Dry Read online

  It started when Burnside showed up at our door with a gift. Sure, I love the idea of our family’s archenemies turning into sycophantic suck-ups, but when the strange actually materializes into reality, it definitely leaves you reeling. Much like that what-now feeling when you look into the dark eyes of the first stag you’ve brought down—or the triumphant despair of shooting a game duck out of the air, only for it to fall down a cliff, never to be retrieved for all of eternity. And the more I think about it . . . the more I realize that everything can be effectively related to hunting. I mean, they do say our every action and inaction is related to some primordial fight or flight hardwiring. . . .

  For example, winning the affection of a girl is a lot like shooting a deer. It’s important that you approach slowly and with caution—and preferably from a posterior angle, where they have little to no vision. Women, like deer, can be scared away by a strong musk, which is why it’s important to always wear deodorant. Dressing in camouflage doesn’t hurt either, because in my experience, girls find camouflage really cool. But all of that aside, I think the most important aspect of obtaining a girl of the opposite sex is knowing when to pull the trigger. Metaphorically, that is. You gotta make your move when it feels right, or else you’ll come off as creepy. This I know from experience, too.

  But when it comes to my next-door neighbor, Alyssa Morrow, she feels like the deer I’ve never been able to shoot. Like I’m so close to making a move, or at least telling her how I feel, but for some reason the moment never feels right. I always figured that if I was in the right place, the right time would present itself, so this year I hacked the school computer and arranged to get five of my six classes with her . . . I would’ve done all six, but that would have been too obvious.

  On this particular morning Alyssa’s finishing up yard work out front. It looks like she’s trying to siphon water out of their irrigation system, but that’s not going to work. Judging by their brown lawn, their sprinklers have been dry for months, just like most everyone else’s. As far as timing goes, I’m starting to get the feeling that it’s now or never, so I slip on a desert camouflage tactical vest and head next door.

  I step outside and locate Alyssa heading toward her garage, struggling to carry some tools. I have positioning to my advantage, so I flank left. As I near, I swallow hard, my nerves making my throat go thick. “Need any help?” I manage to get out. I realize it’s the exact same thing I said the other day when they were unloading their ice. I’m hoping she appreciates consistency.

  “That’s okay, I think I got it.”  Though clearly she doesn’t. Perhaps she’s trying not to look weak in front of me. So I push forward.

  “Here, let me at least grab these for you,” I say, as I take a few wrenches and store them in my pocket. Cargo shorts are essential. Girls love a guy with lots of pockets.

  “Thanks,” she says, as we put the tools away in their respective places in the garage. That’s when I catch a whiff of something nasty coming from the house. I must wrinkle my nose, because she notices it and looks away, as if I might think the smell is coming from her.

  “Septic problems?” I ask.

  “We think sewer gas is backing up into our house because of the lack of water,” she tells me. “My dad’s working on some plumbing modifications to stop it.”

  This, I knew, was inevitable. Probably every house in the neighborhood but ours will be smelling the same right about now. But not everyone seems as diligent about doing something about it as Alyssa and her family. Of course, they’re going about it all wrong.

  “All you need is zero-evaporation trap seal liquid. Pour about a cup into every drain, and no sewer gas can get through.” And then I add, “It’s the stuff they use in waterless urinals.”

  She makes an “ew” face at me, and I realize that was too much information.

  “Anyhoo,” I say, stumbling over my words a bit, and looking away involuntarily, “I can give you a bottle. We’ve got plenty of it.” Which is true, but when my dad finds out I gave it away, he’ll chew me a new one.

  But it’s worth it, because Alyssa lights up. “Thanks, Kelton—that’s really generous of you.”

  And after seeing her smile like that at me, something compels me to go all in. I hold out my canteen to her. “Here, have some,” I say. “You look thirsty.”

  She cautiously takes the canteen. “Are you sure?” she asks.

  I shrug like it’s nothing. “What are friends for?”

  She takes a few gulps and hands it back. Then I take a swig. Alyssa and I just shared a canteen. Considering the saliva exchange involved, that’s almost like kissing. I suppress a little shiver at the thought.

  “Thank you, Kelton,” she says again. Then we stand there in silence, but for the first time the silence that lingers between us feels a little more natural. It feels good.

  Without warning Garrett appears out of what feels like thin air, and snatches the canteen from me.

  “Thanks, Kelton!” he teases.

  “Don’t be rude,” Alyssa says. “That’s not yours!”

  Just then their father enters with a box of dirty rags, and her mother just a few moments later. She smiles, barely able to contain herself. “News says there’ll be desalination machines along the coast. They’ll have a few up and running down at Laguna Beach by this afternoon.”

  “What’s a desalination machine?” Garrett asks.

  “It converts saltwater into freshwater,” I tell him. “They’ve actually got a big plant down in San Diego, but it’s not going to help us.”  Truth be told, it won’t help San Diego much either now. It was forward-thinking of them to build it a few years back, so for once it’s not a case of too little too late. Instead, it’s too little right on time. Because at full capacity, it can provide enough water for eight percent of San Diego’s population. Less than one in ten people. Not the solution they hoped it would be.

  Alyssa’s father wipes sweat from his brow. “We pay big taxes to fund organizations like FEMA. It’s about time they stepped in and did something.”

  “Well, it’s not like they can just let us die of thirst,” her mother adds, as if this notion were preposterous, but then waits for someone to chime in with validation.

  Her father nods in agreement. “It’s a matter of numbers,” he says. “After all, California is one of the largest work economies. They need us, and I don’t think they would be so stupid as to neglect us.”

  Her father’s words stick with me . . . and though they have merit, I can’t help but hear my own father’s voice echoing in my head, complaining about the thousands of cumulative mistakes that have led us to this point—the failed consumer rebates, conservation councils, and radical attempts to save water, like the millions of black “shade balls” Los Angeles released into reservoirs to prevent evaporation, which did nothing. And now I can’t decide whether we’re headed toward a real solution, or if we’re desperately throwing water bottles at the problem. . . .

  I open my mouth to raise such questions, but then suddenly stop myself, remembering what my father always told me about the sheep. Their behavior. How their main instinct is to follow members of the herd directly ahead of them, and how being thrown off course even the slightest bit would elicit an overwhelming primordial sense of panic that can be deadly. I did a current events presentation once about a flock of five hundred sheep somewhere in Turkey that plummeted to their deaths one by one in a ravine, because each sheep followed the one directly ahead of it, never comprehending the bigger picture. Which is worse, I wonder—watching everyone you know fall into that ravine, or shaking their reality with such force that it ruins them.

  5) Alyssa

  Today the toilet is really getting back at us for all the years of cruel and unsanitary labor. It’s been making strange gurgling sounds and expelling six-month-old-rotten-egg smells. So our current mission is to clean the toilet bowls the best we can, and then pour in two cups of Kelton’s trap seal liquid stuff, so our house can smell like a ho
use again and less like a spiteful septic tank. And as supreme ruler of the household, Dad has elected Garrett and me to take care of the toilets.

  This morning Dad has taken the liberty of delegating tasks through passive-aggressive Post-it notes hidden like Easter eggs all over the house. One on the fridge reads, “Six cups of water per day!” Another on our shower reads, “Dry bathing only!” which consists of shower gel and paper towels. But I think the worst one of all is the “Clean me please!” Post-it just above the toilets. Dad craftily installed bags under each toilet seat, which we are to throw out after using, like a giant camping nightmare. The bag thing is manageable, but having to actually clean the bowl in its current state is just cruel and unusual punishment.

  Garrett and I start with the downstairs bathroom, seeing as our water is stored in the bathtub adjacent to the toilet. I take a look into the bathtub and realize that the water line has really receded since Saturday. This morning Mom discreetly gave away a couple of gallons to some friends around the corner. With desalination units being set up along the coast, she figures there’ll be enough water for everyone soon enough, so why not be generous? If it were up to me, I’d probably do the same.

  “How are we supposed to clean a toilet if we can’t use water?” Garrett asks, as he crams his hands into those yellow cleaning gloves that squeak when you rub your fingers together.

  “Dad said the cleaning supplies are under the sink. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  I pinch my nostrils together, and dare myself to look into the toilet bowl. Black liquid bubbles to the surface.

  “Why do I have to do it?” he nags.

  “Because we’re taking turns,” I remind him, then appeal to his male ego. “Plus you’re a guy; you’re naturally going to be better than me at plumbing.”

  He nods in accordance, clearly satisfied to hear me say he’s better than me at something. Then he fishes under the sink for the cleaning supplies.

  “Bleach will do,” I tell him.

  He eventually settles on the green canister of powdered Comet, a bleach-based multipurpose cleaner, and goes to set it on the edge of the bathtub. The moment its bottom touches the edge, I can already see the worst-case scenario playing in my head, but it isn’t until the he lets go of the Comet that my worst fear materializes into reality. The container, sitting precariously on the uneven edge, begins to slip. . . .

  My heart quicksteps. “Garrett!” I yell, which is all I can manage to get out.

  He spins around, and before he’s even able to grasp the situation, the container of powdered bleach has already slipped down the side of the tub and splashed into the water.

  He looks back to me, his face completely drained of color. And next comes the most torturous of silences.

  He quickly goes for the Comet, but it slips from his grasp, only to float farther away. The water is already clouding with a swirling murk of poisonous multipurpose cleanser. And then reality finally hits me.

  Garrett has just tainted the only water we have. . . .

  “Maybe we can save some of it,” he says as he finally grasps the Comet can and pulls it out of the water upside down, dumping even more liquefying powder into the tub.

  “It’s already contaminated, idiot,” I tell him sharply.

  “It’s your fault,” he snaps. “You told me to use the bleach!”

  “You’ve always been a klutz! Do you have any idea what you just did?”

  But instead of coming back with another defense, his face constricts, his eyes take on a shiny squint, and tears begin to seep out, his body giving way to hopelessness.

  My sisterly conscience kicks in and I’m suddenly wishing I could take back my words.

  “I’m sorry,” he says through snivels, burying his face in his hands.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him, and I give him a hug—something I realize I haven’t done in a long time. “We have the desalinization machines down by the beach. Mom and Dad are going to stock up, remember?”

  Garrett nods, collecting himself.

  “Drinking from the bathtub was totally disgusting anyway,” I say, and he laughs, disrupting the tears long enough to bring him back from despair.

  • • •

  I agree that I’ll be the one to tell Mom and Dad about what happened to the bathwater, because Garrett argued that it would sound better coming from me. Of course, the real reason is that he’s too afraid to break the news to them himself. For some reason he thinks our parents are a lot scarier than they really are . . . but then again, this is isn’t the routine spoiled dinner, stink bomb, or broken window. “I’ll tell them, but I won’t take the blame,” I say to Garrett. “I know it was an accident, but you still have to own up to it.” Because what kind of sister would I be if I didn’t teach him the importance of taking responsibility?

  I go downstairs to tell Mom and Dad, bracing for the worst—but they don’t get angry. Which, I soon realize, is much worse than if they had.

  “All of it?” Dad says—as if there were a way to divide the Comet water from the drinkable water.

  “It wasn’t Garrett’s fault,” I tell them, even though it was. “He was just trying to clean the toilet, like you told him.”

  I expect Mom to say something like, Don’t you go putting this back on us! But she doesn’t even return my slow lob. This isn’t just a screw-up, I realize. It’s an Event. Events bypass anger, straight to damage control.

  “We still have the pitcher in the fridge,” Mom says, looking at Dad.

  Dad nods. “The desalination rigs should be up and running sometime today. We’ll head out there as soon as we can.”

  “Maybe we can boil the water in the tub, one pot at a time,” I suggest, “and collect the steam.” We made a distillery like that back in seventh grade as part of a science lab. As I recall, we barely managed to get a test tube of water out of it—but I’ll bet Kelton could make a functional one.

  Did I actually just think about asking Kelton for help?

  “That’s a project for another day,” Dad says, already overwhelmed with the weight of the news I just delivered.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell them. “It sucks, and I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t cry over spilt milk, honey,” says Mom.

  “Or poisoned water,” adds Dad, which makes me grimace, but I press my lips tight so they can’t see.

  I go upstairs to notify Garrett that he won’t be put up for adoption, sent to a forced labor camp, or cooked into meat pies—but he’s nowhere to be found. I check the bathroom, the backyard, and even the garage . . . and that’s when I notice that his bike is missing. He took off without telling anyone, so afraid of what Mom and Dad would do.

  • • •

  Mom and Dad drop everything to find Garrett. They want us to split up and systematically search every place he might go. They’re a little more worried than I thought they’d be. They’re always overreacting when it comes to Garrett. He was born a month premature, and it sent my parents into this eternal hypersensitive protection mode; even to this day, if he so much as gets a scratch, it’s like they’ve got the hospital on speed dial for an emergency skin graft. I try to tell myself that it’s just my parents being parents, but today I can’t help but worry a little, considering the circumstances.

  I agree to check the parks where he and his friends like to hang out, and the bike trail that runs parallel to the freeway. I go to get my bike, but both tires are flat, since I haven’t really used the thing in years, and the tires don’t take air now, no matter how much I pump. All that’s left is Garrett’s GoPed, which I have no idea how to use, and a pogo stick—which was clearly invented by Satan right after he invented the unicycle. So after exhausting all options, I realize that I’m going to have to ask Kelton for some neighborly help. Maybe he’ll let me borrow a bike—or create a work-around out of bubblegum and earwax.

  I ring the doorbell and he answers, almost too quickly.

  No time for small talk. I get right to the point. “I
have a favor to ask. Garrett’s missing, and I need a bike.”

  Rather than being weird, he responds like a regular human being. “You can use my dad’s,” he says. “I’ll go get it.”

  He goes back in, and meets me at the side gate. It’s a nice bike. Then I realize that he’s bringing his own bike out as well.

  “Two heads are better than one,” he says. “And it’s really not a good idea for you to be out on your own right now. Things might look quiet, but it’s always that way right before a storm.”

  Scratch the normal human being thing.

  “That’s okay, Kelton. You don’t have to come.”

  “The cost of borrowing my dad’s bike is letting me come with you.”

  He’s not mincing words any more than I am—and clearly, he’s not negotiating.

  “Fine,” I tell him. Actually, I don’t really mind, considering he’s officially been moved down from orange to yellow on the threat-to-my-sanity scale.

  We start with the back trails, which eventually spits us back out to the main road near Garrett’s school—my high school being just across the street. Which gives rise to the thought that maybe he’s hiding in the last place we’d expect; the place he despises more than cauliflower and piano lessons combined—Meadow Creek Elementary School.

  I lean left, redirecting my bike’s trajectory, but before I can even turn, a truck flies by, nearly running us over. At first I find myself pissed that someone could drive so recklessly, but as soon as I realize what kind of truck it is, my spine stiffens, and without even thinking, my legs stop pedaling.

  It’s a camouflage-green open-top military truck, packed with armed soldiers. My first thought is stupid. The kind of thing you think before your mind has time to run it past your brain.

  “What the hell? Did my parents call the freaking national guard?”

  “Quiet before the storm,” is all Kelton says.

  My brain has kicked in by now, and I realize that this is much bigger than my AWOL brother. It’s pretty disturbing to see war machines traverse the neighborhood you grew up in—and if that’s not troubling enough, the truck turns left, directly into the high school parking lot.