Zomburbia

by Adam Gallardo

  “Want the radio?” Sherri asked. I told her sure. The Beater doesn’t have a CD, just an old cassette player. As Sherri and I would not lower ourselves to buy a cassette, we were stuck with the radio. Which was stuck on NPR. God.

  The voices droned on in the background, barely audible over the sound of the engine laboring to pull us along on perfectly level ground. It was kind of hypnotic. The sound of the engine and the voices just on the edge of hearing. I leaned my head against the door and closed my eyes. I thought I’d get a few Zs before we got to school.

  I was nodding off when I heard something on the radio that jerked me awake. I sat up suddenly and startled Sherri. The car swerved as she reacted.

  “What the hell, Courtney?”

  “Shut up a minute,” I said, and reached over to crank up the radio. Normally telling her to shut up and touching the radio are two big no-nos. She must have heard something in my voice that made her keep quiet.

  The news guy’s voice came in mid-story.

  “. . . Police suspect the fire to have been deliberately set. Professor Keller’s belief that the undead can be communicated with had sparked controversy. He has received more than a dozen death threats in the past several weeks following an appearance on a late-night talk show. Four undead humans were destroyed in the attack, which left Professor Keller in critical but stable condition. No other living humans were harmed in the fire. The FBI is currently following up on several leads.

  “In international news . . .”

  I switched off the radio and sat back in the seat. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

  “Is that the guy you saw on that show?” Sherri asked. “Willie told me you told him.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “The zombie-whisperer, right?”

  “That’s him,” I said.

  “People suck, dude,” she said, but without a lot of feeling. I agreed with her.

  I wasn’t sure why news of this guy’s being attacked affected me. I felt really sad, though. God, I’d barely thought about the guy since I’d talked to Willie the day after I saw the show. I’d meant to Google him, maybe even write him an e-mail. I just hadn’t gotten around to it. I mean, I thought his idea was interesting. I just couldn’t even decide if I thought he was crazy or not.

  “You okay over there?” Sherri asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “It’s not like you knew the guy, Courtney. He’s not even dead.”

  “I said, ‘I’m fine,’ ” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, “everyone who’s fine says so in a monotone.” But she let it drop after that and we got to school just a few minutes later. Thankfully, she couldn’t talk as she navigated security to get into the parking lot. After she parked, we climbed out of the car and walked toward the building. We had to split up before reaching the doors.

  “I have Willie in pre-Algebra,” she said. “I’ll kick him in the ass for the both of us.”

  “Go easy on him,” I told her. “I think he had a rough weekend.”

  “If I went easy on him,” she said, “he’d think that I didn’t love him, too!” She ran away before I could take a swing at her. I had to admit it did make me smile despite myself.

  I was distracted during my homeroom and AP English class, still worried about Willie. As the day went on, I thought about him less and less. Being able to concentrate on school despite whatever crap was going on in my life was sort of a survival technique.

  I didn’t see Sherri again until lunch, and I really expected Willie to be with her. When he wasn’t, I again felt a hot rock in the pit of my stomach. As she approached, Sherri shook her head.

  “He was a no-show in PA,” she said. “I even tried to call him while Saunders was explaining radical equations. No answer.”

  “Dammit,” I said, “it’s not like him to go all silent-treatment-y.”

  She sat and opened up her lunch bag. She started to pull Tupperware dishes full of weird-looking food out and set it on the table. Sherri’s mom is full-blood Hungarian and a lot of her leftovers look like science experiments gone horribly awry.

  “I think it’s a good sign,” Sherri said as she tucked into something blood red and stringy. “I think it’s a sign that he’s growing a backbone.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Of course, we don’t want him to get too uppity,” she said around a mouthful of food. “We’ll have to make sure he knows his place in our little hierarchy.”

  I was about to accuse her of being mentally deficient when a voice spoke up behind us.

  “Can I join you?”

  We both turned—Sherri with a forkful of food halfway to her mouth. Brandon stood there looking at us expectantly. I wondered what horror was about to pop out of Sherri’s mouth. She placed the fork back in its plastic receptacle and she smiled. I winced.

  “Brandon,” she said, “it would be lovely if you would join us.”

  Oh, dear God, I thought, please let me die of something really fast right this instant.

  It was further proof that there was no God when I lived to see Brandon plant himself on the bench opposite us.

  For several moments, we all just sort of stared at one another. Maybe this situation was so awkward we’d all be rendered speechless. It was a scene of biblical awfulness, so maybe God stepped in and, in a reverse Tower-of-Babel sort of thing, he’d taken away our ability to speak.

  “You’re Sherri, right?” Brandon asked, dashing my hopes. “I’m Brandon. I didn’t get a chance to meet you Friday night. I guess I owe you an apology.”

  Sherri looked at me before turning to Brandon and giving him a toothy smile. “And why’s that, Brandon?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s because of me that all of those people showed up,” he said. He really did look sorry. I looked over at Sherri to see if she was buying it. She was still pulling her I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about act. “I just hope it wasn’t too much of a problem for you to have them there,” Brandon said.

  “Well, it was unexpected, Brandon,” she said, “but, you know, no harm meant, right?”

  “God, no,” Brandon said.

  “Then don’t sweat it,” she said.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d laid into him, made him storm away from the table with her berating. I’d seen it happen before. Honestly, the nice act made me even more uneasy.

  “I’m so glad you see it that way,” Brandon said.

  Sherri just nodded and took a big bite out of her whatever. Brandon turned his smile on me.

  “How are you doing?” he asked. “Better since Saturday?”

  “I’m fine,” I said more quietly than I’d meant.

  “That’s good; you seemed pretty shaken up,” he said, and then looked to Sherri. “Did Courtney tell you about Saturday?” he asked her.

  “Oh, I know all about Saturday,” Sherri said, and something about her tone caught Brandon’s attention. He paused a moment before going on.

  “Um, yeah,” he said. “It was crazy. Courtney handled herself like a champ.”

  I felt myself blush. Which was stupid. I knew I’d handled myself well. Why would Brandon’s saying so matter?

  “Mind if I change the subject?” Sherri asked.

  “No, of course not,” Brandon said.

  Sherri nodded and frowned a little bit, like she was considering something important.

  “Let me ask you, Brandon,” she said. “What do you think about drugs?”

  I was only barely able to keep myself from gasping. That’s why she was being nice to Brandon. It wasn’t him she wanted to punish, it was me!

  Brandon looked at me uncertainly and then back to Sherri. He gave her a nervous grin.

  “Drugs?” he asked.

  Sherri nodded, encouraging him. “Yeah, you know what drugs are.”

  “Yeah, sure I do,” he said. “I guess I’ve smoked pot a couple of times. It’s not a habit or anything.” He added that last
bit faster than he needed to and it made me wonder. Whatever.

  “Sure, sure,” she said, nodding sagely. “But what about other drugs, harder drugs? Narcotics?”

  “What’s this about?” Brandon asked.

  “It’s nothing,” I said, and shot Sherri a glare that she chose to ignore.

  “It’s just something that Courtney and I were talking about earlier,” she said. Brandon shot me another look. “So what do you think about harder drugs?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “I . . . I guess they’re not for me . . . I don’t know? They can mess people up pretty bad.”

  “They can mess people up pretty bad,” Sherri said. She said it in a tone of voice like the thought had never occurred to her. “They can. Can’t they, Courtney?”

  “Not as bad as some other things,” I hissed at her.

  “And what about people who sell drugs, Brandon, you know, drug dealers?”

  Again he looked between the two of us. I’m sure he wondered what the hell was going on.

  “I suppose they’d be responsible for anyone that got hurt doing drugs,” he said slowly.

  Sherri nodded again, another revelation! She turned to me. “That makes sense, doesn’t it, Courtney?”

  “Sure,” I said, and I tried to hate her to death.

  Sherri stood up and gathered her things.

  “I should go away,” she said. “Brandon, it was really swell getting to know you better. I hope we can talk more later. Toodles, Courtney.”

  I didn’t say anything, just glared at her back as she walked away. When I turned back to Brandon, he looked at me funny.

  “Don’t mind her,” I said. “She has deep emotional flaws.”

  Brandon gave me a courtesy laugh. “Yeah, that was my strangest conversation in a long while. I guess I’m just glad she’s not mad at me.”

  “Oh, she’s not mad at you,” I said.

  “I guess you’re today’s lucky winner,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “How come?”

  I thought about that for a bit, wondering if this was when I should have my Oprah moment with him. I decided it wasn’t.

  “Any number of reasons,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said doubtfully.

  We sat there for a minute just sort of staring at each other. I started to eat my sandwich again. No reason the awkward tension should keep me from eating. I might need something in my stomach to throw up if things got worse.

  “I actually wanted to check in with you about how you’re doing,” Brandon said, “after, you know, Saturday.”

  “Oh, I know,” I said, “and I’m okay.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I was more upset about the next day.”

  “What did I do yesterday?” Brandon asked.

  “Paranoid much?” I asked. “I wasn’t upset at you, I was upset with myself. Still am upset, really. I let down one of my friends and I think he’s still mad at me.”

  “He?” Brandon asked too quickly. He must have thought I was discussing some potential competition.

  “Yeah,” I said, “my friend Willie.”

  “Is he the big guy with the hair?”

  “That about sums him up,” I said.

  “So, is he . . . ?”

  “He’s just a friend, Brandon,” I said, “or at least I hope he still is. I need to talk to him. He’s not answering when I call his house.”

  “That’s rough,” Brandon said, and I parsed his response to see if he was being sarcastic or insincere. The amount of genuineness in his reply surprised me.

  After a minute, Brandon rapped his knuckles against the table. I looked up at him.

  “We should do something, go get some burgers or something, and invite him along,” Brandon said. “You know, make it up to him and make him feel included.”

  “I think he probably needs some alone time with me,” I said, “but I appreciate you thinking of him.” And I meant it.

  “Okay,” he said. He looked at his watch and stood up. “I guess we should be getting to class. Can I walk you?”

  “Um, yeah,” I said. No boy in the history of History had ever asked to walk me to class. Was he going to ask to carry my books? Lay his coat over any puddles we came across? Hunt and gather something for me?

  We walked across the back field and into the school. The crowds already thinned out as the beginning of class approached. More than one head turned as people saw Brandon and me walk down the hall together. Was I about to become an item of high school gossip? We could be a blind item in the school’s paper: Item: What first-string quarterback was seen canoodling in the halls with a certain loser female who may or may not be a lesbian?

  “You have really pretty eyes,” Brandon said, and I stopped dead in my tracks. “But you know what would bring them out even more? If you toned down on the . . .” he made circular motions around his own eyes “. . . black eye makeup stuff.”

  “My eyeliner?” I said.

  “Yeah, your eyeliner.”

  “Gee, thanks for the advice, Mr. Blackwell,” I said.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Brandon said, “but it looks like you want to hide how nice your eyes are or something.”

  “That is the shittiest delivery of a compliment I’ve ever heard, Brandon,” I said.

  “What?” He looked seriously in the dark.

  “Nothing,” I said. “It’s too early to be complimenting me anyway.”

  “What does that mean?” he asked. “ ‘Too early for compliments’?”

  “It means I don’t know you well enough for that yet,” I said, “and it makes me suspicious that you’re throwing around I-like-your-eyes comments already.”

  “Suspicious?”

  “Yes,” I said. I noticed again that people were watching us, which annoyed the hell out of me. I pitched my voice lower when I spoke. “And I have to tell you, Brandon, that I can’t believe I have to bring this up to you. It’s like you weren’t socialized in the American co-educational system or something.”

  “I didn’t mean to make you suspicious,” he said, desperate, “I just, you know, like you and wanted to say something nice. And see if you liked me, too.”

  “I like you fine,” I said, and then paused. “Or I will like you. I am on the road to liking you. Just take it down a notch, okay?”

  Now it was Brandon’s turn to be frustrated. “Maybe there’s a website you can point me to that has a timeline of appropriate behavior, Courtney.”

  The class bell rang and the last few stragglers made their way to class.

  “Listen,” I said, “we don’t have time for an Oprah-style talk right now. Don’t worry; you’re doing fine, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said, doubtful, still a little pissed.

  “Let’s just go to class and we’ll talk later,” I said.

  He nodded and we walked on.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. Not only did a boy outside my social genus and species like me, now I was having to coach him about how to behave in the situation. I headed toward AP Chemistry.

  As we walked past the school’s trophy case, I caught a look at myself and paused for a second. I found myself wondering if I did wear too much eyeliner.

  Goddammit.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Their Slate of Sins

  It’s always weird to be called into the office from class. There are two ways it can happen. One is the intercom. You’ll be sitting there taking notes or writing on the board and suddenly there’s a loud hiss of static and then the voice of God, or Mrs. Schoen, the school’s secretary, comes on and announces that you’re wanted in the office. Everyone else in class snickers and points and makes “oooh” sounds. It’s all very public and somewhat humiliating. I guess it’s better than the alternative.

  The alternative is when Mrs. Schoen quietly enters your class with a folded piece of paper in her little hands. A hush spreads across the room as people catch sight of her and she approac
hes the teacher and hands them the slip. The teacher opens it and reads and there’s always this moment before the teacher announces whose name is on the slip and everyone gets to sit and silently assess their slate of sins. Have I done anything office-visit worthy; is it me? It’s all very Hunger Games as we sit and wonder if we’ll be this year’s tribute . . . No one laughs or whispers to the person sitting next to them. Everyone watches in silence as the condemned gathers his things and skulks out of the room followed closely by that five-foot-tall-in-heels executioner, Mrs. Schoen.

  It’s even worse when you really have been involved in some major-league bad shit. You know, like when you sell drugs in your off-hours. That’s what happened as I sat in AP Chem class (AP Biology would come next year), writing a short essay about ionic equilibria in aqueous solutions and the door to the room opened. There was Mrs. Schoen. She looked a little sad, resigned to serve as the principal’s henchman. She handed Mrs. Ellis the slip. My heart began to drum. I thought back to Friday and my run-in with Astrid. Had she said something to campus security because I’d refused to sell her any Z? That vindictive bitch.

  I told myself to calm down, odds were that the note was for someone else. I was really careful. I never sold on campus. Heck, I’d never even sold to a fellow student out at the Bully Burger as far as I could tell.

  I knew I was in the clear.

  “Courtney,” Mrs. Ellis said as she looked up from the note. “Would you go with Mrs. Schoen to the office, please?”

  I kept my gaze straight ahead as I put my books and pen in my bag. My heart beat so loud in my ears, I wondered if the others heard it. I stood and approached the secretary. She gave me a sad half-smile and opened the door for me. We stepped out into the hall.

  I kept my head down and I watched my feet making their way across the floor. Beside me, I saw Mrs. Schoen’s tiny steps racing to keep up with me. I chanced a look up at her.

  “Do you know what Mrs. Ibrahim wants with me?”

  She gave me another sad smile. “Sorry, hon, I don’t.”

  I went back to looking at my shoes.

  I reviewed every move I’d made in the last few days. Who had I sold to? Had I revealed anything when I talked to Astrid? Maybe my dad found my stash of money . . . I felt like I was going to be sick.