“No,” Brennan said. That struck him as curious, like Papa on the sofa with his stomach rumbling. “Do people say no?”
“Some, and they must go to a confinement point,” the man said. His chair squeaked again. “God is wondrous, but He does not stop Sombra C. God gave us Zyllevir to do His holy work. You must take the Zyllevir pill once a week if you contract the virus. It is not a choice. Should you get ill, yet take the pill, you will not be automatically expelled from the school system. That is dependent on the extent of the infection. You will be stamped with the percent. Refuse the stamp and you will be suspended until you comply. People have a right to know who they associate with.”
Brennan did not know what that meant, but maybe he had missed some words. The man set down the clipboard, put on gloves, and affixed a temperature strip to Brennan’s forehead. Brennan was told to stick out his tongue. That felt rude, sticking his tongue out at this man. The end of a slick, rectangular paper was pressed to his tongue. When the man removed it, he inspected the end carefully.
“May I ask what you are looking for?” Brennan said politely.
“The chemicals in this special paper react to the presence of Sombra C. If the paper remains white at the count of twenty, you are a healthy boy.”
They watched it together. Brennan was quiet, knowing the man was counting the beats in his head. Then the paper was dropped into the red MEDICAL WASTE bin, along with the temperature strip. The form with the questionnaire was removed from the clipboard, and the man stamped it NEGATIVE FOR C.
“Healthy boy,” he confirmed. “Since you’re in high school, you get the lecture the little kids the last few days did not. Whenever you start having sex, protection is of paramount importance. A few minutes of pleasure could result in a lifetime of Zyllevir. Not everyone responds to Zyllevir, so that sex could cost you your life. Don’t take the chance. That girl who looks perfectly healthy, feels perfectly healthy, might be incubating the virus.”
Brennan nodded. A boy’s voice penetrated the curtain. “How do you know it’s a lifetime of Zyllevir? The science is too new to know anything.”
“Don’t worry about it,” a woman said impatiently.
Although Brennan had not asked, the man answered. “We are going off what we know at this time, and so far, this medication has arrested the progress of the illness completely. It does not reverse it. This is not a cure. But a study of people infected in July who began this drug, they are still alive today, at a rate of ninety-eight percent. Infected, but alive and normal! If it is caught in the earliest stages, before damage begins, they retain their complete mental and physical faculties. This was a failed vaccine for Sombra B last year, but it is a miracle for Sombra C.”
Through the curtain came the boy’s voice. “What about the two percent it didn’t work for? What happened?”
“It was a study of five hundred people,” the man said, looking at both the curtain and Brennan. “Four hundred and ninety, to this day, have maintained the level of infection they possessed when first beginning Zyllevir. Of the remaining ten, three never responded to the medication, and their virus progressed as it did in people not taking the drug. Of the other seven, they had an initial positive response, and then they regressed. Zyllevir only stalled them temporarily. That is all the data available at this time.”
“But that doesn’t mean some of the four hundred and ninety won’t regress-”
“You need to do your own research, Mr. Jooner,” the woman said with even more impatience. “We have sixteen hundred students plus faculty and administration to get through.”
“I think these are legitimate questions. What about the side effects-”
“Get your information elsewhere,” the woman ordered.
Brennan walked out at the same time as the boy from behind the curtain. Black hair, small eyes, and cheeks full of baby fat, he looked at the curtain swinging shut with irritation. “A minute of answers isn’t going to set you that far back!”
In the short time of Brennan’s test, the line had stretched all the way into the parking lot. English, Spanish and Chinese mingled in the steam exuding from coffee cups. The clipboard was being passed down the line. People called to friends parking on the street. The blonde girl named Rosalie was standing in line with other girls, and when someone shouted, “No cutting!” another blonde girl turned around and yelled, “She’s not cutting! She’s done already!”
“You’re such a liar, Quinn! She’s cutting!”
“You can’t cut! It goes by the order on the clipboard, not the line!” someone else hollered.
“Oh my God, did you see the news out of Texas?”
“Do you mean the Shepherd attack on those five kids in Squay?”
“Hey, are you doing anything for Halloween?”
Brennan thought about walking home, to his new room with the stag and fresh white curtains, to Papa’s voice if not Papa’s form. He had no idea what to do when he got there but worry about the shapes he was missing, and the ones he might miss at school on Monday, the shapes that everyone in this line knew.
A boy was shouting from the back, “Has anyone taken that Mysteries class for an elective? Is it any good?”
“Drop it!” someone yelled from five ahead in line. Even though they were close together, they yelled back and forth and made it easy for Brennan to hear in the hubbub. “Mr. Hanover teaches that and only one person got an A last term!”
That was a shape to Brennan, a true shape of Cloudy Valley High when his worries were not. It was welcome. He owed this to his girl on page fifty-eight, the one who brought him happiness along with her own, and he had to bring her something other than fear and uncertainty. Spinning on his heel, he walked to the back of the line to learn more.
Micah
Micah had a plan once senior year was over.
In whole, it consisted of working at the Cool Spoon as the counter help. That pleased her, the nearly-almost-would-have-been valedictorian of Cloudy Valley High School reporting not to some monolith of academic prestige in the autumn, but back to her same old pink-and-white apron and the ice cream scoop that supplied her with a cool five cents over minimum wage an hour. Because Uma said back-up plans were wise, Micah created one. It was a cashier position at Mr. Foods.
Her family would shit themselves if she didn’t go to college. They were already upset that she refused to quit her job at the Cool Spoon. After all, Dale’s windshield was long paid off, her lesson presumably learned (violence is never the answer!) so why was she still there? Uma offered a position at one of her yoga studios, helping with office tasks, cleaning up after the day’s classes, assisting in the childcare room. Tuma offered a position at her law office, helping with office tasks, cleaning up after the day’s work, assisting in the mailroom. Shalom offered a position at her mobile pet care, helping with office tasks, cleaning up after the day’s work, assisting in the homes of vacationers. To all of these offers, Micah said no, and continued to work at the Cool Spoon. Her only in for that job had been Austin, who said yeah I know Micah she’s almost valedictorian to Mr. Yates and that reference got Micah the job. Almost valedictorian. She loved it.
She was going to earn valedictorian anyway, or get as close as possible. Some mysterious algorithm of GPA and difficult classes determined ranking, with brownie points awarded for club or sports involvement, attendance, and behavior. She had the A’s. She had the AP classes. She had the club. She had perfect attendance, even through a bout of stomach flu freshman year, and Sombra B in junior. She was sweet and darling and inquisitive to her teachers, and retained her sniping for her friends when she couldn’t hold it back any longer. She had it in the bag until the moment the brick left her hand, and then she lost it.
She did not care.
In the office afterwards, with Uma and Tuma white-lipped with shock, with Dale livid about his window, with the astonished principal and two horrified witnesses, Micah was cool as a cucumber. She did not care that she had just lost her shot at valed
ictorian. That surprised her, how much she did not care. She should have cared. It was freeing to search for grief and find empty emotional pockets in her brain. Her only regret was that she would not be able to stand before the school at graduation as its valedictorian, to give a stirring speech about dreams and success, and then announce how she planned to apply herself to bettering the world through perfect swirls in frozen yogurt cups. But she was going to get valedictorian and make them take it away because of what had happened with Dale. She was going to make them uncomfortable giving her prize to Kader Morris or DeAngelo, since she had done nothing wrong.
An online test she took in sophomore year tallied her score to the category of mild sociopathic tendencies. Not a sociopath, no, Micah did not aim for dogs crossing the street when she drove, or take pleasure in others’ misfortune. She was not without empathy. Had she scored one point lower, she would have been in the normal category. But you couldn’t put much stock into online tests, which anyone could write and slap up there, and she had only skimmed some of the questions out of boredom. Her life bored her.
She knew that she shouldn’t be shoplifting at Rubenz, that it was wrong, but she did it anyway for the thrill and to teach the store a lesson. Tuma represented an employee unfairly fired for ageism but lost on a technicality, and Micah had been stealing ever since. A bar of chocolate, a six-pack of fake mustaches, novelty dice earrings, nothing she wanted but that wasn’t why she slipped them up her sleeve. Some of the money the owners saved by firing off their most costly but experienced employee walked right out the door with Micah’s shoplifting. She was evening out the injustice, in a little way.
As to the brick, what was wrong about that? It had been heavy in her palm as she considered her actions, an edge of it chipped and a stripe of white paint bisecting one side. It was just there as she walked to her V-6, a brick with no origin of a wall, and she picked it up. Parked one row away was Dale’s crappy old car. That morning Dale had unloaded his usual array of witty comments in their history class gay moms make you gay God hates you I’ll turn your moms straight and you too in a three-for-one dyke family correction special.
Jesus would have turned the other cheek.
Zaley would have cried and run out of the room.
Sally would have looked to Corbin to defend her honor.
Elania would have written an inspiring piece about homophobia for the paper.
And Micah threw the brick through the windshield of his car.
Once home from the principal’s office, Uma said what that boy needed was enlightenment. She believed that inside every person there was a rational being, and one only had to reach out in peace and understanding. No, it was not all right what Dale said, it was lewd and cruel and ignorant and inappropriate, but that was Micah’s chance to teach him.
She had taught him. She had taught him with the brick.
The Summit family only lived half a mile away from the Cambornes. Once a week, she walked over at night and put a brick near his car where it was parked on the street, to remind him. It had stuck with Micah, what Elania once said. It isn’t MY job to teach anyone about being black or Jewish. But Elania did it even if she didn’t want to, because it had to be done. Elania would have organized a rally for gay rights and talked about tolerance and interpretations of the Bible, passed out rainbow necklaces and bumper stickers, created a singing and hand-holding circle of love around a candle burning with the hopes for a better, more accepting tomorrow. This was what Shalom would have done, what Uma would have wanted Micah to do, but Micah took the shorthand of the brick. Fuck you, Dale. Fuck you hard. Fuck you for judging my family. Fuck your prurient interest in my parents’ sex lives, and fuck your interest in my own.
Micah didn’t know if Dale was capable of learning to respect other families, and she didn’t care. It wasn’t her job to take on his problems and teach him these things. She didn’t care if he liked gays or hated gays or was secretly gay. What did it matter to Micah? She didn’t give a shit about the particular constellation of his family unit. So why did her family matter to him? Why should she feel any need to explain it?
“I know it’s you leaving bricks by my car at night,” Dale hissed one day in class. “I’m going to tell the cops.”
“Tell them what?” Micah asked without fear. That would be a complaint to hear. Officer, someone is leaving a brick by my car. Well, is your car damaged? No, but- Is this person trespassing on your property to leave the brick? No, but- Son, we have actual crimes going on out there in the world.
In addition to her punishment of the job at the Cool Spoon to pay him back, the principal demanded that Micah write an apology. She balked at that and put it off for a long time. The brick was the greater offense than the shit Dale had unloaded on her for months? The brick was too far? Why should she apologize when she wasn’t remotely sorry, and would do it again in a heartbeat? Seeing the brick punch a hole through the glass above the steering wheel nearly gave her an orgasm. She considered it the most incredible thing she had ever done.
She finally wrote the letter of repentance to placate her mothers. Sorry about the window, his comments were upsetting but that was no excuse for her actions, she hoped they could be friends. Peace, Micah. It was on pink stationary with a red heart sticker to close the envelope flap. Her mothers approved of the message, and Uma suggested that they invite Dale over to have dinner and meet their family, their normal, special family.
At school, Micah trashed the letter and gave him the real one.
Dear Dale,
I’m sorry your prick is so small that you feel threatened by a pair of overweight, middle-aged lesbians who you’ve never met. I’ll remember how very, very, very small it is the next time I throw a brick through your windshield if you keep talking shit about my family. I love my job at the Cool Spoon, and I’m happy to keep working there to pay off all of your windshields that I break.
Fuck you with razor wire,
Micah Camborne
P.S. Take me up on the razor wire, doll. It’s the only play your tiny prick will ever get from a woman you haven’t paid for.
It wasn’t totally true that she loved her job at the Cool Spoon. She loved to hate it. Her boss was an asshole who jimmied the timecards to lose an hour here and there, and any overtime. At first, Micah tallied how much was missing from her paycheck and Austin’s, Dora and Wilfred’s too, and she gave out that amount in free ice cream to her friends. Now she gave out as much as she wanted, because of how much money the boss must have cheated his employees since the store opened ten years ago. Fuck you, Mr. Yates.
It had felt so good to write that letter to Dale, and exhilarating to hand it to him. That was the way she felt when she gave away ice cream for free, and shoplifted from Rubenz. Then Dale took to calling I’m praying for you, Micah in the hallways and their shared class. And Micah called back I’m praying for you, Dale, and used industrial-strength glue to fix a dildo to his locker at night. Every time he prayed for her, he got a dildo. Fuck you, Dale, and fuck your prayer.
Micah was sick of being singled out as special for something that wasn’t even interesting. Throwing a brick through someone’s windshield, that was interesting. Having two mothers plopped on the sofa watching television and eating popcorn was not. They had been overwhelmingly embarrassed and concerned and upset (Honey, why didn’t you talk to us? Honey, why didn’t you go to your teacher? Honey, why didn’t you tell Dale that he wasn’t being kind?) as this was the first time either of their daughters had ever gotten in trouble. Tuma worried most on a legal level, that this mark on Micah’s school records might hold her back in life, and Uma worried most on a karmic level, that this mark on Micah’s soul records might hold her back in her next life.
Every year since Shalom was born and later Micah, Uma and Tuma had walked them through gay parades in June to show off their wonderful family. Shalom took it to heart (We have to show them, Micah! We have to be twice as good to be liked half as much in this world!) and Micah had not. S
he did not want to walk in that parade, showing off her normal yet special family. It wasn’t a matter of shame. She wasn’t ashamed. But Micah didn’t see how there was anything special about them, and being a child of people that some considered special for good or ill did not and should not confer special status on Micah. She wanted to be special for herself, goddammit, not because her moms were gay.
One college application that she looked at over the summer instructed applicants to write about the most pivotal moment in their lives. Shalom would have written about growing up in a gay family as pivotal; Micah drew a brick in that yawning white space and tossed the application in the trash. She loved her older sister, but she never understood why Shalom spent every summer while growing up at a camp for kids of gay families. Shalom said it was a safe haven, where no one thought she was special. At camp she wasn’t interesting for her family. But she had to go to a special camp to feel normal, and Micah wanted to go to a normal camp and feel normal because she was normal. Her gay parents weren’t any more unique or interesting than someone else’s straight ones.
It was the eyes, Shalom said. She hated watching the eyes most of all. The incremental widening in surprise, or the subtle narrowing in disgust, and as hard as it was to know some rejection was coming, just as hard was the forced brightness of some who accepted her. Congratulations! You just met someone with gay moms and now you can shine your tolerance badge! And don’t forget to show it off to others, your new friend with the gay moms. It adds to your diversity credentials.
Shalom hated that before she mentioned her family, she looked around the room to see who was listening. She had to feel it was safe, both physically and judgment-free. Shalom felt a lot more pressure to please and be accepted than Micah did. Micah went to normal camps and dropped the composition of her family when appropriate in conversation. Fuck you. She wasn’t going to hide at a special camp. She didn’t need support. She didn’t check around the room to see who was listening, to see if it was safe. And she didn’t censor herself if it wasn’t. She was almost hoping that someone would pick a fight.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 8
