?

I look at his own clothes, the soiled cargo vest and painter’s pants. Both were once white, I suppose.

I rub my knee.

– Never wore whites.

– Never, huh?

His arm snaps out and he lays a finger along my chin and turns my head.

I don’t flinch.

He looks me over.

– Yeah, but you’re Enclave. Way you’re looking at me, you’re too fucking mean to be anything else.

He drops his hand.

– Didn’t take to the warehouse, huh, buddy?

– Never tried.

He fingers the cigarettes.

– Good call, that. Yeah, sure, sure, good call, buddy. This one’s done. That thing working?

He points at the open Zippo next to the smokes.

I pick it up and flick the wheel and sparks jump, but no flame.

– Still too wet.

He digs fingers into one of his pockets and comes out with a folder of matches.

– Hate to waste these things. But the need is urgent, buddy.

He tears out a match and lights it and brings the flame to the dirty, bent cigarette in his lips and inhales.

– There you go, that’s it, sister, come to papa.

He drops the match and holds the smoke for a second and blows it out.

– Well, tastes like shit, but that comes as no surprise, buddy. Here.

He offers it to me and I take a drag. He’s right, it tastes like shit.

I take another drag and pass it back.

– Daniel went out in the sun this morning.

His hand freezes. He takes the smoke, looks at it.

– He make it?

– Fuck do you think?

He sucks smoke.

– I think he got burned and died, but a man can hope, buddy. Even down here, a man can hope.

A train blasts past just beyond the alcove that hides the door, and I watch the real people flick past inside.

– They got me off the street. Long time gone, long time, buddy. Know how long?

– Nope.

– Neither do I, buddy. Neither do I.

He puts a hand out and we drop back between girders and wait as an MTA service crew in orange vests and helmets crosses the tunnel dragging tool bags over the tracks and cursing and telling dirty stories.

He waves and we start walking again, following the line of the third rail.

– Saw I was Enclave one of them did, buddy. Saw me wandering out of a saloon down the Bowery and saw it in me. Well, Vyrus don’t lie. So I was told.

He stops and points at the tunnel where the service crew disappeared.

– That’s a dead tunnel. Probably, buddy, they’re scrapping something down there. That or goin’ off to get