Thirst by Benjamin Warner

for example.”
    “The Cartwrights?”
    “They were there last night. We had a conversation? I’m Paul?” the man said. “We met you on the street.”
    “Right,” Eddie said.
    Laura stood beside him. “And you’re collecting these for who, exactly?”
    “We’ve got elderly people all over this neighborhood. A lot of them don’t have family nearby, not that they could even get here anyway. Some of us who’ve lived here a long time just want to make sure they’re okay.”
    “And people are giving you things to drink?” Laura said.
    “If they have it.”
    “And what are they drinking?”
    “If you’re young and you’ve got your health, you’re lucky. You’ll be okay until they get this stuff worked out. I’m not saying to give me everything you have.”
    The man behind him spoke up. Eddie had thought he’d stooped to hold the wheelbarrow, but now he saw he’d let it go—that his back was hunched. He wore suspenders. Whatever Paul projected, this second man balanced out. His cheeks wereloose and stubbly. “Shouldn’t be more than a few hours till everything’s back and running,” he said. “Until then, we just want to make sure our neighbors are okay.”
    “How about I take it to them?” Laura said to him. “I mean, what I have to give.”
    “Sure,” Paul said. “You can just follow us there.”
    “Why don’t I just take it to them directly? The Cartwrights? I think I know where they are.”
    Eddie put his hand on her arm, as if to keep her from making good on the idea right then. “It doesn’t make sense for you to go,” he said. “They have the barrow.”
    To Paul, he said, “We’d help if we could. I guess we didn’t plan very well.”
    “No one planned for this,” Paul said, still smiling.
    “It’s okay,” Laura said. She went back to the kitchen and brought back four of the juices. Eddie met her a few feet in front of the door and tried to hedge her back. “We don’t have any to give,” he said.
    “We do,” she said. She held up the juices by their lids, two in each hand. “These.”
    She walked past him, down the walk, and put them in the wheelbarrow. The hunched man reorganized his feet and grunted.
    “We’ll let you know if you can be of more assistance,” Paul said. The other man hoisted the wheelbarrow and the two of them walked next door to the Davises’ house.
    “No way Mike Sr. gives them anything,” Eddie said.
    “Eddie, it’s for our neighbors. They’re old. What’s the big deal?”
    “Have the Cartwrights ever said hello to you on the street? Would they recognize you if you knocked on their door?”
    “It’s our responsibility to help them , not the other way around.”
    “You sound like such a saint.”
    “It’s done, okay? Just drop it.”
    The house was heating up, and his headache hadn’t gone away. When he went into the bathroom, he pissed an amber color.
    The last beer in the fridge was almost cool. He poured it into two whiskey glasses. Laura was lying on the couch, reading the Field & Stream , and Eddie put one of the glasses down on the table in front of her.
    “That doesn’t seem like a good idea,” she said.
    “It’s cool, at least.”
    They drank their half a beer. Eddie sat across from her in a reclining chair. He closed his eyes, but his thinking wasn’t clear. He balanced there between wakefulness and sleep. It was difficult—as difficult as real balancing—and it only tired him further. When he slept, he was at the edge of the embankment, beside the highway. The snow was so thick between the trees that he had to hold them to keep from sinking. There were voices behind him, in the woods. “Don’t tell,” they said. “There’s a reward.” Eddie took deep steps through the snow. He tried not to sweat. If he started to sweat, he knew he would freeze.
    “Come on,” said the man in the flannel shirts. He had no face, no hair. Just a mouth, though Eddie couldn’t really see what kind of mouth it was. “ Wemmick