Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [3]
We pass along through the avenue of pines by the reservoir’s edge. The evening has not turned the sky dark yet. The trees stand out against the clouds.
We are almost out of the town. We pass a series of slanted fields.
Because I cannot hear Paul and Mark, I sit back in the seat and think what if I were going to the lynching with real friends, really cool ones who don’t necessarily exist. I picture us taut with excitement and dressed in black. We are talking about the meaning of oppression; my twenty-five-year-old girlfriend is staring moodily out the window. One of my friends has brought his sketchbook because he wants to catch the lineaments of human depravity and also pain and suffering. This is what artists do sometimes.
We are on Route 495. Mark is flipping between radio stations.
“Where are we going to park?” says my brother. “All the spaces near the courthouse are going to be taken.”
Mark is leaning down to peer at the radio display. “There are some places at Cumberland Farms,” he says. “But you have to be a patron.”
“Look at this asshole,” says my brother. “It’s often customary to drive in a lane.”
“Where did they find the last body?” Mark asks, focusing his invisible camera on his reflection in the darkening windows.
Paul stops to wait for a red light. “I think on the roof of the hardware store over on the other side of town. Near the Hudson line. Nice turn signal, buttlick.”
We go to McDonald’s. I order a double hamburger, six-piece McNuggets, and a medium fries. I have been very hungry lately. We drive into the center of town. We go past the Cumberland Farms parking lot, because it is full. People are already clustered around the courthouse, yelling and shouting. Police lights are flashing in the gloaming.
We park in front of the Bradley House of Pizza and get out. Paul starts to pay the meter and Mark reminds him that it is after six and that he is a moron. I feel stupid carrying my McDonald’s bag, and my fingers are all sticky from the fries. I shift from foot to foot and chew. At the Bradley House of Pizza, there is a sign in the tattered plate glass window, “Making your favorite sub for forty years!” Talk about slow service.
We head down to the mob. Everyone is still relatively pleasant. The police are putting up orange sawhorses to keep a clear path up the steps of the courthouse. People are chatting. A woman who dressed in a sleeveless pink top when the sun was up is rubbing her upper arms and shivering. “Oh god, I know,” she says to her friend.
Vampires are lynched, traditionally. It is too costly to hold them for trial. A full-grown vampire is immortal if well fed, but can’t live long without human blood; and it is tricky to come by donors. There’s no need for a trial, I guess, because there’s not much doubt about vampires. There are, after all, the pointy teeth and the mirror problems. Whenever their blood-lust is upon them, their fangs slide forward, and they have no reflection to speak of. And once people find those signs, it’s all over for the vampire. If you are a vampire and still alive, people know you must be guilty of murder. There’s no other alternative — no other way you could live. So sometimes they will burn you. Usually they will drive a stake through your heart.
We wait. As the evening grows darker, the crowd gets larger and sounds angrier. The police who are waiting look around nervously and occasionally consult one another. One of them is sitting in the squad car, muttering into the CB.
People stare at me as I dip my McNuggets into the barbecue sauce. The pieces keep sticking in my throat. I want to finish them as quickly as possible.
I crumple up the recycled bag and throw it in a rusty barrel. Mark and Paul have made their way through the crowd to the news vans, where technicians are setting up lights and a camera crew is connecting wires.
We hear sirens a long way off. Everyone starts to fall silent. I scuffle my shoe on the pavement and look for something to stand on. A father has picked up his little daughter and perched her on his shoulders.