Pariah

by Bob Fingerman

  “It isn’t nice to gloat, Abe,” Ruth said, but she smiled in spite of herself. Abe had done well. Very well. She curled around him and in the dark allowed herself to imagine Abe as he’d been when they met. To her complete surprise, Abe put his arm around her shoulders instead of shrugging her away. “Okay, maybe you can gloat a little. Our hero.” She kissed his cheek and restrained herself from smacking her lips to ease the tickle from his beard. Let the goyim have visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. As Ruth drifted off she dreamt of shaving cream and fresh razors for Abe.

  And soap and paper towels and deodorant.

  She seldom cleaned the house any more—just the occasional cursory run with the broom—but now a radiant vision of Lysol and Comet and Soft Scrub and refills for her Swiffer, both wet and dry, floated through her brain. Suddenly she was young again, dancing like Fred Astaire—to heck with Ginger; Ruth wanted to lead! Her partner was a mop and the setting a palatial kitchen. As she danced every surface she passed gleamed, shaming every commercial for every domestic cleaning product ever made. White surfaces shone bright as a thousand suns. Was that a speck of grease on the stove top? With the grace of a dozen Baryshnikovs, Ruth leapt through the air and obliterated the offending stain with a balletic stroke of her sponge. And not some off-brand sponge, but a good one! An O-Cel-O!

  Joined by a spectacular rainbow, sunbeams flooded the immense chamber. Disney-esque forest animals capered about—small cartoon birds chirping, tiny white bunnies hoppity-hopping, deer sweet and charming as Bambi—and Ruth shooed them all away with her magical mop. “No filthy dirty animals in my spotless kitchen,” she scolded in tones dulcet as Beverly Sills’s.

  As the last critter fled the room the kitchen began to shake and shimmy, cabinets opening, dishes spilling to the floor, smashing to bits, creating fissures in the immaculate ceramic tile. Shards of shattered glass and china littered her utopia and her ears were assailed by the cacophony of raining utensils. The sun faded and the sky turned an ominous gray. The booming stentorian voice of God rang out.

  “Get off of me. Ruth, please. Get off.”

  “What did I do?” Ruth said, voice quaking.

  “You’re crushing my arm. My arm’s gone numb.”

  Ruth awoke to Abe jostling her head and shoulders in an attempt to free his sleeping arm.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” Ruth sneered. “For this you wake me?”

  “I got pins and needles. You want me to get gangrene like your mother?”

  “You have to bring my mother into this, may her soul rest in peace? Ucch, Abraham.”

  Ruth turned away from Abe as he rubbed his arm. Please God, she thought. I don’t ask much. Just send me back to my happy kitchen. And while you’re at it, send Abe some more pins and needles.

  Karl pressed his lips to the Polaroid of Dawn-Anne McCarthy spread-eagle, then with a gentle flick of his wrist sent it spiraling down into the crowd below. “Au revoir, mon amour,” he whispered. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes removing all the pinups and centerfolds from his wall, balling them up, tossing the crumpled wads of paper out the window, watching them bounce off the empty noggins of the horde. The repetitive motion reminded him of feeding the animals at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo—one of the few enjoyable memories he could conjure from his childhood that involved the presence of his old man—and equally rare for its involving animals not being killed by Big Manny. Each wadded-up piece of pornography stood in for a bygone peanut or piece of bread, and for a change thinking of those edibles didn’t make his empty stomach lurch because it wasn’t empty. Praise be.

  The cleansing had nothing to do with faith, though. Not faith in the Almighty, at any rate—faith in maybe making time with the new arrival. Though he’d only glimpsed her as he’d hoisted up bag after bag of groceries, she looked incredible. And the way she was all dressed up in black with that funky knapsack, oh baby. She was a hip chick. She’d probably be into the same tunes. She looked like a Korn fan. Metal. Maybe Goth, which wasn’t really Karl’s thing, but he could fake being conversant in matters Gothy. He knew from The Cure and Bauhaus. Wasn’t that enough?

  This cleansing was an act of optimism, his first since everything hit the shitter running. Her arrival was miraculous. No, this was no time to be thinking about God. If he thought about God he’d inevitably think about Big Manfred and that was the mental equivalent of saltpeter. Why ruin the moment? He was still young enough to pursue a girl like that without feeling like a dirty old man. She looked to be “of age,” not that a thing like that matters when all the lawmakers and law upholders are dead, dead, dead. What’s the age of consent in New York? But he’d have to be shrewd and charming. As sure as he was that he wanted her, he was equally certain that Eddie would make a play for her, too. Not that a hip chick like her would ever fall for a knuckle-dragging throwback like him. Dave, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content in his “secret” love for Eddie. He reminded Karl of all those Republicans who’d hoisted themselves on their own petards, preaching intolerance while pursuing clandestine same-sex relations. In public toilets. With male prostitutes. With underage senate pages. Real guardians of virtue, they were. Big Manny had voted for them all, the hypocrites. Oh irony. And all it had taken to nudge Dave out of the closet—mostly—was the apocalypse.

  Karl plucked the final Playmate off the wall, a sloe-eyed Hawaiian hottie, Lourdes Ann Kananimanu Estores—Miss June 1982. This was tough. He’d “gone steady” with this gatefold since finding her in a thrift shop back in Akron that didn’t care how old you were as long as you had cash. He’d secreted her into his childhood bedroom and made sweet imaginary love to her countless times, his eyes tracing every velvet inch of her soft tan body. He’d overlooked her taste in music—The Rolling Stones, Bette Midler, The Cars, Bob Seger, Jimmy Buffett, The Eagles—in light of her overwhelming beauty. And he knew if they ever met he could swing her around to the real deal. Bette Midler? Jimmy Buffett? Well, she was from Hawaii.

  Was she dead, too? Most likely.

  She was probably one of those shambling piles of flesh-hungry rot. Maybe she’d been torn apart. The thought was too awful to contemplate. He held her in his quaking hands, unable to cast her into the abyss.

  “There’s such a thing as too much optimism,” he said, folding her up with care and stowing her in a drawer. “Always have a back-up plan,” he added, patting the closed dresser.

  Just in case.

  21

  Dabney was in his usual spot, selecting a suitable chunk to lob. When he found one that felt right, conformed to the hollow of his palm, he inched closer to the edge and scoped out the scene below, looking for a target. In his day he’d been a fair hand at amateur pitching and darts, so even though nine times out of ten he’d pick a recipient and miss, he at least liked to make the effort. He spotted a likely candidate down below, a slightly rotund one, seemingly stuck in one spot. From Dabney’s vantage point he couldn’t see why, but the corpulent corpse’s spilt entrails had tethered it to the base of a nearby streetlamp, and it was further anchored by the feet of its companions. It stood perfectly still as its cohorts shambled aimlessly around it.

  Dabney rotated his wrist a couple of times to loosen up, then chucked the brick, admiring its graceful arc as it plummeted down across the avenue, then delighting in the unexpected as it collapsed the head of its intended target. The fat zombie disappeared as it sank into the crowd, creating a lumpy speed bump for its confederates. Dabney chuckled as he opened a can of mandarin orange slices and took a swig of the tangy syrup, the small, soft wedges of citrus brushing against his lips. He swished the liquid around in his mouth, savoring the sweetness. He remembered when he’d been laid low with chicken pox and then later mumps as a boy and how his mother had given him dishes of mandarin orange slices as a treat. They’d perked him up then just as they perked him up now, but thinking of his momma added a touch of melancholy and he put down the can and let out a mournful noise. “Oh, momma,” he sighed, then took in a bi
g mouthful of preserved fruit. “Oh momma.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  Dabney nearly shat himself, unaware he had company. He spun around and saw the girl. He was the only one in the building who hadn’t met her yet.

  “You startled me,” he said, smoothing his features.

  “Sorry.” She didn’t sound or look sorry, but she didn’t seem sarcastic either. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Throw the brick.”

  “The brick? Oh, it’s something to do. Gives ’em something to chew on besides us.”

  The girl contemplated his answer, then stepped over to the ledge and peered down, the toes of her boots resting right on the lip. Dabney began to sweat. “You ain’t planning on doing anything rash, are you, miss?” he asked. “Uh, miss? What’s your name, again?” He said again, but he didn’t know in the first place. For the first time since he’d arrived he felt out of the loop and rude, to boot. He should have come down and introduced himself. Thanked her. These tasty citrus slivers had come courtesy of this spooky little white girl and he hadn’t the manners to let her know he felt much obliged. He was too taken with his self-appointed role as The Roof Man, like some powerless superhero, or enigmatic loner, or plain old antisocial oddball.

  “Mona,” she replied.

  “Mona,” he repeated. “Well, Mona, you’re not thinking of doing anything foolish are you?”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  The feeling of déjà vu struck Dabney, this scene less heightened than Karl’s would-be jumper scenario, but weirder. Karl had been in an agitated snit. This girl was quiescent as a newborn at her momma’s teat.

  Stop thinking about momma, Dabney thought.

  “Your standing right on the edge has me a little nervous is all,” he said. “Maybe you oughta come away from there and let’s get introduced. My name’s John Dabney. Most visitors to my roof just address me as Dabney, but either will do. And I guess technically it’s not my roof, per se, but I sort of think of it that way.” He felt foolish running his mouth but didn’t stop. “I guess I owe you an apology, Mona.” He paused, hoping he’d engaged her, waiting for the stock response that didn’t come. The buzzing of flies filled the pregnant pause with white noise. Why was it called white noise? Dabney wondered. White neighbors. White noise. He blinked back to the moment, looking at the girl who hadn’t moved an inch. She was stolid as a figurehead on the prow of a ship, expression serene, skin unblemished. “I owe you an apology,” he repeated, trying to anchor himself in the present.

  Thoughts of his seafaring days assailed him. That fat zombie sank like a ship in the ocean of ambulatory corpses. Thoughts of his momma ricocheted around his upper story, too. Maybe those orange slices were spoiled. No. They tasted just fine. Delicious. He’d smoked hashish many moons ago, while in Tangiers. He’d sampled peyote and psilocybin mushrooms while out west. This was the way of the mind and Dabney didn’t pretend to know what he was all about, least of all on a neuron-by-neuron basis. It was the girl, maybe. Dabney was used to dilapidated specimens like Ellen and Ruth, even though they barely ever manifested in his domain. To see a healthy female so impalpable was putting the whim-whams on him. She turned to face him and sat down, crossing her ankles. Relief flooded Dabney. Even if it weren’t his fault, had the girl tumbled off his roof he’d have felt responsible—at least partially. Worse yet, the others might tar him with a grief-stricken guilty brush. The only thing worse than having no luck is to get some then lose it in a trice.

  “What for?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The apology?” Asked with unblinking eyes.

  “Oh, oh. Oh, for not introducing myself earlier. For not showing my appreciation for the wonderful food you’ve brought us. I should’ve come down and said thank you. I would have. I don’t want to make excuses, it’s just . . .” Dabney trailed off and considered his next words with care. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, ’cause I mean no disrespect, but, uh, how come those things don’t attack you like everyone else?”

  “I guess they don’t like me.” Dabney looked at her, waiting for the rest, but that’s all there was. No further embellishment. The statement lay there like roadkill. “I need sunglasses,” she said, then got up and walked back into the stairwell.

  Dabney stared into the half empty can of orange slices.

  Or was it half full?

  “We need to send Mona out for more supplies,” Alan said. “Specifically toilet paper. I don’t mean to be disgusting or anything, but just as with great power comes great responsibility, so too does food come with an unfortunate byproduct. Not that responsibility is unfortunate but . . . All I’m saying is . . .” Alan moaned from behind the closed door, tossing the crap-smeared wad of newsprint out the bedroom window—there was no window in the bathroom. Only a couple of broadsheets remained of his last copy of the New York Press. “Who’d ever think you could be sentimental about something like toilet paper? Or those moist butt wipes? Oh, those were heavenly.”

  “Agreed,” Ellen replied. She knew just how he felt. Unlike the rabbit pellets she was used to producing, all those victuals had gotten her innards producing waste again, and it wasn’t pretty.

  “I mean, it’s bad enough hanging your ass out the window to relieve yourself, but to then sandpaper yourself is the icing on the cake,” Alan continued with an audible wince. “So to speak. It’s all so medieval.”

  “Enough already,” Ellen said, marching away from the closed portal. “We need to have a building meeting and compile a list of necessities, provided of course that Mona’s zombie repelling wasn’t some fluke and that she’s even willing to go out there and do it again. So I’ll get some paper, and top of the list will be moistened butt wipes.”

  “Huzzah,” Alan shouted. “Thank you!”

  Alan vacated the window and looked around for anything else to tidy with. Maybe Mona would come through with the goods, but until then he needed to do something. As bad as the Press was to read, it was twice as bad to wipe with.

  A year or two ago Alan had undergone a minor surgical procedure and had been given an overnight basket by the staff, mostly dull items like a cheapo toothbrush, no-name toothpaste, a packet of generic facial tissues. But the highlight was a pump-spray bottle of Personal Cleanser. Friends would come by and he’d amuse them with its label, which bluntly proclaimed it to be “No-rinse, one-step cleansing for the perineum or body” containing “Gentle surfactants [to] aid in the removal of urine and feces.” He’d brought it home for a goof, but it had made his life far more bearable over the last several weeks. When he’d moved in with Ellen, he gallantly shared the last few spritzes with her, and now he wished he hadn’t.

  Oh, for those gentle surfactants.

  Alan’s butt stung from the newspaper and felt distinctly unclean. He felt like some tormented Bible character, which was already easy to do given the state of the world. But this was more personal. A civilized adult man should not have to walk around with a poo-crusted tush. He rummaged through a nearby drawer and filched a pinkish baby-T and finished his hygiene ritual. The soft cotton-poly blend did a better job and was much kinder to his hinder. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Satisfied he’d done the best he could, he lobbed it out the window to join the Press in the alley below. Hopefully Ellen wouldn’t mind or even notice that he’d used a garment of hers. Then it hit him.

  Oh fuck me.

  Oh double fuck me twice.

  Not hers. This wasn’t some hipster baby-T, it was an actual T-shirt that had belonged to her baby, no doubt imbued with all manner of sentimental value. Perspiration began to pour off his forehead.

  Oh Jesus.

  As a child, Alan and his mother had been invited by a coworker of hers to spend a weekend at the workmate’s summer cabin in Upstate New York. The work chum was a charming man, but Alan disliked him because he figured the guy wanted to put the make on his divorcee mother. Little had unsophisticated seven-year-ol
d Alan realized the guy was gay. After dinner Alan excused himself, then raced into the guest bathroom and spent a fitful several minutes vomiting through his ass, only to be confronted with an absence of toilet paper. Panicked, sweaty, ass raw from the torrential outburst and too humiliated to cry out for toilet paper, he searched the tiny rustic chamber in vain for anything to wipe with. He ended up using a flowery lavender hand towel, which he balled up and tossed out the window. In a private after-dinner moment Alan scooted outside and buried it in the adjacent woods. Weeks later the coworker asked his mother if she had accidentally packed the towel with her things.

  Hopefully Ellen wouldn’t notice.

  “I want batteries,” Karl said, clutching his exanimate boombox. “Lots of batteries.”

  “Maybe some of those emergency lights, like for when there’s a blackout. It would be awesome to have light after dark again. To read without eyestrain? That would be amazing,” Alan chimed in, Ellen playing secretary and jotting down all the suggestions. All but Mona had gathered in Ellen’s apartment and were seated in the sweltering living room, made all the hotter by the group’s body heat.

  “Hey, what about one of those camping generators?” Dave said.

  “Good one,” Eddie said, slapping Dave’s back.

  “I’d like some fresh razors. Oh, since we’re talking batteries, how’s about a couple of those electric razors?” Abe suggested, earning him appreciative oohs and ahhs from the hairy-faced men in the room.

  “And a fuckin’ hair clipper,” Dave said, ruffling his scraggy hair. “ ’Scuse the language,” he added, looking at Ruth’s reproachful expression.

  “Eventually, and I know it’s not a necessity, but maybe some art supplies,” Alan said.

  “Yeah, like you said, ‘not a necessity,’ ” Eddie sneered. “So chill on that shit, Picasso.” Since Alan stopped furnishing him with custom whacking matter, Eddie had ceased to be an art lover.