Zombie

by J. R. Angelella

  I sit in my stall, feet down now, not pissing like a girl the way Dad thinks I like to pee, not reading the lady magazine I stole called Motherhood. Instead, I hold it at the corner like a piece of trash. The pregnant woman on the cover holds her fat stomach, smiling. She stands on a beach. Tiny drops of blood drip onto the pregnant woman’s face on my magazine. I touch my nose and see that it is bleeding again. I rip off some toilet paper to clamp off the leak. I open to the table of contents of the magazine and find an article on the argument: to breastfeed or not to breastfeed. I’m more interested in what scientific reasons they have discovered defending each side of the argument but try and trick myself into thinking that I’m really hoping to see some sideboob. The article is top to bottom words with a small picture of the author, Dr. Sandra Snow. She’s the sexiest doctor I’ve ever seen. The rest of the magazine is filled with advertisements for breast pumps and depression pills.

  Guilt, it seems, starts at birth.

  As the blood quells in my nose, I roll the magazine up into a cylinder and slide it back into my bag. New graffiti covers the stall around me, but I could care less about it. Bores me now. Only so many times I can see my own name inserted into a colorful phrase before I get completely bored. I drop my feet to the floor and flush the toilet. I am not sure why I flush, but it feels like the next logical step. The water swirls around in a tight spiral, sucking down and away into a mysterious invisible pipe in the wall.

  As the crescendo of the flush disappears, the bathroom door opens again. Someone else enters. They push open the stall next to mine, tip the seat down, and set in. Fuck. I slide back onto my toilet, pulling my feet back up. Maybe they didn’t hear the flush. Maybe they came in after I flushed and have no idea I’m in here. I hold my breath and close my eyes and conjure the image of Aimee White, a moon hanging over the Inner Harbor behind her. God, she’s beautiful in my memory. And as my image of her turns more dirty and sexual in nature with hands grabbing parts and parts sliding into holes, there’s a knock on my stall.

  I don’t respond.

  Another knock—soft knuckles on the plastic walls. Then a hand appears under the stall wall, holding a half-eaten chocolate-chocolate, chocolate-dipped donut with white sprinkles. “Want a bite?” he asks. He holds the donut steady, but when I don’t respond, he dances the donut from side-to-side.

  “Zink,” I say.

  “It’s really fucking good. The best.”

  “Man, you scared the shit out of me.”

  “So no donut?” He stops making it dance and instead gives it one last shake, like a rattle in a baby’s face. “Your loss,” he says, pulling his hand away. He takes another bite and talks through his chews. “These little delicious treats are like sex.” His chewing couldn’t be more audible if he tried. “Let me get this straight,” he says, pausing, waiting, I’m sure, as he forces down a painful swallow. “You want to be alone. You don’t want a chocolate-chocolate, chocolate-dipped donut with white sprinkles. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m keeping a low profile,” I say. “I’m regular.”

  “Buddy,” he says. “You’re pretty fucking far from regular.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I say. “I don’t want your fucking donut.”

  “Hey, I know how it can be.”

  I want to paint over these stalls and wipe away the graffiti.

  “I’m in hiding,” I say.

  “From?”

  “Ultimate Fighter Frank. Plaid Fuck Cam. Mr. Rembrandt. Coach O’Bannon. Take your pick.”

  “Fuck,” he says. “You piss all those people off?”

  “Not exactly. Not quite. It’s easier this way though.”

  “You’re locked inside your head,” he says.

  “Locked?” I ask.

  “I want you to ask me a question,” he says. “You’ll never get through the day if you can’t get outside your head. Ask me anything. Anything you’ve ever wanted to know. That sexy, sugary donut has me high as a kite, so fire away. Go ahead and ask me a question about anything, and I will answer it.”

  Still each in our own stalls, invisible to one another, only our voices present, I say, “Why do you play soccer with those Plaid assholes?”

  “Easy. I love playing the game and no one is going to keep me from that, not even dickless wonders like Cam and his Lackeys. My Dad kicked a soccer ball to me before I could walk. It’s what I’m good at. It’s my thing.”

  “Who is Paul?” I don’t waste time and fire away the first thing that pops into my head.

  “Jeremy,” Zink says. “My friend. Good work.”

  “You know that I know?” I ask.

  Zink laughs in such a way that makes me feel like I’m a stand-up comedian. Sometimes I say things unintentionally funny and people laugh and it feels like they are laughing at me, poking fun at me, instead of laughing with me. This used to happen a lot between Mom and Dad, usually Dad laughing at something Mom had said. But it’s different with Zink. His laugh is the sound of a friend.

  “Jeremy,” he says, “I’ve always known you’ve known. I saw you in the reflection of the mirror.”

  “You weren’t nervous that I’d tell?”

  “Untrustworthy people are a dime a dozen and do untrustworthy things. It’s expected. They can’t be controlled. But trusted people are surprising. Thank you for surprising me.”

  I hear him open his stall, a small squeak. I open mine too. We meet by the sinks again. He’s dressed in his gameday tracksuit.

  “You look very athletic,” I say.

  “I better,” he says.

  “Does anyone else …”

  “No,” he says.

  “Just me?”

  “And Paul.”

  “I want to meet Paul. You know that I’m not weird about it, right?”

  “Jeremy, you’re totally weird about it, but I trust you. And it’s not a big deal.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” I ask.

  “Of course not,” he says. “It’s a part of me, but not all of me.”

  “Why are you telling me now?” I ask.

  “Why not,” he says.

  64

  I call Dad again from the pay phone after last period to see where he’s parked, but his phone goes right to voicemail. I call Mom. I call Jackson. I get the same response from everyone, which is no response at all.

  I exit the even side of the building and walk toward the bus stop. A harem of Prudence High girls approach, dressed in their short plaid skirts and white blouses.

  There she is again—Aimee White.

  “J-Dog,” she says. “Long time. You and Mykel back to scamming on girls?”

  “Not at all,” I say. “I was on my way home.”

  “How’s the nose?”

  “It’s well.”

  “Well,” Aimee says. She stops. Her girlfriends keep on for the theater. “Jeremy Barker.”

  “I can’t believe you remembered my name.”

  “It’s hard to forget the name of the boy who bled all over you the first day of play practice, and got you in trouble with the director. Jeremy Barker,” she says, tapping her temple. “It’s cemented.”

  “You coming to the mixer tonight?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” she says.

  “What’s a maybe?”

  “A maybe is a maybe,” she says.

  “Aimee White,” I say. “I have a few things I’d like to say to you.” It still hurts to breath, but I take a breath to ready myself. “You have an awesome name. I love it. Colors for last names are just so badass.” I exhale. The words are coming easier than I thought they would. “I like you, Aimee White. And I know that’s a weird thing to say to someone you don’t really know, but I like you. I like you even though you really don’t seem to like me at all.”

  “You’re right, I don’t like you. I’m not a fan of chronic bleeders.”

  “I’m coming to the mixer tonight and I would love to see you there.”

  “If I decide to co
me, I’ll be sure to bring gauze and surgical tape,” she says.

  “And I’m sorry I bled on you.”

  She backs away from me, moving toward the lecture hall. She doesn’t say anything and eventually turns around and vanishes.

  I run across the front of the school to the bus stop just as the 55 screeches to a halt. The driver, an old man with a long white beard, opens the door and waves for me to get in. I climb in and he closes the doors and accelerates down the road, past Byron Hall. I sit right up front. “How you doing today?”

  “Sixty/forty,” he says. “Know how people say they are fifty/fifty, that they could go either way? You know, deciding between Mexican and Chinese or between seeing a horror film or romantic comedy. Oh, I’m split. Can’t decide. Fifty/fifty. Well, not me. I don’t see things that way. I’m sixty/forty.”

  “Okay, but sixty/forty about what?”

  “Whatever. There’s always something to be sixty/forty over.”

  “I’m Jeremy,” I say.

  “Why the hell do I care about your name?” he asks.

  “Because I’m the guy who’s going to steal your sixty/forty philosophy.”

  65

  Another night at home, alone, and Dad is gone.

  No car out front. No half-eaten Chinese food in the living room. No voicemails on my charged cell phone. No instructions on how to cook a pre-made dinner. No curfew to keep me close to home. No parents. No siblings. No nosey neighbors keeping tabs on my activities and reporting them back to Dad. My only neighbor is Tricia and I can’t wait to check in on her from my room.

  With Dad disappearing, I worry about Dog being regularly fed, walked, and kept in clean water. I don’t see her downstairs in any of her usual haunts, but when I search the upstairs I find her asleep in Dad’s bed, curled up on the side where Mom used to sleep.

  My first mixer is tonight and I have no one here to help. And it’s more than just getting dressed and smelling good. What do I do when I get there? Do I just grind up on the ladies? Is it grinding? Is that what they call it? Or is it freaking?

  In my room, zombies stare down at me. I look across the way to Tricia’s bedroom window and her blinds are open too. I can still see her naked. All I have to do is close my eyes and there she is in all of her pink skin glory. Tonight, though, Tricia is there and stares back at me, dressed in a robe, fresh from the shower, then slides the blinds closed completely.

  I dress for the mixer with Zink’s tips in mind and am back out on the Baltimore streets, waiting for a Northbound 55.

  There’s a little boy on the bus sitting next to his Mom and he points at me and says, “Did you get in a fight? Your nose is bleeding.”

  “No,” I say, taking out a tissue and wiping away the blood. “I’m sixty/forty.”

  66

  The Byron Hall Catholic School for Boys calls these mixers. DJ Doug spins a techno version of “Brown Eyed Girl” and all the girls come running to the dance floor. DJ Doug says, “I want to see some booties shake out there!” DJ Doug wears a jester’s hat with bells and a black collared shirt unbuttoned halfway down his hairy chest, tucked into black pants. DJ Doug says embarrassing things a fifty-year-old man should never say. He says, “Everybody get low.” He says, “Show how you’d put ’em on the glass.” My favorite is when he says, “Is anybody out there gettin’ lucky tonight?”

  People dance to the bass-heavy music, grinding and shaking against each other under the shifting, flashing, pounding lights. A group of Plaids dance together in front of the stage, each with their own girl. They move around like retarded robots, just like Zink said they would. It’s also worth noting that Plaids wear plaid outside of school, too.

  Mykel snaps his camera, the flash popping like a spotlight. He dances to the music with his camera strap looped around his neck. He stops dancing to shoot the crowds. He shoots a girl holding the wall with one hand and adjusting her shoe with the other. He shoots DJ Doug, bent at the waist, tying the laces of his bright white tennis shoes. He shoots two girls dancing back to back in the center of the dance floor, twirling their arms over their heads. He shoots a guy picking a wedgie from his ass.

  The room throbs like a stubbed toe.

  Brother Bill and Brother Fred stand in the corner of the cafe by the fire exit, watching their Christian sons dry-hump random girls. I haven’t seen Brother Lee tonight and wonder if he is like the secret weapon around here, hiding like the little ninja that he is. In their black tunics, the Brothers appear invisible, except when they step between dancers. Brother Bill and Brother Fred tag-team the grinders, working together to keep the peace and the pelvic distance between groins.

  The music is loud as fuck and I can hardly think. This is all so stupid, the ditzy, half-naked, doe-eyed girls fake stripper-dancing with each other. All of it.

  Zink appears in a red polo shirt and khaki pants.

  “You said not to wear khakis,” I say. “Only on holidays and at church, you said.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s this whole thing.” He looks at what I’m wearing. “You look like a gentleman caller.”

  “Fuck you,” I say. “Nobody even knows what that means.”

  “Barks, you want women thinking of you as a big dick daddy from Cincinnati.”

  “I’m not really good at dancing.”

  “You got to turn your game on, Barks.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  A girl with bright blue hair nudges past us. She wears purple fishnet stockings under a black skirt and a striped gray shirt with a skull on the front, tugged down over the edges of her shoulders. She looks at Zink.

  “Who was that?” I ask.

  “The one,” he says, patting my back, following behind the punk girl. “Game on.”

  An all too familiar song starts and that wicked-sick bass line drops in and it’s like crack to the dancing fool kids. Everyone—no matter who they are and what they’re wearing—collapses onto the dance floor, doing the Michael Jackson zombie stroll until the lyrics start and a giant sing-along ensues. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” My body can’t deny “Thriller” and I collapse onto the dance floor and do the damn zombie shuffle, shoulder drop and all, with everyone else. The song ends and for the fleeting moment everything was better than sixty/forty.

  When I was a kid, Dad showed me the film version of the music video and it scared the living shit out of me. It was one of the earliest zombie movies I had seen. I spent that night sleeping on the floor with Dog because I believed that Dog would protect me while I slept and would scare any dancing zombies away. Little did I know that Dog doesn’t get up for shit during the night. When I woke, I was back in my bed and the trees from outside cast shadows across the ceiling that looked like demon claws. Dad had found me on Dog’s pillow and carried me back to bed. The next day I watched the video again and watched it again and then I wanted the whole album and the “Thriller” poster. I asked Mom if I could put the poster on the ceiling of my room and after much whining, she agreed. I positioned it right where the shadows crept into my room and this is how my posters on the ceiling began.

  Jackson’s cooz corner isn’t empty. There’s a guy sitting in a chair pressed against the wall with a girl sitting on his lap, her back to him as she grinds down on him. The girl has long blonde hair and wears a tiny white babydoll T-shirt and pink short-shorts. And of course she’s grinding down on none other than Cam Dillard’s lap. And he’s dressed like a plaid-inspired optical illusion. Fuck me. The sight of them dance-humping in the chair takes me out of myself like a ghost, and the next thing I know I am right at their side.

  “I hear your Mom takes it up the ass like a champion,” I say, surprising myself that I even said anything at all. I give him two thumbs up.

  “Who’s a champion?” he asks.

  “Your mother,” I say. More thumbs.

  The music fades and the girl climbs off.

  “Say it again,” Cam says, leaning closer. “Say it.”

  “I said”—my heart slams m
y ribcage—“your mother takes it up the ass like a motherfucking champion.” I grab my dick. “She calls me her big dick daddy from Cincinnati.”

  Cam swings at me, but misses. He jumps to his feet, his hands poised to grab me and beat the living fuck out of me, except he freezes when he sees me—a chair hoisted over my head, daring him to come closer.

  “Call me faggot again,” I say. “Go on. Say it.”

  “Do yourself a favor,” he says, “and start running.” Cam’s hands are fists set at his sides.

  “Suck my dick,” I say and chuck the chair to the floor. It crashes and slides along the floor until it hits the wall and flips over loud enough for the entire room to go completely quiet. A princess spotlight cuts over from the stage to Cam by the vending machines. He picks up the chair and sets it upright. He raises his hand as if to accept blame.

  Father Vincent grabs me by the arms as I try and pass him.

  “Jeremy, slow down. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  “I have to go, Father,” I say. I look back. Brother Lee rushes toward Cam, trying to cut off the inevitable, waving at the room, shouting, “No dork. No dork!”

  “Jeremy, talk to me,” Father Vincent says. “I can help you.”

  “I wish I could. I do. Please, Father,” I say. “If you want to help me, please let me go.”

  Cam steps back into the crowd to slip away, but Brother Lee grabs his shirt and pulls him back, then waves his arms at DJ Doug to start the next song. But it’s too late. It starts as several, single voices—loud ones. Then mob mentality takes hold and like a wave rolling towards shore, the distinct voices become pockets, which grow together into a monstrous dork thundering down on top of Cam with every variation imaginable.