by Kim Zarins
I can see he really wants me to answer. “The brother theme was the best part. It was an unexpected way to resolve the love triangle. And zombies were perfect. I mean, they were made to fight, and once you see them fighting each other—over love—it really captures how hard it is for these guys just to live a normal life after all that war.”
He gives a chill little nod, but I catch some hint of pain and sorrow in his eyes and the set of his mouth. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
And then Briony flings her arms around him.
I turn and see Pard with his sketchbook. When Pard sketches from life, he pins his object with a lion’s stare, and I was surprised Kai didn’t notice or get thrown by it. Now he’s finishing up, with a few different pencils scattered in his lap, and for an instant I see the portrait.
It’s beautiful. Not just because it looks like Kai, though it does. It’s shaded right to get his dark skin, has the powerful but streamlined build, the cheekbones and the short black hair, the strong hands hanging loose at his knees. But what takes my breath away is the look on Kai’s face. It’s that haunted look he gave to Mr. Bailey when he asked if he’d have to tell his life story. Pard captured the story behind the story. And somehow I know it’s Kai’s soul, put down on a piece of paper.
Pard claps the book shut and glares at me. Not the artist’s stare. The glare he gives when he wants to erase you.
“You’re good,” I mutter, because he deserves to hear it.
“I am,” he says back. Then he reopens his book and looks at me sideways, dropping his voice. “You know about his brother, right?” I shake my head, and he draws in a bit of background. “The vet.”
I scrunch my eyes. “He helps animals?”
He pins me with a look that makes me feel childish. “The veteran. At eighteen, you’re this brave hero going out to help your country. Out there, things happen around you, to you. You get hurt inside and outside. For the pain they get you hooked on Vicodin, OxyContin, morphine, whatever. Before you know it, you’re dumped back, just nineteen years old and spent, and to feed your addiction you get hooked on heroin. Forget the hero thing. Now everyone wonders what the hell is wrong with you. It doesn’t take long.”
ROOSTER’S PROLOGUE
Alison points out the city rushing by and, beyond it, the waters surrounding Long Island. “Look, we’re already passing New Haven!”
Pushing up her chic writer glasses, Mari leans into the aisle to face the back row. “That’s where you’re going next year, right, Kai? Yale? That’s so awesome.”
Jealousy all over his face, Reeve mutters something about his scores being twenty points higher than Kai’s. It’s clear that Reeve thinks Kai got in because he’s black and not because he’s a straight-A student and star of the football team and a coach for underserved kids in robotics (their team won a national championship). Not because he can tell a brilliant story with zero time to prep. I give Reeve the stink eye because he sucks, but also because I’m still hurting from Yale’s rejection too, and Reeve seems like a great target for channeling all my disappointment.
It looks like Kai isn’t going to say anything, but Reiko’s best friend, Lupe, who takes no shit from anyone on earning her admission to Dartmouth, snaps, “Check your privilege, Reeve.”
“Oh right, my privilege to get told off for stating the facts,” Reeve grumbles.
“Asshole,” Lupe snarls, and Reeve counters with a testy “I heard that” as he scribbles on his clipboard.
“Anyway,” Briony segues, rolling her eyes. “Yale is lucky to have you, but I’m even luckier. UConn’s just an hour away.”
She snuggles into Kai, and they look good together, prom king and queen. But maybe the real love story—for Kai, at least—is brother love. I can see it in his eyes, the way he’s processing the story he just told. How he didn’t want to tell his life story, but there are pieces of his life there. Body brother parts that make the story live.
For me, brother thoughts become sister thoughts, and it hits a nerve that I don’t like to think about. I was so young at the time, and when my parents said she was gone, I was like, “Gone where?” I just didn’t get why Bee wasn’t coming back.
I told all that to Pard freshman year, right after I stumbled on that photo of the girl in the bikini top who otherwise looked just like him. I asked, “Who is she?” He barely kept it together. He looked at me like he didn’t want to say. “She was my twin.”
Was his twin. Her name was Ellie. Pard could barely speak. He must have been feeling like hell, remembering her, so I thought it was only fair to tell him about my sister, to share that I knew how bad it was. I think it only made him feel worse. It’s not exactly a club you want to join.
I never brought it up again.
“Hey,” Rooster booms like he’s incapable of normal speech volume. “What I want to know is how this zombie body part sharing works. Like, if your dick gets cut off—”
“That is so inappropriate!” Reeve scribbles something furiously.
“What, you’re going to write me a tardy slip for saying ‘dick’? My dick is never tardy.”
Mr. Bailey cuts in. “That’s enough, Rooster. I think we should move on to the next story.”
He reaches in the hat to draw the next name, but Rooster booms, “Okay, kiddies! Have I got a story for you. It’s a love triangle done right. Not that our man Kai here doesn’t know how to tell a good story, but I have a better one.”
Mr. Bailey holds up a slip. “Now, now, Rooster, I already drew out Cookie’s name. You’ll have to wait.”
“Can’t wait for Cookie, Bailey-man. I have to tell it now, or my love triangle will be out of place. Gotta tell it right-o.” He hiccups.
“He’s inebriated!” Reeve pulls at his collar like he can barely breathe. He points an accusing red pen toward the back so we can all see Exhibit A of Alcohol Abuse. “We are on a trip to pay our respects to our nation’s forefathers, and this is how you behave. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”
“You should try it sometime.” Rooster roars with laughter, and as Mr. Bailey tries to calm everyone down, Rooster steamrolls ahead with his story.
ROOSTER’S TALE
My tale is from . . . the future!
So, years from now, Reeve finally gets laid.
“What?!” Reeve half screams, and Mr. Bailey gives a warning. “Rooster.”
I mean, fictionally, there’s this middle-aged skinny guy. He’s on the Disciplinary Committee—oops, I mean, he’s like a hall monitor for some big power company. He wanders the corporate offices and makes sure employees aren’t texting or kissing or stuff like that. Anything fun gets reported, and he’s the best employee at turning in people to get them fired. So he makes a fair pot of money to live off of. And when he goes home, he plays hall monitor there, too, because he always has a boarder or two subleasing in his house. He’s a real fun landlord, I can tell you.
All he lacks is a woman. Then he gets one. She’s originally just his tenant. And, oh man, is she hot. I mean hot. Limber, all high energy, you know? And Alison is totally young, probably half his age—
“Hey!” Alison elbows Rooster in the ribs. “I’m am so not going to get it on with Reeve.”
Rooster clasps his huge meaty hands in a gesture of prayer and contrition. “Of course not! Any resemblance to actual persons is entirely unintentional in this work of fiction. And, besides, I’ll make sure this fictional young woman gets a much better time than anything said middle-aged, balding, office hall monitor can provide.”
She puts both feet up in Rooster’s lap. “Carry on. But I am listening.”
He bows dramatically. “My lady, you are the fairest audience this humble bard can hope for.”
As I was saying, this fictitious, beautiful, young Alison has hit upon hard times. She can’t pay rent, and the old hall monitor guy wants her so bad, he asks her to marry him. She reluctantly agrees. It’s either that or the street. And he puts the ring on her finger, does the courthouse routine ma
king her a Mrs., and tells her she’ll never have to worry about being evicted from now on. And then, of course, he monitors her every time she goes out, every time she goes in. Real close relationship.
Enter new character. Nick is the new tenant in the house, taking up Alison’s old room. Nick moves in with his few things and his guitar strapped around his back. Has some books and scientific equipment, too, because he’s putting himself through college. Going to work on global warming. And you can guess that some serious global warming fires up between Alison and Nick. Totally outshines the diamond ring on Alison’s finger, and who can blame them?
But they can’t do or say anything, because the surveillance cameras are everywhere, plus hidden mics in the kitchen, living room, the bedrooms, you name it. There’s even a mic in the bathroom down the hall. That’s right, the Reeve-man—I mean, the old guy, let’s call him John Hall—listens to everyone piss. Luckily, there aren’t any cameras to visually record said pissing. But the hall cameras catch who goes in and who goes out, so Nick and Alison can’t even make out in the tub. The only way to communicate is by writing on the foggy mirror after a shower. Nick would take a shower, and then Alison would go in to change the toilet paper roll, and there’d be a message for her, and she’d reply, and he’d then go to the bathroom before the mirror lost its fog. The lovebirds started a little correspondence this way:
Him, Day 1: LUV U. ♥
Her, Day 1: U 2.
Him, Day 2: Sex?
Her, Day 2: Can’t.
Him, Day 2: Pleezzzz?
Him, Day 3: Dying for you! PLEASE!
Her, Day 3: OK . . . But how?
Our poor would-be lovers are in a quandary, but Nick got an A in Civics at Southwark High, and he knows he has the brains to solve the world’s biggest problems.
Everyone turns to see the look on Mr. Bailey’s face.
“Oh, go on,” he says, all grouchy, and we know he’s totally hooked to find out what happens next.
So, a week later, Alison reads a note from Nick on the bathroom mirror:
Him, Day 10: Got an idea . . .
Just hoping Nick would figure out a plan, she goes about her business, always careful, of course, since she figures that twinkle on her diamond is actually a tracking device. One day she’s shopping downtown, and when she passes by the church, she notices that the weird choirmaster is blowing her kisses. Abe—well, everyone calls him Blondie because of his white-blond hair—totally has a crush on Alison. He’s also working on a plan to win her love.
Pard has had many, many nicknames during his years at Southwark, and his hair has been a running joke for years. Once he told me the problem is that people initially mistake his hair for being beautiful just for its color. They stare. On a closer look, they notice it’s not just straight but thin and oily, and there’s just not quite enough of it for his head. I feel bad for him when he instinctively tries to tug down the brim of a hat he no longer owns. He misses that hat.
Then Pard picks up his pencil and starts sketching like this means war.
So, a couple days later, Nick takes sick. Really sick.
“I think we should check on him,” Alison tells her husband.
Old John Hall rubs his gray stubble. “Hmm, let me check the tapes.”
And that’s exactly what the old fart does. He overhears Nick groaning and tossing around in bed, and in the daylight hours the camera catches him there, doing nothing but writhing in the sheets.
John gets out his clipboard and knocks on the door.
“Hnnnuuh?” groans Nick.
“Nicholas, are you ill?”
“Very,” replies a weak voice. “Come in.”
Reeve—I mean, John—finds Nick all pale and trembly in bed.
“Oh, Mr. Hall,” Nick moans. “We’re doomed. It’s all going to end.”
John shakes Nick‘s shoulder. “Doomed? What’s the matter, boy? Out with the truth!”
“Sir, no one wants to know the truth.” He holds out his arms to show strange bruises. “It’s radiation. I’ve always been sensitive to it. That’s why I’ve been studying global warming. I was hoping to get to the bottom of CRPP . . . you know, Complex Radiation Proximity Poisoning. It’s the interference between solar flare activity coming from space with the technology-made radiation trapped by our atmosphere. It’s deadly. Look . . .”
Nick pulls out an iPad and shows the old man images that would freak out anybody. Pictures of people with missing hair and covered with boils and scars and those bruises Nick has, all from radiation poisoning. He shows pics of animals with two heads, the whole horror show. Then he gets to the point.
“My skin always reacts before a radiation onslaught, and I can tell this next one is going to wipe out the whole country. Maybe the world.”
John’s wide eyes go from the tablet to Nick, back and forth. “Good God! What can we do? How do we save ourselves?”
Nick shakes his head. “I don’t know if we can. The radiation will pour through the windows, doors, walls. Now, obviously, if we could go underground, like in some sort of a bunker, that would help, but I don’t know. . . .”
John grabs Nick’s sleeve. “My basement! That’s underground.”
Nick cocks his head, thinking. “I’d have to take a look. I feel pretty weak, but I’ll try to get up. This is a matter of life or death. We might have only hours to get ready.”
John helps Nick out of bed and holds carefully on to his elbow, leading him down the stairs to the surveillance headquarters. The room is full of monitors, so John can see what’s happening at home and at work.
Nick touches the walls. “Solid. No windows—that’s good. And this equipment you have here . . . would it be able to produce a strong white noise? The strong wavelength would help break up any radioactive particles.”
John nods excitedly. “Yes, I could do that.”
“Good,” Nick says. “But even with that, the room might not be deep enough to protect our bodies. If the floor were dirt, I’d bury us under there. Dirt is wonderful protection; combined with the protection of this basement, even a couple of feet of dirt would work. Maybe we could get a plastic pool filled with dirt for the radiation to bounce off? Then we could just hunker down here and, after the radiation spill, maybe in two days or so, we could come out again.” Nick pauses, rubbing his chin. “Yeah, that should work. It will be sad, though. So many people will die from the poisoning, all because politicians have concealed the truth from the American people and let corporations drive ecological policy.”
John springs to action. “Right! I’ll go downtown and buy us each a plastic pool. You mean a little kiddie pool, right? Any particular kind of dirt?”
“Any pH-balanced dirt will counteract radiation,” Nick tells him. “Oh, and get three pools. We don’t want to leave Alison to this grim death.”
“Of course not,” John says. “Nicholas, wait right here. I will be back in thirty minutes!”
And once the goods are procured, John leads Alison by the hand to the surveillance headquarters. Her mouth quivers a little as she takes in the news of the impending disaster.
Nick and Alison bury John Hall first in his pink plastic tub. He’s bedded in organic soil, the high-grade kind that the farmer’s market people tell you about. The tip of a straw pokes out the top of the mound, to allow for breathing.
“I’m going to turn on the white noise,” Nick says to the mound. “Ready?”
He hears a muffled Nmph in response.
Nick cranks up the white noise. He disables the audiovisual recording software . . . or, at least, he thinks he does. Then he puts a sprig of geraniums on John’s mound, just for effect.
He pinches Alison’s ass. “Let’s go,” he whispers. And upstairs they go.
And what a romp they have!
Poor Alison was so tired of sex with Hall Monitor John, you know, practically getting fingerprinted while you’re doing it, and it’s good, so good, to have a hot-blooded body pressed to her. They do it all in Joh
n and Alison’s bed. Alison’s free as a bird, and she sings as she frolics.
And the whole time, though they don’t know it, the live feed sends footage straight to the basement. If John could see even one minute of that long, long night, he could have filled his clipboard with all those naughty things they were doing. But even though he’s in the dreaded surveillance room, John can’t see a thing, and the white noise drowns out the lovemaking. At his feet looms an oversize screen with images of Nick on Alison, Alison on Nick, and every other position they could discover. The flat-screen is like a tombstone inscribed with John Hall’s worst nightmare, and he’s buried under it, his body shifting as if his restless soul were trying to watch the show.
So Alison and Nick go at it all night long, and pretty much pass out right before dawn . . .
. . . when who should show up but Blondie!
He throws pebbles at the window, one after another, and then starts serenading Alison with that cooey-fluty voice of his.
“Ooo-ooou, Aa-li-son! Suh-WEEEE-tie pie! Ooo-ooou!”
Everyone rolls with laughter. All except for Reeve and Pard. Reeve scribbles furiously on his clipboard, and he mutters loudly how John Hall would have put tracking devices on Nick and Alison to ensure they were in their kiddie pools as well. Pard, on the other hand, doesn’t make a move. He knows I’m watching him and doesn’t turn around. If I were a friend, I’d say something, do something. But I don’t, and so I feel like a traitor as I laugh along with the others.
“Ooooo-oooou! How about a kiss for me, my dovey-dear?”
And Blondie breaks out a number from The Sound of Music, like, do-re-mi and all that shit.
“What the hell is going on?” Nick asks.
Alison rolls her eyes. “It’s Blondie, that choirmaster. I think he’s hoping John will be sleeping, and I’ll let him come up for a kiss. He wrote me a note a few weeks ago saying he wanted to try that. He’s such a freak.”