Джойс Оутс - Zombie

Never have selected any specimen except the black boy I don’t count, from the Roosevelt projects, from Mt. Vernon & vicinity. But it is a shrewd idea to keep in practice speaking with them. Though mainly I listen. To learn their words, their slang. Like they say, cool they say, that’s cool! every few words. Gross, fucked-up, weird, wasted, retro, wild, far-out bummed— the words don’t change that much, & there are not many of them. It’s more the way they move their hands, mouths, eyes. Though shrinking from their eyes unless I’m wearing my dark plastic shades.

Sometimes like Mom says I’m too generous paying for somebody’s lunch or beers or whatever. Or actually lending money. & driving one or two of them home sometimes if they’ve missed their bus going a few miles out of my way into suburbs not-known to me & No trouble! I say & in such instances Q__ P__’s kindness will be remembered, my face & the Ford van with the AMERICAN FLAG decal on the rear window. A big decal exactly fitting the rear window. If I needed a character witness (for instance at a trial) you would remember Q__ P__ from Dale Tech & the fact that I was kind.

Once lent a skinny Chinese kid my sheepskin jacket on a freezing winter night, no questions asked. & he returned it, maybe two weeks later but he returned it. Engineering student named “Chou” or “Chin” with a ping! sound in it. & his eyes shining-black & he did not seem so young & so innocent as most of them but when he said Thanks, man all I said was a mumble Sure .

That last time in my place on Reardon St. I was taking a chance bringing NO-NAME home. Picked him up on 1-96, Grand Rapids exit ramp but he said he was from Toledo & traveling west. Fighting the drug eyes rolling sideways in his head like marbles. Hey man I guess I don’t want to do this O.K.?—lemme go man & I told him I wanted him to stay with me like we were friends, brothers, I told him I would pay him well & he wouldn’t be disappointed & he was sweating saying Man I’m cool won’t tell anybody I swear just lemme out of here man please?—O.K.? & I tightened the cord so his big eyes bulged & his skin was ashy-plum & the lips I could not take my eyes off were ashy & it was shooting through me like electricity HE KNOWS! NOW HE KNOWS! NO TURNING BACK! which is the point that must be reached. The threshold of the black hole that sucks you in. A fraction of a second before & you are still free but a fraction of a second later & you are sucked into the black hole & are lost. & my dick hard as a club. & big as a club. & the sparks of my eyes. & I did not stammer as when first he swung into the van this cool dude eyeing whitey & his easy smile like Here I am, man, what’re you going to do about it? In the back the old battered Elements of Geophysics textbook to provide a false clue, & my stick-on woolly moustache & hair parted weird-neat high on the left side of my head & in the tavern in Grand Rapids where we had a few beers he did the talking & I sat quiet just listening & if anybody saw us it was NO-NAME they saw & some white guy who never was there.

Then home with me & the promise of a hot bath, home-cooked meal vodka & clean sheets etc. NO-NAME grinning thinking he’d be sucked off by whitey & paid for his trouble & maybe clear out whitey’s possessions but that was not how it came about & the panic in his eyes said this was so. I said, I am not a sadist, I am not a torturer, I think you are terrific, I ask you to cooperate & you will not be hurt . I was excited, I had to unzip. He saw, & he knew. You know even when you don’t. It was two barbiturates I gave him mashed & in vodka. But they were slow to take effect & he was struggling & I said how many times I will not hurt you I said if you lay still . But his struggling made things worse for him & he didn’t cooperate. He was crying, I saw he was just a kid. Maybe nineteen years old & he’d acted so much older, so cool! Jammed the kitchen sponge into his mouth seeing the flash of a gold tooth. He was near to choking so I had to be careful, I did not want to lose him. He was tied securely for his own safety, he was drugged & should have been anesthetized by now but it was taking too long. The way the doctors did lobotomies was to zap their patients first with electric shocks to render them unconscious but I didn’t have the nerve I feared I would electrocute NO-NAME & myself both. He was in the tub now naked & the water was running & that freaked him HE KNOWS! HE KNOWS! though he could not see the ice pick yet. Snaky-supple kid with that gold tooth—a real TURN-ON. Reddish-kinky hair & a deep red sheen to his skin. Like oxblood shoe polish, Dad’s shoe polish I remember from years ago at home. Good-looking in fact FABULOUS-LOOKING & they know it but it’s too late once Q__ P__ takes over. I secured his head in the clamp & now brought the ice pick (which I had sterilized on the hot-plate burner) to his right eye as indicated in Dr. Freeman’s diagram but when I inserted it through the “bony orbit” NO-NAME freaked out struggling & screaming through the sponge & there was a gush of blood & I came, I lost control & I came, so hard I kept COMING & COMING LIKE A CONVULSION I couldn’t stop nor even breathe I was groaning & gasping for air & when it was over & I was in control again I saw the damage done—fucking ice pick rammed up to the hilt in NO-NAME’s eye up into his brain & the black kid was dying, he was dead, blood gushing like from a giant nosebleed, another fuck-up & NO ZOMBIE.

& then the disposal of. The heavy weight of.

SO HEAVY. Like they’re doing it on purpose, RESISTING.

Wrapped naked in green garbage-pail liners & tied with rope & on the outside wrapped in canvas & tied with baling wire. Dragged by night by stealth & infinite care. Down the stairs & into the van, the rear of the van carefully prepared for its cargo. SO HEAVY! Q__ P__ sweating in even cold weather. Lifting weights & working out at a gym like I do from time to time & mean to do on a regular basis as every therapist I’ve ever had recommends hasn’t built up the muscles I would wish in the upper body & thighs.

The disposal of, these FABULOUS-LOOKING guys, it’s a DOWNER.

Leaves me depressed if I’m not careful, back on my regimen of medication. & the fucking medication has side-effects so they get you both ways.

Q__ P__ always drives at the speed limit & obeys all traffic regulations. Whether there is contraband cargo aboard the van or not. Sometimes impatient drivers sound their horns at him moving slow & cautious (for instance in rainy weather, in snow) in the right-hand lane. But no response. No lowering the window & yelling out or waving the .38 pistol & firing into somebody’s surprised face LIKE THEY DO IN DETROIT, MAN!

A landfill or dump is most strategic of course where the ground is already broken. & far from home base—seventy, one hundred, two hundred miles is Q__ P__’s rule. The extra effort is worth it like purchasing a new moustache, wig or whiskers every time. Vacant lots, wooded areas near parks—risky because kids play in them, & dogs. Dogs are your natural enemy if you don’t dig deep. But empty marsh land beyond the Interstate in some lonely place where nobody goes is a good bet & weighted down with a tire iron & baling wire dropped into deep water—NO-NAME was dropped into a river in Manistee National Forest east of Crystal Valley.

& never a ripple, nor any word. Never a news item. No obituary. He did in fact have a name but it did not suit him.