Part 1 (2/2)

”I am not.”

”I'll get a ruler.”

”a.s.serting myself.”

”I just don't believe you,” I say, disgusted.

Paul shakes his head. ”I am not going to argue about this, b.u.t.thole.”

I shrug my shoulders. I head toward the lunchroom.

He's been a pain to me and to everyone since his girlfriend figured out that he is a geek and dropped him like a tarantula ca.s.serole.

When I reach the lunchroom, the others - Tom and Rebecca and her friends - have already found a table and have sat down. They are talking a lot and laughing at Tom's jokes. He gestures as part of some story and makes a face like a Gila monster.

I pa.s.s by their table and look for a way that I might be able to slip in on the end or maybe on one of the corners. I am about to set the tray down in a cramped s.p.a.ce when Jerk says over my shoulder, ”It's too crowded. There are some seats over there.”

Rebecca looks up at me and has heard it. She elevates her slim neck.

I am feeling guilty for having tried to ditch Jerk, so now I can't. We go and sit together, far away from the others. You have to feel bad for him, after all. I feel bad because we all call him Jerk, and he is not the person with the highest self-esteem in the whole world.

”Wait until Tom hears you're going to the lynching,” says Jerk. ”He'll be so jealous, he'll be chewing on two-by-fours.”

”Two-by-fours,” I say, staring at my tater tots. ”I'm not sure I follow you.”

A year and a half ago my mother and father informed us that as soon as we go away to college, they are getting a divorce. They are waiting.

After their big fight they avoided each other. My father worked late nights at the Staticom laboratory. My mother watched television or called her real-estate clients. Things were very bad for a year. Now, though, they are eating dinner at the same time and sleeping in the same room again, and they recognize each other by sight. They do not like to fight in front of Paul and me, ever since they overheard us referring to them as Ward and June. Now they go out to dinner alone once a month to fight.

Paul is a year older than me, so he can drive. He and his friend Mark are both into video and the media, so they jump at any chance to try and be on TV. Mark was in a crowd on the news once before, after the street near the dam flooded. You could distinctly see him behind the police cordon, waving.

They are in the front seat, and I am in the back seat. I can't hear much of what they're saying over the radio. It's techie talk about the lighting booth in the school auditorium. While they talk Mark keeps on idly making zoom-lens motions with his hands, testing out angles and shots for the camera of the imagination. As usual, Mark's hair is everywhere and curly. Paul is driving. He got his driver's license recently, so he is at some stage where he constantly talks to people driving around him. ”Uh-dur, ma'am!” he says. ”Rotary? Right of way?”

We pa.s.s along through the avenue of pines by the reservoir's edge. The evening has not turned the sky dark yet. The trees stand out against the clouds.

We are almost out of the town. We pa.s.s a series of slanted fields.

Because I cannot hear Paul and Mark, I sit back in the seat and think what if I were going to the lynching with real friends, really cool ones who don't necessarily exist. I picture us taut with excitement and dressed in black. We are talking about the meaning of oppression; my twenty-five-year-old girlfriend is staring moodily out the window. One of my friends has brought his sketchbook because he wants to catch the lineaments of human depravity and also pain and suffering. This is what artists do sometimes.

We are on Route 495. Mark is flipping between radio stations.

”Where are we going to park?” says my brother. ”All the s.p.a.ces near the courthouse are going to be taken.”

Mark is leaning down to peer at the radio display. ”There are some places at c.u.mberland Farms,” he says. ”But you have to be a patron.”

”Look at this a.s.shole,” says my brother. ”It's often customary to drive in a lane.”

”Where did they find the last body?” Mark asks, focusing his invisible camera on his reflection in the darkening windows.

Paul stops to wait for a red light. ”I think on the roof of the hardware store over on the other side of town. Near the Hudson line. Nice turn signal, b.u.t.tlick.”

We go to McDonald's. I order a double hamburger, six-piece McNuggets, and a medium fries. I have been very hungry lately. We drive into the center of town. We go past the c.u.mberland Farms parking lot, because it is full. People are already cl.u.s.tered around the courthouse, yelling and shouting. Police lights are flas.h.i.+ng in the gloaming.

We park in front of the Bradley House of Pizza and get out. Paul starts to pay the meter and Mark reminds him that it is after six and that he is a moron. I feel stupid carrying my McDonald's bag, and my fingers are all sticky from the fries. I s.h.i.+ft from foot to foot and chew. At the Bradley House of Pizza, there is a sign in the tattered plate gla.s.s window, ”Making your favorite sub for forty years!” Talk about slow service.

We head down to the mob. Everyone is still relatively pleasant. The police are putting up orange sawhorses to keep a clear path up the steps of the courthouse. People are chatting. A woman who dressed in a sleeveless pink top when the sun was up is rubbing her upper arms and s.h.i.+vering. ”Oh G.o.d, I know,” she says to her friend.

Vampires are lynched, traditionally. It is too costly to hold them for trial. A full-grown vampire is immortal if well fed, but can't live long without human blood; and it is tricky to come by donors. There's no need for a trial, I guess, because there's not much doubt about vampires. There are, after all, the pointy teeth and the mirror problems. Whenever their blood-l.u.s.t is upon them, their fangs slide forward, and they have no reflection to speak of. And once people find those signs, it's all over for the vampire. If you are a vampire and still alive, people know you must be guilty of murder. There's no other alternative - no other way you could live. So sometimes they will burn you. Usually they will drive a stake through your heart.

We wait. As the evening grows darker, the crowd gets larger and sounds angrier. The police who are waiting look around nervously and occasionally consult one another. One of them is sitting in the squad car, muttering into the CB.

People stare at me as I dip my McNuggets into the barbecue sauce. The pieces keep sticking in my throat. I want to finish them as quickly as possible.

I crumple up the recycled bag and throw it in a rusty barrel. Mark and Paul have made their way through the crowd to the news vans, where technicians are setting up lights and a camera crew is connecting wires.

We hear sirens a long way off. Everyone starts to fall silent. I scuffle my shoe on the pavement and look for something to stand on. A father has picked up his little daughter and perched her on his shoulders. The police are walking up and down the lines of sawhorses, asking people to step back from the barriers. The news cameras are ready, and technicians are squinting into the viewfinders.

The police escort arrives, sirens blaring. Everyone is staring.

The doors open and police hurry out, surrounding the car. Some hold pistols aimed at something inside. A cl.u.s.ter of officers surrounds the back left door, and they are taking someone out.

The vampire is a young woman, or at least she looks young. She is fair haired, and her hands are bound behind her by cuffs on a heavy metal bar. The crowd moves forward to see; she glares sideways at them. They press against the barriers. The police run up and down, motioning them back. People are screaming foul names at her, calling her a murderer and a witch. Some high-school kids are holding up a little mirror, slanting it, ducking to try to see if they can catch her reflection. ”You b.i.t.c.h!” one man is screaming at her, bellowing so loud he leans across the barrier. ”You b.i.t.c.h!” On the other side, an old woman is crying, sobbing - ”My baby! My baby!” Two police officers are holding the old woman back, and I do not know whether her baby is a victim or the vampire herself.

The vampire stumbles up the steps. She is being pushed by one of the policemen. Someone throws an empty c.o.ke can and it bounces softly off her head.

She turns on the highest step and looks at us. She gazes across the crowd, her mouth tight and closed.

Then she looks at me. She is staring at me.

I turn around to see if there's someone gesturing or someone who's caught her attention, but she is staring just at me.

She knows me.

For a moment we pause there. Her eyes sc.r.a.pe from one side of my face to the other, registering a cool kind of hatred and an accusation.

She looks like she wants to say something, to shout something.

She starts to raise her hand as if to point.

We stand there, staring at each other, for a moment. She moves her lips.

However, she does not want to show her teeth before the crowd. She is proud. She keeps her lips closed, drops her hand, and turns to go inside to her last death.

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