Pariah

by Bob Fingerman

  Clutching the box, Alan hastened back to the table and planted a big kiss on top of Mona’s head. Mona sort of half smiled and Ellen felt a pang of jealousy. What the fuck? she admonished herself. Just stow that stupid shit, Ellen. Taking his seat, Alan fished the slim, silvery rectangular lamp out of the box and squinted as he read the instructions by candlelight. “ ‘Recharging the battery from a completely discharged state takes about sixteen to eighteen hours in full sun.’ This baby gives up to seven hours on high on a full charge. I can read at night. I can work at night! How awesome is that? Tomorrow this baby goes up on the roof.”

  “What makes you think they’re for you?” Ellen asked.

  “Wha’ . . . Well, I, uh . . .”

  “I’m just teasing, Al. Relax.”

  “Oh. Oh, okay then.”

  Ellen threw Alan a smile that was supposed to be reassuring but came off kind of askew. She was suddenly feeling a little mean. Please tell me this isn’t jealousy, she thought. Please. I can’t be that stupid. That insecure. That stereotypically weak and womany.

  Alan was about to lavish more thanks on Mona, but he could see her eyes were closed and she was nodding in time to the music. It sounded like tuneful nu metal, and either the singer was female or male with a helluva falsetto. Alan looked over at Ellen whose own expression was cryptic at best. Before he blurted something he’d end up regretting, he sized up the situation as best he could. Two females, one hale and hearty, the other weak and wan. Ellen’s eyes were adrift and she was fidgeting, picking at her cuticles.

  “Ellen?” Alan whispered. She looked over at him, her head turning in slow mo. “Ellen, you okay? What’s up? Aren’t you happy Mona’s back? And the haul? She rocked out. I mean, solar-powered lanterns? We didn’t even think of that. And check this out: walkie-talkies.” Alan tapped his temple with an index finger. “Smart cookie,” he said, bulging his eyes Eddie Cantor-style for comic effect. Mona opened her eyes and looked at Alan as he was making the gesture. She eased out an earbud. He felt his cheeks flush as he stammered out, “I was just remarking how savvy you were to get those solar lamps. Very cool, indeed. And I saw some freeze-dried grub, too. Outstanding.”

  “Had ’em at the sporting goods place I got the rope from.”

  Eyes heavy lidded and glassy with disinterest, Mona popped the buds back in and turned up the volume.

  “Wow,” Alan said with a smirk, “I thought she’d never shut up.”

  24

  Eddie liked what he saw as he stood before the full-length mirror on the bedroom closet door. He liked it a lot. Nude, he turned to his left and assumed a bodybuilder’s pose, flexing his muscles, which were oiled with sweat, then turned to the right and did likewise. He’d taken the liberty of shaving his chest and stomach and he’d tweezed any stray hairs on his shoulders. He’d even shaved his pits and pubes. The sad excuses for men in the building had shaved their faces and Alan had gone so far as to have Ellen give him a haircut, but none of them, with the exception of Princess Dave, had physiques worthy of a full-body depilatory. Eddie knew he wasn’t quite there yet, but soon. In the last few weeks the surfeit of food the spooky chick had furnished filled him in nicely. He’d resumed a workout regimen and Zotz had resumed a respectful distance, his smart remarks all but disappeared. Sweet.

  “Oh yeah,” Eddie grinned, rippling his abs. “Look at those pecs. Look at those delts.” He did a half pirouette and clenched and unclenched his buttocks. “And for the chef d’oeuvre, look at those glutes. Marone, what a sight to behold.” He gave them an appreciative slap and then, with great reluctance, closed the closet door and stepped away.

  His hair, deep black and long enough to wear in a ponytail, he now wore loose about his shoulders, Tarzan-like. He slipped on a pair of tight black Calvin Klein boxer briefs and espadrilles, and then stepped into the common hall. Sunlight directly overhead poured down through the skylight in the stairwell housing and he gleamed. He liked the others to see his return as resident Adonis, even though he didn’t know who the fuck Adonis was—just that he was buff and handsome as shit. Well fed and in fine fettle, the only thing lacking was una bella fica. Ellen was beginning to look totally doable again, but she was glued to that douche, Zotz. It was real fuckin’ adorable the way she latched onto that pencil-pushin’ pencil neck. Made him wonder if maybe she and Zotz had been canoodling while she was still married to good ol’ what’s-hisname.

  Wouldn’t that be fuckin’ perfect?

  Oh, it totally made sense, too. Artsy-fartsy Alan worked at home, made his own hours. Who better to have a fling with? She was on maternity leave—what a con. Have a baby, get paid to stay home and watch soaps. What a racket. Then, when it gets boring, snag a nanny and back to the grind. You get to be a professional woman and an amateur mom. Having the cake and eating it, too. Fuckin’ women. Eddie’s mom, whore though she was, knew her place was in the home. Maybe she took some extra deliveries of protein paste from the odd mailman or milkman, but she was a housewife. That’s what a woman should do once she decides to drop a litter. Tell that to these Upper East Side broads. Well, now they’re all fuckin’ dead, so fuck ’em.

  Oh, how Eddie wished he could.

  The spooky little chick made him uncomfortable, though. He’d tried to engage her in some friendly chitchat, but she seemed bored. How rude was that? With those earbuds stuck in her jug ears. And yeah, her ears were fuckin’ big, too.

  Eddie was beyond frustrated. That spooky little chick was always either nodding her head in tune with godawful noise—maybe he’d slip her a little Gino Vannelli—or out on errands. She was accommodating, he had to give her that. Any request and voom, off she went in search of. Yesterday Eddie had asked for one of those little travel DVD players and she’d brought back enough for everyone, which maybe made it seem a little less special to him, but so be it. How fuckin’ fun must that be? he wondered. Going into any store and boosting any shit you want? Shoplifting heaven! With the DVD player he now had a reason to return to his old digs to retrieve his impressive porno stash. If he couldn’t have the real thing he’d make do with some hot viddies.

  He wanted to tap that ass, but you don’t shit where you eat.

  Or fuck where you eat.

  Something like that. The time would come. She was a weirdo but she wasn’t blind. Eddie remembered a TV special about this special kind of chimps called bonobos and how they had a pecking order. The top males had priority mating rights. The bonobos preferred fucking to fighting, but the males spent a lot of time intimidating their rivals for female affection. Eddie was an alpha all the way. She’d see that. Females always came around to the alpha. Soon enough he’d have the spooky chick and Ellen Swenson. He just had to play it smart.

  As he mounted the steps, the old bitch in 5A stepped into the hall and let out a grizzled gasp as she took in his buffness. Though it creeped him out a little, he liked the thought that she’d have his physique scorched into her psyche. Imagine the horror she’d feel looking at herself by comparison. Or her shriveled, impotent husband. Hilarious.

  “Can’t you have the decency to put on some clothes?” she scolded.

  As he passed by he stooped over, jutting his noggin like he was going to give the old bag a head butt. She flinched in terror and he sniggered. “Just messin’ with ya, ma’am,” he said. “Chill. Why do I gotta put clothes on, anyway? It’s hot as hell and so am I.”

  She clucked and retreated into her dwelling, locking the door behind her. It was so unfair that the females in this building were all so lame. Old and wrinkled. Brain-dead and spooky. Kinda hot but taken. Taken. Now that Ellen was looking kind of nice again it just ate away at Eddie that a little weasel like Zotz was keeping all that lovin’ to himself. Wasn’t it just like a Jew to hoard the precious? Zotz. That was Jewish, right? Of course it was. And in the meantime, here was Eddie, fitter than them all, plodding upstairs to cut across the roofs to get his porn. No justice.

  Eddie pounded open the door to the roof with the flats of his p
alms, earning a startled yelp from Dabney. Good. Eddie liked spooking the spook. Reminded him of past glories. Eddie remembered one night in particular that gave him pleasure but also chafed his balls. Pleasure was the fact that he and some buddies had beaten the holy hell out of a couple of wayward niggers who’d strayed into Bensonhurst and were trying to make time with a couple of the local girls—nice Italian girls. Well, not nice, exactly, but Italian. Annoyance was because it never made the news. No use crying over spilled blood, especially when there wasn’t enough of it. At least he’d gotten away clean. Going to jail would have sucked, big time.

  “The hell is wrong with you, son?” Dabney hollered. “Slamming up here like that. You wanna give me a heart attack?”

  As a matter of fact, Eddie thought as he stalked by, ignoring Dabney’s upbraiding. And I’m not your son.

  Eddie reached his old building and headed down the fire escape to his window, still open like Dave had left it. Eddie hadn’t returned since the Wandering Jewess incident. That was intense. Eddie thought about the way Dave had handled her and he felt pride swell in his chest. Dave was a finocchio, but still a man. That was some hardcore shit. The way he knocked her block off—or almost off. With an elephant’s foot? Just thinking about it made him chuckle. Reminded him of his childhood Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots. Two robots pounding the bolts out of each other, one red, one blue. Eddie was always blue because his dad said red was a commie color. Papa knew best. That was a cool toy.

  Eddie recalled his time with Gerri. Sure she was a vegetable—at least until she became the meat course—and nothing to look at, but he’d almost forgotten how nice pussy felt.

  “Gotta get the porn,” Eddie said. “Stay on point. Focus.”

  He vaulted through the apartment to his old room and threw open the door. At the foot of his bed, under a pile of clothes, was his dad’s old army footlocker. He knelt down and undid the combination lock, which opened with a sturdy pop. Inside was his treasure trove. He felt like Indiana Jones scoring that shiny bauble at the beginning of Raiders. He’d forgotten to bring something to carry home the boodle, but nearby was his old gym bag, still overstuffed with dirty laundry. He unzipped it and dumped its contents on the floor.

  “So that’s where these were. Duh,” he said, shaking his head as he put his Nike Air Mowabb cross trainers back in the bag. He then started loading DVDs into the sack.

  As he struggled with the zipper, the bag now stuffed to bursting, he heard a sound from the living room. He ceased his activities and froze. There it was again, a soft shuffling. The Wandering Jewess had been evicted so what was this shit? Eddie gingerly placed the overstuffed bag on the bed and tiptoed into the hall. He held his breath and eyeballed the exit window. He was curious, but how curious? Wasn’t the cat killed by curiosity? Eddie hated cats, with their rough tongues, bad breath, and haughty attitude. Who was the first to call vagina pussy? Why insult such a sweet thing by naming it after a cat? Whatever. The sound happened again. There was somebody in the other room. That spooky chick? Nah. Why would she come here? Cursing himself for pursuing it, Eddie stepped into the hall and slunk toward the living room.

  A plastic cup from 7-Eleven rolled toward him, settling at his right foot.

  “Hey,” Eddie said, voice steely. “Who the fuck is there?”

  Eddie poked his head into the room and several zombies stood there. The front door wide was open. As he turned to flee, two more stumbled from the bathroom, which was between him and the exit window.

  “Fuck me,” Eddie growled, cursing himself for the stunod that he was.

  From the living room, one loped toward him, then tripped and fell as its legs became entangled in its own leathery intestines, which dangled from a gaping cavity in its lower abdomen. Its jaw hit the linoleum floor and came loose, leaving it cocked to one side and toothless. Eddie would have enjoyed the zombie’s clumsiness were there not several others who shuffled his way, their paths free of stray innards. Eddie cursed the narrowness of the hall, a mere three feet wide, but long. Goddamn railroad apartments. The ones emerging from the john effectively blocked his exit, but he’d have to bull through. Hockey penalty time. Still, he wished he were less exposed. Maybe the Tarzan wardrobe isn’t the best idea.

  Eddie gulped a few deep breaths, then ran forward. He caught a female zombie in the face with his fist, sending her careening backward, ass over tit. Her head hit the doorsill and split open, spilling coagulated gunk, dark and thick as molasses. Her bathroom buddy, a rangy male with graveyard halitosis, lunged for him and from behind, slung his gangly arms around Eddie’s waist. Eddie couldn’t turn around, so he did a backward head butt, ramming the back of his skull into the zombie’s face, praying all the while that the zombie wouldn’t bite him. Fuck that shit. The zombie’s grasp loosened and Eddie shrugged him off, spinning on his heel. Even though he knew he should flee, he was now pissed. He blundered back into his bedroom and slid open his closet door, the action so violent the door came off its tracks and fell against the inside wall. Eddie grappled with the door and flung it off to the side, groping for his hockey stick.

  “High-sticking, huh? The Comet’ll show you motherfuckers some high-fuckin’-sticking!”

  Like some po-mo Spartan warrior, Eddie turned back into the hall, stick in hand, helmet his only other garment besides his briefs and espadrilles. With a vicious upward slash he took the head off the one that bear hugged him in the hall. From his bedroom in the middle, Eddie still needed to get to the fire escape at the rear of the apartment. The headless body convulsed as Eddie stepped over it and a palsied, rotten hand shot up and grabbed the back of his briefs, tearing them.

  “The fuck?” Eddie cried. “Oh, you wanna play fuckin’ games?”

  He stomped on the thing’s solar plexus, its withered organs emitted muffled popping noises. The arm went limp but the rigor mortis grip on Eddie’s Calvins intensified, pulling them down like a macabre pastiche of the Coppertone pooch yanking down that little pigtailed girl’s bathing suit. Eddie tore free, now wearing just the waistband and pouch in the front, like some poorly constructed jockstrap.

  Only one adversary left, an eyeless one-armed creep of indeterminate gender, face composed—or decomposed—solely of strands of muscle tissue barely masked by shredded, papery epidermis. Eddie jerked back the stick, then rammed it as hard as he could through the thing’s chest, impaling it. “Vlad don’t have shit on me!” Eddie wailed. He raked the stick back and forth, the zombie clawing at it, trying to free itself. Eddie jerked it upward, lifting his foe off the ground. The rib cage split open like a zipper, bits of desiccated bone and sinew raining down as Eddie worked the stick up and down until the thing split in half. As it twitched pitiably on the floor, Eddie swung down the stick and delivered the killing blow, shattering its skull.

  Eddie grabbed the bag of porn and stepped onto the fire escape, slamming the window shut after him, hoping against hope that those zombie gavones were the only ones to breach the building. Still, he wouldn’t be coming back to the old roost. On the roof he checked the stairwell door to confirm its security status. It was sealed shut. Relieved, he slumped back against the warty black tar paper and caught his breath, quaking. So, they got in. That meant the half-assed fortification the Guardsmen had installed was wrecked. Great. He gulped air and punched his chest. Now that he was safe, the fear sluiced over him. Though it had to be ninety degrees he was shivering. Calm the fuck down, he admonished himself. Don’t be a fuckin’ girl. Calm the fuck down.

  Even alone he won no prize for compassion.

  25

  “I’d forgotten how comforting banality can be,” Alan said as he shut off the little DVD player. He’d been watching back-to-back episodes of Three’s Company. “What a stupid show. Why did you have this in your library?”

  “It was Mike’s. He loved John Ritter.”

  Alan sat back, feeling a little bad about maligning the show. It was bad, though. Seriously bad. Maybe it had been nostalgic for Mike. A lot of boys w
atched it, along with Wonder Woman and of course Charlie’s Angels, all because of the jiggle factor. Alan never found women who seemed stupid sexy, though, and Suzanne Somers embodied that to a preternatural degree. Watching her and getting aroused would have carried the psychic baggage of getting a boner from a hot retarded girl.

  Alan looked over at Ellen. She was doing a crossword puzzle. The scene seemed oddly peaceful. Comforting. It was hard to reconcile this image of domestic tranquility with the sea of undead meat puppets outside. Ellen had filled in a bit and looked more like her old self, which was to say she looked very attractive. But to what end? Mona’s arrival on the scene was a stay of execution, not a repeal. Okay, there were creature comforts. They had food again, and light at night. Alan was clean shaven and well groomed, so when the time came he’d now leave a good-looking corpse, or at least make an attractive main course. Moments ago he’d felt comforted by a moronic sitcom and now he felt like everything was utterly pointless. Seeing the predictable pandemonium that was the bygone world of Jack Tripper, Chrissy Snow, and Janet Wood just amplified the horror of reality. Alan pressed the eject button and replaced the disk in its case, vowing not to revisit their sunny vale of canned mirth. Enervated, he schlepped to the window to soak up a solid dose of actuality.

  “That show was kind of funny,” Ellen said, looking up from the puzzle book.

  “It was horrendous,” Alan said.

  “I thought you just said it was comforting.”

  “Yeah, well I misspoke. Sue me.”

  “It’s funny.” When Alan didn’t ask what was, Ellen continued, “There’s a clue in this puzzle, ‘ThighMaster mistress from Three’s Company.’ Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

  “Hilarious.”

  “Bad moods can be very contagious, especially in close quarters.”

  “You saying you want me to leave?”