Thirst (17 page)

“Why are you doing this?” she pleaded.

Eddie squatted beside the woman and touched her shoulder. She winced as though his fingers were sharp.

“Don’t,” she moaned. “Leave him alone.”

Mike Sr. walked down the hall and opened a door back there. Eddie leaned on his heels to look. A bouquet of silk flowers, a white wall, an apparatus with handrails. He closed his eyes and felt he could stay there for a while.

“Mike,” he called. “Let’s go.”

Mike Sr. had stopped in the doorway. Eddie got up and stood next to him, putting a hand on his hot, doughy shoulder.
Sitting up on the bed was a man with wisps of gray hair. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes as big as quarters. He worked his jaw. His lips had trouble separating. “
Mup
,” he said, reaching a skeletal hand at them. The flesh on his arm was as loose as rotted canvas.

“We need to go,” Eddie said.

“What’s going on in here?” Mike Sr. said.

“We need to get out of here.”

Mike Sr. nodded sternly at the salsa in his hand. “I’m keeping this,” he said, but he put the strawberries back in the freezer.

The woman was still lying on the floor.

“You’ve killed him,” she called as they left. “He’ll be dead because of you.”

Mike Sr. pulled the front door closed. They stood on the patio without speaking.

“Don’t listen to her,” he said after a while. “That guy was dying before we got there. I guess we’re all dying now.”

It took them a long time going back. Mike Sr. had to stop and sit and eventually Eddie did, too.

“You’ve got to eat just a little,” Eddie told him.

But Mike Sr. refused. Even the color in his eyes had drained. They made it another block and rested on an elaborate wooden planter. The dirt inside was as weightless as perlite. Eddie ran his fingers over the surface and jostled the stalks of dead plants that were the same color as the dirt.

Mike Sr. unscrewed the salsa lid.

“Here,” he said. “You’re right. We should.” He held the jar out to Eddie. “Take a little,” he said.

Eddie scooped out a few chunks of tomato and onion with
his fingers and put the pieces into his mouth. He let them sit there, sucking the juices.

“Nothing’s more important than my boy,” Mike Sr. said.

Eddie looked at him. “I want to live, too.”

“It’s different being a father. You’re still just thinking of you.”

“Let’s get back, then,” Eddie said, “to your boy.” As he said it, an ink stain spread across his vision. He lay back in the dirt and could feel his shoulder hanging off the planter. The air was soundless. A cough would have thundered through the neighborhood. Eddie reached over his head and felt past the corner of the planter. There was something soft there, and he let his fingers play on top of it. He thought of the stuffed dog he’d slept with as a boy—Louis—how he had worried its paws until the material felt as soft as this. His parents had let him name a stuffed dog Louis. It had probably been cute—that name in a child’s mouth.

What a world. To get from there to this.

He could feel Mike Sr. grabbing at his wrists and lifting him.

“Easy, now,” Mike Sr. said. “Don’t go touching that.”

On his feet, Eddie saw what the softness was. In the corner of the planter, a couple of squirrels had died. They were bunched up with their heads together, like they’d been trying to burrow.

“I thought it was something else,” Eddie said.

“Easy, now,” Mike Sr. said again.

Their houses weren’t far, and they leaned on each other and took small, slow steps to make it back. Eddie went inside and called for Laura. Then he stretched out on the sofa.
He could see the old man with his enormous eyes, lifting himself up to stare at them. The woman had been right. That far gone, an effort like that would probably be the end of him.

“Laura,” he called again.

Eddie thought that maybe he’d been sleeping, though how much time had passed, he couldn’t tell.

The house was quiet, and panic shot through him.

“Laura!” he called.

She wasn’t on the mattress in the basement. She wasn’t in any of the basement rooms. It was dark down there, and he swung the flashlight over all the floors.

In the corner of the basement was a door they rarely used. He opened it and walked up from underground like he was climbing from the center of the earth. The sun was a terrible wall of light that made a froth of the line of empty houses and bushes down the sidewalk.

He was walking, though he thought he was standing still. It seemed the street was turning around the steady point that was his head.

He was at the abandoned house, through the yard, standing at the hedge. All the leaves were gone from it, and the turning stopped. The world was still again.

Through the sticks, though, he saw Bill Peters’s dead, claylike face.

He’d thought it would be Laura.

A strange hatred welled inside of him.

Bill Peters.

Bill Peters didn’t have to face any of this. Eddie had to face it.

Back at the Davises, it took Mike Sr. a long time to answer the door.

“Have you seen Laura?” Eddie asked.

“She’s with us.”

When Eddie saw her, he said, “How could you do that to me?” She was sitting on the love seat. Patty was lying on the sofa, breathing heavily with her eyes closed. Mike Jr. was on a nest of blankets in the middle of the floor. All his clothes were off, his penis like a cork, gray and removable-looking.

“I came over to help. You were gone for a long time,” Laura said.

“Were you helping?”

She stared at him fiercely. “Were you?”

“What are you talking about?”

Mike Sr. was leaning on the counter, and Laura turned to him when she spoke to Eddie. “You could have done something for those people on the bridge,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it, is all.”

“You’re on that now? Laura, I didn’t even see them. There were other people standing around gawking already.”

“They could have been hurt. You didn’t know. You just ran past it all.”

Eddie looked at Mike Sr., who stared into the space above Laura.

“Mike?” Eddie said.

Mike Sr. raised his eyebrows.

“You know about work crews and stuff. Tell her. You’re supposed to wait for the paramedics.”

“And what if there are no paramedics?” she said. “What then? You just ignore it?”

“Oh, shut up,” Eddie said.

Mike Sr. said, “We just pray no one gets hurt when we’re on a job.”

Mike Jr.’s eyes were closed like his mom’s, only his breath didn’t seem to be coming.

“What can I do?” Eddie asked.

Mike Sr. went into the kitchen and started messing with a bowl. He brought it over and mashed the salsa with a spoon.

“You can help me get this down him,” he said.

Eddie sat down next to Mike Jr., and Mike Sr. knelt across from them.

“Just make him comfortable,” Mike Sr. said.

Eddie stroked Mike Jr.’s arm. It was dry and hot.

Mike Sr. took a spoonful of the red mash and put it onto Mike Jr.’s lips. It sat there on his face.

“Come on, Mikey,” he said. He put a finger between his son’s teeth and got his mouth to open. Then he pushed the mash in. It was clear from the way Mike Jr. lay there that the salsa was just inside his teeth, resting on his tongue. Mike Sr. ran his fingers up and down his son’s throat, the way he’d get a cat to take a pill.

“Where are the cats?” Eddie said. The Davises had two Siamese he’d often seen pressing against the screens.

“Gone,” said Patty. It was the first she’d spoken, and Eddie felt relieved that she was able to. “They were gone right off the bat.”

“They’re smart animals,” Mike Sr. said. “If there’s a way to survive, they’ll find it.”

Mike Jr. swallowed.

“Yes, buddy!” Mike Sr. said. He worked another fingerful into his son’s mouth and rubbed his throat again. When he’d
swallowed a second time, Mike Sr. brought four teacups from the kitchen and put a spoonful of the salsa into each. He handed one to Patty, and then one to Eddie and Laura.

“We can’t,” Laura said.

“Don’t be a hero now.”

“I just keep thinking about those cars on the bridge. I don’t know why. What if there were people in them? People who died? I can’t get it out of my head.”

“She’s punishing herself,” Eddie said. He smiled, and the muscles in his cheeks tightened beyond his control. “She lost a daughter when she was young.”

Mike Sr. looked over at her. “I’m real sorry to hear that,” he said.

“Eddie,” Laura warned. It was almost a whisper.

“But it’s okay,” he said. “She’s pregnant again.”

Laura stood from the love seat. “I need to go,” she said, but her legs gave way and she crashed onto the carpet. She lay there making small sobbing noises.

“At least she
might
be pregnant,” Eddie said.

Mike Sr. went to her and put the spoon of salsa close to her mouth. “Can you swallow?” he asked. “Don’t think of anything else.”

Eddie chewed his own spoonful, releasing the sharpness of the juice. He couldn’t so much taste it as feel where the liquid touched his palate, where it settled between his teeth. He kept it forward with his tongue, letting it release slowly to the back of his throat.

The day felt inconsequential, like a lazy weekend. He moved over to where Laura was lying and went down next to her. The dreaminess had returned.

“No one holds it against you,” he whispered. “You know Mike and Patty are nice people. They understand.”

“But why would you say that?” she asked.

“I don’t hold it against you, either. We’re starting over. Both of us.”

They sat there on the floor in silence, staring just beyond themselves as if sharing the quiet of a fire. Old cigarette smoke clung to the yellow walls, and it buzzed in Eddie’s nostrils.

“How far along are you, sweetie?” Patty asked.

Laura didn’t answer, and Eddie rubbed her back.

Then she said, “Just a couple weeks.”

“It’s not anything yet, then,” Patty said. “You can’t think of it as anything.”

Mike Sr. said, “What about fracking?”

“What?” Patty said.

“Hydraulic fracturing. These gas companies pump all kinds of chemicals into the ground to break up where the gas is. It goes into the water and messes it up. You can light your tap on fire. I saw it on the news.”

“That’s up in Pennsylvania,” Eddie said. “They’re not doing it down here.”

“Do you know that for sure?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“The ground is all connected, though,” Mike Sr. said, “with plates.”

“It’s too big,” Eddie said. “It couldn’t happen all at once. You’re wrong about that. You’re just scaring them.”

“It’s an answer.”

“I’m not scared,” Laura said.

“It’s the wrong answer,” Eddie said. “So what does it matter?”

“What happened, then,” Mike Sr. said, “if you know so much?”

“It’s something deeper. Like, something wrong with the earth.”

“You’re not scaring me, Mike,” Laura repeated. She spoke in the tender way she would to a child. “It’s a start. It’s just an idea of what it could be. We have to start with something, right?”

They slept in the Davises’ living room.

Eddie curled up next to Laura on the carpet, but she turned and pushed him away with her leg.

“Laur,” he whispered. “It was a dumb thing to tell them.” Then he said, “I don’t know why I said it. Come on, Laur.”

“Now they know,” she said into the carpet.

“You have to conserve your strength, though.”

“So?”

“Being angry takes up energy.” When she was silent, he said, “I need you to be strong. We have to forgive each other.” He stroked her hair until she was breathing lightly again. “I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to.

“Laura,” he whispered. “Laur …”

When he woke, it was dark and Patty was snoring on the sofa. Mike Jr. was near his feet in the nest of blankets. Eddie pushed at the boy’s shoulder with the toe of his shoe. His own legs were wobbly. He had to hold on to the coffee table to stand. Mike Sr. wasn’t there.

Eddie stood at the window facing the street. The dark inside the house was deeper than the dark outside, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. There were people moving out there. A big group of them. Some had backpacks—some pulled heavy-looking suitcases on wheels. He tried to speak, but his voice was splintery and stabbed his throat, making him cough. He grabbed for the wall but it was slick and he slid down and continued coughing on the floor. There was a pain deep in his side that felt like something tearing. He squeezed to keep it whole until the coughing fit had passed.

When he could stand, he opened the door, but the street had
emptied out. He walked out into the night. How long had he been on the floor? The sky had the whitish tint of dawn. It was hot out there, but maybe the house was hotter. Had he seen them? Those people in the street? The memory had sunk beneath the clarity of his vision like a coin to the bottom of a pool.

In the living room, Laura was sitting up. Mike Jr. was in her lap and she was bent over him as though he were a much smaller child. The way she cradled his head made him look like a corpse she’d lifted off the ground.

“Laura,” he said.

She rocked Mike Jr. and his head lolled.

“Laura. Put him down.”

Mike Jr.’s eyes flashed open, and Eddie caught his breath, stepping back.

“He’s sick,” Laura said.

“It’s okay,” Eddie said. “You can put him down.”

“I have to take care of him. I’m responsible this time.”

He saw that she was dreaming.

He touched her shoulder and she flinched.

“It’s okay,” he said.

She looked down at the boy in her arms. His eyes had the unhinged quality of blindness.

“How you doing, buddy?” Eddie asked.

Mike Jr. was silent and didn’t redirect his gaze.

“I don’t remember it,” Laura got out. “Picking him up.”

“You were concerned,” Eddie said. “It’s okay to be concerned about him.”

He took Mike Jr. and placed him back down on the blankets on the floor.

“Lie down,” he said to Laura. “Rest. It’s night. We’ll start over in the morning.”