the toe of her Doc Martens on the windshield.
--You ever been off of the Island? Before, I mean.
--I was born in the Bronx.
--You're such a New Yorker, never been anywhere. I traveled. I did a semester in Europe, in
Italy. Went everywhere. And I'm from the West Coast. When I came out here I took a whole
month to drive crosscountry. Been to Canada. Costa Rica. Mexico. Hawaii when I was a kid.
Been to fucking Disney World. Most disgusting place on earth. Consumerism at its worst.
I chain another smoke.
--That radio work?
--Sure.
I toss the spent butt out the window.
--Mind playing something on it?
--What do you want to hear?
--Something that isn't you.
She flips the bird at me and clicks the radio and settles the dial on some college station
that's playing some chick with an acoustic guitar.
Pet the Cat music, Evie calls it.
--This OK?
--If it includes you shutting up, it's OK.
She nods, draws a little spiral in the dust on the dash.
--How's she doing, your friend?
I reach over and spin the dial and put it on a jazz station and turn it up. Coltrane plays
Stardust.
Lydia ruffles her short hair.
--Just that you never asked about HIV again after that one time and I didn't know if you'd
been able to get her some new meds. And stopping at the hospital just made me wonder?
--She's fine.
--If she's in the hospital, she isn't fine. I told you before, I know people in the
treatment community. One of the Lesbian Gay and Other Gendered Alliance members was a
hospice worker. If she needs care, we could arrange something.
--She doesn't need care.
--Hospital's not the place for someone who's really sick. They don't give a shit. Fucking
HMOs, it's all about the bottom line. Get them in and get them out. Free up the beds for
another pile of dollars. She could be at home, if she's that bad.
We grind into traffic merging from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and start crawling through
Red Hook.
--She's not staying in the hospital. She's gonna be fine.
Lydia tugs on her rainbow-enameled ear cuff.
--You're not thinking about doing something to
make
her fine, are you, Joe?
I lean on the horn, cut the wheel and drive up on the shoulder, peel around a line of cars
and jump back in the lane beyond the jam and put the pedal down.
Lydia adjusts the strap of her seat belt.
--Just as a reminder, infecting someone, on purpose, that's a severe abuse of the Society
charter. An execution offense. You get the sun for that.
Greenwood Cemetery appears on our left. I know its name the same way I know the names of
anything off the Island; I've read about it. It's a hell of a lot bigger than on the map.
Lydia looks at it as we drive past.
--And there's the moral issue. Do you have the right to infect anyone? Even if you think it
might save their life, do you have the right to make that choice for them? Personally, I
don't think anyone has the right to make any decision for anyone.
The cemetery disappears behind us. The road is open. We bend right onto the Belt Parkway
toward the bay, the decommissioned docks on one side, Owl's Head Park on the other.
--And, of course, you never even know if it will work. I mean, I've never tried to infect
anyone, but I know the survival rate is below fifty percent. And it's a horrible death.
On the POW/MIA Memorial Parkway, long span and towers of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
ahead, a right turn and we'd be heading west.
Solomon's hogleg digs into my back. The Docks Boss' .44 weighs my left jacket pocket. A
round from that in Lydia's side, lean over and open her door and push her out and take the
ramp onto the bridge. See something else.
Lydia puts a finger on the radio dial, takes it off.
--Just acting like you don't care, Joe, that doesn't change anything. And it won't change
how you feel if you fuck up and do something cruel and stupid. Something irrevocable.
Kill Lydia and drive away and see something else.
--You ever been off of the Island? Before, I mean.
--I was born in the Bronx.
--You're such a New Yorker, never been anywhere. I traveled. I did a semester in Europe, in
Italy. Went everywhere. And I'm from the West Coast. When I came out here I took a whole
month to drive crosscountry. Been to Canada. Costa Rica. Mexico. Hawaii when I was a kid.
Been to fucking Disney World. Most disgusting place on earth. Consumerism at its worst.
I chain another smoke.
--That radio work?
--Sure.
I toss the spent butt out the window.
--Mind playing something on it?
--What do you want to hear?
--Something that isn't you.
She flips the bird at me and clicks the radio and settles the dial on some college station
that's playing some chick with an acoustic guitar.
Pet the Cat music, Evie calls it.
--This OK?
--If it includes you shutting up, it's OK.
She nods, draws a little spiral in the dust on the dash.
--How's she doing, your friend?
I reach over and spin the dial and put it on a jazz station and turn it up. Coltrane plays
Stardust.
Lydia ruffles her short hair.
--Just that you never asked about HIV again after that one time and I didn't know if you'd
been able to get her some new meds. And stopping at the hospital just made me wonder?
--She's fine.
--If she's in the hospital, she isn't fine. I told you before, I know people in the
treatment community. One of the Lesbian Gay and Other Gendered Alliance members was a
hospice worker. If she needs care, we could arrange something.
--She doesn't need care.
--Hospital's not the place for someone who's really sick. They don't give a shit. Fucking
HMOs, it's all about the bottom line. Get them in and get them out. Free up the beds for
another pile of dollars. She could be at home, if she's that bad.
We grind into traffic merging from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and start crawling through
Red Hook.
--She's not staying in the hospital. She's gonna be fine.
Lydia tugs on her rainbow-enameled ear cuff.
--You're not thinking about doing something to
make
her fine, are you, Joe?
I lean on the horn, cut the wheel and drive up on the shoulder, peel around a line of cars
and jump back in the lane beyond the jam and put the pedal down.
Lydia adjusts the strap of her seat belt.
--Just as a reminder, infecting someone, on purpose, that's a severe abuse of the Society
charter. An execution offense. You get the sun for that.
Greenwood Cemetery appears on our left. I know its name the same way I know the names of
anything off the Island; I've read about it. It's a hell of a lot bigger than on the map.
Lydia looks at it as we drive past.
--And there's the moral issue. Do you have the right to infect anyone? Even if you think it
might save their life, do you have the right to make that choice for them? Personally, I
don't think anyone has the right to make any decision for anyone.
The cemetery disappears behind us. The road is open. We bend right onto the Belt Parkway
toward the bay, the decommissioned docks on one side, Owl's Head Park on the other.
--And, of course, you never even know if it will work. I mean, I've never tried to infect
anyone, but I know the survival rate is below fifty percent. And it's a horrible death.
On the POW/MIA Memorial Parkway, long span and towers of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
ahead, a right turn and we'd be heading west.
Solomon's hogleg digs into my back. The Docks Boss' .44 weighs my left jacket pocket. A
round from that in Lydia's side, lean over and open her door and push her out and take the
ramp onto the bridge. See something else.
Lydia puts a finger on the radio dial, takes it off.
--Just acting like you don't care, Joe, that doesn't change anything. And it won't change
how you feel if you fuck up and do something cruel and stupid. Something irrevocable.
Kill Lydia and drive away and see something else.
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