Read Online Cannibals in Love by Mike Roberts - Free Book Online Page B

for all of this? And what the hell was this anyway? I mean, how long were we actually going to do this?
    â€œDid you go to school today?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œYou had my car.”
    â€œYou could’ve taken the subway.”
    He didn’t answer. Sipping from his beer.
    â€œWhat did you do all day?”
    â€œI didn’t do anything. I watched TV.”
    â€œDid you eat?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œWhy not?” I asked, feeling exasperated. “What do you do when you’re at school? Who cooks for you there?”
    â€œNobody cooks for me. There’s a dining hall.”
    â€œYou have a meal plan?”
    â€œYeah. I mean, of course.”
    â€œWell, shit.” I beamed at him. “Why didn’t you say that two days ago? C’mon. Put your shoes on. Let’s go eat.”
    *   *   *
    We drove the twenty minutes out to College Park; my brother in the passenger seat, with his shoulders tight around his neck. He used his ID card to swipe us into the dining hall, and there we were: a meal out on Mom and Dad. They would be pleased to know that we were finally spending some real quality time together.
    The cafeteria itself was a veritable Valhalla of salts and sugars and fats. Decadent buffet tables lined with gleaming processed foods. These extraordinary foods that you would never actually pay for in a restaurant. Corn dogs and popcorn shrimp. Soft pretzels and shish kebabs. Mexican pizzas and English muffins. We ate potato skins and pigs in a blanket. There were chimichangas and Denver omelets. And we even ate some vegetables, too.
    We stayed for nearly three hours, eating this way, in fits and starts. Feeling sickened and exhilarated in turns. We sat in silence, feeling full, feeling soothed. I watched the girls as they crossed the room, back and forth. These lively, pretty state school girls. This dining hall was teeming with blond and buxom cheerleaders. Former field hockey captains and high school prom queens. It was almost enough to make me give up on the orange apartment and go back to my own school.
    â€œWhere is your girlfriend?” my brother asked me out of nowhere. I looked up at him, baffled by the question. “The girl I met when—”
    â€œI don’t have a girlfriend,” I said.
    He stared at me blankly, before nodding. I looked away again.
    â€œWhat about your roommate?”
    â€œWhat?” Where were all these questions coming from? The kid barely says one word for three days, and now he won’t shut up.
    â€œYour roommate,” he said again. “I haven’t seen him once since I’ve been there, and I’ve been there the whole time.”
    â€œOkay?”
    â€œSo why hasn’t he come home?”
    â€œI don’t know why. Sometimes he just doesn’t.” This was met with an anxious pause. “Why?” I smiled. “You think he’s been killed by the Sniper?”
    â€œI never said he was killed by the Sniper. I just asked—”
    â€œWhy did they kick you out of school?” I interrupted.
    â€œThey didn’t kick me out of school. I told you, they kicked me out of the dorms.”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œI didn’t do anything.”
    â€œYeah, sure, whatever you say.”
    I turned and tried to keep watching the girls, but my brother had ruined it. “Are you finished? Let’s go,” I said, picking up my tray and walking away from the table.
    *   *   *
    Overnight, it seemed, the city had suddenly become a patchwork of blue and green tarps. Hanging loosely off of awnings. Covering doorways and entrances. Gas stations draped them over their corridors to obscure the innocent pumpers below. This was not diversion. This was an effort made, in earnest, to restore the public safety.
    I could hear the cheap plastic rippling overhead as I filled Mike’s truck with gas. Staring at the