Zombie

by J. R. Angelella

  Finally, the next song drops and the dorking stops and everyone resumes their clothed-fornication, but the damage has already been done.

  Suck it, fucko!

  67

  My plan is to hide away in my stall of solitude, but a group of girls pour out from my bathroom, which has been temporarily converted into a ladies room. The computer printed sign on the door says LADIES ONLY. The bathroom where Zink and Paul did what they did the other day. I’m frozen, stuck, glued, nailed, fucked with nowhere to hide, when a posse of girls crash into me, knocking my ass down. The posse tramples over me, steps around me, continuing down the hallway, out of my bathroom and out of my life. Some of the posse bitches wear miniskirts, which allows me to catch a few fast moving glimpses of skimpy underwear.

  “Is this a fucking roller derby,” I say. “Watch where you walk. Jesus.”

  “Does it feel good to have been shitkicked by a harem of teenage girls?” a girl says, standing behind me. Her hair is a dark and heavy red, her lips too, her skin still tan from summer. Her shirt has sparkling letters across the front that says: Do you have an older brother? She wears blue jeans that flare out at the bottom. She smells like purple flowers. “You might just be the luckiest guy at this whole damn mixer,” she says.

  “Aimee White,” I say. My smile’s so wide it hurt.

  “ ’Tis true and don’t forget, that’s Aimee spelled the weird way,” she says. Aimee holds her hands down and I grab them. She pulls me up and we come together and brush against each other. “The infamous Jeremy Barker. J-Dog.”

  I definitely brushed against her boob—big time. I got boob.

  “My Dad says that when a girl body-checks you to the floor and causes chronic nosebleeds, that she’s got a thing for you,” I say.

  “Jeremy,” she says. “You’re not going to believe me.”

  “You smell terrific,” I say.

  “Your nose is bleeding,” she says. She taps her nostril. “Again.”

  I touch mine and see it—ripe red blood rushing out. Aimee digs through her silver-studded, black purse and hands me a tissue. I tilt my head back.

  “This is embarrassing,” I say. “I feel like a fucking loser.”

  “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” she asks. “You do get an extraordinary amount of nosebleeds though, I’ll give you that. Do all the ladies have the pleasure of assisting you with your bleeds? Or just me?”

  “Who has ever heard of getting nosebleeds only around girls?” I dab and look at the bloody tissue. “Only around hot girls?”

  “Cute,” she says.

  “I’m trying. It’s tough to look cute when you’re bleeding.”

  “Did you know that nosebleeds are broken blood vessels?” she asks.

  “All I know is that I get them whenever you’re around or whenever I think about you in any way.” Neither of us says a thing. “I think about you a lot.”

  “They’re only blood vessels, dear,” she says. “I’m not magic.”

  “What causes them to break?” I ask.

  “Why does anything break?” she asks. “They’re too weak and they burst.”

  “Will you walk me outside?” she asks.

  Ever the gentleman, I offer her my elbow, and she accepts, ever the lady, and we leave together, embracing the warm night, while I seal off the blood leak—again.

  68

  Disappearing is in the air tonight. Outside, it looks like a high school used car lot. Cars parked everywhere, parents waiting for their kids, searching for their kids, leaning against trunks, circling the school, hanging out of driver’s side windows. Names being called. It feels like a disaster has happened and this is the depot where the survivors are kept for identification. A car screeches to a stop and a guy gets out and thanks his friend for getting him back to school before his parents came to pick him up. He thanks the friend for taking him; that it was the sickest thing he has ever seen, that he can’t believe that they got in. The car drives away and the guy disappears around the corner of the school.

  “What’s Prudence like?” I ask. “Because we worry about you girls over there. Those plaid skirts and white blouses. We worry.”

  “We worry that you Byron Hall boys think you actually have a shot with Prudence girls like us,” she says.

  “It feels good to be around you.”

  “My mom’s car is over there.” Smoke pumps from a tailpipe. “I asked her to wait. No parents allowed,” she says, shaking her finger in a funny way.

  I can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t make me sound like a fuckwad. This is the moment that counts, the moment where the man steps up and makes the grand gesture, where he says that thing that makes the girl swoon or whatever, but I don’t have anything swoonable. She was the whole reason I came out tonight and I didn’t plan a damn thing.

  “Well, this is sufficiently awkward,” she says. “I’m going to leave now. Goodbye, Jeremy. It was wonderful to meet a nice Byron Hall boy. See you around campus maybe. And maybe you should start carrying around napkins.” She taps her nose.

  “Wait,” I say, thumbing the tissue she gave me. “I’m not finished yet.” I’m filled with a foggy sense of myself. I can hear heartbeats all around me, some of them are mine. “There’s more. I have more.”

  “More of what exactly?” Aimee stands in the street, waiting, but I say nothing. She finally walks back to me. “Here’s some friendly advice, Jeremy. When a girl stops for you,” she says, “you better have something to say and it better be good.”

  “I think you’re beautiful.”

  “That’s a good start. Always tell us how pretty we are.”

  “I love your hair, the smell of your hair.”

  “A little weird, but that will work for some girls. What else do you got?”

  “I want to call you. Can I call you?” I am an enormous retard on roller skates.

  “That wasn’t half bad,” she says.

  “I can call you?”

  “You can call me,” she says, “but you have to do one more thing for me.”

  “Hit me with it,” I say. “Anything.”

  “Get down on one knee and ask me again.” She walks toward me. “Go on now. Get down on one knee and ask me again.” Her arms hang by her sides, her hip cocked.

  “You really want me to do this?”

  “Really,” she says.

  I kneel, proposal-like and take Aimee’s hand in my own hand and say, “Aimee, can I call you sometime?”

  “Cell phone,” she demands.

  I fumble for it in my pocket and hand it over. Aimee punches her number into my address book. She walks backwards. “You did real well.” She continues to walk away. “Very, very well.”

  “Why did I have to get on one knee?”

  “Because a girl has so few opportunities to be taller than a boy,” she says. “Call me.” She skips to her car.

  This is what a happy Jeremy looks like.

  69

  Aimee exits the parking lot with her mom and I am left behind. I call Dad to come pick me up, but all I hear is screaming. It’s not Dad screaming, but someone behind Dad screaming—a deep, and gross, and pleading scream.

  I walk away from the building and plug my open ear.

  I call him Dad.

  I say his name.

  He doesn’t respond to either.

  There is a scuffle that sounds like someone is fighting the phone. Then, the line goes dead. I call Dad back, but his voicemail picks up.

  Ballentine is gone again, like vapor.

  70

  Zink emerges from the back of the school and offers to take me home. He drives a blue Oldsmobile, which I’m not entirely sure they even still make. It’s a giant blue box with an enormous windshield. The floor is clean in the front, but the backseat is covered in blankets and empty soda bottles and plastic bags from grocery stores.

  “Your car smells funny,” I say. “Like oranges and maple syrup.”

  “That’s the smell of sex,” Z
ink says.

  “Sex?”

  “Hot sex.”

  “You had sex with The One?”

  “No. Not with her. With someone else.”

  “Paul,” I say. “I didn’t know you had a car,” I say.

  “What was with the kneeling back there? You two set a date already?”

  “I did what I had to do to get her number,” I say. “Game on.”

  Zink looks at me like I just told him I killed a man. “Barks, you’re a crazy motherfucker. You got digits. Game fucking on,” he says, pulling out of the school circle and into traffic. “What did you think of your first mixer?”

  “I survived,” I said. “I went after Cam.”

  “Tell me you didn’t do something stupid.”

  “I told him that his mother took it up the ass like a champion and then I threw a chair at him so he would get dorked.”

  “Why would you slap the hornets’ nest like that?” he asks.

  “I’m tired of being the one getting slapped. Besides, Frank took those fuckers down earlier. Why can’t I?”

  “Jeremy,” Zink says. “Listen to me. Frank’s hands are registered with the State of Maryland as deadly weapons. That’s why. He can kill a man with his bare hands … literally. That’s why. He knows how to do that kind of shit.”

  “I’m not worried anymore,” I say. “Cam’s a pussy.”

  “Maybe so, but he’s a pussy with a posse and you are a general without an army. I’m not saying to run from the prick, but telling him that his mom …”

  “… takes it up the ass like a champion …”

  “Jesus.” Zink shakes his head and laughs. “What the fuck made you say that?”

  “He reminded me of my brother and I really hate my brother.” I roll down the window and hang my arm outside, feel the air pass over and through my fingers, the warm air cold at high speeds.

  “You’ve got balls, Barks. Huevoes muy grande. In one night, you got digits, managed to dork the king of the jocks and embarrass his ass for the second time in one day.” Zink guides the car through empty streets, driving faster than any other car. “Huevos grandisimo, niño.”

  “Her name is Aimee White,” I say. “When you calling her?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Is that a question or a fact?” Zink asks. “Too soon?”

  “Tomorrow is for emo puppy lovers. Tomorrow is for people who want to wear matching cable-knit sweaters and whose favorite movie is Titanic. Not tomorrow, but in three days. Standard protocol. Three days says you’re interested, but not serious about getting serious. It says that you want to have a good time, but don’t want to get married.”

  “What if I do want to get serious?”

  “For Christ’s sake, don’t ever tell her that,” he says. “Monogamy is like a knife wound that’ll bleed you dry until there is nothing left, but skin and bones and regret.”

  “Lovely,” I say. “You really should go into business for yourself. Spread your sage advice around a little bit. I’d hate to hoard it all myself.”

  I direct Zink through my neighborhood, pointing out the massive potholes left behind from the winter ice storm, where the road at the top of certain hills makes heavier cars bottom out. He makes the final turn onto my street and pulls up in front of my house, behind my father’s BMW. Ballentine’s prized BMW is parked rightly in front of my very own house. The fucker is home.

  “My dad,” I say.

  “You good?” Zink asks. “You need me to come in with you? I can. I’m good with parents. They love me.”

  “Zink,” I say. “I have a question for you, but I don’t know how to phrase it.”

  “Try.”

  “Why would you tell me that you knew that I knew about Paul, but then come to the mixer tonight and try and bag some girl?”

  “Go on—you can say it.”

  “If you’re gay, then I want you to be gay. I don’t want you to hide it from me.”

  “Remember when I said I wasn’t nervous about you telling anyone about me because you were an honest person?” He looks at me but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Well, not everyone is an honest person. Actually, very few people are honest people. This is my survival technique, Barks. It gets better, you know?”

  “Like in those campaigns?” I ask.

  “Like in your zombie movies. There are rules that people live by to stay alive.”

  “Codes,” I say.

  “Exactly,” he says.

  VIII

  PLANET TERROR

  (Release Date: April 6, 2007)

  Directed by Robert Rodriguez

  Written by Robert Rodriguez

  71

  Water rushes through pipes. A creak escapes the wood in the floor. The living room and office and bedrooms and kitchen and dining room are empty except for the fucking cherubs. Dad is nowhere to be found and I wonder briefly if the cherubs came to life and devoured his brain. Maybe he took the light rail downtown. Maybe he planned on drinking and didn’t want the responsibility of driving home.

  In my bedroom, I kick off my shoes and start to change when I hear something, a groan—guttural and low. I hear it again—inside the house somewhere far below. I pull on my jeans and shirt and descend the stairs, stepping slowly, one foot at a time, measured and accurate. The groan echoes clear like someone forcing something poisonous out of their body. I can’t locate the noise but hear it again, louder, getting louder, every time growing. Louder, louder, coming from below. From the basement.

  I open the door to the basement and flip the light switch, but the light doesn’t turn on. I hear the groan again. I step down the soft carpet of the stairs to the cold cement basement floor. The groan grows again. The basement is empty except for Dad’s tools, a rusted bike leaning against the wall. Dog is nowhere to be found. Deeper into the basement, the darkness intensifies. Classical music. Orchestral music. A symphony plays. Heavy drums. Big brass. The groan goes again, echoing louder, coming from the room where Dad keeps all of his hammers and wrenches and clamps and saws. I pull the cord and a crude light cuts into my eyes. The bulb swings in a circle, hung from a wooden beam in the ceiling.

  Finally, I see him.

  Dad sits on a metal stool, still, knees bent, feet on the floor. His hands press palm down on his workbench, a handsaw and hatchet between them. The pruning shears Mom uses to cut dead limbs from trees in the spring lays at his feet. Dad does not speak. Cymbals crash and some deep-sounding string instruments hum. His hair curls and twists in every direction, as though he has been running his hands through it. He wears a white collared shirt, unbuttoned, and creased black pants. No tie. No Windsor.

  “Dad?”

  He breathes in controlled repetition, even movements, exhaling and inhaling. His eyes lock on the tools at the table.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  He opens his mouth, his lips peeling apart from dryness like dead skin. Wide. Wider still. The noise. The black groan—that deep, sick sound—rolls up and out of his body. He forces the noise out, pushing it from his gut. His eyes fill with water.

  “Dad? DAD?”

  The groan rolls again, louder this time. His chest lifts. His head tips down. He flexes his stomach muscles, forcing the noise—that awful gut-busted groan—out, again and again. He looks back to his tools.

  “Dad?” I move closer to him See, in the swinging shadows, blood on the collar and cuff of his shirt. I don’t see any cuts or other blood stains. I almost touch him to feel his skin, but don’t out of fear.

  His head turns to me, eyes hold mine in place.

  “Get out of here. Jeremy. Go.” His voice is not his voice.

  “Dad. What’s wrong? What is it?”

  “Jeremy.”

  “DAD. I’m calling someone … shit, Dad.”

  “Get out of here.” Dad pushes me away with one hand, knocking me to the floor.

  I land in the doorway, the air knocked out of me.

  Dad steps toward me and slaps the bare light bulb to t
he side. Dull light shrouds his face in darkness. The tools out in front of him change shapes in shadows. More blood is visible on his shirt, but only in the moments when light crosses him as the bulb spirals.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” he says. “Leave.” He sits back down at his workbench. The music fades out, but only long enough to make you think it is over before it begins again. A new piece with more brass, more strings, and heavy percussion rises up.

  I run from the basement, the light bulb settling into a tiny tornado twirl from the wooden beam in the ceiling. I don’t turn back. I skip steps, moving fast to my bedroom. My chest burns where Dad pushed me.

  Another groan rips from the pit of the house, a growl.

  It echoes inside the walls.

  At my bed. On my knees.

  Hands together. At my chin.

  Eyes shut tight. Blocking out the world.

  Our Father. Who art in Heaven. Hail Mary. Please, Mary, please.

  72

  I sit with my back against my bedroom door—28 Days Later on the other side. I open my cell phone and call Mom, but her line goes dead, disconnected. This fucking family and their cell phones, I swear. I call Jackson and he answers.

  Loud music swallows his voice and I can’t make out a damn thing he says, except for the word Roscoe. He says a bunch of inaudible words before chanting a cheer, like at a baseball game. “Roscoe. Ros-coe. Ros-coe. Ros-coe.”

  “Jackson? Can you hear me? I’m coming down to see you,” I say. “I need your help.”

  More inaudible mumblings and music. “Jackson? Can you hear me?”

  “Let’s do another one, baby,” he says. “Excuse me, Hot Bartender? Another round.”

  “Jackson?”

  “I can’t hear you loud and clear, Jeremy. Please stop calling me,” he says, before the line cuts out.

  I scroll through my numbers but can’t find anyone else. There is no one else in my life that is capable of helping, interested in listening, stable enough to cope. My breathing gets away from me like I’ve been running sprints. I scroll through for any name that I recognize, but most of them are family.