Pariah

by Bob Fingerman

  They were the enemy.

  Us versus them.

  Black and white.

  But even those things lacked malice. They were just automated instinct.

  As Abe lathered up, he missed gray.

  At least Ivory was pure.

  Mostly.

  “Pretty in pink,” Karl burbled. His skin felt funny. Not funny ha-ha, but funny. Funny-ish. “I don’t even like The Psychedelic Furs.” He looked at the pill in his palm, filched from Mona’s stash. Pink. Though the Bible didn’t address drug use, there were very clear principles outlined in it that suggested drug use wasn’t acceptable. Christians were supposed to respect the laws of the land. But the land had no laws any more. This wasn’t recreational usage, anyway. This was a life-or-death experiment. That made Karl smile. He’d always found the term “experimenting with drugs” disingenuous, but that’s what this was. He felt very scientific.

  And itchy.

  And sweaty.

  And cotton mouthed.

  33

  “She only has four toes.”

  “What?”

  “She only has four toes.”

  “I heard you the first time. What are you talking about?” Ellen pushed back from the dining table and stared at Alan, who sat there stirring powdered nondairy creamer into room-temperature coffee, his spoon tinkling gratingly with each rotation. Finally, patience exhausted, Ellen snatched the utensil from her in-the-doghouse paramour’s hand and tossed it across the room, where it clattered into the sink. Ellen smiled with petty satisfaction and thought, She shoots, she scores. Swish.

  “Mona. She only has four toes on each foot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She was posing for me again today, so I could finish up the canvas I’d started—and don’t give me that look. Seriously. There’s no extracurricular activity and you’re not going to guilt me over an involuntary reaction. I got a boner. Sue me. Move on.” Ellen scowled but let her forehead relax, the creases ebbing. Alan continued. “I’d painted her with four toes on her feet and was looking to correct that. Not that I need a model for toes, but you know, it was curious is all. So she’s sitting there, in the same position . . .” Again Ellen scowled, the word “position” ever linked with carnality. Alan paused, let it pass, resumed his narrative. “And this time I scrutinized her tootsies. . . .”

  “Tootsies. How adorable.”

  “Please? Could you please? Seriously? It’s enough, already. The point is I hadn’t goofed. She has only four toes on each foot.” Alan restrained himself from saying, “each beautifully turned foot,” or “each devastatingly sexy foot.” He pinched a testicle to suppress the erection he felt inevitable. Just the thought of those smooth, cartoony peds wreaked havoc on his libido. He’d once seen a porn video where a guy pulled out and came on the woman’s foot. At the time he’d thought it was the stupidest thing he could ever imagine. Things change.

  “So what am I supposed to make of this little revelation?” Ellen said, unmoved by Alan’s news.

  “Look, forget I said anything, okay? This is what couples do, right? They sit at the table and make small talk. Only I didn’t think this was so small. I thought it was genuinely interesting. It was just another thing to factor into Mona’s roster of oddness. Just forget it.”

  “Consider it forgotten.”

  Alan excused himself from the table and left the apartment. Better he should spend time alone. Was this some hormonal thing? Some pregnancy thing? The roller coaster ride had been fun—was “fun” even the right word? Fun? Interesting. The sex had been good. Stellar. Desperate, but explosive. But this? Did Mike deal with this or was this all some cumulative build up of hormones, grief, and immeasurable weltschmerz the likes of which the philosophers of yore never in their wildest imaginings grappled with? When he thought of it that way, Alan figured Ellen was entitled to some appreciable bitchiness. But it still was a compound drag.

  He shuffled downstairs to his flat and swung open the unlocked door, taking in his miasma of death-world renderings, the gooey center of which were the portraits of his four-toed fantasy babe. Did he even want to fuck her? To be honest, yes, he surely did. The world was over, in spite of Ellen’s micro-attempt to repopulate it. New life just meant livestock for the ghouls outside, fresh meat for the grinder. What good were morals now? Maybe a sociopath like Tommasi had the right idea. Maybe so, but you had to be hardwired for that kind of thing. Nature versus nurture. Alan was a nice boy, period. A nice boy with a dirty mind, but really, was there any other kind? A nice boy with a clean mind was illusory.

  He stepped into the kitchen and opened a package of Cheez-Its, scooping a handful into his mouth. Gone was the rationing mentality. He ate on automatic, not even tasting what he shoveled in. As a thick glob of orangey half-chewed mush wedged in his windpipe, hard edges scraping soft tissue, and he began to choke, the realization that eating had resumed its status as commonplace tickled his brain. Eating wasn’t no thang. He grabbed a bottle of Evian off the counter and took a few swigs, lubricating the doughy wad, swallowing hard, forcing it down. Not so long ago he’d have been nursing each cracker, savoring each bite, picking the crumbs off his shirt and putting them in his mouth, making it last. Now he was back to indifferent fistfuls. Alan walked over to the front windows and admired the crowd on York. The ol’ gang.

  “Hey, folks!” he shouted, waving as if to oldest, bestest buddies. “Hey! How’s it going down there? Same old, same old, huh? Yeah, I know. But look at this!” He palmed another batch of Cheez-Its, Evian at the ready, and rammed them into his mouth. He chewed open mouthed like an ill-mannered child, flecks of fluorescent snack food spattering the sill and windowpane. He spat a gob of the near-glowing processed food onto the bald crown of one of the meatheads below, creating a pulpy yarmulke. No reaction from the target; a reliable disappointment. It was always the same faces down there; having immortalized them in paint, pastel, crayon, charcoal, graphite, and ink, he knew their pusses intimately. It amazed Alan that these brain-dead bastards could be capable of locomotion, yet never go anywhere. They milled around, never straying from their immediate surroundings, like penned animals. It reminded him of families he’d observed in the outer boroughs who never ventured into Manhattan, these urban provincial hicks whose entire lives played out in a square-mile radius. The things below were no different. At least veal had an excuse.

  Not that it mattered any more. If anything, the majority of outer-borough zombies were probably indistinguishable from their former selves. Jesus, even in the apocalypse I’m a snob. Alan wiped his mouth and watched the same old, wishing he could change the channel. Absently, Alan snatched a newsprint pad off the floor and began to sketch the crowd.

  Just to pass the time.

  “Four toes. Four fucking toes.”

  “This is more like it.”

  Three roofs north of Dabney’s, Eddie grinned, testing the tensile strength of the jury-rigged swivel that anchored the butt of his fishing rod. He pushed his feet hard against the wooden footrests he’d nailed straight through the tar paper. Dabney didn’t want that craziness happening on his turf.

  “Yeah, just like those fishing shows on cable. This is gonna fuckin’ rule!” Eddie let out a rebel yell and chugged his beer. He’d gotten to like warm beer. Dave sat nearby on a folding lawn chair, not sharing his buddy’s enthusiasm.

  Eddie planted his ass in his makeshift fighting chair and prepared for a rousing round of “flynchin’.” The rod felt good in his hands. Sturdy. He cast the line—the noose weighted with a brass plumb bob—and jiggled the pole to test the swivel’s motility. Smooth. Beer in one hand, rod in the other, Eddie could almost imagine being on the high seas, maybe off the coast of Cozumel.

  “I’m gonna ask Mona to get me one a them New Age tapes of ocean noise. Play that while I’m up here to help create the mood. That shit would be sweet, bro.”

  “Yeah, sweet.”

  “You bet your ass, sweet.” A few gulps of Corona, a li
ght buzz, fishing with a buddy. Things had sweetened considerably recently. Whatever those pills were, they didn’t hurt, either. There was a playful, nerve-tickling quality about them, whatever they were. In concert with the beer? Nice. He felt small, electric surges in his thighs and groin. Even if they weren’t Mona’s secret weapon against being eaten alive, they were okay by Eddie. He closed his eyes and began to hum tunelessly, rocking his head side to side to simulate the motion of a boat. “Dude, make seagull noises,” he suggested.

  “What?”

  “Make some seagull sounds.”

  “Dude?”

  “Don’t harsh my buzz, bro,” Eddie said, a slight edge creeping into his voice. “Just make some gull noises, okay? Humor me.”

  Dave hemmed and hawed for a few, then let out a series of awful high-pitched squawks.

  “Perfect,” Eddie said, even though the imitation was far from. “More, but vary the loudness. Make some sound far away.”

  Dave had done some questionable things for Eddie, but this was pushing it. Still, he obliged. He felt childish, but that wasn’t so bad. It helped him get into it, and soon he was on his feet, padding around barefoot on the hot tar paper, fluttering his hands and screeching wildly.

  Three roofs over, Dabney stood up and watched them, baffled. “The hell are those two fools doing?” He stepped over to the low dividing wall and took a seat, slinging one leg over the side as if mounting on a horse. He had a plastic cupful of Maker’s Mark and took a sip. Cocktail hour at Bar 1620. Dabney had witnessed some daffy shit in his day, but this won the blue ribbon.

  As Dave caromed around the rooftop like a drunkard’s cue ball, Eddie’s line dipped violently, then bowed as he yanked it upward into a perfect half circle. “Fuck!” he yelled. Dave was oblivious, lost in his seabird impersonation. Eddie dug his feet hard against the wooden blocks and pushed back into the fighting chair, wishing he had a real one, secured to the deck with straps and all. The thing on the other end of the line was a fighter, or at least heavy. The line jerked and whipped around, but the butt remained fixed to the swivel. Dabney stood up and watched, making no move to help or to flee.

  “Fuckin’ bitch!” Eddie growled, loving it.

  His shoulders gleamed with perspiration and tanning lotion, each muscle flexed taut, biceps bulging, knuckles nearly glowing white. The rod pitched forward, nearly toppling Eddie, but he righted himself and threw his shoulders back. Though he thought what Eddie was doing was deeply, profoundly, unfathomably stupid, Dabney couldn’t help but admire the moron’s tenacity. With obvious effort, Eddie worked the reel and slowly the line rewound, his catch brought ever closer. “Yo, Dave! Dave! Stop bein’ a fuckin’ bird an’ help me out! Dave!”

  Dave snapped out of his playacting and once again threw his arms around Eddie’s waist, Heimlich-style. The two of them fought the rod and over the lip of the roof came two zombies bound together at the throat—a twofer! “Sweet baby Jesus!” Eddie whooped. As the two struggling bodies flopped onto the roof, Dave released Eddie’s waist and ran to grab a brick or two. Eddie gripped the rod with one hand as his catches clawed at the monofilament dug deep into their necks. With his other hand he retrieved from under the chair a ball-peen hammer and stalked closer to his prey. “You don’t look so tough to me.”

  Dave hung back, the proximity of the zombies a bit harrowing.

  Dabney watched, now swinging both legs to his side of the roof. “White boys want to get themselves killed, that’s their affair,” he whispered, ready for a hasty departure.

  Eddie advanced on the strung-up twosome, one male, and one barely recognizable as female, any feminine characteristics eroded by living death. Eddie now used the line like a leash, jerking the rod to make them sit up and notice their captor. Distracted from their predicament, the zombies, upon seeing Eddie, began to hiss and slobber, thick ropes of opaque, grayish drool hanging from their slack jaws. Eddie laughed. “You think if I knocked all her teeth out she’d give me a hummer?” he asked, smirking.

  “Dude, I don’t even . . .” Dave was at a loss.

  “Maybe I should bone her till she snaps in two. Maybe I should just bust her up into pieces and see which ones keep twitchin’, then fuck ’em.”

  “Dude . . .” Dave’s lower lip quivered with dismay and disgust.

  “I’m just messing with you, Davis. Chill. Like I’d ever in a million years slip it to a skeezer like this. These are desperate times, but not that desperate.”

  Dave recalled Eddie’s encounter with the Wandering Jewess and wasn’t so sure. Eddie stepped directly in front of the zombies. The line had cut deep into the male’s throat and thick, nearly black grue seeped out. His flaking, sun-baked skin was puckered around the incision, the edge frayed and ratty. His eyes were gray and hazy, but their direction couldn’t be clearer. Both zombies were intensely interested in Eddie and to a lesser extent Dave, who’d retreated a few feet. Only if his help were essential would he advance. The zombies dropped their claws away from the line around their necks and recoiled from Eddie. “You see this shit? You thought the drugs was barking up the wrong tree? Look at ’em, Dave. They’re backing away. See?”

  “Yeah, ’cause they’re scared shitless. Doesn’t mean you’re immune, Eddie.”

  “Killjoy,” he sneered, then swung the hammer in a graceful arc and knocked the jaw clear off the female. “Bull’s-eye!” He guffawed as the female’s hands jerked up to her ruined face in astonishment. “There goes your modeling career,” Eddie scoffed, well pleased. “And so much for that blowjob, too. Although . . .” The zombie’s tongue lolled stupidly in the jawless opening between her upper teeth and gullet.

  Dave turned away and heaved.

  “Fuckin’ killjoy,” Eddie repeated. He stepped over to the female and smashed out her remaining teeth. “Gummy bitch.” The male began to fight against the noose again. Brain-dead or not, he could sense what was coming and it wasn’t a tasty meal or fresh flowers. Eddie palmed the back of the female’s head and jerked it forward, severing the head altogether, giving the male more room to claw at the line. Eddie stepped back and watched as the male struggled to his feet and spat and growled.

  “Gotta love this guy,” Eddie said. “He’s a fighter. A fighter who’s gonna lose, but still.”

  The zombie stumbled back as it managed to free itself.

  “Can’t have that,” Eddie said, and with a roundhouse kick sent the zombie spiraling off the roof back to its fellows.

  “Yoink,” Eddie said, flashing his pearlies.

  “Promise me you’re never going to do that again,” Dave said, straightening up from his puking position.

  “Why make an empty promise, dude?” Eddie beamed as he popped open another brew. “I just found my new regular sunny-afternoon thing.”

  Glancing at his lean-to and considering the vacant apartments below, Dabney contemplated a change of venue, thinking it might be time to move this party indoors.

  34

  “I want to go out with you,” Karl said, standing on the landing by Mona’s open door.

  “On a date?” Mona stared at Karl, her eyes betraying no hint of derision, surprise, or even much in the way of general interest.

  “No, no. Not on a date,” he stammered. “I want to leave the building with you next time you go out. On an errand.”

  A passable facsimile of curiosity flashed across Mona’s face. “Why?”

  “An experiment. I want to see if your zombie repulsion has enough juice to keep them at bay with a companion, if your umbrella of safety extends beyond just you. Remember the childhood game ‘Ghost in the Graveyard’?” Mona shook her head. “Okay, it was like a variation on tag, only there was a graveyard—the playground, your living room, wherever—and a base. The base was a safe zone. So, one kid is chosen to be the ghost. He’s out in the graveyard. Other kids are positioned around the graveyard and have to get back to base. If the ghost tagged you, you were the ghost. But the way we played it was if kids locked arms, or even tied cloth
ing together, you could use ‘electricity’ and leave the base so long as you were tethered to it with a lifeline. The lifeline carried electricity. Not real electricity, you know, just the power of the base. So you could venture into the graveyard safely and taunt the ghost. Sometimes you all were on base and you’d mock the ghost mercilessly until he threatened to quit. Anyway, I want to see if your gift has electricity. You understand?”

  “Bad idea.”

  “Maybe so, but I need to know.”

  “More like you need to die.”

  Karl decided he didn’t like when Mona spoke in full sentences. He felt zoomy and his skin prickled. He actually felt electricity, currents flowing through his epidermis. His hairs stood on end. Maybe it was excitement. Maybe it was the drugs. The drugs. What were those drugs? All those years of living a “Just Say No” lifestyle, and now this. Now a lot of things. If Mona was taking speed she sure didn’t show it. Karl knew of a white-trash family near his town that cooked up homemade crystal meth. Hopped-up farm boys would roar out of that house in pickups and blast buckshot into neighbors’ mailboxes and anything else that didn’t move—and sometimes things that did. Big Manfred had pronounced them “doomed.”

  “So, what do you say, Mona? Can I come?”

  “Bring your Bible.”

  “To stop the zombies? Like The Exorcist? ‘The power of Christ compels you,’ ” Karl said, doing a bad impersonation of Max von Sydow.

  “In case you need Last Rites.”

  Karl definitely didn’t like when Mona spoke. Drugs. The Antichrist. Some folks were right, others weren’t. Mona fell into the latter category. How were they fixed for staples? To the best of Karl’s knowledge, all coffers were brimming. He wanted to put this to the test. Abe had mentioned wanting books. Was that call to leave the nest? Karl felt impatient and Mona’s impassivity exacerbated it. He wasn’t a violent man but he felt the desire to slap her, if only to see what reaction she’d have, if any. Would she get mad? Would she fight back? It was maddening, her demeanor. He wanted to punch her. Not in the face, though. In the stomach. He wanted her to wince and bend over. He wanted to force her to her knees and make her supplicate.