Cannibals in Love Read Online Free Page B

Louis was telling his own racist joke.
    Out the window the taxi dollied through illuminated cones of static as my body flushed with heat. My fingers tingled and the capillaries in my head locked. I didn’t like this at all. This was all really happening where I lived. Terrorism was not some abstraction on the television. It was the promise of endless war. It was the fear of people and buildings. It was the suspicion of strangers and foreigners. It was the avoidance of crowds and public transportation. It was the brand-new paranoid connections that bloomed inside our heads with no clues for how they got there, or what to do next.
    After a full month of waiting on death, I went back down into the Metro, where a Muslim man got onto my train and began reciting loudly from the Koran. This deep, impenetrable monotone issuing down the long car. Incanting life, incanting death, I didn’t know. I watched as people found him in the rabble—this wraith in white cloth—and the tidal way that they backed up and emptied out at each next stop. Looking for a new train. Looking for the stairs. Looking for a police officer, perhaps.
    But I decided to stay. I would not be scared off by this boogeyman in his ghutra and his robes, because I wanted to know what he was saying. I wanted him to see me watching, too. I wanted him to know that I was paying witness. One more stop, I thought, exhilarated; and one more, I thought, terrified. What was this that was happening now? And could it be a thing that was happening to me?
    When the man finished his prayer, he sat and closed his book. Staring down the empty aisle, utterly expressionless. But as we pulled through the dark tunnel into the high-ceilinged station, he turned to watch the crowds on the platform. The car stopped and the doors opened, and a crush of new bodies pressed in all around. I stood up to keep watching the man. Thumbing his pages right to left, preparing himself again. The bell chimed, and the hydraulics released, and I suddenly found myself reaching out to catch the closing doors.
    â€œBecause his goat is his wife!” Louis said loudly, and the three of them snorted with laughter. Louis laughed the loudest, elbowing me. “You get it?”
    I didn’t say anything. I was staring out the windshield with the perfect sensation of landing through a cloud. Searching for the absent ground, and waiting for the wheels to touch. I looked up at Louis with the scenery coming back again. Christmas lights blinking madly; American flags frozen to their poles. Just like everywhere else.
    â€œThat was stupid,” Cullen said. “And not funny. And offensive toward goats.” The cabdriver snorted again.
    â€œWhy did you laugh, then?” Louis asked indignantly.
    â€œI was still laughing at Santa’s joke. It was like a little aftershock. I just got another part of it, ha-ha.”
    Louis glared at him, and I felt my ears begin to ring. I had the sudden need for this taxi ride to stop. And almost as suddenly, it did.
    *   *   *
    Outside the bar, I felt Louis’s hand on my shoulder. “Santa anagrams to Satan, dude. Think about that. I didn’t see any registration on the dashboard. Who was that guy?”
    â€œBe serious!” Cullen berated him loudly.
    â€œI’m just saying, I don’t feel so good. I think there was something bad in the pot.” Louis was licking his lips and staring at Cullen. “Don’t you think it tasted a little anthraxy?”
    Cullen didn’t say anything.
    â€œMy mailman died of anthrax,” I said absently. Louis turned to me and squealed with laughter, like he couldn’t even help himself.
    â€œI’m serious. I haven’t picked up a single piece of mail in over three months.”
    â€œJesus. Both of you, fuck off!” Cullen said tersely, as he opened the door to the bar and let it slam shut behind him.
    *   *   *
    The Summit Street Saloon