Thirst (14 page)

When the voices died out, he went downstairs and felt Laura’s forehead. It had cooled, but the commotion he’d made hadn’t roused her.

She was still asleep when the light turned gray. There was one stippled window at ground level, and the light that came through made the liquid in her glass look like thin dark milk. She was breathing okay. Eddie tipped the glass to his mouth and held it there until he could muster the courage to swallow. He felt clammy all over, but his skin was dry. Laura’s was, too.

While she slept, he walked down the street to the abandoned house. It was still early, but he checked the perimeter of the yard and looked for anyone across the street. The big sycamores, he saw, were as bare as in winter. A spray of leaves had collected on the eastern side of the house, where before it had been overgrown in weeds. The stalkier growth was as limp as rope on the ground. He could still see the top of the hedge around back, but it had wilted. The leaves hung like flags on a windless day.

Nothing was moving across the street. The air was quiet.

In the backyard, Bill Peters’s arm had flopped out from the bush, and it rested on the burnt grass. Eddie felt the nausea
again, but controlled it from coming up. The hand was grotesque—the fingers as pink and swollen as Vienna sausages. Eddie walked to him quickly, not looking at his face. With the toe of his shoe, he tried flipping the arm back up over the body, but it only fell back where it was. He had to stoop down and grab it and fold it over onto Bill Peters’s chest. Even then, whatever it had bloated with made the arm difficult to place. It slid slowly back out away from the body.

Eddie whined to himself softly through gritted teeth. “What can I do? What can I do?” he said. He squeezed his fingernails into his palms and looked over his shoulder at the empty yard.

By the back of the house were chunks of cinder block, and he took a piece and weighted the arm back on the outside of the elbow. It stayed where it was. Some of the trees had been shedding branches, and Eddie collected them and propped them against Bill Peters’s side in camouflage.

Eddie looked back into the yard. If someone had seen him, at any point, they would have moved the body. People would have been here already. The cops would have come.

He stood in front yard and called “Hey!” over toward the evacuation leader’s house.

There was only silence in response.

“Hello!” he called again. The street was as empty as a canyon. How many of them had cleared out in the night? How many had tottered off with backpacks and flashlights and street maps held in front of their faces?

He left the body and stood on the sidewalk. He looked up and down the street.

The sound of Mike Sr. banging down the steps of his deck
roused him. Mike Sr.’s face was red and his hair as dry as the yellow grass. He got into the minivan and Eddie watched his shoulder twitch as he turned the key. He watched him pound the steering wheel with his fist.

By the time Eddie reached him, he was standing in front of the gas flap.

“Look at this,” he said, though he’d not yet acknowledged Eddie was there. “They drained it. What kind of animals do a thing like this?”

Eddie looked. The gas cap was gone. He backed up and stepped on it in the driveway.

“Here,” he said, handing it back to him.

Mike Sr. screwed the cap in place. “I need to get to a doctor,” he said. His voice was close to breaking.

“He’s that bad?”

“I can’t get him cool. He’s in pain. It’s something serious, I can tell.”

“What’s he drinking?”

“What are any of us drinking? Nothing.”

“There might still be people evacuating.”

“Don’t start with that. A nine-mile walk in this heat? Those idiots. It would kill him. And how do you think Patty would handle it? Where’re the fucking power people, is what I want to know.”

He banged his fist hard into the hood of the car. Then he banged again and again. His fist was heavy and finally left a dent.

“Hold on,” Eddie said. “I have something.”

He went back into his house and soaked a washcloth in apple cider vinegar. Mike Sr. had gone back inside, and Eddie had to knock when he returned.

Patty opened up, but didn’t speak.

“Here,” Eddie said, holding up the washcloth.

She walked through the kitchen, and Eddie followed her down the basement stairs. With each step down, she pulled the railing, until Eddie thought she’d wrench it free.

They had Mike Jr. lying down in an old bathtub liner, a pillow under his head. His naked body was pink.

“Look who’s here,” Patty said. Mike Sr. stood above the boy, gently fanning with a towel.

Mike Jr. looked at Eddie and managed a smile. “Eddie,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Mike Sr.

“Here you go, slugger,” Eddie said. He laid the washcloth on his forehead and Mike Jr. let it rest there.

After a while, he said, “It stings.”

Patty reached down and folded the washcloth over once so that it wasn’t so close to his eyes. “Probably the fumes,” she said. “Vinegar?”

Eddie nodded.

“We’ve got some wine somewhere upstairs. I’ll use that next. We sure as shit ain’t drinking it,” Patty said.

“Alcohol. No way,” said Mike Sr.

“You’ll be celebrating with it soon,” Eddie said. “I bet the work crews are here this afternoon.”

“They have to be,” Patty said. “There was just a rate hike. They’re all crooks down there.”

“Look, Eddie, we’ve been talking,” Mike Sr. said. “That wheelbarrow full of goodies that Paul was rolling around … it couldn’t have gone very far.”

“You know Paul?” Eddie said.

“Yeah, I know Paul. He’s lived here for years. He’s a royal pain in the ass. Probably out on the highway now trying not to melt.”

“You know the man he was with?”

“Who was he with?”

“Another guy.”

“I didn’t see another guy.”

Mike Jr. whined in a way that otherwise would have brought a scolding. It was the whine of a spoiled child, but equally, Eddie realized, of pain.

Mike Sr. looked at Eddie and said nothing about his son. Instead, he said, “I know where he would’ve taken it. Down to Mrs. Kasolos. He treats that woman like his mother.”

Eddie couldn’t keep the heat from spreading up his neck, and he covered it with his hand. It was too late, though. He was hot all the way up to his ears.

“Which one is she?” he said.

“Little old lady at the end of the street.”

“That’s who they were collecting water for,” Patty said.

“They probably gave it out to people all over,” Eddie said.

Mike Sr. touched his thumb to the side of his nose. “And some of it to her,” he said.

“You want to ask her for it?”

“Nope,” Mike Sr. said “Tried that already. They must’ve gotten her outta town. She’s not answering her door. I want to go in there and take it.”

“Who would have taken her out of town?” Eddie said.

“She’s got family nearby. A daughter up in Burtonsville.”

“So, you want to break in. What happens when the cops show up?”

“There aren’t any cops. If they show up, then we saved the neighborhood. Second, I’m not going to break in.” He held Eddie with the sharpness of his gaze. “You are.”

Eddie felt a further weakness travel up his legs. “I don’t know,” he said.

“I’m too big. I need your skinny ass. You go in, check the fridge, come out. I need to get some liquids in my son. It’s as simple as that right now.”

“I’m not breaking into her house,” Eddie said, flatly. “That’s like looting. I’m not starting in on that.”

“Looting,” Mike Sr. said. “Listen to yourself. My son is sick. There could be water a block away that no one’s drinking. You’re my neighbor, Ed. I shouldn’t have to even ask you like this. You should have already volunteered.”

Eddie had never seen Mike Sr. angry, but it was coming now. He was a big man with the thick arms of his trade. His breath was making little huffing noises in his nostrils.

“Okay,” Eddie said.

“Okay,” Mike Sr. repeated. “Okay. Let’s go there, then.”

They walked up from the basement and back out onto the street. Mrs. Kasolos had bushes with leaves as dry as pencil shavings. Eddie knocked on the door while Mike Sr. waited on the walk with his arms crossed. When she didn’t answer, they went to the side of the house and Mike Sr. took a knee so that Eddie could stand on it and reach up to the window. He leaned both his palms into the screen and pushed. The window behind it was unlocked, and it budged.

“I’ve got to break the screen,” Eddie said.

“Break it, then.”

He dragged his fingernails across the corner of the screen
and pressed until it tore. Then he got a hold under the window and pushed up to open it. Mike Sr. laced his fingers into a stirrup and Eddie stepped into it. When he said, “Okay,” Mike Sr. hoisted him up and Eddie bent his body over the sill until he could touch the floor inside with his fingertips. The blood rushed to his face, and he fell and banged his knee across the sill as he went over. He lay on the floor in a heap.

“Mrs. Kasolos!” he called, not yet getting up. He was afraid he’d faint. “It’s Ed Gardner. Don’t be alarmed. I’m just checking up on you.”

He lay there and listened to the silence.

“You okay in there?” Mike Sr. called.

Eddie stood up and steadied himself. The room had blurred a little.

“Hold on,” he called, and was surprised by the rasp in his voice. He swallowed and got a little saliva in his mouth. He held on to the edge of the wooden breakfront, the plate with the two Bush presidents staring him in the face. On the table, the bunch of bananas had gone black. Against the wall, the watercooler was headless; only the white plastic stand with its triangular spigot remained upright. The jug was on the floor—on its side. Eddie could see the stain where it had spilled onto the hardwood.

He turned and saw Mrs. Kasolos sitting behind him in an armchair by the door. Her face was as wide across as a pumpkin. Purple veins piped through the insides of her elbows.

He stumbled forward and grabbed for the doorknob, not looking over at her. When he opened it to the hot air outside, it was as if he’d broken through a surface of water and could breathe again.

“She’s in here,” he said, gasping.

Mike Sr. walked past him. In a few minutes, he came out and said, “She’s gone.” He had a brown cylinder of prune juice in his hand that he held by the plastic lid. He jiggled it to demonstrate the slosh of liquid.

“A little left,” he said.

“What are we gonna do?”

“Got any bright ideas? I’m not digging a grave. Not in this heat.”

“She’s swollen.”

Mike Sr. pulled the door shut behind him. “She was old, Ed. Don’t get too worked up.”

“I know.”

“Old people die when the power goes out.”

Eddie had trouble moving. The air seemed to have congealed around him.

“We’ll call it in when the power’s back,” Mike Sr. said.

They walked back to their yards, and Eddie went inside his house. He took a steak knife from out of the block. He held it very still and very close to his side. Whatever death gasses were inside Mrs. Kasolos were expanding. It was their nature to expand.

He walked down the street holding the knife very still.

Bill Peters’s arm had moved the piece of cinder block a little, but it hadn’t gotten free. His wrist had swollen like a baby’s, and his shirt strained against his chest and belly. Eddie let his gaze travel up: the cheeks, ballooned, a bee-stung forehead. His eyes were lost in it.

Eddie placed the tip of the knife just below the sternum, and looked away. Then he leaned into it. The knife hit something
hard—maybe bone—and he pulled it back and aimed a few inches lower into a softer spot. There was a faint sound, almost the rumble of indigestion. Eddie’s arms were weak, and when he flexed his hands into fists, he couldn’t squeeze them hard. He walked to the opposite side of the yard and held on to the chain-link fence. With his eyes closed, he could imagine that he was dreaming.

In his kitchen, he soaked another washcloth with the rest of the vinegar and brought it down to Laura. She was still lying down with her eyes closed. The washcloth was almost cool. When it touched her forehead, she squeezed her eyes tighter.

“It’s a breeze,” she said.

“Just a washcloth.”

“It feels good, though, Eddie. Thanks.”

“It’s daytime.”

“I have a really bad headache.”

“I know.”

“You have one, too?”

“Yeah,” he said, and then wished he hadn’t told her. She would worry about his headache on top of suffering from her own.

“What else can we drink? Let’s really think about it.”

“What else? Can you think of anything? Our own pee, I guess.”

“Yeah. That’s what we should do.”

“I think we’re a long way off from that.”

“How long do we wait?”

“It’ll come back on soon.”

“What were you doing outside?”

“I was helping out at the Davises’. Mike Jr.’s still not feeling good.”

“Are you hungry? Everything we eat has water in it. We should be eating. You should tell the Davises to eat. No. I’ll do it.”

She pressed up to her elbow and took the washcloth in her hand, blinking her eyes as if the lights had just come on.

“You stay here,” Eddie said. “Rest.”

“I’m feeling better. That washcloth did the trick. It was smart of you to think of that.”

“There are still some hot dogs in the fridge.”

“I’ll give them to the Davises.”

“The Davises probably have their own hot dogs.”

“I’ll check, then.”

“It’s hotter out there than it is down here. A lot hotter.”

She stood up and Eddie watched her climb the stairs very slowly. Then he lay down and stared up at the drop ceiling. The house was silent. If he could fall asleep, even for a few minutes, he might escape the pain in his head. But he couldn’t fall asleep.

Bill Peters’s bloated face filled the space behind his eyes. It was too thick to push away. He stared at the ceiling again, but even there, he could see it.

The handrail creaked on its screws where Laura leaned into it. He thought it was the sound of her leaving, but she was already coming back.