Get Zombie: 8-Book Set (73 page)

“You
make your O-Face and click your jaw.”

She
tries it and creates one. She laughs out in a proud way.

I
nod.

“Some
people can blow hearts and shoot smoke arrows through them.”

“Mother
fucker.”

“It’s
true! I’m not a shitter.”

“Can
you do that with smoke?”

“I’m
not that groovy.”

She
farts. I nod.

“Aww,
are you flirting with me?”

“Are
my boobs hanging out?”

“I
don’t know. I can’t look.”

“Why?”

“Respect.
I enjoy you as a person.”

“So
you’ve never robbed a peek at a woman’s tits?”

“I
do. Usually.”

“And
I’m sure you’re careful about going about it, eh?”

“You
have to do it quick. It’s like looking at the sun – you
look, then look away.”

“When
do you do it?”

“When
I’m on the bus or in the mall or at church or at work or buying
vegetables or in the library.”

“My
breasteses aren’t that great. See? They sag a little. See?”

“Blame
gravity. I do. Except for us men it’s a good thing.
Understand?”

“Sadly.”

She
scratches her forearm and I see a long rows of razor-blade smiles. Uh
oh, I think. She’s a Cutter. Obviously, she wanted me to see
them.

“What
are those?”

Although
I know, I ask to get her talking: To show concern. Caring is
important. Every human being wants to be understood and cared for.
Show concern. Most people do this by yelling awful things, like, Are
you stupid? and Don’t do that, dummy! Cutters know they
shouldn’t do it. All they want is a little compassion. Not a
boot to the face.

She
looks down and says, “Oh, nothing.”

“You
know, if you do it on your thighs, no one can see them.”

“Then
what would be the point?”

“Ahhhh.
I see.”

Joann
exhales, depressingly. I scoot my seat closer.

“Is
it doing this job?”

“I
can handle my job.”

“Oh?
You almost died today.”

“Tis
a scratch. No…it’s not work.” She leans in a bit.
“Do you plan to have children one day?”

“I’d
like to have a little girl. Someone I can feed – someone I can
teach. Maybe more, later. I’d love to have little me’s
running around, freaking people out.”

“If
ever your girlfriend wants to have an abortion, do me a favor.”

“What.”

“Don’t
let her do it.”

Pause.

Joann,
eyes to the floor, covers herself up now.

Roaches
scatter under my chair.

People
are laughing again. Shadows are growing. The sun is falling, throwing
a heavy orange tint onto the living room. They chat about their
futures and of bastard lovers and what they would do to their bastard
lovers if they didn’t have any fear about going to hell.
Someone says, “If I had the bowels, I’d whack him on the
face with the hard end of a fire hose. But I won’t because I’m
scared. Booo.”

Joann
sniffs and gives me a hard look.

“Let’s
go into a room where we can talk in private.”

“Okay.”

“Feeling
special?”

“Yes.”

As
we walk down the hallway, something in my belly tells me to look over
my shoulder. Polly and Mr. Snake stand outside the front, sliding
glass door, barefoot and kissing with their toes slithering over each
other like little snakes.

I
clench my fists and moved on, eyes forward and heated.

Good
Lord, I’m shooting laser beams.

We
walk into the room where I saw the two fat men, eating face. We sit
in the middle of the bed, legs crossed. She tells me a story. “Once
upon a time…I went to a pal’s house for a little party.
This was out in Kailua Town. It was fun, for the most part. The first
thing I did when I got there? I dove off the roof, screaming, into a
swimming pool full of 7o and 8o-year-old, still-current, porn stars.”

The
house had been a meeting place, she tells me, and they were all to
discuss the future of Hawaii-based pornography. Everyone was there:
From actors to directors to editors to video storeowners – all
from all over the island. There were even a bunch of business folks
from the outer islands like Hilo and Kauai. Real stone-faced types.

Something
bad happened that night, she recalls, at around ten o’clock.
One of the older actors from Maui had smuggled in some cocaine from
inside his body, somehow. By ten-fifteen they were all baked,
especially Joann.

She
went into the bathroom and threw up all over the floor, only managing
to get a handful of her spill into the toilet. She went out into the
kitchen and drank some Pepsi and ran back into the bathroom and threw
up some more. Only this time the lid on the toilet was down.

She
stumbled out, dizzy. Everyone pinched their nostrils and said her
clothes were all green and stank.

Someone
– an elderly, Australian man – took her by the hand and
guided her outside, where they sat by the pool. He handed her a
clean, white tank top, and a pair of blue jeans that smelled like a
baby’s head. He explained that they once belonged to his
daughter, that he and his wife used to watch over her and the baby
after the husband ran away to Japan to marry someone named Yentle he
met over the internet on MySpace. A week later, on April Fool’s
Day, this old couple’s daughter and her baby were hit on the
H-1 freeway by a drunken woman behind the wheel of a Big Rig,
transporting life-sized dolls to Toys R’ Us. They died
instantly. Except for the drunk driver, of course.

The
six o’clock news later said that the driver was murdered by
some insane, drug-maker, out for solace on behalf of the old man and
woman. This seemed to make the two old folks jolly enough, although
they honestly had no idea who the “good” murderer was,
only that she – an ex-nun – wrote them a letter, stating:

“Dear
Old People… I am your Angel of Vengeance. Please allow me to
punish this wicked fiend of fiends.

-Love,
Angel of Vengeance

PS:
Enclosed, you will find a special, holy concoction of mine. I call it
Jesus Juice. This will make your souls jolly. God made it. And he
gave me the ingredients while I was riding a horse in Paniolo
Country. Bless you both, and enjoy your Jesus Juice. Hallelujah!”

The
old white man said that he thought Joann was “Very cute”
and “Understood his old man dramas” and that Joann
reminded him of his daughter. Then he put his arm around her and
offered a needle that was bubbling with something yellow. Joann said,
No. But he kept insisting that it would make the pain go away, much
like how it had worked for them.

Now
his much older black wife wobbled in. She sat down behind Joann and
massaged her shoulders – also encouraging Joann to take the
hit.

When
Joann tried to stand and get away from these two yahoos, the older
woman tightened her claws and forced her back down. Joann plopped to
the wet floor and kicked a Donald Duck lifesaver into the pool. The
old couple was surprised by how loud it splashed. They looked back to
the house, scared.

Through
the large, living room window, they could see the silhouettes of
partygoers, dancing and drunking and tripping and touching.
Tribal/trance music from India, full of bass, vibrated the glass –
muffled. Joann made to scream, but the old people stuck their hands
in her mouth.

She
was raped that night by the pool.

The
nameless old man did the deed on all fours. His wife got into the
pool, on a floating bed, and watched the scene and pleasured herself
in a crazy way.

Joann’s
friend found Joann the following morning on the floating bed, crying
and bleeding. She was taken to the hospital where she stayed for a
week. She told all the doctors that she fell down the stairs.

Sometime
later, Joann found out that she was pregnant. She was working in a
strip bar called Centerfolds when she decided to have the abortion.

She
embraces a pillow and looks into my eyes.

“Not
a day goes by that I don’t regret having it. Every day I wonder
what that kid would’ve looked like. I feel like a murderer. I
don’t know if I’ll ever have another baby. I feel too
guilty. I can’t look in a mirror without wanting to kill
myself. Feels like the right thing to do. I think about it sometimes,
and how I’m going to do it…jumping off a bridge, running
into traffic, flying off a skyscraper, jacking up a car and laying
underneath and kicking away the stand…it’s as if God
wants me to do it. And I hate him for it.”

“I’ve
thought about killing myself, too.”

“I’m
sure everyone does. I’m impressed people stop themselves from
doing it. Most people.”

“Humans
are stronger than they look. When I used to cut myself, I prayed for
the strength to push down a little harder. You know what stops me
from doing it?”

“What.”

“My
future wife. My soul mate. I can’t do that to her. And I’ll
be damned if I’m letting her marry some desperate, boring sucka
that goes to clubs in collared shirts and blue jeans and white shoes
with a shaved head. I can’t do that to her. It would be
unfair.”

“How
do you know that she’s out there?”

“It’s
the law of the universe, dearie. Balance. If things are so shitty
now, it only means that it can get much, much better.” I put my
hand on her thigh. “It’s understandable that you don’t
want to have another kid now. But I guarantee that later you will.
Can you imagine how happy you and your family will be?”

“…I
can.”

“Then
there’s your reason.”

“How
can you say all of this? You don’t even know me.”

“I
see a lot of good in you.”

She
smiles.

We
walk out and meet Mr. Snake and Polly in the kitchen. He tells us
that his friend Drac – the ex-therapist – will see Joann
and Tim. She tells Mr. Snake that it won’t be necessary, but he
doesn’t want to hear it, arguing that he already promised him
“an assload of money and a free copy of the movie” by
next month.

I
tell Joann that any kind of advice, especially from a professional,
can be helpful. She agrees and Mr. Snake asks if I can take her
because he and Polly have other “business” to take care
of. My first internal reaction to this is No, I’m scared going
to some stranger’s house. But I look at Joann and can’t
help but agree to it.

She
smiles at me. Somehow, I believe that if anything were to happen,
she’d protect me. Maybe it’s because she’s taller
than me. Ha ha.

Mr.
Snake writes down the directions for me on a discarded sock and we
all try to wake up Tim, who’s still naked on the table, but
it’s no use.

He’s
comatose.

As
we leave, I notice that there are flies nesting around Tim’s
penis.

Great.

“Cured”

DRAC
LIVES in an apartment in downtown China Town – in a place where
office workers pay $1000 a month for a large, living/bedroom and a
tiny bathroom.

We
get into the elevator and stare up at the blinking floor numbers…

The
ride over was silent.

The
freeway was blinding bright as the sun slithered into the car. She
drove while I tried desperately to keep my eyes open. I was afraid
that if I fell asleep, she would see it as a kind of weakness –
that I didn’t care for her company.

We
stand before Drac’s door.

I
put my ear to the cold door and listen for any signs of life –
hoping that no one is home. I don’t want to meet any new people
today. I want to resort to my usual ways and lock myself in my
bedroom: Away from the loud, evil world. You could be walking down
the street and a helicopter blade could fall from the sky and scalp
you.

The
apartment is silent.

There
are weird sounds all around us: Kids play on a balcony above us,
jumping on a springy bed and pretending to be roosters in heat; a cat
is fighting with a dog as an old women pleads, “I want you to
kiss her! I want you to kiss her!” She wields a broom as an
insane, martial artist, sweeping away their accidental stool.

Joann
knocks on the door and it opens immediately wide. The person standing
before us is super skinny and pale and has a glass of milk in one
hand and a tiny plate of eggs in the other. He looks wired – up
for years: Eyes screaming, the voice at warp speed.

“Oh,
hi! You must be my new client. And you must be Rubs. I’ve heard
so much about you! You are a good man for escorting her through this
rat maze. Never know what you may find – or who may find you.”

He
eats a spoonful of eggs and motions us to step inside.

The
place smells like wet animal hair. The lights are off. The balcony
window is covered by a thin, orange blanket, throwing a soft glow
over his bed and tiny table and fluffy white carpet. There’s a
large, man-sized hole in a wall. Drac laughs for no reason and sits
on the edge of his frameless bed, eating his eggs and drinking his
milk. We sit on the floor, cross-legged.

Drac
finishes off his milk and looks at us both, intensely. He then walks
into the kitchen and pours two glasses of milk, then asks if we want
any ice. We say yes. He walks back into the living room and gives us
our milk.

It
tastes wonderful.

He
takes hold of some clothes scattered on the bed and folds them,
daintily.

“Let’s
do this – now. It’s on like Donkey Kong. What I do…I
do NOT for money, but for spiritual development. Being insecure makes
the soul cry. One must be confident in all aspects of life to succeed
on planet earth. EGO IS GOD. This is what I teach. This is my
invention. I invented this. I call it Greedy on the Inside, and it
has worked wonders. Let me explain: I am a master therapist. I am The
Master & Commander of therapy, and like Russell Crow, you should
feel fortunate, being here in my company, about to receive what many
have bled over. Are we ready? Good. I’m not. Oh…wait.
Now I am. Good.”