Joe Pitt 2 - No Dominion (2 page)

--I'm not hungry.

--Not hungry how?

She peels off the wifebeater. I stare at her pale, freckled tits until she covers them
with the Jack Daniel's shirt.

--Just not hungry.

--Not hungry like you're not hungry, or not hungry like a side effect?

She stands in front of the mirror on the back of the closet door and starts raking a brush
through her hair.

--Not hungry like I don't want to fucking eat anything, OK?

--Sure. OK.

I get up, go into the bathroom and close the door. I look at myself in the mirror. It's a
bad view. I splash some water on my face. I flush the toilet needlessly. I open the door,
go back to the bed and get another smoke from the pack on the table. Evie has her hair
pulled into a ponytail. She shrugs her way into her big, black biker jacket; all zippers
and snaps. I light my smoke.

--You gonna be warm enough in that?

She holds up a hand.

--Enough.

--Just asking.

--And I'm just saying, enough. I know you're concerned. I know you care. That's great, I
really appreciate it. I know it's not the normal thing for you. But you have to get out of
my ass.

She steps closer to me, bends over and gives me a kiss. Then she picks up her bag and
starts up the stairs that lead to the ground floor rooms.

--It's just I want you to take care of yourself, baby.

That does it. She stops on the steps, drops her head, exhales loudly and turns to face me.

--I am taking care of myself, Joe. I'm taking care of myself the way I want to. That means
if I want to have a couple drinks and risk raising my blood sugar, I'm gonna do it. That
means if I'm not hungry when I'm taking my meds, I'm not gonna force myself to eat. OK?
That OK with you? Because if it's not, you know what you can do. No strings attached, Joe.
That's your motto, right? You weren't there when I got the disease, and I don't expect you
to be there when it kills me. In the middle, you want to be more involved in my life, you
want to have a say? All you gotta do is involve me in yours, that's all it takes. Until
then, stop with the fucking nagging. I get enough of that shit from my mom. I don't need
it from my goddamn
boyfriend.

And she pounds up the stairs, slamming the front door good and loud on her way out.

I flop back on the bed and take a big drag off my cigarette. I blow the smoke at the
ceiling and smile. I can't help it, I just love it when she calls me her boyfriend. And
she only does that when she's mad.

I know, pretty fucked up, provoking your HIV-positive girl until she's pissed enough to
forget that you're not really supposed to be a couple and calls you her boyfriend. But
then again, our whole relationship is pretty fucked up. Start with the fact we don't have
sex. She beats herself up about that pretty good. Carries around this big ball of guilt
about me being stuck on her even though we don't fuck. I get it. It's not like it's rocket
science or anything. She's terrified of giving me her disease. Condoms, dental dams,
there's no amount of protection that'll make her feel safe enough to get more intimate
than necking, dry-humping and hand-jobbing each other on occasion. It's too bad that I
can't tell her that there is no way on God's green earth that she could ever get me sick.
Nobody could. There isn't a bug on this rock that could put a dent in me. It's too late
for that, I'm already as sick as a man can get. Pretty much. Once the Vyrus set up shop in
my bloodstream, it made me uninhabitable for anything else. Any regular viruses or
bacteria or germs come calling, they're gonna get their asses kicked but good.

So I don't mind the not-having-sex thing. That's not true. I mind the not-having-sex thing
a hell of a lot. Just watching her get dressed this morning was enough to drive me half
crazy. But I can deal. I can deal because I have to. Not because of what she's sick on,
but because of what I'm sick on. I don't know if the Vyrus can be sexually transmitted,
but I'm not taking any chances. I'm not taking any chances of infecting Evie with an
organism that will colonize her blood and strip mine it for whatever components keep it
happy. A bug that is always hungry for more. A bug that, when your blood is tapped out,
will send you hunting. And you'll hunt, man, you will hunt. Because the alternative, the
pain that will rack you and twist your body and eventually boil your insides? It'll make
anything Evie may have to go through in the next couple years look like child's play.
That's just a fact.

Nevermind that if she was infected with the Vyrus it would cure her of the HIV. Nevermind
that she could go on living pretty much just as long as she wanted to, as long as she kept
the Vyrus fed. Nevermind that we could be together that whole time and fuck to our hearts'
content. It doesn't matter. It's still not the kind of thing you tell the woman you love.
It's not the kind of choice you ask someone you love to make. If you're a man, you make it
for them.

And now I guess we've settled what I am. Or at least what I'm not.

So yeah, the relationship is all fucked up. No reason why it shouldn't be, it matches the
rest of my life that way. Besides, yours any better?

Not that Evie knows any of this. Not that Evie knows shit about me. Three years running
and I'm still keeping secrets. It's what you'd call a sore point between us, her not
knowing enough. Can't blame her for being curious, girl's got reasons to be. Like why I
rent two apartments: the one-bedroom upstairs and this studio below it. Why I nailed the
studio door to the door frame and installed a panel in the lower half that I can kick out
in an emergency. Why the little spiral stair that leads from the upstairs living room to
the studio is concealed by a secret trapdoor. And why, with all that space up there, I do
most of my living down here in the basement where the only window has been drywalled over.
She's willing to accept it when I tell her it's because of my work, cuz of some of the
enemies I've made. But she'd sure like to know more about that work. She knows I'm kind of
a local tough guy, a guy who collects some debts, does some unlicensed PI work, that kind
of thing. But it doesn't seem to warrant the security in this place, the secret room, the
multiple locks, the alarm. What can a guy do? He can't tell her about the Van Helsings
running around with a hard-on for people like me, those self-righteous busybodies looking
to sprinkle me with holy water and drive a stake through my heart. Not that the holy water
would do anything, but the stake sure as shit would. Hell, a stake through the heart will
kill anyone. They don't really need it; a few bullets will do just as well. But a guy
can't explain something like that. In the end she doesn't buy it, the whole
I got enemies, baby
thing. She maybe figures it's drugs.

Drugs would make sense. It would explain the security. It would explain my total and
complete paranoia. It would explain why I don't have a regular job of any kind. And it
would explain the little dorm fridge in my closet with the padlock on it. By now she's
pretty certain that if she looked in there she'd find a whole selection of exotic
pharmaceuticals that aren't carried by your garden variety, street corner dime-bagger. She
would
find my stash in there, but it's not anything anyone can get high off of, unless they're
like me. Just three pints of healthy human blood mixed with the necessary anticlotting
agents so it'll keep. Three pints. About seven pints less than the minimum I like to have
on hand. Thinking about it makes me feel itchy.

Yeah, drugs would be fine as far as Evie is concerned. The blood? Figure it's a safe bet
that would freak her out.

Funny, one of the things that should be toughest to explain is one of the easiest. How I
never go out in the daytime? Solar urticaria. A sun allergy. I go out in the sun and
rashes will break out all over my body and my skin won't be able to regulate my internal
temperature and I'll black out and all kinds of bad shit. She buys it. And why not? She's
looked it up online. Besides, it's not far from the truth. I do have an allergy to the
sun. But if I go out and start sucking up UVAs, I won't just get all itchy and pass out.
Me? The Vyrus will go haywire; tumors will erupt and riot throughout my body and over the
surface of my skin. Bone cancer, stomach cancer, gum cancer, brain cancer, prostate
cancer, skin cancer. Think of a cancer, I'll get it. Fucking eye cancer. And all of those
cancers will have a race to see which can kill me first. Might take fifteen minutes all
told. Less if it's a really sunny day. By the time everything runs its course, there'll be
nothing left but a big blob of cancer cells. Biopsy that thing and it'll look like a
giant, man-size tumor with maybe a couple teeth stuck in it.

I've never seen it happen. But the stories are more than enough to keep me from rolling
the dice on a day at the beach. That's why I have to spend the rest of the day indoors.

I kill the time.

I shower and shave. I go through my DVDs and watch
Vanishing Point.
I go upstairs and find some old takeout from the Cuban place around the corner. I listen
to some music and try to read a book. All I'm really doing the whole time is thinking
about those last three pints and how I need to get some more.

It's been four days since my last pint. That's part of the reason The Spaz almost had his
way with me last night. When things are good I like to hit a pint every two days. Keeps me
sharp.

Four days? No wonder I've been crabby. I'll need to drink one today if I don't want to
start jumping down everyone's throat. Figuratively speaking. Maybe I can get away with
just a half.

I also spend a fair amount of time wondering how things went with Evie at the doctor's
office. But she doesn't call to tell me. Which isn't a real surprise after the way she
left. And that means I'll need to go by her work if I want to get the news. Which means I
better just drink a whole pint so I'm not on edge when I see her. I don't need to be
picking any more fights with the only person in the world who gives a shit about me.

Around four-thirty I open the closet. I flip the dial on the fridge padlock back and forth
and snap it open. I used to have a key-lock. Then I lost the key. It was the middle of the
day and I couldn't run out to the hardware store for a bolt-cutter. I just about chewed
through the fucking thing before I got my shit together enough to find a hammer under the
sink and use it to claw the hasp free. It can be like that when you're hungry. Simple shit
just plain escapes you. Now I got the combination lock. God save me if I ever forget the
combo. I open the fridge.

Times like these, opening the fridge is like the third or fourth time a gambler checks his
betting slip to see if maybe he really had his money down on the winning horse instead of
that nag that finished way out of the money. I know what's in there, but maybe, just
maybe, I did something right without knowing about it. Like maybe I laid up a dozen extra
pints that are just somehow hidden in the back. Something like that. So I open the fridge.
No dice. Wrong horse.

I take out one of the three pints. I take out the scalpel I keep in the fridge. I poke a
little hole in the bottom of the pouch and place my lips around it. I squeeze the pouch
and a thin stream of cold blood squirts into my mouth. When it's warm it's better. When
it's hot, say 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, it's best. But well chilled is just fine. I try to
sip, but who am I fooling? I tilt my head back, hold the pouch upright and poke another
hole at the top. It drains in a single rush, flooding my throat. Then I carefully cut the
bag open and lick the inside clean. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel alive.

It is keeping me alive after all. Giving the Vyrus something else to gnaw on, something
fresh. Keeping it from ranging further and further into the blood-making parts of me.
Keeping it from digging into the little blood factories inside my bones and scraping them
clean. Keeping the Vyrus healthy and happy so that it doesn't rampage through my brain,
randomly hitting switches as it looks for more of whatever it is it wants. It's keeping me
alive. But only if you call this life.

When I'm done I tuck the pouch into one of the red biohazard bags I keep in the fridge.
There's only a couple empties in there, so I leave it be for now.

The nice thing about winter? The sun goes down early. I love that. Add in all the overcast
days and those three months are my favorite. I pull on a sweater, lace up my boots, grab
my jacket and scoop keys and change from the top of my desk. I also flip through a thin
fold of bills: just over a hundred bucks. I got another grand stashed in the toe of a
shoe, but that's for emergencies. And it won't cover half the rent on this place, which
I'm two months overdue on. Blood ain't the only thing running short around here.

Depending on who I'm doing a job for, I might get paid in either one: blood or money. But
I haven't had a job for awhile now. I can hustle for the blood, dig up a pint here or a
pint there on my own. But, in a way, money is riskier. I knock out some guy, drag him in
an alley and tap his veins, I know I'm gonna come away with a pint or two. But as to
what's in his wallet? The kind of guys who look like they might be sporting a good roll
are the ones you least want to hit. Those are the ones that might make noise after the
fact. Don't want a guy like that finding holes poked in his arms after he's been rolled,
asking his doctor what the hell that's about. And there's just no point in robbing a man
if you're not gonna tap him as well. Just no percentage in the risk if there's no blood. I
mean, money is money, but blood is blood.

And don't even think about a real robbery. Walk into some liquor store and point a gun at
someone? Try to do a little housebreaking? Anything like that leaves behind a profile and
physical evidence. Start getting a file at the precinct, an MO in some computer database.
Show up on the cop radar and you can just cash in. No blocked up windows in the holding
cells. No blood in the chow line. Just a matter of maybe a week before you starve or get
hit with some rays.