What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [52]
Liam and Festus walked out of the front of the jail building and down the front steps to the street. Liam wore the kind of pained expression you might see on the face of a person who is on his first visit to a sewage processing plant.
“So he said that it’s the end of the world,” said Festus.
“Who did?”
“Haven’t you been listening? The guy last night.”
“Some crazy dude you met in jail?”
“Well, yeah. But I’m not sure he was crazy. He told me some really wild stuff.”
“Wait, did you hear what you just said?”
“Wild stuff, man,” said Festus.
“You need to stop going to jail, dumbass,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Festus, nodding as if he were receiving an ancient Chinese secret or other bit of profound wisdom. But then he muttered, mostly under his breath, “It’s not like I was trying.”
“The hell you weren’t.”
They crossed the street in silence.
“You know,” said Festus, by way of changing the subject entirely, “I’m pretty excited about animal adjectives.” He paused, looking around. “Where the hell did you park?” Liam nodded toward a parking lot up the street and kept walking. Festus had to scramble to catch up.
“So,” he said. “Animal adjectives.” He waggled his eyebrows at Liam as he were referring to an inside joke about their shared harem or a horde of cash they’d recently liberated from a bank.
“What—?”
“You know—”
“—the fuck?”
“—like feline, which means ‘cat-like,’ and canine, and equine. But those are just the usual ones.”
“Oh sure,” said Liam. “Right.” He kept walking. An outside observer might have thought, based on his body language and the way that he seemed to speed up his pace, that Liam was trying to tune out Festus’ rambling. An outside observer would have been correct.
“And my favorite – get this,” Festus smacked Liam’s arm, “—is turdine! It means ‘bluebird-like.’ Caprine is pretty good too, I guess. Means ‘goat-like.’”
Liam stopped and turned to face Festus. “You done yet?”
“Yeah, I guess. Sure.”
Liam turned and stepped into the street, only to have a motorcycle cop blip his siren at him. “What th—?” He stepped backward, but missed the curb and fell backward onto his butt.
“Wow,” said Festus, leaning over to offer Liam a hand. “What was that?” He pulled Liam up, and the two watched two more police motorcycles roll down the street. A third burbled and blatted its engine as it followed the others, but then slowed and came to a stop five feet away from Liam and Festus. The policeman, still seated on his bike, held his arms straight out, signaling that no pedestrians should cross the street.
“What’s going on?” asked Festus.
The cop stared straight through them, ignoring Festus’ question. “Stay back, gentlemen.” Liam and Festus looked at each other for half a second and then headed off down the sidewalk.
As they walked, and the sound of the cop’s idling motorbike faded, they heard voices – men’s voices. They turned to see what was coming and there, half a block away and five-abreast, was a very long line of men dressed in a random assortment of camouflage fatigues, trucker caps, and T-shirts advertising professional wrestlers. Many of the men had signs. The line of men in front marched shoulder-to-shoulder, holding a banner that read, “Texas Independence NOW!!” They were chanting too, but there seemed to be little in the way of organization, rhyming schemes or even coherence to their discordant cacophony.
“Hell no, we won’t pay income tax!”
“Texas, our Texas, you are great!”
“Are these some of those militia men who you always hear about having standoffs with the FBI or the IRS or whatever?” asked Festus.
“I guess.”
They stood and watched the parade with the kind of enthusiasm that people usually reserve for red lights and “DO NOT WALK” signs. Liam turned to look at the gathering crowd, and then nudged Festus.
“Hey, look at that!”
An assortment of naked men appeared, rushing in from the other side of the street, cavorting and leaping about in flamboyant displays of unclothed athleticism not generally seen outside of 19th-century French sculpture.
“Oh