Thirsty (23 page)

“Look, Christopher —,” he whines.

“What, Jerk. What else do you have to tell me?”

“I, I just called because I was worried about you, man.”

“Worried? I’m really touched, Jerk. Your concern means so much to me. Like you understand what’s going on. Like you understand any goddamn thing in the world.”

“Hey!” he says. “I’m your friend. What are you —”

“Jerk, your only friend is your stupid dog. Your dog is so stupid. Why don’t you go talk to your dog? It’ll be sort of like your having a girlfriend, but the dog will have less chest hair.”

“You,” says Jerk. “You think I’m shit, don’t you? Don’t you? You just think I’m shit.”

I sneer, “You are what you eat —” And instantly, I realize what I’ve done. And I can’t believe it. “No, Jerk, I’m sorry. Please, Jerk, I’m sorry,” I plead to the dial tone. “Jerk, I’m so sorry.”

And now I am all alone.

I am up in my room.

I am grounded.

I am going to die soon.

The night has fallen, and the stars are out over the town. This is the town where I grew up. I grew up near the reservoir and used to play in the hills here. I don’t want the life of that person who played in the hills and walked by the reservoir dragging a Tinkertoy ray gun to end. I want that person to be alive.

I someday want to go to exhibitions of spattered modern art with women with strict hairdos, and I want to murmur in their ears. I want to look out across the lake where I’ve bought my summer cottage and have arranged the playing cards in the phone desk drawer. I want to have memories of people laughing and driving in cars. I want to be alive in ten years to have a college pennant on the wall, and in twenty years to have a wife whose family I know well, and to have a microwave with a built-in convection oven with a two-year limited warranty. This is what is due to me, because I am an American; and I can’t believe the thing I can feel squirming in my chest, that it is eating its way outward, and that I am going to be a killer.

I know that it is there, my vampiric heart, squelching in the cavern of my ribs, spitting and sucking blood. It will destroy me. It will.

As darkness grows thick around me and wraps itself on the furniture like black sheets hung in a house that will not be lived in again, I know that there is no hope and that there is nothing for me to do. My rage is wild and I am pacing around the room; I am pacing around it quickly because it is very small, and every moment it seems smaller.

Just tell my mother? Yes, yes, I think, because she will protect me in spite of everything. Mothers love their children, and she will protect me. It is only natural for mothers to love their children, it is the natural thing that always happens in the wild. Even with animals. Tonight on
Wild Kingdom,
“Mothers and Their Children.” Natural. But —

Except that birds — and I remember — if a baby bird is touched by an alien hand — a human, a dog — and put back in its nest, the mother will peck it apart. She’ll peck it to death because it’s been touched. — I remember — when I was younger, a baby bird fell out of the nest, fell onto the ground; the other boys started throwing stones at it. I ran crying “Stop!” and took it in my hand (it was cheeping), but —

“You can’t save it now,” said one of my friends. “Its mother will kill it. She’ll just kill it.” He slapped my hand and made the chick fall out. Taking a rock, aiming at the sprawled chick, he said, “This is mercy.”

He threw his rock. Its sharp edge hit the bird’s eye, which popped like a blueberry. “This is mercy,” he repeated, throwing another.

And the others picked up stones and hurled them. And even the little kids who were too little to understand the words repeated, again and again, as they flung their stones, “This is mercy!” “This is mercy!” (shrieking with laughter) “No,
this
is mercy!”

Its mother will kill it. She’ll just kill it.
I remember the changeling we heard about on TV, yowling in the fire.
It wasn’t even human,
my mother said.
It wasn’t even human.
And I’m coiled on my floor. Saliva drooping out of my lips. Teeth huge. Swollen. Hurting.

I’m hiding behind my door. It’s near eleven. Television downstairs. Out in the night people are moving on the streets. Kids still playing kickball on the road by the streetlight. Footsteps shuffling along the hall.

I don’t want anyone to knock. I don’t want them to knock. When they do, I’ll be tracing their blue veins in my mind from their fist up their arms, up to their necks, their soft, pulpy necks.

And suddenly, I love them because they are so fragile, because I am no longer one of them. And because I love them, I should run from them; run into the night and do the savage things I need to do.

No, I cannot do those things.

But I have to.

I don’t know — no, I do know. I can’t do those things. And I realize that the decision to be human is not one single instant, but is a thousand choices made every day. It is choices we make every second and requires constant vigilance. We have to fight to remain human.

And now I can’t, now. (I’m huddled on my bed, rocking back and forth, my teeth gaping from my mouth. I moan while I rock.)

Shudders go through my body. My fingers grasp unseen objects and pull at them.

I’m hiding behind my stereo now. Don’t want to see the light under the door.

Night is growing thick. House is dark. Sighing breaths rising and falling in soft white throats.

Three right here, right in this house.

And I’m hiding behind the doorway. There is no hope for me. That is all I know.

Hiding behind the doorway. Not that I would jump at someone who came in.

Not that I would jump.

I would never jump on a member of my family and drink their sweet, tart blood.

I would never.

Soon it will be the loneliest part of night.

Soon it will be the quiet hour.

My chin is wet.

Muscles twitch.

No, I think.

Don’t do what you’re.

Don’t do.

No, please.

Behind the door.

I am thirsty.

I am thirsty.

Oh, god.

I am

so

thirsty