He remembered Grant - not the snarling creature that attacked the wrong stranger in a park last night, but the Grant who had just broken up with his girlfriend. Van remembered the Grant who, after finding out his girlfriend was cheating on him, collapsed on the floor in an embarrassing display of tears.
Van remembered thinking how desperately he had wanted Grant to man up, but still he lay there blubbering. Van simply couldn’t understand how Grant could humiliate himself in front of him and Kofi like that.
Before tonight, he had often thought of it with contempt. But this night, Van wondered about Grant’s tears with a heavy heart. This night Van genuinely needed to know why Grant would expose himself like that because he had an unmistakable feeling that there was something in Grant’s crying that proved that his friend didn’t need to meet his end like a rabid dog. Certainly his uncomforting vulnerability must prove him worthy of some sort of cosmic pardon - so why did he end up in that park of all places on that, of all nights?
Unable to continue his Kenbu, Van plopped himself down onto the couch, lay his sword on the coffee table and put his forehead in his hands. He rubbed his eyeballs trying to remove the images that played in his head. They persisted. He then got up and retrieved his cell phone from his work pants pocket and returned to the couch. He placed the phone on the coffee table and stared at it.
Van wanted desperately to call Kofi. Kofi was the reason that he had killed their friend and he needed to hear Kofi’s voice as reassurance that what had happened was somehow all right. Unable to stop himself, he dialed Kofi’s number and waited for the ringtone. When he heard it Van almost dropped the phone from the pain he felt in his heart. With each ring Van could feel something surfacing from deep below, but when the voicemail message played, the feeling stopped.
“Hey Kofi this is Van. Yeah… I thought that we should hang, ya know? Um… yeah, you know, maybe hit the bars or something. Yeah, give me a call.”
He hung up and dropped the device back on the table. Still perched on the edge of the couch he stared at the object. Why was the phone always so silent? Why did it never fucking ring?
He was antsy so he picked up the phone again. This time he called Casey, another of the girls whom he’d banged senseless and then disappeared on. She wasn’t on the first list of girls because he knew what she would say about him. He had not left her on good terms. She had pissed him off before they fucked so he had used her post-coital recovery time as a chance to get revenge.
Van listened as her phone rang.
“Hello?” a surprised woman answered.
“Hey Casey, this is Van.”
“Donavan?” the woman said with continued surprise.
“Yeah. Look, I was wondering if I could ask you something?”
“Oh that’s rich. You’re fuckin’ wondering if you could ask me something,” Casey replied, feeling her blood boil.
“Shut up for a minute and let me ask you something,” Van spit out.
Casey was stunned silent.
“OK, minus all the bullshit of whatever happened that night, was I a good fuck?” Van lay the words out there and closed his eyes to brace himself for what would follow.
“Minus all the bullshit of whatever?” Casey asked mockingly. “You fuckin’ stole the teddy bear that I had from when I was ten and fuckin’ denied you took it, you fuck.”
Van looked up at the teddy bear that he had in one of the cubby holes of his entertainment system. It was a small bear that might come free with a box of chocolates. Van had been so pissed at her that night that he wanted to take something of hers to show his contempt. But he hadn’t imagined that the bear had so much sentimental value to her. And after she showed back up at the club making a scene about his having taken it, he could never admit to it or give it back.
“Fuck the stupid bear, alright? I don’t know what you’re talking about with the fuckin’ bear. Just answer the fuckin’ question.”
“You want an answer to that question? Ok here it is,” Casey spit with anger. “No, I think you were a horrible fuck. In fact, I think that you were one of the worst fucks of my life. First of all, you come into my house and instead of kissing me you lick my face like you were trying to drink my makeup or something. Then you fuckin’ jack hammer fuck me like my thing is some type of ditch or something. And then you go into the bathroom to dance in front of the mirror or some fuck. And then you walk out and steal my bear!”
Van had, by now, placed the phone back onto the coffee table and turned on the speaker phone. He had laid back when she started her list so that every barb she threw wouldn’t join together and overwhelm him. What she said hurt Van, but the pain felt better than the empty dry heat he felt during silence.
When Casey was done Van didn’t speak. He simply continued to lie back until she hung up and the silence returned. Oh, the silence.
After that, Van’s nights became a flip book of a man sitting on the couch in a loin cloth and bandana. Each night added incremental movement that could only be seen when compared to the previous. But when strung together, the nights told the story of man wilting under the emptiness of his own life.
Each night flowed into the next for four months until, one day, the story was interrupted by a knock on the door.
*****
Chapter 5
Death for Hire
Without a thought of the way his hairy legs were exposed by his samurai loin cloth, Van went to the door. He considered pushing back the blinds on the nearby window to see who it was, but couldn’t find the motivation. So he was surprised when he opened the door and found Kofi.
“My samurai,” Kofi said, summoning all of his charisma.
At the sight of his friend, Van’s demeanor immediately lifted. “My samurai,” Van replied remembering the way they had greeted each other in college. Kofi had begun this tradition after learning of Van’s ritual of watching a samurai movie every day.
Kofi pushed past Van and entered the house, walking past the couch and TV and into the practice space. He took a quick spin to see if there was anything out of place. “Well, it’s good to see that nothing changes with you.”
As Van shut the door he felt his old self slowly returning. “When you find perfection, why should anything change?”
Kofi stared at Van, surprised to hear that response. “You know it, man.”
Kofi headed for the kitchen that lay left of the practice space. As on his last visit, there were 2 days’ worth of dishes in the sink and nothing on the stove. He opened the fridge and found Chinese takeout boxes and stacks of plastic takeout trays. On the top shelf of the fridge was one beer which Kofi immediately reached for and opened.
“You’re out of beer,” Kofi said returning to the practice space. Kofi watched Van put his sword back on the rack above his shrine. “So, how ya been man?”
Van turned back to his friend surprised to hear the question. Although Van was willing to pretend he hadn’t called Kofi more than 10 times in the past 10 months without a reply, he was surprised that Kofi would now ask that question with so much enthusiasm.
“Drippin’ with hoes that are suckin’ my toes. You know how these things go,” Van replied, willing to play along.
“Oh, are you still banging that Asian chick with the googly-eye nips?” Kofi asked eagerly, advertising the crush he had on her.
“Her? No man. I can’t even remember her name that was so long ago.”
“Did you even know her name back then?” Kofi asked.
“Of course I did. It was Tangerine, or Apple, or something like that.”
“It was Pierre.”
“Oh that’s right, Pear. I remember her. She was hot. I wonder what she’s doing now? I wonder if I still have her number?” Van said, thinking about the good times that he had with her.
As Van got lost in past conquests, Kofi watched his friend. From the first time he’d seen Pierre, he’d had a giant crush on her. In fact, it was Kofi who had worked up his courage and approached her. It was at a
block party thrown on Kieran’s block. And like usual, Kieran had brought a girl each for his two friends. But also like usual, Van’s girl was all over Van, while Kofi’s girl had wandered off.
So after grabbing a drink and pretending to have a good time like he always had, he scanned the room for someone new. Pierre had worn a sheer sundress that showed off the bikini she wore underneath. Drawn to her immediately, he had watched her as she stood by herself and then as she joined two of her friends. Then, after the friends moved on, leaving her alone again, he had worked his way over.
“I’m here to rescue you,” was how he had opened.
“From what?” Pierre asked, with a slight Valley girl accent.
“Boredom,” Kofi said before bopping to the music.
Pierre laughed. “Do I look bored to you?”
“A little. But don’t worry, I can save you. But first I have to know your name,” Kofi said, trying not to seem too interested in her.
“It’s Pierre.”
“What, you mean like ‘I eat a lot of smelly cheeses because I am from France’ Pierre?”
“I guess,” she said with a smile back.
“I like it. It makes you seem cultured.”
“It does, huh,” she said still smiling.
“It does. It’s nice.”
Pierre giggled.
“Who’s this?” Van had asked Kofi, while staring at the girl. Van’s timing had always been impeccably dickish in matters of the loins.
“This is Pierre. She’s cultured.”
Pierre laughed and looked at Van with a blush.
“Pear?” Van repeated. “It’s nice to meet you Pear.” Neither Kofi nor Pierre bothered to correct him. “Could I ask you a favor? I have a girl here that won’t leave me alone. Could you pretend to be my girlfriend for a little while?”
“And why would I wanna do that?” Pierre asked with a flirtatiously coy look on her face.
“Because afterwards I would owe you one and as you know, there’s nothing better than having a guy in your debt.”
“It is, huh?” she said with a chuckle.
“You know it.”
“Hmmm,” she said examining Van. “Ok.”
And just like that, Pierre was his.
Kofi, as he usually did, had cut Van some slack. Van had been, after all, drunker than he was letting on. If Van had been sober he would never have done that. In fact, sober Van was a whole different person. Sober Van was a goodtime guy. ‘Bros before hoes’ was his motto and he stuck by it. Van was the type of guy that had it all: looks, a great job and any girl he wanted. And, most impressively, nothing ever bothered Van. Kofi had never even seen Van upset. The lowest he had ever seen Van was the night with the guy and the window, but that was completely understandable.
Kofi always viewed Van as his complete opposite. Kofi was very aware of his insecurities. For Kofi, life was an endless set of challenges in which he had to prove himself. And the ease with which he saw Van go through life made him jealous to an indescribable degree.
“So how have you been?” Van asked, in a voice that invited a long conversation.
Kofi looked back at Van. “You know.”
He had answered in a way that made it seem as though Van really should have known. “That’s cool,” Van replied, trying to move the conversation along. “So what do you say, you wanna hit the clubs?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Kofi said not excited about returning to his role as permanent wingman. “But first I have a proposal for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“How would you like to start a business with me?” Kofi said with enthusiasm.
“Uh huh,” Van said with a smile.
“What do you say to you and me becoming professional zombie hunters?”
Van’s smile was replaced with surprise.
“Think about it. People with zombie problems come to us, and for a reasonable fee we get rid of the problem for them. We can call ourselves ‘The Samurai Zombie Hunters.’ Think about it. We would make a mint.”
Van studied his friend who clearly thought differently about their night in the park. Killing Zombie Grant had weighed heavily on Van. However, the lonely nights at home that followed weighed even heavier. Doing a quick calculation, Van determined that if he turned Kofi down now, it would probably be months before he saw his friend again. And from where Van stood, he was willing to do whatever was necessary to end the loneliness that consumed him.
“What would we actually do?” Van asked hesitantly. “I mean, how would a professional zombie hunting business work? I’ve never even heard of that before.”
“That’s why it’s so brilliant. Neither have I. As far as I can tell, we would be the first.”
“So what would we do?”
“Simple. All we have to do is put an ad on Craigslist saying that we get rid of people’s zombie problems. We include our number and then wait for the calls to start rolling in.”
“And if someone were to call, what would we do?”
“We’d go over and lay a little samurai sword on their ass. We then collect the money in cash and walk away. It couldn’t be easier.”
It didn’t surprise Van how lightly Kofi passed over the killing part. But it did surprise Van how lightly he passed over the part where they too could be killed.
“Aren’t you a little worried that the zombies might also kill us?” Van replied.
“What, are you kidding? Us?” Kofi said as if Van really was kidding.
“And what about the fact that it’s against the law to kill a zombie?” Van asked trying to work the proposal out in his head.
“If ever something happened or a cop showed up, all we have to say is ‘zombie panic’ and they won’t even arrest us. I saw it a thousand times when I was with the firm. Cops don’t give a shit if a zombie shows up dead. It’s one less zombie they have to worry about.”
“Kofi, this is a little much. I don’t think I could do this.”
Kofi’s face hardened. “Look, I need this. I don’t know if you heard but 10 months ago I left my job. I thought that...” Kofi paused and allowed the thoughts that followed to play out in his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. But I’m broke now. I fuckin’ need this.”
“Do you need me to lend you some money?” Van offered kindly.
“No I don’t need your fucking money. What I need is your fuckin’ sword… and you… by my side hunting some fuckin’ zombies. You owe me this Kofi. You owe me this.”
‘There it is again,’ Van thought. Kofi had never brought up the window incident in 10 years and now he had brought it up twice in four months. Yet the truth remained: Van did owe him. And because he never expected that anyone would ever answer an ad in Craigslist offering zombie extermination services, he figured going along with this scheme was a harmless way to render his remaining debt paid in full.
“How much would we charge?” Van asked, hoping the number would be something that priced it out of reason.
“A thousand dollars a head,” Kofi said with confidence.
”A thousand a head?” Van repeated with sticker shock. “Ok, perfect. I’m in.”
“Yeah!,” Kofi yelled with his hands in the air. Kofi walked over and wrapped his arms around Van. “You won’t regret this.” Kofi held onto Van for a while before quickly letting go and looking away. “You want to put on some pants?”
“Oh yeah,” Van said with an equally uncomfortable timber in his voice.
As Van walked to his bedroom he heard Kofi yell down the hall.
“So you wanna post the ad tonight?”
Van chuckled quietly at Kofi’s excitement. Why Kofi thought this idea would work was beyond him. But if it made his friend happy, he was glad to play along. “Go for it.”
Van entered his bedroom and stood in front of his closet.
“You want to hit Bar Bar? It’s probably jumpin’ about now,” Van yelled back wondering what he should put on.
“Yeah, wherever,” Kofi yelled bac
k.
Van felt a sudden surge that he hadn’t felt for a while. Knowing where they were going told Van exactly what he should wear. It excited Van that he would be able to get drunk again. There was nothing more fun than to get drunk in a room full of women that were on the prowl. It was like mugging a baby for his candy. It was great.
Dressed, Van bounded back to the living room. Van found Kofi deeply involved with his cell phone. “What’s up?” Van wondered aloud.
“I just posted the ad. I’m waiting for it to go live.”
“You already posted it?” Van asked wondering how he had had enough time.
“Yeah, I wrote it before I came over. I was just waiting for you to give me the OK.”
Van was taken back. “So what did it say?”
“We get rid of your zombie problem so you don’t have to. A thousand dollars a head, cash up front. Signed, the Samurai Zombie Hunters.”
‘It’s good,’ Van thought. ‘It’s to the point. But still, who is gonna pay a thousand dollars to have a zombie killed?’
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