Tenderized
Things Amsterdam Vallon's learned, thus far, under Bill the Butcher's tuition: Gin makes you cough, but opium makes you sweat. And gin and opium both together make you float in a sort of constant sweating, coughing haze, sweet as good pipe-tobacco or a cheroot on the Docks, contemplating a burning raft far off in the harbor's middle distance as the waves lap soothingly up and down, up and down. Like nothing matters much, except for vague amusement's sake.
It hits him far harder than the Butcher, 'course, who nothing seems to penetrate for long--not even bullets.
Not that either of them really has the experience to know if this is true or not, but Amsterdam ventures that Bill would probably have loved being a schoolmaster: His classes would be hands-on, full of profane yet to-the-point instruction--lots of examples, lots of demonstration. 'Cause for Bill, everything in life's a lesson, even this...
Emma Loss lodged between 'em, already deep-set on Bill--at last! "Upstair" with the Butcher, her whore's victory complete--and moaning into Amsterdam's mouth with each movement of Bill's slim, hard hips while Amsterdam hefts her porcelain breasts one to each palm, the both just a bare, blue-veined handful. With three of Bill's deft, dirty-nailed fingers lodged knuckle-fast between her thighs, his wet thumb rooting 'round for the pink and slippery pearl that'll spark her final crisis; Bill's Cain-guilty killer's hand, so deceptively sure and gentle, that can trace a tear's track down Jenny Everdeane's cheek as soon as slit some fool's overstepping throat in the street.
Emma's mouth is sweet and sour at the same time, all rouge and bad breath and sticky, sugary smoke. But her body's soft and hot and Hellish willing, and she's got Amsterdam's fly already unbuttoned to its lowest point, her sharp fingernail tracing the wet seam where foreskin lifts from cock-head. Amsterdam hears himself gasp at the touch, his gaze still locked with Bill's over her shoulder--real eye vs. fake, the both of 'em upturned and rolling back, careless in his enjoyment.
Could reach down for the knife in his boot, right this same moment--same one as once pierced the Priest's own heart, so awful long ago--and have that vein cording the bastard's skinny neck open before poor Emma even had time to scream. And oh, but Amsterdam can almost see it now, a Holy vision breaking bright even through the opium's haze: Bill's lips drawn back in a snarl of incredulous rage, front teeth bared like a rat in a corner. The terror of the Five Points hoist on his own petard, killed in bed by the same Mick brat he already trusts enough to share his own "daughter"'s charms with, in the very stroke of cheating on her with some halfbreed Circus hanger-on...
He'd cough out a jet of blood, bright as liquid dragon-fire; try hard to pull himself free, maybe even succeed. But Amsterdam'd be quicker, and the second thrust'd take him full in the chest, the side, whatever was handiest, with Bill's own remembered voice counselling where best to plant it next:
Go for the lung, that's good, don't foul ya blade on the rib; the heart, good--main artery in the throat, bleed him slow, make 'im think about it for a while. Good.
(Good.)
...oh, Christ, so good...
"Them two are gettin' close enough t'share a chamber-pot," he's heard McGloin say in--what? Disgust? Jealousy?
But it's true enough; he's seen it done, done it himself. Seen Bill in disarray and unthinking of potential consequences more times than he can count--the whole of his tall, hard, scarred body from top to toe, in part or in whole. Seen at least as much of the Butcher as he has of his Apprentice, perhaps even more...though Jenny, too, likes to keep at least some of her clothes on even when she's pulling you inside of her; just Five Points practicality, probably, more than anything else. Got to keep your boots handy, if your calling means you always got to be ready to run.
Jenny's Jenny, though, and ain't stopped being so just 'cause Bill's given his tacit consent to her and Amsterdam's "union". Ever since that night he told Amsterdam the story on why he keep the Priest's portrait handy (though not up here, thank Christ--for Amsterdam don't think he could stand being caught in the throes of this particular tussle under his dead Pa's disapproving eyes), she's still held herself just as free and fly as before; independent to a fault, off to do her own business elsewheres whenever it strikes her fancy. For she's not a one to be kept by no man, let alone by two.
But if Bill chooses to take his pleasures during her absence, and invite Amsterdam to share in the same--well, what does any of it matter, in the final tally? Just one more sin to work off when all this is done and done for, one more in a flock; much as Amsterdam tries to live in certain hope of resurrection, he knows he'll have to do more'n his share of time in Purgatory before he can 'scape the Butcher's firey influence completely.
Emma moans, her black braids flopping, and strips Amsterdam all the harder. As Amsterdam reaches out, slowly, to touch the shiny pink sore of Bill's half-healed bullet-wound where it peeks from under the sleeve of his waistcoat--not the same one his assassin wore, for Amsterdam suspects he's saving that for February's Victory Day hoy.
And God Almighty, but that night can't come soon enough. Not with half his time spent practicing throwing the Paradise Square battle-knife out back of Monk's barbershop, or praying to St. Michael Archangel to guide his hand. Or sharing close quarters with the same Devil whose blood he yearns to spill, every waking moment: Sharing 'em with a nod and a smile and a terrible show of "filial" affection, made all the more terrible by Amsterdam's creeping fear that it might be--
--could be--
(is)
--not. Quite. Strictly such a show, anymore.
(Not the way it should be, any road.)
Bill plays father with him, like he plays son with Bill--the son the Butcher never had, shat out of Ireland's excrementitious arse-end just like everything else Bill professes to hate yet nevertheless seems, by evidence alone, to cleave to: His beloved enemies (the Priest then, Monk now, for all Monk continually disappoints him by not being willing to take the vote on who's best street fighter in all the Points to its streets), his closest pawns and tools (McGloin or Happy Jack, take your pick), his Jenny...
("his" Amsterdam)
He lets his fingers slip further, pads hoving in fast. Traces the scar and draws a sudden grunt, Bill's eye opening anew at the feel of it: Paralytic dragon's glare, bright and keen and slit almost to a knifeblade's width. Looking at Amsterdam like he's jsut caught him at something, though neither of 'em quite know what.
"Does this still hurt?" Amsterdam asks him.
And: "Oh yeah," Bill says. "Always. 'Cause that's the trick of it, son--everything hurts ya, but nothin' has to hurt ya for long. Not long as you don't let it."
A smile crinkling the edges of his eyes, betrayingly, where those almost-invisible age-lines nest. Making Amsterdam remember, much against his will, that surge of anger and pity alike he felt when Bill--flag-wrapped and rocking, scarily vulnerable--brought himself almost to the brink of tears describing how the Priest had taught him...what? How to triumph over adversity, to be a man, to never look away? How best to value--and kill--him?
'Cause you did, didn't you, you New York Yankee son-of-a-bitch? I saw it. Only thing I still remember clearer than the warmth of my Pa's hand in mine is seein' him blown out like that candle, fallin' in the bloody snow like a felled tree...
That, and the look on Bill's face as he put that last knife in, slipping it up under the breastbone like an evil charm. That same mouth-twisting, eye-narrowing look he got making his confession to Amsterdam--almost the same, in some horrid way, as the one he's getting now--
Like it hurts, and he likes it. Like he wants it to hurt. Like he wouldn't want it--or nothing else--any other Goddamn way.
Feeling the fresh new skin bend under his finger, stretching thin like it's just on the edge of parting once more. And Amsterdam keeps on pressing, finding a weird rhythm to it--in and out, back and forth like Emma's moaning body, half-automatic, but more'n half not. Half of it just fuelled and driven by some vague desire to make Bill feel something, to leave his mark on him. Harder, and harder, and harder.
Bill opens his good eye wide, hissing loud through that high-set, much-broke nose of his. Demanding, imperious:
"Just what the hell ya think you're doin', boy? Why're ya--"
"You tellin' me to stop, Bill?"
Going in with his thumb as he says it, moving closer still, so Emma's too crushed even to cry out between 'em. And seeing the Butcher gasp, then grin--a grin of pleasure and surprise, admixed. Like pleasure's the only thing ever surprises him, anymore.
A gritty murmur, through his teeth, breath puffing Amsterdam's cheek like a wind out of the Abyss. And--
"...no."
Well, then.
In out, in out, in out. Just all becomes just part of the same lumbering machine, driving them both on towards their respective crises, like they're touching each other through poor Emma--Amsterdam shifting to slip inside her from the front as Bill lifts and separates her, takes her backwise and spreads her wide while he does it, invitingly.
Emma groans at the extra intrusion, lets loose with some half-choked cry in what Amsterdam can only suppose is her Ma's language. And slipping inside her is like he's slipping inside Bill in some crazy, dreadful sort of way, separated as he is from him by only a bare, fluttering wall of membrane; Bill pulling him closer with one hand on his wrist and the other in Amsterdam's hair, gripping him by the braid. Close enough to breathe his breath, close enough to--kiss...
(and can this be real? Is it?)
Scratch of Bill's moustache against his lips, undeniable, a fierce, brief grind. The hot lick of Bill's tongue, pasting a shred of tobacco to Amsterdam's upper lip. And that same grin, gleeful-terrifying, like he's daring him to do anything but roll his own eyes back and come, hard enough to send stars bursting behind his eyelids.
Same grins says: I know who I am, what I'm capable of. Know who you are, boyo, even if ya think I don't--
Not know like name-wise, but "know" to the marrow, to the very soul. Down deep in the very essential lack of him, the mourning fatherless part where Amsterdam himself fears to look, most-times.
The way of the transgressor is hard, Mister Vallon...
Oh, you don't say, Minister. Yes, thank you, very much so: Like Hell is dark and full of mice, impossible to dig yourself out of. Easy to come, hard to go, impossible to know just when and how you tripped over its slippery slope. Not 'till you reach its very, very bottom.
Amsterdam keeps telling himself he don't think he's there quite yet. But after tonight...
...after tonight, he's not so sure he'd know it, if he was. Or if he wasn't.