Breathers (35 page)

Do I miss my father and mother? I guess that depends on what she means by
miss.

Do I miss my father's naked contempt? Do I miss my mother's cold affection? Or do I miss how they tasted covered in a chilled aioli sauce?

No. No. And yes.

“Is that what you wanted to know?” I ask.

On the CD player, Judy gives way to Frank Loesser's playful “Baby It's Cold Outside.”

Yeah. And it's cold inside, too.

“What is this all about?” I ask.

Is she threatened by my previous relationship? Does she want to get married? Is she thinking about killing and eating her mother?

When she doesn't respond, I place my fingers under Rita's chin and turn her face toward me. There are tears in her eyes, but I can't tell if she's happy or sad. She looks somewhere in between. As if whatever is on her mind both troubles and pleases her.

After a few moments, she raises herself off my chest and props herself up on one elbow, her eyes level with mine. I was mistaken. There is no sadness in them. Only joy.

“I'm pregnant.”

n the chalkboard is written:

WELCOME BACK, ANDY!!

And beneath that:

NEW YEAR's EVE PARTY AT JERRY's—BYOB.

Which, in zombie speak, means Bring Your Own Breather.

A couple of weeks ago, Jerry might have been able to get away with actually writing out the words on the chalkboard, but with the paparazzi following me around since I got out of the SPCA, we have to use a little common sense.

Helen and Leslie come up to hug me, followed by Naomi, who plants a kiss on my cheek. Jerry gives me a high five and an enthusiastic “Dude!” while Carl just smiles and nods from across the room. Tom comes up to me and shakes my hand with his short, hairy alien appendage, then gives me a hug and starts to cry.

“I missed you, too,” I say.

The day after Christmas, the police located my parents’ BMW in the ocean just off the shore south of Big Sur. Although they didn't find their bodies, they did find enough evidence to corroborate my claim that my parents had been driving down
the coast to stay at their timeshare in Palm Springs. So I was allowed to go home.

I have to admit, it's good to be out and to see everyone again, but I kind of miss the SPCA—the food, the wine, the women willing to have sex with me. It's not often you get an opportunity to live that kind of lifestyle without any personal responsibility. It was kind of like being in college again, only with national media exposure.

And a private servant.

Although the case surrounding my parents’ disappearance hasn't been officially closed, the police have initially declared their deaths accidental, clearing the way for me to go home. Technically, I'm not supposed to be released without a guardian, so Ian signed the consent forms. Not that I needed any help in that area—more than a dozen Breathers, all of them single or divorced women over forty, stepped forward to volunteer as my foster guardian.

Regardless of their motives—compassion, desperation, kinky fantasies—I'm flattered. It's nice to be wanted, even if it's by the same people who despised me yesterday. But I've got more important responsibilities than feeding my own ego.

As Rita settles into her chair for the meeting, I make sure she's comfortable and ask if there's anything she needs. Sure she's only five weeks pregnant, but I enjoy doting on her. And in spite of the recent positive publicity for the undead, finding an ob-gyn who would treat Rita and keep her pregnancy a secret isn't likely. So we have to be careful.

The push for zombie civil rights has created the social equivalent of a tornado, spinning across the country, tearing holes in the cultural fabric. Zombies procreating would produce a category-five hurricane.

Still, we can't wait for society to catch up to us. Rita and I
have to think about our future—retirement accounts, college savings, whether to use a diaper service or disposables. But the first thing we need is the ability to earn a living.

My second visit to the Social Security office didn't go much better than the first, except this time I didn't get shot. At least Gary the rent-a-cop apologized to me before he asked me to autograph his holster. When he asked about what happened to my bullet wounds, I told him I have a good makeup artist.

It's becoming more difficult to hide the fact that I'm healing, so I've had to cut back on my Breather intake. Needless to say, it's made me a little cranky.

That and I still can't get my Social Security number reinstated.

I don't know what I expected. Social change doesn't happen overnight. But considering how much progress we've made in just the last week, my inability to earn a living to support my new family is a disappointment. And with interviews lined up with Letterman, Leno, and Oprah, all I can think about is the potential income I'm losing.

Rita tells me not to worry, that everything will work out, that the exposure I'm getting is more important than any financial loss, but I can't help feeling like I'm being taken advantage of.

“Okay, everyone, please take a seat,” says Helen. “We have a lot of important things to talk about tonight, so let's get started.”

Helen erases the messages on the chalkboard, then writes down the topic for tonight's meeting:

HOW TO DEAL WITH CORPORATE MEDIA.

Naomi and Carl are booked on Conan O’Brien, Jerry is promoting his Playboy Playmate Sistine Chapel on
The Daily Show
, and Tom is scheduled to be the first contestant on
Extreme Makeover: Zombie Edition.
Zack and Luke, meanwhile,
have been asked to participate in an upcoming “Ghouls vs. Fools” episode of
Fear Factor.

I'd put my money on the ghouls.

All across the country, zombies are appearing on talk shows and television programs, in news magazines and advertisements, pitching everything from funeral homes to deodorant. Several companies have even started merchandising the undead—creating action figures, trading cards, and even T-shirts that say “Got Zombie?” I hear McDonald's is offering a new Zombie Happy Meal.

At some point we all expect the novelty of zombies as media darlings to die down, but you never can tell. I thought reality TV shows would eventually lose their appeal, but now they number more than sixty, from
Amazing Race
to the upcoming
Zombie Life.
Who knows? Five years from now, I could have my own talk show.

But would I get paid for it?

“Andy,” says Helen. “Would you like to lead the group?”

I stand and walk up to the chalkboard, then turn and face the group. Jerry, Beth, Tom, and Naomi applaud while Carl and Leslie laugh and Rita gives me an affectionate wink. It's enough to bring me to the verge of tears. This is the first time I've addressed the group at a meeting without having to rely on visual aids.

Looking at everyone, I'm reminded of the first time I attended a UA meeting, back in August when I was just getting over the shock of what had happened to me. Then there were just the five of us—Helen, Naomi, Carl, Tom, and me. The future looked bleak. No one believed in anything.

Now it's hard to fathom everything that has transpired since then. In spite of the potential roadblocks we still face, the dead-end, unpaved road we'd been headed down has taken a detour and we find ourselves traveling on a new highway, a
ribbon of asphalt stretching away from our past toward the horizon and a new existence which lies beyond it.

It's a classic story of suffering and redemption, like
The Color Purple
or The New Testament.

Only with cannibalism.

'm beginning to think I need a bodyguard.

Increasingly, someone calls and threatens me, usually with promises of ripping my arms off or sending me back to hell where I belong. Standard stuff. But sometimes women will call and threaten to perform certain sexual acts on me until specific body parts fall off. Actually, I think it's the same woman.

Most of the real trouble comes from enthusiastic autograph seekers who want me to sign photographs and breasts and copies of
Shaun of the Dead.
More than once I've had to call the police to keep them away. Talk about irony.

Even though Ian is my legal guardian, the county allowed me to return to my parents’ house until a final ruling is made on their deaths. According to their will, which they never got around to changing once I died, I'm the lone beneficiary, so it's not like I'm squatting. Still, I do have to check in with Ian once a week and he's supposed to come by to make unannounced visits just to keep up the pretense of a foster-guardian relationship. Mostly it's just to keep the courts happy, but so far nobody really seems to care. I'm a national celebrity.

I'm sitting in my father's office going through a stack of
interview requests, endorsement offers, and a movie script based on my as-of-yet unwritten memoir, when Zack walks in to tell me that Steven Spielberg is on line one and wants to know if I'd be interested in his latest project and can I meet with him.

This is the third time Spielberg has called and I've already told him that I couldn't possibly meet with him until after the holidays. Still, I have to admire his persistence. So I tell Zack to take a number, then I tell him to have Luke check my schedule to see what next month looks like. I also remind him to pick up my dry cleaning.

Zack and Luke moved in with me the day after I got out. At first I just wanted to give them a place to live, but it turns out they both have exceptional secretarial skills.

Legally I have no right to have other zombies living with me, but with the ACLU and several prominent civil rights leaders applying pressure, the powers that be seem content to look the other way, so I don't see any reason to fill out the appropriate paperwork. And it's not like my neighbors are complaining.

During the first five months after I reanimated and came to live with my parents, the property values on our street dropped more than twenty percent. No one wanted to live next to a zombie. But ever since my first interview, the property values in the neighborhood have reversed course and are now up more than 15 percent from six months ago. In the short time I've been home, at least two of my neighbors have fielded offers from buyers willing to pay nearly twice the county median.