The Zen of Zombie

by Scott Kenemore

  Think back over the last five-to-ten years of your life and try to picture the times that you really lost your cool. Times when lack of emotion would have been to your advantage, but when your emotions won anyway. Remember the situation you were in when it happened. Remember how emotion made you act, and what losing your cool made you do. If there was a specific act or phrase that crystallized the moment when coolness was lost, jot it down. Then, finally and most importantly, write down what losing your cool cost you. (If you need to speculate a little here, that’s fine.)

  You may have many instances of losing your cool, or you may have just a few. If you’re a reserved person, it may be a stretch to think of something, and that’s okay. Remember, it doesn’t have to be dramatic and obvious, like hazarding your life savings at the roulette table. It simply needs to be a situation where you remember having a less-than-optimal outcome because of your emotions.

  Your finished list should look something like this:

  Example One

  Situation: So Werner Herzog was on this panel at UCLA and I really wanted to go because I am such a fan. It’s supposed to be for students only, but I had my old ID and I thought I could get it to work. We get up to the box office though, and the guy is all like, “This says you graduated in 2005. You realize this is the line for student tickets, don’t you? Sir?”

  Loss of cool: So the guy was a bit of a snark, and I knew I should’ve just let it go, but when he called me sir, I was like, I’m just 25! And he’s all, get in the regular line with everybody else or I’m calling security. And I could have totally taken the guy, but I was worried about security coming because there was a ton of shit I did back in 2005 that they never caught me on, so I just chickened out, really.

  Embodiment of loss of cool: “Whatever. I’m going to the other line, just because you suck.” But it wasn’t because he sucked, it was because I’d let him make me afraid.

  Consequences/Cost: No Werner Herzog.

  Example Two

  Situation: The big spring dance, senior year of college. Went with Jane Lundermann, not really the most attractive girl, or the smartest, but she kind of had a reputation as a girl who would go all the way on a first date. I’m thinking whatever ... It’s senior year, and I’m not looking to fall in love. My dad’s already told me that he’ll pay for me to backpack around Europe for a year after graduation, and then I am so going to art school for an MFA. Maybe Rhode Island, maybe Art Institute. All I know for sure is that I want to spend the next fifty years making plaster casts of animal genitalia.

  Loss of cool: So after the dance winds down, a bunch of us end up behind the science building doing coke and before I know it I’m so revved up I can’t see straight. Jane is too. We go back to her dorm room and start to get it on.

  Embodiment of loss of cool: “Omigod Jane, that’s so much better without the stupid condom.”

  Consequences/Cost: Missed period. Shotgun wedding after graduation. No Europe trip or MFA. And I’m working nine to fucking five (instead of making molds of animal bits) to support a stupid wife and kid.

  Example Three

  Situation: We’re driving back from the Fox Head one night and get pulled over. Not anything out of the ordinary, except that just as the cop gets out of his car, Sammy turns to us in the back seat and goes, “Dudes, just so you know, that backpack at your feet is totally full of weed.”

  Zombie Tip:

  If a brain is produced in the first act, it must be eaten in the last.

  Everything happens for a reason. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Mr. Cynical Atheist Curmudgeon Guy. When the universe throws something tempting your way—like, hmm, I don’t know, a tantalizing brain—you may not get it right away. But just be patient. It’s there for a reason. Guns have a way of being shot. Brains have a way of getting eaten. At least eventually.

  Loss of cool: So while the one cop is breathalizing Sammy (he so totally failed it), another one gets out and stalks around the side and shines his flashlight in on us. I don’t even think he shined his light on the backpack intentionally, but the moment the beam even gets near it, Rajat starts screaming “That’s backpack’s not mine! It’s not mine. It’s totally this guy’s.” And he points over at Sammy, but because of where he’s standing it looks just like he’s pointing right at me.”

  Embodiment of loss of cool: I don’t remember exactly, but I was getting frisked at one point and I remember, clearly, coming out with something like: “Take your hands off me, you redneck goon. My taxes pay your salary.”

  Consequences/Cost: Thirty months, under the stupid new minimum-sentencing laws.

  Let’s be clear: Zombies have been called “extreme” in the same way that snowboarding is an “extreme sport.” Usually, the adjective is invoked this way by enthusiasts. While zombies may be “extreme” in this sense, they do not operate in extremes moment to moment.

  When your whole existence is spent walking the earth in search of living human brains to consume, your very way of being in the world is an extremity. However, zombies pursue this extreme goal with a reservation and aplomb that is nothing if not conservative and dignified.

  When zombies break down a farmhouse door, it is only because that door has buckled under the gentlemanly pressure of many zombies, who have pushed hard, but not extremely hard. (You don’t see zombies flexing and emoting like professional wrestlers or weightlifters. Their exertion is more dignified than that.)

  When a zombie chases a victim into a corner, it is not at a sprinter’s wild and hoary gallop, but with an easy and confident saunter.

  Whatever the situation, zombies play it cool.

  For the rest of week 6, you should make a concerted effort to play it cool in every situation.

  In every task, ask yourself not only

  “Is this what a zombie would do?” but also

  “Is this how a zombie would do it?”

  7

  Love Zombie

  Everyone wants to find love in life.

  Platonic love. Fraternal love. Rutting-like-an-animal love, sure. But especially romantic love. A self-help book, even one about zombies, would not be worth its salt if it didn’t include a guide to maximizing your romantic potential. After all, you deserve love. You have the right to love and feel loved. And you’re probably sick of sitting and waiting around for that love to appear.

  “But wait,” I hear you saying, “aren’t zombies sexless beings, utterly incapable of showing love? Don’t they lack entirely the inclination to physical romance or emotional openness? Wasn’t there a previous section of this book (“Bros before hos”) about how zombies show no interest at all in the opposite sex (or the same sex)?

  It is true that zombies don’t show love (or feel love), but it turns out that their tactics prove expert for obtaining it. Remember, zombies go after what they want. Zombies want brains, but you might want a loving mate with whom you can raise a family and grown old. Don’t worry. This impulse is not contrary to your zombification. Rather, because virtually all humans have desires to this end, it is very like a zombie to go out and get the man or woman (or even the she-male from the back page of the Village Voice) of your dreams.

  In this week’s lesson, we will learn how the tactics of a zombie prove expert in the quest for love, and we’ll put those tactics into action.

  We’ve talked before about how zombies are good at shattering misconceptions and stereotypes. Love is full of misconceptions.

  Men only want sex.

  Women only want attention and prescience and expensive presents.

  There are others, sure. Too many to list here. But the biggest misconception shattered by zombies is that the chase is better than the catch.

  Even though this position has been long maintained by many (verbatim, in fact, by no less a netherworld expert than Lemmy Kilmister), it is one readily shattered by the zombie.

  For reasons unknown, the stereotype persists that, once obtained, love is never as good as we think it will be. Or that love necessar
ily fades over time. Sadly, this falsehood keeps some people from going after love at all. It is true that bad relationships (and, of course, bad sex) do sometimes happen, and that courtship, will all its razzle-dazzle and bank account-clearing expenditure, can seem more compelling than the prize at which it is all directed.

  Yet true love remains a real and compelling possibility for many, and a bad past relationship is no reason to write off dating as an exercise in disappointment.

  Zombies know all about the chase.

  And the catch.

  And no matter what your cynical sewing circle or drunken frat buddies have told you, the chase is nothing compared to the catch.

  While romantic humans involved in “the chase” face humiliating rejection, painstaking preparation processes, and the prospect of blowing a whole goddamn paycheck for a kiss on the cheek on a Friday night, zombies have it even worse. A zombie on “the chase” faces everything from fortifications hastily constructed in an abandoned house, to fullfledged military arsenals directed against him. A chasing zombie (which is most zombies, most of the time) faces bullets, explosives, and voodoo spells, but that’s not stopping it. Because a zombie wants what it wants. And the zombie knows that no matter how difficult things may get during the chase, the brain-eating phase will make it all worth it. Remember also, that no zombie has ever eaten a brain or two, but then decided all the fuss wasn’t really worth it. No zombie has retired to a solitary life of cats, X-Box, and/or daytime TV.

  In your own life, you may have loved once or twice before, and found that love not to be lasting. You may have endured all-night shouting matches, breakups that splinter groups of friends, and alimony payments that never end. I’m not saying these things don’t suck. They do. They really, really do. But remember the zombie.

  Even if the last brain it munched wasn’t the tastiest, there’s no hesitation to get right back on the horse. A zombie keeps after what it wants. It knows that true love (brains) is out there.

  The first step, then, to loving like a zombie, is to banish forever all doubts that true love is out there, and worth the hassle of courtship.

  If you keep mementos of failed relationships around your home, throw them out. You don’t need that souvenir tote that reminds you of the time he took you to the Grand Canyon, if it’s only going to lead you down the slippery slope of wondering why he also cheated on you with your best friend, and if all men are like that, and if really you should just try to be happy on your own. That, my friend, is loser-talk. And zombies only talk like winners (when they talk at all).

  Photos of exes, likewise, have got to go. I don’t care if there are other people in the photos. If they’re saved on your computer, just use the “delete” function, or at least Photoshop out the offending person.

  If you’re forever carrying around memento mori of bad relationships, you’re not going to be motivated to get on to the next one. Trust me, picking through your scrapbooks this week may be a hassle, but when amore comes a-knockin’, you’ll be glad you did.

  Are the offending items erased and waiting in a plastic bag out on the curb? Very good, we’ll continue.

  The next romance myth that zombies shatter is the one that insists that nobody would love you for you.

  From the smallest dab of makeup to cover a blemish to the most elaborate exaggeration of one’s wealth, status, and penis size, the quest for love often involves prevarication and deception. Why? Because we feel (erroneously) that we are somehow not good enough. So we lie, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly.

  We know full well that, if things go well, our partner will eventually notice that we do, in fact, get pimples when we’re stressed. Or that we’re not really titled shipping magnates who play billiards with George Clooney and Brad Pitt on the weekends, and that we pack it downstairs. We know this will make our partners feel deceived and confused, and may very well plant the seeds for a break-up. It makes no sense to lie like this, but we do it out of a feeling that we’re not “good enough” as we are, and that it’s the “only way” someone would fall in love with us.

  You never see zombies lying or prevaricating because they don’t feel “worthy” of someone’s brain. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? A zombie knows he (or she) is good enough just as God (or the voodoo priest, or the nerve reagent) made him. A zombie says, “Here I am. I can only be myself. Take me as I am. Give me your brain. ”

  A zombie doesn’t need a bank account full of money, a fancy Ivy-League degree, or a clean felony record to feel worthy of its heart’s desire. A zombie presents itself openly for what it is. Sure, high-functioning zombies pass for human now and then, but there’s always that moment when the elevator doors close and the zombie lets its real self shine through.

  Be Open and Direct

  A zombie requires neither sex nor money, but it certainly has needs. Zombies put their own needs first. In every situation. All the time.

  Just as a policy of complete honesty with romantic partners can seem like a lousy idea at first (or at least a counterintuitive one), looking for love by putting your own needs first (and keeping them there) might seem to contravene the rules of dating no less deeply.

  Putting your needs first is, however, directly connected to a policy of honesty and openness in the quest to love like a zombie.

  When a zombie wants to eat somebody, he will make that clear. He’s not stopping to consider that person’s needs. Or the needs of his/her friends and family. Or even the needs of other zombies who may also be advancing towards the potential victim.

  Part of a zombie’s refreshing openness is its way of acting in a manner that says: “It’s great and all that you’re ‘too young to die.’ And that you ‘need’ to go on living. But right now, it’s not about you. Right now, this is about what I want. I have a right to my feelings, and I ‘feel’ like I’d like to eat your brain. This is who I am. I never claimed to be anything else. I’m sorry if you thought otherwise.”

  Zombie Tip:

  You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

  Zombies know they only have one shot to give people the correct impression. (That impression being that they’re about to get eaten. Cause, you know, they are.)

  See? What a gentleman.

  A zombie knows inherently that it’d never get anywhere if it stopped to take into account all the feelings and desires of others that might conflict with its own.

  A zombie wants to move a step closer to brains just like you want to move a step closer to true love. If that’s something that somebody else can’t get on board with, then it’s their problem, not yours.

  Be dogged, dog

  Another way in which lovers can learn from zombies is in a zombie’s pure doggedness and endless patience. When a zombie wants someone, it stays on the scent. It doesn’t take “I already have a drink” or “my boyfriend will be right back” or “this shotgun is filled with rocksalt, you stinking zombie” as an answer.

  And while unreasonable romantic doggedness can result in restraining orders or even jail time (and is, therefore, not suggested), there’s no harm in asking someone out a second or third time. If at first you don’t succeed, think of a new approach.

  Zombies know that there’s more than one way inside a fortified farm house. Sewers and storm drains can be opened. Gambrel roofs can be scaled, especially when you have all night. If all else fails, a zombie can go a lot longer than a human without eating. Many a zombie has starved a victim out of his or her fortification, and while waiting around is never fun, there’s nothing else a zombie’s got going on.

  When there’s someone you want to go out with, and for whatever reason the stars aren’t right, remember the dogged patient zombie.

  Your target may already be in a relationship. He or she may be physically removed from your part of the country. You may even have been rebuffed by him or her directly. Dear friend, all hope need not be lost.

  Relationships end, and people go back on the market. People move back
to their hometowns after a couple of years off “finding themselves” in the big city. People who once wouldn’t return your calls may lower their standards as time goes by.