She stopped as he walked up behind her. She was standing over the counter and the dishes were put away and she was staring down into the drying rack. He laid his palm on the flat of her back.
“I have something we can boil,” he said.
She didn’t turn around. “What?” she said.
“Just hold on.”
He took the two water bottles from the closet downstairs and pressed them to his chest.
“Where did you get those?”
“From the top part of the toilet. It’s clean in that part. It hasn’t been used.”
“It’s okay to drink?”
“I’m going to boil it anyway.”
Outside, the leaves on the trees were as shriveled as prunes. He touched one and it crumbled between his fingers. There was only a third of the bag of charcoal briquettes left, but he got them going hot. He poured the water into a pot and put the pot on the grill. It was over a hundred degrees out there and standing next to the flames was impossible.
So he walked away, toward the corner of the yard. When he saw the tarp on the ground it shocked him as immediately as if had it been moving. The sound of Bill Peters’s death wail flooded him afresh. He couldn’t breathe. The air was as thick as rubber.
“Hey, neighbor.”
It was Patty. She’d come up to the fence in front of him. Her voice pierced the seal on his breathing and the air came back again.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I hate to ask this, but do you have anything left?”
“Anything to drink?”
“Mike Jr.’s not feeling good.”
“He’s got a headache?”
“Bad, I think. Poor guy. All he wants to do is lie on the floor.”
“I’m just waiting for this to boil.”
“From the toilet?”
“Yeah.”
“We boiled ours yesterday. I learned my lesson: always stay stocked up.”
“You couldn’t have known, though. Nobody did.”
It took a long time for the water to boil. Patty leaned against the fence and didn’t say anything. After a while, she went back inside and brought out her own pot. When the water boiled, she came around to his side of the fence. Eddie held the pot handle with both hands, and they poured the water back and forth between the pots to cool it. On the last round, Eddie poured half of the water into her pot. Maybe more than half.
“Thanks,” she said. “I was actually worried last night. The power’s one thing, but the water’s something else. They can’t let us go without for too much longer. I guess they just have to get the trucks through all those cars on the highway. Mike Sr. told me they’re all abandoned. If they can’t get the trucks through, they can’t fix the water. They’ll have to start towing and that can take forever.”
“They’ll bring water trucks around, though,” Eddie said.
“I expect they will. They just need to hurry. We’ve got a lot of old people around here. And kids.”
“We took up a collection for the old people,” Eddie said. “I’m not worried about them. You tell Mike Jr. to start feeling better.” He raised his pot in a salute.
Laura was sitting at the table.
“I want you to drink all of this,” he said.
He tipped the water in the pot into a tall glass, filling it.
Laura drank from the glass. “I just want to lie down,” she told him. “Will you come lie down with me?”
“Yes,” he said.
But they didn’t lie down. They sat there at the table.
“If we had water, we could help people in the neighborhood,” she said. “We could bring whole buckets.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If we could get water from somewhere. We could boil it.”
“I just used the last of our charcoal.”
“Anything can burn, Eddie. We could boil it and strain it with a coffee filters. We could bring it all over.”
It sounded like the half-dreamt pillow talk she’d murmur after a long day, and Eddie squeezed her hand to keep her awake.
“It’s Mike Jr. you should worry about,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” she said. Her eyes shifted suddenly, and it was that, more than the fear in her voice, that startled him.
“He’s just thirsty. Just like the rest of us. He’s dehydrated, is all.”
“If we got water from the stream …” she said.
“No,” Eddie said. “You’re staying here. You’re staying right where you are.”
“Eddie, please. If I want to go, I’ll go.”
“We’re trying to conserve our strength. And you’re talking about going for a hike in the woods.”
“I’m talking about walking a few blocks.”
“Let me tell you what you’re talking about. You’re talking about going down to a muddy little stream to bring back water that will make you sick. They’ll be here to fix it soon. Everyone knows it’s out. They’ll helicopter in water bottles if they have to. I heard helicopters out there before. But it’s not going to come to that.”
“There’s no water in the stream, is there?”
“I’m sure there’s water in the stream.”
“Have you been down there, Eddie? Did you see that it was empty? It’s like beneath the bridge, isn’t it?”
“No. I haven’t been down there. There’s water in the stream.”
“Oh, God.”
“There’s water in the stream, Laura.”
“What’s happening?”
“Go lie down. I will, too. We just need to rest. They’ll be here soon. There’s too many people for them not to come.”
Eddie put his hands on her hips and guided her to the bedroom. She was trembling.
“Easy,” he said.
The more she shook, the more steadily he walked with her.
“Tell me,” she said. “You’ve been thinking about it. Even if you’re not sure. Just tell me what you think.”
“It’s nothing. Something at the reservoir. Something with the power.”
“I saw those burned-up trees.”
“Then maybe there was something in the water that was flammable. The other water’s probably fine.”
“My parents.”
“It’s different water. That’s what I’m saying. We’re on reservoir water. That means it’s all connected to one spot. It’s like dominoes, but ours are on a different table from your parents’. Right? The dominoes aren’t going to jump to another table.”
“They’ll fix it, though.”
“Fixing it is their job. The engineers or whoever. The people who can dig a highway underneath a river to get to New York City. Can you even imagine that? It’s all magic to people like us, but they can do it. They fix things like this.”
“You have faith in them.”
“I do.”
“Then I do, too.”
“Just rest now,” he said.
Outside, the sky was white and the sun was buried somewhere in it. Eddie walked down the sidewalk, past the abandoned house, on to the end of the block. Then he walked back past it again.
From the front of the house, the backyard was hidden. He looked up and down the street. At the north end, he could see the tops of the hedges, but that was all. From the south end of the sidewalk, he could see a strip of fence along the property line and, if he craned his neck, the edge of the back porch. He’d never seen anyone stop where he was standing, though. There was no reason to stop there.
When the power came back he would think of something. He was almost certain you couldn’t leave fingerprints on skin. There’d been no struggle, no DNA beneath his fingernails. He would simply call it in—say he found a body in the neighborhood.
He’d be questioned, but he’d say he’d been with Laura. She could verify that—and the Davises had seen him.
Eddie turned around and saw Mike Sr. standing behind him in the street.
“What are you doing?” Mike Sr. asked.
“Nothi
ng.”
“Come with me, then. They’re having a meeting across the street.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“Like a council-of-elders-type thing. To decide our fate.” He stared hard at Eddie and then smiled. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just a bunch of these jerk-offs talking.”
They walked together up the street to a house Eddie had never before considered. The door was open, and inside, a group of people stood around a living room. A few of them shook Mike Sr.’s hand.
Paul was there, near the bay window, with the man in the suspenders. He looked at Eddie and then quickly at the carpet in front of him. Eddie looked away, too. Mike Sr. squeezed them into the middle of the room, in front of two large men. One of the men crossed his arms against a chest so barreled it seemed it would take a dolly to move him. The other had his hands balled deep in his pockets. He rolled back and forth on his heels and grunted at Mike Sr.
“How ’bout all this?” he said.
“Yeah,” Mike Sr. agreed. “How ’bout it?”
“I told Sid here what the problem is. Just busted pipes.”
Eddie turned his head to listen. Sid continued to look ahead with his arms folded, the buttons of his shirt straining against his chest. “Pipes,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s more than just pipes.”
“Then you tell me.”
“An aquifer thing.”
“We’re not on an aquifer.”
“A different one,” he said. “They go dry and create a suction. It’s the physics of it. You don’t know.”
“Trust me,” the first one said. “It’s pipes.” He took a hand from his pocket to wipe beneath his nose. Then he rocked on his heels some more.
“All of our pipes?” the other man scoffed.
Mike Sr.’s forehead strained from clenching his teeth. He shook his head in a very small way.
At the other end of the room, a man who might have been the owner of the house stood facing them. He had thick gray hair that curled down his sideburns into a beard, and he wore the bulbous glasses of an earlier epoch. A general whispering had begun. The man in front was talking intently to the women closest to him, and he raised his voice as if something had been decided between them.
“If people can leave for the city, they should,” he announced, continuing his thought. “And it would be best to go in groups of at least three.” He spoke like an inveterate coordinator of volunteers. “We’ll draft some sign-up sheets,” he said.
“Why the city?” someone in the back called over Eddie’s head. He turned to see a woman in a flowered dress with enormous stains beneath the armpits. “Won’t the city be more dangerous if that’s where people are running to? There was crime in the city before all this. Now it’ll be worse.”
“Mrs. Ramos told us,” said the man up front, “that they have stations set up there. Cooling stations and water stations. The benefit of going in groups is that we can pool our resources for the walk, and we can look out for one another. We all know each other here, and that’s to our advantage. Not everyone down there will have the advantage of a group.”
“Where did she hear that?” Mike Sr. asked, his voice rising. People turned to look, and Eddie felt himself flush. Mike Sr. was scowling. “About the cooling stations and all?”
“You’ll have to ask Mrs. Ramos that.”
“Where is she? She’s not here?”
“It doesn’t matter where she is,” the man said. “This is the time for evacuation.”
Mike Sr. looked over his shoulder at Eddie.
“More like ejaculation,” he mumbled.
“That’s where all the resources are right now? In the city?” someone called out.
“It’s a rumor,” Mike Sr. said. All the bodies in the room had made it hotter still, and his face was glowing red. “One lady says it’s true. So what? Where did she hear it? Did she see these cooling stations? Does her TV work right now? Because I’ll go over there and watch the news with her.”
“What are the alternatives?” said someone else.
“If you could all give me your names,” said the man up front.
The woman with the pit stains strained forward on her toes to make her voice carry. “There will be emergency workers down there, at least. Paramedics. Police.”
Eddie had turned to look at her, but instead noticed the woman beside her. She was wearing a blue top with little white flowers across the front, and her gray hair was back in a bun. Her eyes were closed, and she was doing something strange with her lips—moving them quickly. “Isaiah fifty,” she whispered, opening her eyes.
“What, dear?” her friend with the pit stains asked. She stroked the woman’s shoulder. “We’ll be okay now. Strength in numbers.”
“ ‘By My rebuke I dry up the sea,’ ” the woman recited, her eyes widening, “ ‘and turn rivers into deserts. The fish rot and die of thirst.’ ”
She began to shake her shoulders up and down as if she were holding back sobs, but her eyes were clear. She turned to her friend. “Pray with me,” she said. She clasped her hands together in front of her waist.
“Pray,” she said again, this time loud enough so that other people turned. “We need to pray together!”
“Now, Doris,” the man up front said, “we’re being practical about this.”
“It’s hell,” the woman said. “This is hell right here. We’re in it already. Don’t you see that?” She began to shout. “Pray! Pray to God with me!”
“Sid,” the man in front said sternly, “can you get—Can you and John escort her out of here, please?”
The two men behind Eddie stepped on either side of her and held her arms where they were. “Settle down,” said the barrel-chested one.
The woman with the stained dress tried to pry them off, but it was like trying to pry cement. She had a frenzied look. “What are you doing?” she cried. “You can’t take her.”
“Just outside,” the other one said. “We’re just taking her right outside.”
The woman between them closed her eyes and let her mouth hang open. Her legs went limp and she fell halfway down before the two men caught her by the shoulders and lifted her so that her feet dragged on the floor.
“It’s too late,” she began to whisper. “Too late.”
The woman’s friend followed them outside.
There was a muttering among the group, but no one moved to stop them. It was as if the woman was a regular fainter at meetings.
Eddie looked at Paul again, who was staring out the window at whatever was happening outside. The man beside him cleared the phlegm from his throat and bowed his head as if to heed the woman’s admonition.
Mike Sr., though, was unfazed by the removal of the limp-legged woman. “We don’t need to go to the city,” he said. “We’ll get crews up here, too. They just haven’t come around yet.”
“They would have been here by now,” the man up front insisted.
“How about for people who can’t go?” Mike Sr. asked. “You want us to just leave them here? I’ve got a kid. You want me to abandon my kid?”
“It’s only nine miles,” the man up front said. “A child can walk nine miles.”
“Maybe your child,” Mike Sr. said.
“My boys are grown,” he said.
“Come on, Ed,” Mike Sr. said, loud enough to address the group as a whole. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Eddie followed him out into the startling sunlight, back across the street. There was no sign of the group with the praying woman. “What do you make of it?” he asked.
“All that talk? Right. Mrs. Ramos heard they’re handing out icy pops in the city. Sure thing. Let’s all go to the city for icy pops.”
“It’ll be a mess down there,” Eddie said. “I don’t trust emergency workers in this kind of emergency.”
“You’re right,” Mike Sr. said. “You’re absolutely right. Power goes to their heads. You remember Katrina.”
“You need to stay here for M
ike Jr., anyway.”
“He’ll be okay. Little man’s tough like his mom.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said.
They stood in front of the Davises’ house, and Eddie watched Mike Sr. cross his yard and go up the steps of his deck, past the patio furniture that had seemed, just the evening before, to pulse with his presence.
Eddie felt foolish—foolish for having been scared by anything on this block, scared by anyone in this whole neighborhood. They were a bunch of terrified old-timers. He was strong and young, and if anything, he should be helping. Bill Peters was gone. He needed to forget about Bill Peters.
He walked across the street to the Mathiases’ door. The curtains were drawn, and after he’d knocked, Mr. Mathias answered, shirtless, his belly moist with sweat. He had small buttons of black hair on his chest.
“Please,” he said to Eddie. “Just leave us alone.” He didn’t seem to recognize him. The interior of the house was almost black, and Eddie could see beyond him that they’d affixed blankets over the curtains.
“I’m your neighbor,” Eddie said. “Ed Gardner. From right over there. I just want to see how you are. I’m checking on you.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes. You.”
“There’s going to be an evacuation,” Eddie said.
“Who?”
“People are leaving in groups. I thought I’d tell you.”
“You’re going?”
“No, I think we’ll stay. It’ll all come back on soon. We’re okay.”
“Right,” he said.
“You’re okay, then?”
“All right as we can be,” he said, and then added, “Too hot to leave this door open,” and he closed it.
Eddie went back and stood on the Davises’ porch. He looked into a window. If they saw him looking, he would wave them out. They weren’t in the kitchen or the den, as far as he could tell. They were probably somewhere dealing with Mike Jr.
From up there on their porch, he could see into his own yard—the tarp along the back fence had the half-pitched quality of a complicated tent. Something welled behind his heart and rose into his throat. He turned and retched over the railing into the flower bed. It was hardly anything, thin and yellow, but he had to put his hands on his knees and gasp for breath.
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