Breathers (20 page)

he bus stop near my home is an unsheltered bench. Very pleasant on a warm sunny day. On a cold, rainy, November day, however, waiting for the bus is about as pleasant as a used diaper. But I shouldn't complain. If not for the fact that the county expects its mass transit customers to have to stand in the rain, I probably wouldn't have a chance.

None of the three Breathers waiting for the bus notice there's a zombie in a rain poncho standing six feet away. Most Breathers, in spite of their acts of bravado in large groups or from the safety of their passing cars, become nervous when confronted with a zombie. Especially in a situation when they're not expecting it.

Like waiting for the bus.

Or standing in line for the theater.

Or ordering steaks at the meat counter.

I glance around from beneath the hood of my poncho, grateful for the rain and for the ivory concealer and foundation my mother bought me. In the sunlight, with no shadows to help hide my condition, no amount of makeup would have allowed me to make it this far unnoticed. And while my
left leg still drags a little, my zombie walk isn't quite as pronounced this morning.

I'm not as nervous as I thought I'd be, or as nervous as I imagined I
should
be. It's mostly memory response that reminds me I could get into a lot of trouble for this. My mind or consciousness or whatever it is understands the threat, but since my brain has stopped sending signals of alarm to my adrenal gland, which isn't functioning anyway, my body doesn't know it should be in a state of anxiety. So long as no one takes a close look at me, I should be fine.

Still, I can swear that my pores are sweating.

When the bus finally pulls up, the number 71 to Monterey via Watsonville, I wait for the Breathers to file on, then fall in behind them and manage to get up and into the bus without falling on my face. Which is always a good way to start your morning.

In spite of the fact that I don't experience sensory input the way I did before my nerve endings died and my synapses stopped firing, I'm excited. I feel a bit like a pioneer, going boldly where no zombie has ever gone before. Kind of like an undead Captain Kirk.

I wonder if Rosa Parks felt this way.

But when I drop exact change into the meter and turn and stare down the aisle at the half-full bus, I freeze up.

I'm surrounded by Breathers.

If I stagger down the aisle to seek refuge at the back of the bus, I might draw attention and get kicked off or hauled away to the SPCA before the bus ever pulls into traffic. If I claim the nearest empty set of seats, I risk having additional riders file past me, maybe even sit next to me.

“Please take your seat, sir,” says the bus driver.

I'm not sure if it's the realization that everyone on the bus
is staring at me or that a Breather addressed me without malice or that I'm dishonoring the memory of both Rosa Parks and William Shatner, but my paralysis breaks and I take the first available set of empty seats, two rows back on the driver's side. I sit at the window, hoping if someone sits next to me I can pretend I'm asleep, which shouldn't be too difficult to pull off considering that I just managed to pretend I'm alive.

I start to smile, sitting in my seat on a bus filled with Breathers who don't know what I am, waiting to pull away from the curb. But the bus just sits there and I see the bus driver in the rearview mirror, glancing at me, and I feel the eyes of everyone in the bus on me. They can sense something's not right, that there's something off about me, but they can't quite figure it out because the obvious answer is out of the question. A zombie would never try to get on a bus. Still, there's something out of sorts, something everyone feels but can't quite put their fingers on.

That's what I tell myself.

The memory of panic and discouragement flows through me as the bus driver glances at me one more time. Then he shifts a lever and the front door slides shut with a
whoosh.
An instant later, the bus lets out a hydraulic fart and pulls away from the curb and I'm on my way to see Annie.

It seems like more than four months since I last saw my daughter. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering what she actually looks like. But I'm excited at the thought of seeing her again, of seeing her smile and hearing her laugh. I just hope I can stand the bus ride.

I'd never been on Santa Cruz public transportation while I was alive and now I know why. The seats aren't much better than medieval torture chairs, the bus stops every two minutes to let passengers on or off, and a lot of the Breathers who take
the bus don't smell much better than I do. At least I won't stand out on the olfactory front.

The bus comes to a stop in Soquel Village, near the community center where the group meets. I look out the windows, at the people walking past and the cars filled with Breathers, all of them unaware that a zombie is right here in their midst, riding a public bus, flaunting the very rules of my existence.

I'm not used to enjoying an unmolested trip through town in daylight, so this feels a bit surreal, as if I'm not really here but having an out-of-body experience. Then again, my entire existence is kind of like an out-of-body experience.

When the doors to the bus open, a mother and her young son get on board. The mother looks as if she's been awake for three days and knows she won't get to sleep anytime soon. Her son, who looks to be about eight or nine, appears to be the reason for her insomnia.

The boy stomps up the steps, jumping with both feet at once and landing with the force of a WWF wrestler. With each landing, he lets out an explosion of sound effects.

“Ronnie,” says his mother, “stop it, please.”

Ronnie, who has reached the top step, continues to jump up and down, releasing little explosions.

Ronnie is why contraception should be taught in schools.

While Ronnie takes off down the aisle toward the back of the bus, his mother pays the fare with a weary, apologetic look to the bus driver, then turns away and shouts at her son.

“Ronnie!”

As the bus pulls away and Ronnie's mother trudges after her son, I stare out the window and think about where I'm going and I feel a smile slip across my face. I can't wait to see Annie. I know she might not be prepared to see her father wearing makeup to hide the fact that he's slowly decaying,
but that's okay. I don't want to frighten her. I don't even care if she knows I'm there. All I want is a glimpse of Annie, to see her smiling and know she's okay and healthy and happy. That's all I want.

I settle into my hard, plastic torture chair and watch the village slip away behind us, thoughts of Annie filling me with a sense of calm. Then something crawls between my legs.

“Ronnie! Come here!”

I glance down and see Ronnie on the floor, slithering between my feet on his back, facing me. I can see his little gremlin expression, his tongue hanging out, his eyes filled with mischief. Those eyes look up at me, directly into mine, and Ronnie starts to scream.

So much for my trip to Monterey.

Seconds later, Ronnie's mother is standing in the aisle next to me, yelling for Ronnie, reaching for her screaming son, who is thrashing around on the floor beneath me like a floundering fish, trying to get away. The man sitting in front of me turns around to see what all the fuss is about. When he gets a good look at me, his eyes open wide and he scrambles out of his seat, shouting, “Jesus Christ! It's a zombie!”

Pandemonium ensues. All of the passengers around me leave their seats, stumbling over one another to get away. Ronnie is still screaming on the floor of the bus, trapped by his own hysteria while his mother takes several steps toward the front of the bus, shouting out to her son and anyone who will listen.

“Ronnie! Ronnie! Somebody help my baby!”

Somebody could help her baby by pumping him full of Ritalin. Or administering some regular shock therapy.

The bus is slowing down and pulling over to the curb, the bus driver talking frantically on the radio handset to his dispatcher. Everyone on the bus is staring at me and shouting,
crying, swearing, trying to get off the bus, or just scared speechless. More than two dozen Breathers and they're terrified of one, defenseless zombie.

In spite of my dismay at how my trip to see Annie has taken a dead-end detour, I start to laugh. Except it doesn't sound like laughter. It's more like the heavy, high-pitched breathing you'd hear on the other end of an obscene phone call. It's really freaking everyone out, which just makes me laugh harder.

Below me, Ronnie has stopped squirming and screaming and is now curled up in a fetal position, whimpering. The doors are open and nearly everyone else has abandoned the bus, including the driver. Only Ronnie's mother remains, standing at the front of the aisle, alternately looking from me to the door as if she can't decide what she should do. I don't want anyone to think I'm holding little precious Ronnie hostage, so I get up and move back down the aisle several rows and sit down. Eventually, Ronnie's mother gets up the nerve to collect her son and then I'm the only passenger remaining.

Approaching sirens wail from multiple directions. I suppose I could get up and exit the bus, make it easier on myself and surrender without a fuss, but that would be like admitting I've done something wrong when all I wanted was to see my daughter.

So instead, I shuffle up the aisle and take a seat in the front row to wait for Animal Control while I watch the Breathers standing outside in the rain, and I think about Annie and I wonder how pissed off this will make my father.

scribble words down on my dry erase board so Ted can't see what I'm writing as I watch him out of the corner of my eye, studying me with a mixture of aversion and interest.

“How are you feeling today, Andrew?”

I hold up my dry erase board, upon which I've already written:

How are you feeling today, Andrew?

He's so predictable.

Ted lets out an anemic laugh, followed by a strained smile. Either that or he's showing off that he just had his teeth capped.

… twelve … thirteen … fourteen …

“I understand that you've recently had something of an adventure,” says Ted.

Not really
, I write.

“That's not what your parents tell me,” he says.

My parents.

After the bus fiasco, my parents left me at the SPCA for two days. I didn't really mind. The volunteers and staff treat me with more respect and consideration than the majority of
Breathers and it gets me out of the wine cellar. Plus they've got some really tasty dog treats.

I know my father wanted to teach me a lesson, but all he taught me was that he has no compassion. I'm an affront to his senses and an embarrassment to his sensibilities. I'm a social and economic albatross. He'd sooner see me consumed by maggots than happy.

At least my mother tries to understand me, to share in what I'm going through, even if she does spray me with air freshener and wear heavy-duty latex gloves whenever she has to come into contact with me.

My mother is sitting out in the reception area waiting for me, probably reading a
Sunset
magazine and humming to herself while my father is probably waiting for me at home with a can of gasoline and a blow torch.