What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [51]
Liam knew better than to allow Festus to run a conversation. “Tell me why you are in jail, Festus, or I’m hanging up.”
“I went for communion last night.”
“You dumbass. I told you you’d get in trouble. You should be glad it’s just jail.”
“Whatever,” said Festus. In fact, he had been vaguely disappointed by the priest’s failure to do anything really villainous. In the end, all he’d done was ask Festus to apologize and then let his leather-clad associates beat him up a bit. And then, of course, the cops showed up and arrested him. Spending the night in jail fending off the romantic overtures of a hormonally-challenged Mexican had actually been the worst part – so far at least. Now he braced himself to tell Liam what he’d been up to – which wouldn’t be much of a surprise, really, since Festus rarely went to jail for other things.
“What was the word I used a second ago? Ah, yes. Dumbass.”
“Well— well, yeah, okay.” It wasn’t as if Liam had said something they didn’t both already know. “Anyway, jail totally sucks. So I need you to come pick me up.”
“Absolutely not. I have somewhere I need to be this morning.”
Festus was indignant. “Where? The can? It’s Saturday! Come down here and bail me out already!”
“Today is Monday, Festus.” Liam sounded calm now and a little weary.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Festus, not at all aware of the irony of his statement. The phone went quiet for a moment while Festus made a variety of contemplative “hmm” sounds at himself.
“Festus?”
“Oh, yeah. Look, it was a long night, filled with way more heinousness than any man should ever have to endure, okay? Please just come get me.”
“Sorry.” Liam shook his head, which was helpful, considering that Festus was talking to Liam from the other end of a phone line, inside a jail almost three miles away.
“Come on, man,” Festus pleaded, “I don’t have anyone else who can help. Don’t leave me here. I pretty sure Mount Iwannadoya is ready to take our relationship to the next level. He has nothing on his lower half but leather chaps, by the way.”
“Sorry, man. Gotta go.”
“Liam?! What in the hell is wrong with you this morning? Did someone die or something? Or did some kind of angry, stinging insect somehow manage to crawl up your ass?” He could hear more heavy breathing from Liam. “Just come get me already, you heartless bastard. You would not believe what this guy just told me about Governor Whitford.”
“What?” asked Liam.
“Can’t talk about it now. Just come get me.”
“I’m only coming to get you so that I can kill you and leave your body in a ditch somewhere.”
“I can live with that.”
Chapter 19. I Love a Parade of Naked Guys
In the 1970s, lots of people thought that the world was going to end. The Earth was supposedly going to melt or freeze or explode or something, all because we couldn’t be bothered to turn off the tap water while brushing our teeth, and so we were all definitely going to die. In this period of disco and wild-blue-sky optimism, there emerged the worst architectural style the world has ever known: modernism. “Build ‘em big,” they said. “Build ‘em big and ugly and monolithic. Build ‘em so that they’re still here when the Time Traveler arrives and dinosaurs have reappeared and evolved to the point where dino-archaeologists can be impressed by our stupendous architectural achievements.” And so they built them big and ugly and monolithic. And now we’re stuck with the damned things. These awful tributes to the dystopian future –where old people are melted down and recycled as food – infest our cities and, perhaps appropriately, are used primarily for government offices, low-income housing, or (combining the two) jails.
The Austin City Jail is one of these ultra-modern abominations. It is a very tall, very brown, and very government-looking building on the eastern edge of downtown. It was built, of course, in the 1970s, and there are now very few people alive who will admit