Battle of the Network Zombies

by Mark Henry

  Like a miracle, only irritating as hell.

  Wrestling with the knots took a good week. After I freed a cord, I’d run it down the hall, see how far it would go, then pull it back before anyone could see what I was doing. We had a plush enough carpet that I was able to tuck the cord under the molding without it being noticeable. It took four of them, end to end, to reach the bathroom. One more, almost reached the tub.

  Do you see where I’m going with this?

  Maybe you do and maybe you don’t.

  Unless you thought I was trying to kill the guy, then…yeah, you’d be right.

  That last cord was a real bitch, like sailors had worked on it day and night under threat of the plank. And it had to be the exact one I needed, beige plastic. By the time I loosed it, my fingers were raw and purpled and ached like I’d been clinging to a ledge. But the effort brought the whole plan home.

  The open end of the cord dangled a few inches above the floor of the tub. Burt never took baths so, I figured why bother hunting down another tan wire for what would essentially be overkill in the electrified drizzle of a shower. I stood to admire my handiwork.

  I felt his breath bristle the hairs on the back of my neck and nearly jumped into the tub.

  “Are you gonna take a bath or just stare at it?” he asked, trading places with me.

  I was halfway down the hall and ready to plug in the cord when I realized Burt had upped the ante on his sexual harassment and left the bathroom door open a crack. The water gurgled and sputtered against the shower curtain and I couldn’t resist peeking. Not to see him naked or anything; that would be gross. Just to see what he was up to.

  What I saw was a glimmer of hope.

  Burt stood at the counter, a ribbon of condoms trailing from his fist down the side of the cabinet. In his other hand, he pinched a sewing needle. One after another he pierced the centers of the rubbers, threading the metallic squares over the needle like an accordion bellows.

  Somebody wanted kids.

  Or a wife.

  Or something else.

  I shuffled back to my room and thought about it a bit as I sat on my bed and pulled at the carpet with my toes. But the more I thought, the more it escaped me. Why would Burt want to get Ethel pregnant? Assuming she still could get pregnant, that is? There’d certainly be no advantage to it. In fact, she hated kids—that part was obvious—and would probably abort.

  Or at least, let’s hope she would. I couldn’t stomach to watch a sister or brother endure the trauma that was Ethel.

  I decided I needed another perspective.

  I glowered at the scrap of soy sauce–stained napkin the boy had pushed into my palm like it was a wad of dirty chewing gum. It was a phone number, obviously, with his name scraggled below in an ugly shaky cursive.

  Geoffrey.

  He didn’t even have the decency to shorten it to Geoff, or spare me the pretention of the old English spelling. The effs sprawled across the note like pin-up girls. I was pretty sure I hated the kid, so it came as a bit of a surprise—even to me—when I poked the number into the phone.

  His mother picked up on the second ring.

  “Hello, Stanford residence?” Her voice was as cold and priggish as I’d remembered.

  “Is Geoff at home?”

  “He’s at home, yes. But his name is Geoffrey.” She paused, an audible sigh leaking out of her like gas. “Who’s this?”

  “Amanda.”

  “Well…Amanda. How do you know our Geoffrey?”

  Jesus Christ, I thought. Was the bitch writing a book? I almost asked, too, but figured she’d hang up and immediately get in touch with the phone company to report me as a terrorist or some shit. Probably had the cops on speed dial or chained in her basement.

  Mothers.

  Downstairs, Ethel was having it out with the stove or the microwave or something. Her screams echoed through the bare halls, decidedly “décor-free” on the upper levels. Ethel went through periods and in those days, she had a subscription to Architectural Digest and minimalism suited her budget just fine. So you wouldn’t find a painting or a color on any wall, unless it resulted from a shattered bottle of ketchup, thrown at a would-be suitor stupid enough to question Ethel’s opinion. She had quite a few of those.

  “I said, how do you know Geoffrey?”

  “We met at school.” Time to pull out the charm for the tight-ass. “He’s told me so much about you I feel like I know you.”

  “Oh well, that’s lovely to hear.”

  Hooked. I suppressed a giggle.

  A soft scruff came through the phone. Mrs. Stanford must have been holding her hand over the receiver, politely, I was sure. If it had been the 50s she’d have removed her button earring and put it in a small china dish for safekeeping during the call. The dish, no doubt, sitting next to the Stanford family Bible, lovingly engraved and gilded and barely worn, an heirloom. “Geoffrey, dear. You have a phone call.”

  “I know.” His voice piping up creepily nearly simultaneously.

  “Oh. I see.”

  “You can hang up now.” His voice cracked with sleep, or maybe the char of too much pot.

  “That’s fine, dear. Don’t stay on the phone long, I’ve got your favorite meal tonight. Sloppy Joes.” I imagined her staring blankly into her living room, eyes lighting on the glints of light reflecting off the plastic sofa cover, a bland smile plastered on her lips like a mannequin.

  “Whatever,” he said and we both listened for her phone to hang up.

  I suddenly felt nauseous.112 Why had I even dialed this kid? It’s not like he possessed even an ounce of charisma. He wasn’t even all that cute with his Luke Perry sideburns and those dimples could have been pockmarks for all I knew. It was unlikely he bathed, guys like that always have some hygiene issue. Probably stunk.

  “I knew you’d call.”

  “Do you always listen in on phone calls? ’Cause I gotta say that’s kind of creepy.”

  “You’re right. It is.”

  “So you admit to being creepy.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you suppose it makes you mysterious and thus somehow magically desirable?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one that called.”

  I didn’t like where this was headed. Now, back then I wasn’t nearly the confident and forward Amanda you know (and love), but I was working on it. This guy had me beat in that department. Beat by a mile.

  “I just figured I’d find out what you wanted.”

  “I suspect you know.” I heard some banging around on his end, then a background assault of grunge. Screaming Trees, I thought, or Mother Love Bone, some amalgam of flannel-wearing second-string rockers with dirty guitars and even filthier hair. I countered with the Pixies. Velouria.

  * * *

  Battle for Musical Taste Supremacy

  (90s Edition)

  Alice in Chains • “Would?”

  The Pixies • “Velouria”

  Soundgarden • “Spoonman”

  The Sugarcubes • “Motorcrash”

  Mother Love Bone • “Crown of Thorns”

  Sister of Mercy • “This Corrosion”

  Temple of the Dog • “Hunger Strike”

  Bikini Kill • “Rebel Girl”

  Nirvana • “Territorial Pissings”

  The Dandy Warhols • “Not if

  You Were the Last Junkie on Earth”

  Pearl Jam • “Jeremy”

  Portishead • “Sour Times”

  Stone Temple Pilots • “Sex Type Thing”

  Radiohead • “Karma Police”

  * * *

  Take that, trend hopper.

  “In fact, I don’t know, smart ass. That’s why I called.”

  “I figured maybe you wanted to meet up and maybe go to a movie or something.” Something changed in his voice about halfway through the sentence, a slight quiver, like he’d brushed up against some wool and caught a shock.

  Sounded like weakness to me. If Ethel was good
for anything it was teaching how to spot prey. I had no choice, did I? I pounced.

  “Was that your voice shaking just then?”

  “Uh.”

  “Oh wow. Sounded like nerves for a moment.”

  Next comes the defensive posture. Like clockwork.

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Oh no, Geoffrey?” I think I pronounced it “Joffrey” and lingered on it, so he’d get my point.

  “No.”

  “Okay then. Let’s plan on a movie. But I get to pick, I’m not watching anything with Mel Gibson or Danny Glover, or buddies that save the day.”

  “Uh…okay.” He’d traded up to Soundgarden. Chris Cornell may have been the only one of those Seattle guys that actually owned a bottle of shampoo, so I was almost hesitant to crank up The Sugarcubes and let Bjork massacre him with quirky vocals.

  Almost.

  “So, when’s it going to be, lover?” I wished I could have reigned in that last word. My mother used it with nearly every man she ever met, like normal people use “sweetheart” to refer to all girls, or “slugger” for boys they hoped didn’t end up wearing high heels and jizz on their blouses. For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard it. But the pause was just a few seconds too long.

  “Lover?” he asked.

  “Shut up and hang on. I’m going to get the newspaper.”

  “Well, we could skip the movie.”

  I let the phone drop on my nightstand the second he spoke, hoping it would cause a loud squelch on his end rather than just a squatty thud, though with my luck, I’d probably broken the phone. Ethel would put me through the ringer for a new one. I reached for it instinctively, checking for cracks and hazarded a pert blow into the mouthpiece. It echoed. A second later, Geoff sighed on the other end, but not the irritated kind. Bile rose in my throat.

  Geoff slouched on a bench in front of the Orange Julius, one foot rocking back and forth on a crushed Coke can. The loud crinkling bought him all sorts of sneers from the blue-haired mall-walking set, who couldn’t catch a break on their quiet pretzel eating. Not today. The boy wore a faded Nirvana tour shirt and some faded jeans, torn at the knees and tucked into a pair of scuffed Doc Marten boots. His hair fell in a touseled mangle of waves. When he spotted me he curled the sides behind his ears, smirked and kicked the can off into the main mall hallway, where it caught up in the plastic wheels of a stroller. The infuriated mother mouthed an exaggerated “Fuck you.”

  “Torturing passers-by?” I asked, sinking onto the bench beside him, but clearly leaving enough room for his attitudes.

  He grinned, scooted a little closer to me. “One of my favorite pastimes.”

  “Listen.” I threw him a bone and patted his shoulder. “I’m not gonna blow you or anything. What exactly are you expecting here?”

  “Hey. You called me, remember? I was just thinking movie.” He sucked at his teeth, much like Gil does now when he spots a tap.

  “My intentions are just to pick your brain.”

  He scowled, followed a youngish mother of two as she led her jelly-smeared toddlers to the kid corral, her ass jiggling out from underneath a pair of Daisy Dukes like a couple of bald prison escapees.

  “My mother just found out she’s pregnant,” he mumbled.

  I cleared my throat. “Interesting you should say that. Remember that guy we were with at the teriyaki place?”

  “Teppanyaki.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Yeah, I remember. He was pretty cool.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to pretend you just had a seizure and forget that you said that. Anyways. I caught him skewering his condoms in the bathroom.”

  “Weird.”

  “Yeah, he’d have to be crazy to want children with Ethel, the only reason for her to squeeze out another one would be to eat it.”

  Geoffrey chuckled a bit, eyes crinkling at the corner in this odd way that made me laugh too. He reached over and put his arm around my shoulder, started leaning in.

  I grabbed his hand and tossed his arm away. “Too soon.”

  He pouted.

  “Now. There’s no question I’ve got to get rid of the guy and, frankly, if my mother found out he was trying to implant her with his little Burt Friendlies, she’d yank out her own tubes.”

  “Well, then that’s it,” he said, licking the end of a cigarette and sticking it to his lower lip to dangle.

  “What’s it?”

  “She’s got to find out. Why don’t you tell her?”

  “She’d never believe me, she knows I hate him. I hate all her boyfriends. It’s kind of a rule.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re going to have to frame him.”

  I thought about it a moment and, as I’m me, came up with a hideous plot to expose Burt Friendly as the sick father fantasist he was and cause both pain and suffering to Ethel in the process. It was really a win-win situation.

  So excited about the possibility of ridding my life of Burt Friendly, I leaned over and planted a kiss on Geoffrey’s cheek. He blushed a bit and then threw his arms around me, pulling me back toward his lazily puckered lips.

  “Ew, no. That was an accident.”

  “It felt on purpose to me. Look.” He gestured to the bulge in his jeans. “You made me hard.”

  I balled up my hand into a fist, making like I’d punch him in the balls. “And I can make you soft.”

  His hands rushed to cover himself, even as he twisted away.

  “So, I’m gonna need your help. It’s not going to be easy or clean, but I’ll make it worth your while.” I was thinking of making out with him. But…

  “If you fuck me.”

  “I’m not fucking you. I’m a virgin for Christ’s sake. Can’t you smell the purity?” I smirked. “It rolls off of me in fucking waves.”

  He snorted, licked his lips. “Yeah, I can.”

  “How about a handjob,” I offered.

  He glanced down at his crotch, domed and zipper exposed. “Blowjob.”

  “Deal.”

  We stopped by the little drug store by the food court—you know the one, prices jacked up on things like Pepto and Maxi-Pads, those items you inevitably forget until you’re in a public place and start spraying out of one hole or another—and picked up the supplies: a Ball jar, a lightweight and clear plastic bowl, a bottle of syrup of ipecac and a key chain, the kind that looks like an “O” with a hinge that opens it up like a vise.

  I put the plan into effect the following morning.

  Ethel woke up promptly at 8:30, like clockwork—that way she could avoid me entirely as I’d have just left for school. Never one to be accused of being slovenly, she’d start her day with a brisk walk around the neighborhood, a tepid shower—her blood was ice-cold anyway—and close out the morning with a nice bowl of oatmeal with a quarter of a cup of half and half, no more, no less.

  I wasn’t sure how much ipecac would have the desired effect so I opted for half the bottle. I began hearing the complaints that very night.

  “I think it’s the stomach flu,” Burt answered flatly.

  “It’s food poisoning. I’m certain.”

  The next morning was Saturday and so I had the distinct pleasure of being home to hear Ethel heaving her oatmeal into the toilet. I stood behind my bedroom door, ear to the wood veneer, and tried not to giggle.

  By Sunday, the topic finally came up.

  “Do you think it could be morning sickness?” Burt’s tone was light and hopeful.

  I made the corner of the open doorframe just in time to see my mother’s head spin toward him, vomit flapping from her lips as she yelled. “It better not be!”

  “Mother. I’ll go get you a home pregnancy test. Don’t worry about a thing.” I crouched next to her and rubbed her back. It did quiver a bit from the unnatural sensation of tenderness between daughter and mother, but she acquiesced.

  “Fine.” She pushed away from the spattered toilet and glowered at Burt. “You. Stay away, at least till we figure this shit
out.”

  I got on the phone to Geoffrey and gave him the prearranged code word, his idea. “Blowjob,” I whispered into the receiver.

  “I have it right here.”

  “Meet me in five minutes at Wilson Park.” He paused a moment and then spoke again, suddenly breathless. “And wear something sexy.”

  “Shut up,” I spat and hung up, forcing the paper bag with the home pregnancy test into my purse.

  The “Cram Shack” sat atop a wooded hill in the forest on the far side of the park, appropriately “crammed” between a large boulder and an odd evergreen tree that mangled together in growth like a morbidly undivided set of conjoined Chinese twins. The piece of corrugated metal everyone used as a door was askew, so I knew Geoffrey was already inside. What I didn’t know was that he’d already gotten started.

  I peeked in the triangle-shaped gap and saw him leaned back on the dirty couch, rubbing his crotch through a dingy pair of camouflage pants.

  “Whoa,” I chided. “Hold on. We’re not doing this now.”

  “If you want this pee we are.” He held up a little baggie. “You know what I had to go through to collect it?”

  “I can imagine, but I don’t think we have the time.” Even as I said the words, I could see in his face that, one, we’d have plenty of time, and, two, I wasn’t as prepared as I let on.

  I sat down beside him and slipped my hand over his thigh and across the front of his pants. There was definitely something hard in there, running just underneath the fabric like a vein under skin. I rubbed it a bit and he groaned, his head lolling on his shoulders.