Blood Will Have Blood , livre ebook

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Blood Will Have Blood
Copyright 2020 by Thomas H. Carry
All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020948098
ISBN (hardcover): 9781662905971
ISBN (paperback): 9781662905988
eISBN: 9781662905995
For Carrie, my family, and dear friends.
For all us idiots who tell our tales, and those who humor us by listening.
And for Butch, who s no one s idiot.
July 1987
Chapter One
And that s why De Niro is superior to Pacino. Can you pass the bong?
I passed the bong to Freddie and reached for the soft pack of Marlboro Lights on the secondhand coffee table, pushing aside the plastic container of leftover food from the Korean deli s buffet. I wondered which item would give me the runs later. Probably the glazed chicken. While I lighted my smoke, Freddie took a deep hit off of the bong, the gurgling water sounding like obscene plumbing.
Freddie was the delivery guy from the pot phone-order service I d used for the past few years, after giving up on sketchy purchases in Central Park, and over time he d become a decent friend. Like me, he was an actor. I should probably put that in quotes, since I don t know the last time he d actually acted in anything, though he talked about the craft incessantly. Freddie had a set routine: he would collect the cash payment and hand over the pot I d selected from the brochure menu (my usual choice, Hawaiian Dream), then plop down in a chair and smoke with me. In his slow drawl, his squinty eyes peering up to the ceiling through thick, round, John Lennon glasses, he would pontificate on various actors. He was on his favorite tangent: the superiority of De Niro s craft to Pacino s.
I m talking strictly film here, okay? Not stage. I mean, if you saw De Niro at the Public in Cuba and His Teddy Bear , then you see the limits. He had trouble filling the space. That Karate Kid dude was pretty good, I have to admit. I didn t see Pacino in American Buffalo , so I cannot comment.
Ralph Macchio? I said incredulously.
Yes, the kid had heart. He s green-not a lot of training, that was clear-but honest. An honest performance. He was doing, not acting. Doing. He gurgled another hit of my pot.
Christ, save me. Here he goes again with the whole doing thing. Acting is doing. If he fucking quotes Lee Strasberg, I m going to toss him. I wasn t really, of course; I didn t have it in me. I was content to sit, occasionally nod, and let him drone on. It was actually kind of peaceful after the bad day I d had. Rude and rushed diners during my lunch shift as a new waiter-in-training at a trendy restaurant. Pinstriped young finance guys with gelled hair enjoying the power dynamic of bossing me around, no doubt working off the humiliation of having their manhood berated by a coked-up manager who thought he was Gordon Gecko.
After the shift, a quick shower in my Hell s Kitchen studio apartment, and off to the subway and downtown to the East Village to rehearse in a dark, smoke-filled black box ruled by Allison Rucker, an obese alcoholic director with a particular vision for reframing the classics. This time it was Macbeth set in Capone s Chicago. (She was inspired by The Untouchables movie.) Oh, I m sorry: the Scottish Play. I let the title slip during rehearsal and she practically shit her khakis. After another lecture on the curse of the play s name, I was demoted to the role of Second Murderer. This wasn t my first rodeo with her. I d previously performed in her punk-rock Euripides (yes, she d seen Sid and Nancy ). It took several weeks for my hair to grow in after that Mohawk.
Now, I was happily stoned. Or stoned, at least. Comfortably numb, to borrow from Pink Floyd. I looked at Freddie with blurred detachment. He was going for a look, but I couldn t quite place it. The pleated, tapered pants, purple leather shoes, and spiked, thinning hair. He looked like an older, cartoon version of a rocker I couldn t quite recall. At any rate, he appeared exactly as he was: a forty-year-old pot delivery guy who had lost himself in the drowning waters of New York theater, one of the emptied human shells inflating themselves with false delusions of pending breakthroughs, the nobility of the uncompromising artist suffering for art, and the pretense that attitude and posture could substitute for craft.
Or, you know, doing.
He was a manifestation of all of my fears. Seven years in New York, and what did I have to show for it? Restaurant work and telemarketing jobs, a crappy studio walk-up with a poorly-constructed loft bed and cockroach roommates, and roles in terrible, barely-attended Off-Off Broadway showcases in downtown buildings that should probably be condemned. And the occasional street tax: the post-rehearsal muggings in bad neighborhoods that had become practically transactional. Four years after acting school, and somehow that movie contract hadn t materialized. Movies-screw that, I couldn t even land a decent Shakespeare festival. At this rate, I was a future Freddie. It could happen; the last seven years disappeared quickly, so if I kept this up for another decade, I d be closing in on his current age. Hell, Freddie was probably better off than me; his job seemed pretty lax. I was burdened with the fear that I d throw in the towel and, humiliated by failure, go back home to Baltimore. Baltimore, for God s sake!
My phone rang and I walked over to the wall and picked up.
Hello?
Scott? Mary s voice was plaintive and stuttering. I could tell she d been crying. Why didn t I let it go to the answering machine? Stupid.
I need to see you. Can I come over? she said. I held my hand over the receiver and moaned. Freddie looked up.
I don t think that s a good idea. We talked about this. We can t keep doing this over and over.
But I ve had some terrible news, tragic news. I need you; I can t handle this alone. Please. She sniffled. Paused. Another sniffle for dramatic effect.
What happened? I asked.
Not on the phone. I can t. I ll break down if I say it, and I simply can t do that here. I can t. Please, Scott.
I hesitated. I didn t know what to say.
Hello? Are you there?
Yes. I waited a bit longer and finally sighed, my resolve shot. Okay But come now. I m tired and I had a fucked-up day.
Thank you, Scott! I ll be there in a few. I m actually calling from the phone at the corner. Of course she was. She knew I d buckle. I m that predictable. What a sap. Once again, I d let her work me. She hung up before I could reply.
Typhoid Mary? Freddie said. I cringed. He shook his head like a disappointed teacher. Scott, Scott, Scott. What did I tell you? You have to shut it down, man. She s playing you again!
Yeah, whatever, I said, annoyed at being called out. Well, she s coming now, so you have to clear out. Sorry.
What s the fabricated crisis this time?
Okay, I really don t want to get into it, I said. Mary was my ex-girlfriend. I d broken it off several weeks ago, sort of, after I found out she d been sleeping with her current acting teacher. We d met in acting school and been together on and off since then. The pattern was always the same: we d have a passionate connection that would eventually dissipate when we got into a routine, and she d become smitten with someone else, usually a man with authority and standing who gave her revelatory insight: a new acting teacher, a director, a more accomplished actor. They d become lovers and she d try to keep me warm as a backup plan, I d break it off in humiliation, and one of her personal crises would reunite us because, as she would inevitably realize, I m the only stable and true person in her life. I d eventually take her back. Rinse. Repeat.
Well, to be continued, my friend, Freddie said as he stretched out of the chair and picked up his messenger bag. I m running late! Freddie was always running late, but his customers expected this. His tardiness came with the service, like his musing on actors. As he made for the door, the intercom buzzed loudly. I hit the button and heard the crank of the outer door unlocking through the intercom s static. Great, she ll run into Freddie and know that I m stoned. She liked me that way: passive and easily manipulated. Who was I kidding? I was more often high than not.
Stay strong! Freddie saluted me and tromped down the stairs. I stood in the doorway. Juanita, my friendly neighbor below, was walking the hall back and forth sporting a long, sequined boa. A tall and very muscular Puerto Rican transvestite, Juanita would hold a solitary runway fashion show in the hallway late into the evening, until her drunken and ashamed older brother climbed the stairs and arguments ensued, followed by the inevitable slap, the tears, the apologies. The nightly routine was as predictably reliable as Johnny Carson. Juanita gave me a royal wave and I waved back. I heard Freddie and Mary exchanging cold hellos as they passed each other. Then she appeared on the landing below, waited for Juanita to pass, and made her way to me. She had racoon eyes from her running mascara, but her boldly red lipstick looked newly applied. My heart jumped with excitement. She was an emotional wrecking crew, manipulative and narcissistic, needy and passionate. She was an exciting scene unfolding, a drug, intoxicating-I clung to a nonchalant fa ade, both of us knowing it was a weak sham that would dissolve on contact. Here I go again.
Scott! she cried as she walked in. She hugged me immedi