Feral Boy Meets Girl: Stories
by
William Jablonsky
Copyright © 2020 William Jablonsky
All Rights Reserved
Published by Unsolicited Press
First Edition.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Attention schools and businesses: for discounted copies on large orders, please contact the publisher directly.
For information contact:
Unsolicited Press
Portland, Oregon
www.unsolicitedpress.com
[email protected]
619-354-8005
Cover Design: Kathryn Gerhardt
Editor: Analieze Cervantes
To my parents, for whom everything I do is cake
And to the memory of Wendell Mayo: mentor, storyteller, friend.
Publication History
The following stories have been previously published, some in different form:
“The Death And Life Of Bob” in Shimmer. Reprinted in Zombies: More Recent Dead, Ed. Paula Guran (Prime Books, 2014).
“Feral Boy Meets Girl” in Children, Churches & Daddies.
“Death-Rays: A Tragedy” in Licking River Review.
“Mannheim the Miraculous” (as “The Miracle”) in Booth.
“The Nefarious Plot of Mr. John J. Johnson” in Wisconsin Review.
“The Sound Of His Voice” in Persistent Visions.
“Static” in Asimov’s. Reprinted in XB-1.
“Minutes of the Pine Valley Residents’ Board” in Emrys Journal.
“The Very Civilized Execution Of Walter Grimley” in Bourbon Penn.
“The Witch of the West Branch” in Cutthroat.
“Do Not Break The Heart Of Charles Nelson Bereiter” in From The Depths.
Table of Contents
Publication History
Table of Contents
The Death and Life of Bob
Feral Boy Meets Girl
Death-Rays: A Tragedy
Mannheim the Miraculous
The Nefarious Plot of Mr. John J. Johnson
The Sound Of His Voice
Static
The Very Civilized Execution of Walter Grimley
Minutes of the Pine Valley Residents’ Board
The Witch of the West Branch
Michigan Avenue Lullaby
Do Not Break The Heart Of Charles Nelson Bereiter
About the Author
About the Press
The Death and Life of Bob
Monday
Bob Jarmush is dead.
We do not even notice Bob’s empty chair until Marlene tells us, just after eight, when we are all settled in. It happened early Saturday morning, she says, her thin face devoid of its usual condescending smile: Bob collapsed while pruning his hedges, and by the time the paramedics arrived it was too late.
His funeral is on Thursday. Marlene and her executive assistant Cayla will make a brief, dignified appearance; we may also attend, if we wish.
We begin erasing Bob from the office. Jeremy, the IT kid, clears his password from the system; Cayla slides the Star Wars statuettes, R2D2 pencil sharpener, and framed picture with Mark Hamill into an empty office-paper box. Bob has no family, so there will be no awkward, somber-faced presentation of the box of junk at his front door. For this we are thankful.
His voicemail has forty-seven messages on it—deranged school board members complaining that our science textbooks teach evolution, or that our history texts have too few white people. We decide to leave them to his replacement, whoever that may be.
When we are finished, Cayla bows her head low, says a prayer for Bob. Our gaze drifts to the self-embroidered abomination on her brown corduroy skirt—ivy, perhaps, or a giant green centipede devouring a katydid. We cannot tell. Her transgressions are many, and difficult to decipher.
She says, “Amen,” and we’re done.
Tuesday
As we hang our coats on the rack, we hear a piercing scream from outside. We run to the window, thinking we are about to look upon a mugging or a murder scene. Nothing so exciting has happened here since Roger’s ex-wife caught him with Charlotte and chased him down the street with a Ginsu knife. But when we reach the window, we see only Cayla on her knees in an empty parking space, an entire tray of her dry, flavorless poppyseed muffins scattered on the blacktop. Someone probably ought to help, but this would require speaking to her.
When we turn around, Bob is standing in the doorway, silent, his face devoid of expression.
His eyes are dull, recessed and deflated in their sockets, lips dry and cracking, skin an indefinable pinkish-bluish-gray. His face sags from his skull as if the skin is detaching from his hairline; his dingy iron-gray mustache clings to his face, and beneath his lime-green oxford shirt is the shadow of a stapled Y-incision.
For a few seconds, we muse that he doesn’t look that different. Then it hits us, and we stand paralyzed at our desks.
He lopes toward us across the 60s-era gold diamond rug. Our bodies tense: at the first guttural moan it’ll be every man for himself.
Instead, Bob’s blank expression explodes into a big sheepish smile. “Morning, kids,” he says, his voice a low raspy whisper. “How was your weekend?” Someone in the first row of cubicles passes gas with a wet, slapping sound—probably Roger, who has colitis—and a smell like rotten pork fills the office.
Bob tosses his threadbare tan touring cap and windbreaker on the rack, sits down at his desk, stares at the empty desktop. His eyes are still clouded over, and when he looks up, we cannot bear them upon us. “Anybody know where my stuff is?”
We say nothing; Roger gets up and runs to the bathroom.
“Hello?” Bob says again.
The tense silence is broken when Cayla comes inside, clutching her silver crucifix, her skirt covered in muffin crumbs and parking-lot dirt. She tiptoes up to Bob, as if that will escape his notice; hand quivering, she reaches out and touches Bob’s shoulder with one fingertip.
He smiles again. “Good morning, Cayla.” She crumples into a ball on the floor, spewing gibberish. Cayla goes to the church that used to be a Sav-A-Lot, where they speak in tongues, so no one is surprised.
Finally—because he is the only one who can move—Jeremy runs down the narrow aisle to Marlene’s office.
We can only see them through her window—Jeremy’s arms flailing, Marlene stoic in her big leather chair, as if she thinks he’s just taken a hit of meth. Then she looks, and her eyes go wide. After a long, deep breath, she wills herself to her feet.
Marlene smooths her layered salt-and-pepper locks, pushes her spectacles up her nose. She is beautiful, imperious, more like a museum curator than a textbook sales director. She is clearly the only one capable of handling this.
And so she does—walks right up to Bob, who is busy trying to log on to the computer. Marlene nudges Cayla with her leather pump. “Back to your desk, Cayla,” she says. “It’s all right.” But we can all tell she has steeled herself for the worst. As Cayla creeps away, Marlene and Bob share a long, silent stare.
“Bob?” she says, apprehension in her lilty voice. “This is very unusual.”
Bob lifts himself out of his chair, raises his arms; Marlene stands her ground. We are certain he is about to seize her and sink his teeth into the soft flesh of her shoulder. We will certainly leave her to die, but in the aftermath, we will speak of her with reverence.
But Bob does not eat her.
Instead he smiles, big and broad, puts his doughy arms around Marlene and hugs her tight.
“It’s good to see you again,” he says. He looks over her shoulder at all of us on the sales floor. “It’s so good to be back.”
Marlene gently extricates herself from Bob’s embrace. “I’m sure we’re all glad to see you alive and well, Bob. But as I said, this is a little unusual.”
His dingy gray eyebrows jut upward. “Oh. You’ve hired someone already?”
“Well, no,” Marlene says, disarmed. “But, Bob, you passed away. You were dead.”
Bob shrugs. “I came back,” he says. “Can’t blame you for being nervous, though. Couldn’t we just chalk it up to sick leave?”
Marlene looks around the room, then back at Bob, her face relaxing as she exits crisis mode. “Let’s talk about it in my office,” she says. “Everyone else, back to work.”
We stare through Marlene’s office window trying to discern what is happening. Both are smiling, with an occasional laugh, and after a few minutes he hoists himself out of the faux-leather chair and they shake hands. Stan the accountant, who is partially deaf, reads her lips as Bob gets up: “Welcome back,” Marlene says. “To everything.”
Bob lumbers back, sits down at his desk like nothing happened at all. When he sees us staring, he gives us a quick wink.
We hear a burbling sound, and poor Roger whispers, “Not again.”
Bob’s fingers move slowly over the dial buttons as he answers his voicemail—not exactly zombielike, but stiff just the same. We watch his doughy torso to see if he is still breathing. He is. We wonder if his heart is still beating, and e-mail Jeremy to see if he has the stones to check. He does not. Cayla comes over only once, empties the box of knickknacks and Star Wars statuettes on Bob’s desk, scurries back to her cubicle with a little squeak. She does not speak all day, and for this we are grateful.
He goes to the break room at lunchtime; we try not to look at him, pretend to follow the tiny cracks in the yellow plaster wall, take far too long selecting chips and soda from the vending machines. He pulls out a vintage Darth Vader lunchbox—one of the old metal kind we all had in grade school—and a plastic bag. We expect something gray and spongy, but instead he unwraps a cheese and tomato sandwich on an Asiago roll. We watch his teeth as he takes his first bite: a bit yellow, but normal, not jagged and rotten. He chews, slowly.
He sees us watching. “Mmmmmm,” he moans. “Braaaiiiinnns.”
Our jaws drop. Charlotte, the telemarketer, drops her soda on the speckled gray linoleum. Cayla’s hands flutter around her face and she runs away. For thirty seconds the breakroom is quiet as death. Then Jeremy starts to laugh—a muffled giggle he tries to control, but he fails and gives in to a full belly laugh.
“You are one sick motherfucker,” he says.
Bob salutes. “At your service.”
Then everyone laughs, and suddenly we feel better.
Wednesday
Bob looks better this morning, his hue pinker, his movements fluid and normal. Not at all like a walking corpse.
At lunchtime, as he plays with his laptop in the break room, he sips coffee out of a Yoda-head mug, closing his eyes as if it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. He watches the screen for a minute, then launches into a wheezing laugh.
We try not to look. We really do.
“Hey kids,” he says. “Want to see something really cool?”
Of course we do, but the adults are not bold enough to say yes. Fortunately, Jeremy is there. “Hell yeah, man!”
Bob hits the mouse pad, turns his laptop toward us. We pull up plastic chairs and gather round like children.
Bob talks with his mouth full of bagel. “Hospital sent me this yesterday with a big settlement check, just for a laugh,” he says. “Not for the faint of heart.”
He clicks “Play,” and a moment later there he is, blue-gray on a metal table, his floppy bits hanging out in the open. We should be offended, but this is too fascinating for propriety. Next thing we know, a young Asian woman in a white coat and facemask is cutting a deep ‘Y’ into his torso. Just as she inserts the rib-spreader, Bob’s limp hand goes stiff, juts out and grabs her by the wrist. She screams, drops the rib-spreader. Then Bob’s eyes snap open and he too begins to scream, like a lion being stabbed in the gut. He rolls off the table and, for the next two minutes, runs naked and bellowing around the morgue, chest gaping open, chasing away anyone who gets close. Finally a group of orderlies wrestle him to the ground and drape a white sheet over him, and the recording ends.
It is the most spectacular thing we have ever seen.
Bob smiles. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Did it hurt?” Charlotte asks, pointing toward Bob’s chest. This is the most any of us have said to Bob in years.
“Not really,” Bob says. “Didn’t feel much of anything. Itches like crazy now, though.”
“Can we see?” Jeremy asks, giddy.
Bob shrugs, untucks his brown polo, pulls it up over his pudgy body. And there it is: the Y-shaped line of staples running down his entire torso.
Incredible.
“Staples will be out in a few days,” he says.
Cayla, standing in the doorway, interrupts our trance. “When you died,” she says, saccharine in her smile, “Did you see loved ones? Your family?”
A long silence follows—Cayla is clearly expecting him to say his dear old granddad showed up to lead him to the Pearly Gates. But Bob shakes his head. “Sorry, kiddo,” he says. “One minute I was falling face-first into the hedges, the next I was splayed open on that table. Nothing in between.”
Cayla’s smile goes taut, like it’s been carved into her face. “Well, that can’t be,” she says. “You weren’t really dead, then.”
“As a doornail,” Bob replies. “No pulse, no brain activity, nothing.”
“Then you must not be Christian,” Cayla huffs.
“Catholic, born and raised,” Bob says.
Cayla’s entire face scrunches up so tight we think it will implode. “I’m confused,” she says. “Of all people, why you?”
Bob shrugs. “Couldn’t tell you, kiddo. Just glad to be back.” He reaches out to pat her shoulder, but she recoils.
“Don’t touch me,” Cayla whispers, and turns to leave, her mauve canvas muumuu making scratching noises against her stockings.
Bob takes another long sip of coffee. “Tell you what, kids—being dead sure does make you appreciate things like a good cup o’Joe.”
We nod, suddenly craving coffee. That ancient Bunn churns out a sludge that tastes like it’s been squeezed from a wet dishrag, but as the hot liquid touches our lips, it seems richer somehow.
Thursday
For most of the day we stare at Bob, smiling as he takes his calls, waving or winking at us when he senses our eyes on him. The deep lines that etched his face before he died are beginning to disappear, though we can still see pronounced veins on his forehead and forearms. We are almost used to him being back, so much so that on occasion our eyes wander back to Cayla’s baby-shit green tunic and skirt and a medallion twice the size of her fist, with a cannon and a cross and the engraving, IN THE ARMY OF THE LORD. When she has paperwork for Bob she tries to pass it to one of us to hand him; we pretend to be busy just to watch her slink up to Bob’s desk, set the papers on the very edge, and tiptoe away as if he doesn’t see.
It is our tradition to do karaoke night at Big Mike’s on Thursdays after work, and for the first time since any of us has been here, we invite Bob, who thinks about it for a minute, shrugs, and says, “Don’t mind if I do.”
Big Mike’s is a bar and grill next to the office, built like an oversized Airstream trailer with a little plank for a dance floor and miniature juke boxes at each table. Bob looks around the place as we go in, joy in his eyes. “This place has been here for nine years and I’ve never even been inside,” he says. “Imagine that.” We are pleased with ourselves for introducing him to such a treasure, even if a bit late.
For the first half-hour no one steps up—it takes a few beers to lose enough inhibitio
n—but finally Bob gets up from his seat next to Charlotte. He fiddles with the karaoke machine for a minute, presses the button. Horns blast over the PA; Bob seizes the microphone stand like he’s about to swing it, and belts out the lyrics to “Mack the Knife” in a velvet baritone you’d never expect to come out of his dumpy body.
None of us knew Bob could sing.
When Bob is finished the half-drunk crowd bursts into applause; he takes a bow and returns to us.
“That was fucking awesome!” Jeremy slurs, slapping Bob on the shoulder.
Later, when Roger gets up to do a spastic rendition of Barbara Mandrell’s “Sleepin’ Single In A Double Bed,” we watch in awe as Bob takes Charlotte’s hand and leads her to the little wooden palate of a dance floor. At first, it’s ridiculous, Bob’s thin arms flailing about his pudgy torso like no human thing, and it takes every bit of Charlotte’s will not to laugh. A few people at the tables near us do, but Bob doesn’t care. After a minute or two he loosens up and starts whipping her all over the floor. When the song ends, he twirls her under his arm; dour, anorexic, alcoholic Charlotte laughs, but there’s no mockery in it, and once she stops twirling she plants a kiss on his neck, right below his ear.
At ten, when we’re dried out and tired, we stumble back to the office parking lot. Spent as we are, we still notice Charlotte climbing into Bob’s old hatchback, and we smile.
Friday
When we arrive at work, Charlotte’s blue Volvo is still in the same space as last night, far from the building near the railroad tracks, and we believe in miracles.
Then we notice the red spray paint on the front door:
GOD HATES ZOMBIES
Of course Marlene asks, and of course Cayla denies it.
Bob and Charlotte arrive together: Bob first, Charlotte thirty seconds later, acting like nothing has happened.
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