Happy is something no one can be. Happiness drives by, honking its horn, when you’re walking in the rain, like I am now. It doesn’t stop. Not like misery. Misery pulls over and throws open the door. Misery will take you anywhere you don’t want to go.
I’m getting close now. To the pharmacy. Last night, when I couldn’t make love to my wife, I thought about Fairy_26. I’d never tell Chi this but I thought about Fairy_26 when I was trying to make love to my wife. I don’t think it’d make Chi feel better that it didn’t help. Fairy_26 is beautiful and I’m attracted to her but I can’t expose her to the biohazard I am. I won’t. That’s what I keep telling myself. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Aircraft Carrier / Pirate Ship
I won’t bore you with the details. I won’t tell you how amazing it is to see Fairy_26 again or how incredible it feels to see, believe, no, to know, she’s excited to see me, too. I won’t go on about the formula or the music it makes.
I won’t explain what it’s like to have a gorgeous and kind green-haired fairy dangle you, a zombie, while the two of you whip over the ocean’s water and waves and through its fresh air to Guy Boy Man’s aircraft carrier / pirate ship. Now Fairy_26 and I are onboard, in a room, waiting for an audience with the sixteen-year-old trillionaire pirate. Two steely-eyed square-jawed soldiers keep automatic weapons trained on us. A few minutes later, Guy Boy Man breezes in. I’m awed and overwhelmed. I can’t believe I’m in the same room as he. He’s a saviour, a rebel, an enemy of the establishment: the zombies, albinos, and the Pope. Guy Boy Man wears the Pope’s tall golden white pirate hat, which he had pirated, making it his pirate hat, and out from under which Guy’s crazy black hair now sticks; Guy Boy Man wears a ceremonial robe made of shiny high-tech white plastic. He blows past where Fairy_26 and I stand, at the back of the room, guarded by square-jawed steely-eyed soldiers, to the front of the room. As he goes, I see glimpses of what’s beneath his robe: pirate breeches and a loose-fitting white linen shirt and, of course, a lot of handguns.
“Leave us,” says Guy Boy Man, moving behind a podium, opening a bottle of whiskey, lighting a cigarette, and waving the soldiers away.
They lower their weapons and begin to go.
“That was a test!” cries Guy Boy Man, throwing open his hands, gawking at them, incredulous. “Never leave me! You’re my elite soldiers!” Guy draws one of his shiny silver handguns, pointing it at me. “This dude is a zombie, right? I don’t know if you’re familiar with zombies, but zombies eat people!” He taps the gun’s muzzle against his chest. “I am people.” Guy shakes his head. “I don’t want to be eaten by zombies.” He gestures at me, again, with the gun. “Obviously, I have this dude covered. Okay? Don’t get me wrong. I can take care of myself. I’m badass.” Holding a whiskey bottle in one hand and with a cigarette dangling from between his lips, Guy waves at me with his weapon. “I could take him out no problem. Bang,” he says, mocking the gun’s recoil. “All right? Bang. I put zombies down. I do the same to suckahs, fools, and little bitches. I take them out. That’s what I do. On a regular basis.” He nods. “Pretty much all the time. That’s what I do.” He keeps nodding. “I’m not kidding.” He stops nodding. He waves around his weapon. “Think of it from my perspective. I pirate trillions of dollars from the economy and, in the process, make a lot of enemies, a lot of whom are zombies. So I employ you. You’re elite soldiers. I just want you to be around, pretty much all the time, except for when I’m being sexy with my hot young female followers, which is most of the time, so, for the most part, you guys can kick back and play video games. But in the rare instances when I’m not getting it on with hot young chicks, I want you guys—not that women can’t be elite soldiers—to be around, pretty much all the time, at least when I’m on my aircraft carrier / pirate ship. While we’re together, I want you to stress out a lot on my behalf. I mean, bang,” he says, pointing the gun at me. “I’ve shot the zombie, right? Am I sweating? No. But now I have a pissed off fairy flying around the room, doing all kinds of dangerous fairy things. I could handle that, too. Seriously. It wouldn’t faze me. But it’d be nice, since I do employ elite soldiers—I do, right? You guys are getting your cheques?—if you were at least in the room to see me kicking zombie and supernatural ass so you can tell tales of my heroics later on. Anyway.” Guy Boy Man holsters his handgun and turns his attention to Fairy_26 and me. “What’s happening?”
“Guy Boy Man,” says Fairy_26, placing a flat hand on her chest. “It’s an honour to meet you. My name is Fairy_26.” She wears strappy blue heels and a skimpy backless red dress. “I’m a supernatural creature.” She gestures to me. “This is Buck Burger. As you can see, he’s a zombie. What you can’t tell just from looking at him is that he’s a depressed zombie. He doesn’t like being a zombie. I’m a fairy pharmacist. I met Buck when he came to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled for an anti-depressant. I became interested in him because I was unaware there were zombies who don’t like being zombies. I thought all zombies liked being zombies or never really gave their condition much thought.”
“I had reason to believe there might be a few who disliked their circumstances,” Guy Boy Man states, drawing deep on his cigarette. “You see it in advertising sometimes: ‘Keep Away From Children’, ‘Keep Out Of The Reach Of Children,’ things like that.”
He sighs a wispy blue-white ghost. “Did you know Ivory dish soap is ‘Hard On Grease’? It says so right on the bottle.”
“I never realized that,” says Fairy_26, astonished. “That’s disgusting.”
“In any event,” says Guy, “during a series of exciting adventures I can’t be bothered to relate here, I learned a great deal about zombies and supernatural creatures.” He takes another drag from his cigarette, refilling himself with smoke. “Your being a fairy explains how you breached my defences and gained access to my aircraft carrier, which is awesome. My aircraft carrier is awesome. The fact that you breached my defences and gained access to it isn’t. Firstly, because my defences are supposed to be (pretty much) impenetrable. Secondly, because I hadn’t really thought about supernatural creatures assisting my enemies, most of whom are zombies, in their efforts to derail my plans (it’s just one plan) to end human suffering.”
“We’d never assist zombies that way,” insists Fairy_26, her wings opening wide in emphasis. “No supernatural creature would ever assist anyone intent upon harming you or thwarting your cause. You have the full moral support of all supernatural creatures.”
“I don’t know about all supernatural creatures,” he says, lifting the whiskey bottle to his lips. “There are always the angels to consider.” He drinks.
“Angels aren’t real, Guy Boy Man,” assures Fairy_26.
“They don’t care,” he replies.
“Guy Boy Man,” says Fairy_26, ignoring that, “since you already know so much about zombies and supernatural creatures, perhaps we can tell something of which you aren’t already aware.”
“It’s unlikely. I’m pretty aware.”
“The zombies learned of my friendship with the depressed zombie, Buck Burger,” explains Fairy_26. “Since they’re so concerned about you and your efforts, they sent Buck here, with my help. The zombies want to make you an offer I hope you won’t accept. In exchange for your assistance, the zombies will cease all efforts to foil your cause or cause you bodily harm. They’ll also encourage all middle- and upper-class zombies to give your religion serious thought.”
“I already have the middle- and upper-classes,” says Guy Boy Man. “They’re the ones who can afford black-market birth control. They’re the ones educated enough to use it. I believe birth control, especially condoms, should be free and freely available everywhere. I’ll settle for nothing less.”
I groan. I’m so self-conscious. I’m dressed like a businessman who’s rolled around in blood, excrement, and garbage. I probably also smell like that.
; “Normally supernatural creatures can’t even begin to understand zombie speech,” begins Fairy_26, examining my expressionless face, to see if she heard me correctly, “but Buck brought me a complex formula.” She turns to Guy Boy Man. “The formula is what convinced me to bring Buck to you; no zombie could’ve come up with it, no matter how focused and inspired by mental illness. At first, I thought it was gibberish.” She frowns, remembering. “It contained blatant mistakes. But the mistakes were repeated: twice; three times; even, in one instance, four times in a row. That’s when I realized it was music.”
She smiles. “It was a chemical formula the likes of which I’d never even dreamed. I mixed the ingredients into a pill. I think the zombies intended for you to take it but I wasn’t going to take that chance. I took it myself. Now I can understand what Buck says.”
“What’d he just say?” I ask.
The room we’re in is perfect for this. Almost everything is metal: military grey. On the walls hang pictures of war machines: fighter jets taking off from the aircraft carrier; fighter jets returning. A destroyer in the sunrise.
Through Fairy_26, I tell Guy Boy Man that zombies are slaves. In some instances soldiers. In all cases controlled. I tell Guy Boy Man about the albinos in our minds. The average person only uses ten percent of his or her brain. Who uses the rest? The albinos.
Guy Boy Man nods, lighting another cigarette. “I had a vision like this.”
“You have visions?” gasps Fairy_26.
“Lots,” says Guy Boy Man, casually.
“What kind?”
Guy Boy Man rolls the tip of his smoke in the ashtray, shaping it. “Different kinds.”
“About what?”
He lifts his cigarette and waves it around, noncommittally. “Things.”
I inform Guy Boy Man that the albinos in his mind can’t control him yet because he’s still a teenager. His hormones exert a positive pressure, forcing out all contagions like the strain. I speculate it’s probably the reason why albinos forced zombies to agree to a truce with the supernatural creatures in the first place, allowing them to, for the most part, shield human life until it reaches a certain level of maturity because the albinos couldn’t infiltrate those young minds yet anyway. And Guy Boy Man is so incredibly irresponsible. Irresponsible people are immune. The albino message overtakes me: It’s unknown if Guy Boy Man will continue to be so reckless in thought and deed but if he does, he’ll most likely ruin that which he seeks to control.
“Wait a minute,” interrupts Guy Boy Man, puzzled. “Control?”
Through Fairy_26, I explain what the albinos believe: Guy Boy Man is merely trying to upset the balance of things; to gain control over it; so he can mine it for his own purposes.
“They can’t imagine anyone would ever, genuinely, endeavour to end human suffering with no ulterior motive?” asks Guy Boy Man.
I hear my reply leaving Fairy_26’s mouth; I watch her lips when they move; I catch glimpses of her tongue. She tells him what I tell her: even if someone were so altruistic, or so foolish, the hormone-addled and the irresponsible share at least one thing in common with the zombies and the albinos: greed. Sooner or later, the albinos believe, Guy Boy Man will join their side and soften his beliefs, or at least his expression of those beliefs, so human suffering can continue, allowing him to extract that which he wants from it: money, sex, self-esteem, power; whatever the case may be.
“I already have all that stuff and I’m still not happy,” says Guy Boy Man, lifting the whiskey bottle to his lips.
There’s always more. I tell him; Fairy_26 tells him. There’s always more. There’s a chance; there’s hope.
“No,” says Guy Boy Man, setting down the bottle. “There isn’t.” He sucks on his cigarette. He exhales grey into the grey room.
I’m running out of things to tell Guy Boy Man. I convey that, while I wasn’t there in zombie, my director reported that one of the albinos who explained the situation and made these offers was a movie executive and the other was a record industry rep.
Fairy_26 is in shock; it takes her several seconds to recover. Guy Boy Man keeps saying, “What? What is it?”
When he learns the horrifying truth, Guy Boy Man masks his fear well but I know it’s there. It has to be. It must. Who wouldn’t be scared? Movie executives? Record industry reps? They’re a pirate’s worst enemies.
I’m glad Guy Boy Man won’t accept any of their offers but I wish I could extend this visit. I like being near Guy Boy Man. I admire his confidence; his resolve. I know he’s afraid but he refuses to give up. The visit can’t last, though. It pleases me. Nothing that pleases me can last. I realize that now. I just have to hold on to these infrequent instances as best I can like I’m holding onto Fairy_26 now or I have to keep moving like all these fleeting moments.
When we leave the aircraft carrier, Fairy_26 looks down at me dangling from her arms and she asks me if I’ve seen Guy Boy Man’s most recent sermon. I tell her I haven’t.
She turns the sun, sitting like a ball of gold on the horizon, into the face of the young man I admire and the sound of the wind is replaced with his words. While I’m entranced by him and what he has to say, I can’t help wondering how long the pill will last on Fairy_26. I can’t help wondering how long we’ll be able to talk.
Before we left, as a gesture of good faith on behalf of the albinos, I gave Guy Boy Man the location of one of our people farms to do with as he pleases. Having been recently employed in Reproduction Section, I know the information is accurate.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Trying Not To Want What I Want
Before the pill wears off, Fairy_26 and I sit in her tree-branch apartment and talk.
“It’s not every day a fairy carries me out to visit a sixteen-year-old trillionaire pirate–slash–spiritual–leader on an aircraft carrier at sea,” I say.
“It’s pretty normal for me,” she jokes, shrugging.
We’re close to each other on the smooth wooden sofa that juts out from the wall and which is covered in soft green moss cushions. I’m not sitting as much as I’m tipped back.
My legs are straight. My arms are outstretched toward the place where the opposite wall meets the ceiling. My backside isn’t touching the sofa at all. Fairy_26 lounges on the floor in front of me, sitting on one hip, with one arm propping up her light weight. Having changed when we returned, she’s dressed entirely in white: white, knee-high, high heel boots, white leg-warmers, white thigh-high stockings, and a short, white, T-shirt dress. Her green hair and blue eyes almost glow. Segmented with black lines, like veins on supple leaves, her otherwise transparent wings stick out from slits in the back of her dress. They open and close, peacefully.
“I think Guy Boy Man likes you,” I tease, looking at her from my gross white eyes.
“Oh, please.”
“You can hover.”
“All fairies can hover. Besides, Guy Boy Man has hundreds of hot young female followers. His gothic castle is full of them.”
“You’re different.”
“You’re married.” She doesn’t look at me when she says it. Suddenly she’s frowning, picking at the soft moss cushions beneath us.
“I’m married.” I mentioned it in passing, passing over the ocean, wondering if it mattered to her, wondering if it mattered to me. Now I’m trying not to look at her, trying not to want what I want, hating myself for being who and what I am, for being so weak, and so dangerous.
“Do you have kids?” she asks, glancing up at me.
“One,” I say, nodding stiffly. “A son. Francis Bacon. He’s fifteen.”
Fairy_26 forces a polite smile. Her eyes turn back to the floor. She brushes the palm of her hand, back and forth, over the moss she’d been picking at a few seconds earlier. “That’s the hardest part of being awesome. The idea of no more babies.”
“They’re a lot of work.”
; “That’s what I hear.”
“You’ll meet somebody,” I assure her, mindlessly. “You’ll have babies. You’re young. You have plenty of time.” It strikes me as strange I’m saying these things when it goes against everything I believe. It’s hopeless. We shouldn’t reproduce. Why am I doing this? I’m encouraging her to have something I don’t want her to have. I just want her to have me. Only me. Nothing and no one else. But I don’t want her to have that. I want her to have more. I want her to have better. I’m worthless. I’m important only inasmuch as I’ve donated sperm—DNA spilled into the disgusting gene pool—and I’m raising a future zombie. I’m important only inasmuch as I work for the albinos, doing things I don’t understand for reasons I can’t remember, and inasmuch as I use what money I make to buy top-end consumer electronics, destroy them immediately, and go back to purchase newer versions that they made while I was gone. I want Fairy_26 to have everything she can’t have. Me. Someone better to disappoint her. Lasting happiness. Babies that never grow up, that never die, that sleep through the night, that smile and gurgle through the day, that don’t need to be fed, and that don’t need to be changed: into zombies. Babies that can look after themselves when you’re sick of looking after babies or when you’re bored and you want to go out.
“I’m awesome, Buck,” she says, smiling sadly at the non-flowering plants covering the floor, like she’s having the same thoughts.
“So am I.” I sit up. “So. What should we be doing?”
She shrugs. “Having fun, I guess.”
“What do you want to do right now?” I ask. “What sounds like fun?”
“Nothing,” she confesses.
Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos Page 9