Pariah

him. The meat was salty and dense and tough, but the flavor sent him back to his college days when he’d subsisted on mac ’n’ sleaze and bags of teriyaki jerky from the 7-Eleven.

“Enjoy that,” Dabney said. “Won’t be much more, I don’t think.”

Karl’s heart almost broke at the thought. “What? Why? Why not?”

“Haven’t seen any critters around in the last week or so. None airborne, none skulking around on the ground. No squirrels, no rats, no mice. Sure as hell no cats. Anyway, I think what I’ve got in there is the last of it. The bottomless empty is right around the corner. After that, we are all well and truly screwed.”

That was a helluva pronouncement. Karl studied the older man’s leathery puss-peeling, brown, raw, not unlike the jerky he was consuming. If they started dying in the building would they mimic the behavior of those things on the street? Would this turn into some Manhattan version of the Donner party? Of the Andean soccer team incident? Karl flashed on the movie Cannibal! The Musical, the comedy about the Alferd Packer, which didn’t seem so funny anymore. He thought about Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrei Chikatilo and Ed Gein. Wasn’t Idi Amin a cannibal? Oh fuck that, Karl thought. I’d rather die. I’d rather feed myself to those things than eat a human being. You have to hold onto who you are. Life isn’t that precious. At least not any more it isn’t. Maybe those sons of bitches ate each other because there were still things to live for. Their circumstances had been way different. Packer and the Donners and those soccer players had a world ahead of them.

Dabney eyeballed Karl’s twitching face, sensing his thought process.

“You know what one of those Uruguayan footballers had to say when they picked him up?” Dabney asked, his voice neutral. “It’s a quote I remember because it seemed so fucked-up at the time. Now, I don’t know how I feel about it. The kid was talking about how they’d cooked their teammates. He described the meat as, ‘softer than beef but with much the same taste.’ It’s animal nature to survive. Man’s an animal. To survive, folks adapt. Whattaya think of that?”

Karl doubled over and puked up the jerky. When he finished retching he remained bent over, hands gripping his knees to keep from toppling over, thick ropes of bilious saliva drooping from his twitching lower lip.

“Last time I offer you any chow,” Dabney said.

Eyes stinging, Karl glared at the lumpy puddle between his legs, his face broiling with shame. Whatever cred he’d established he’d just pissed down his leg. He’d reverted to Karl the Puss-no more, impossible to be less. He felt anger coursing through his wracked body. Anger at himself, anger at Dabney, anger at everything.

“If you had food this whole time,” he bleated, revolted by his wheedling tone, “why didn’t you share with us?”

Dabney sighed, not angry. Seemingly bored with the question. “Because I sing hard for my supper. No one ever stopped you from hunting and gathering. I don’t own the roof. You want food, show some damn initiative. Don’t come whining at me because you’re a bunch of spoiled Upper East Side ninnies. Grow some hair.”

Karl straightened up and made to leave.

“Clean your mess up before you go, kid. I might not own the roof, but it’s still my turf. Don’t be leaving your mess here.”

Karl opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but he couldn’t access any words that might redeem the moment. Dabney cocked his head like a wary dog and closed one eye in warning, shaking his head in silent rebuke. The gesture said, DON’T SAY A WORD. Karl looked around for a towel, saw none, then looked back at Dabney, who offered nothing but the stern authoritarian glower of someone about to lose his cool.

“What do I clean it with?”

Dabney pulled a rag out of his back pocket and tossed it to Karl, the motion reminiscent of that old Coke commercial with Mean Joe Green tossing the kid his sweaty game jersey. Karl thought a joke might help, and when he caught it he said, “Thanks, Mean Joe,” instantly regretting it.

Dabney turned away and resumed his vigil at the edge of the roof.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Karl chanted as he mopped up his puke.

5

“That Zotz better watch his mouth is all I’m sayin’,” Eddie said, stomping around the kitchen.

“Let it go, dude,” Dave said. “It’s no biggie.”

“It is a biggie. It is. It’s fuckin’ huge. First he gets lippy like, what, he wants a piece of me? He thinks he can handle The Comet all of a sudden? Like suddenly he’s a big man? He’s a little pussy, that little bitch. I’d stuff his fuckin’ crayons and paintbrushes up his ass if I didn’t think he’d fuckin’ love it.”

“Just chill, Eddie. Come on, seriously, you’re gonna give yourself an embolism or something. Park it and chill.”

Eddie paced a couple more times, then grudgingly heeded Dave’s counsel, taking a seat on an ottoman. He clenched and unclenched his fists, kneading his thighs, swallowing his lower lip. He threw his head back, the veins bulging on the sides of his neck, his Adam’s apple jutting out like a walnut. His nostrils flared like a horse’s as he exhaled over and over, sweat pouring off him. Dave watched Eddie attempting to decompress, to defuse. Ever since they’d met in high school they’d been inseparable buds, Dave the calm one, Eddie the hothead.

“The Comet” had been Eddie’s hockey handle-hokey, but apt. He’d been an awesome center whose speed and ferocity earned him an athletic scholarship to Rutgers. Dave had been goalie but he’d often kept his eye more on Eddie than the puck. Eddie tossed bodies around like they were nothing, which to him they were. It was magnificent to behold. Unfortunately he spent as much time in the penalty box as on the ice. Too much high- sticking. Too much hooking. Too much fighting in general. Too much blood on the ice.

Dave came over and ran his fingers through Eddie’s hair, petting him, trying to soothe him.

“Don’t do that,” Eddie snapped. “What’re you doing? I don’t need that shit, man.” He stood up, vibrating with barely contained rage. “You can’t do shit like that to me!”

Dave looked at his roomie, incredulous.

“I’m a little confused, Ed,” Dave said.

“What? What? What’s to be confused about? I don’t want you fuckin’ touching me all girly like that.”

“But we…”

“That’s not about… fuck, what’s the word?”

“Tenderness?”

“Exactly!” Eddie said, his face split in both triumph and disgust. “That’s exactly it! Tenderness. Tenderness is for women and fags. We’re not fags, Dave. We just have to let off some steam once in a while. Nothing wrong with that. Sex and tenderness have nothing to do with each other. You think all those guys in prison are fags? Hell, no, dude. They just do what they gotta do. Adaptation isn’t conversion, okay? You think they trawl for dick once they get sprung? Bullshit! They head straight for the punani! You need to remember that shit, bro.”

Yeah, but we’re not getting sprung, Dave thought. This is all there is.

“Whatever,” Dave said, and left the room.

“What’s the matter, is it your time of the month?” Eddie said. With that he erupted in laughter.

Dave stepped into the foyer and paced a few times, then opened the front door and stepped into the unlit common hall. This was the world now. A staircase leading up from the walled-up street entrance, the larger square landing of the second floor, the flights of stairs connecting each level, the narrow landings, the roofs, period. The entire rest of the planet was off limits. Why does Eddie have to be so nasty, Dave wondered. We’re all under pressure. We’re all in the same boat around here, not like he’s the only one who’s suffering, the only one who’s hungry, the only one who’s afraid.

Dave trudged downstairs to the sealed-up foyer. In the pitch dark he pressed his back against the almost-cool cinder blocks, girding himself for physical punishment. Better to not dwell on Eddie and his foul moods and fouler