Джойс Оутс - Zombie

Only this single memento I have of him in my carekeeping: one of Q__ P__’s most prized good-luck charms.

GOLD TOOTH (ACTUAL SIZE)

How many times. I keep mementos but no records. My clock face has no hands & Q__ P__ has never been one to have hang-ups over personalities or the past, THE PAST IS PAST & you learn to move on. I could be a REBORN CHRISTIAN is what I sometimes think, & maybe I am waiting for that call.

In the meantime I have the basement of my grandparents’ old house entrusted to me as CARETAKER.

A little sickness in the air from so much fragrance everywhere—

somebody’s left-behind New Anthology of English Verse & I leafed through it in the student union, not at the tech college but at the University where sometimes I come by in the early evening & these words from a poem by “Gerald Manley Hopkins” leapt out at me & rang like the bell of the Music College.

Because now it is spring, it is April & Q__ P__’s first year of probation is behind him.

Dad & Mom & the relatives were ashamed but THAT IS HOW IT PLAYS OUT as my lawyer, in fact he is Dad’s lawyer, in Dad’s hire, has said. THAT IS HOW IT PLAYS OUT.

If your son had come up before a black judge, or a woman judge—it might’ve been much, much worse.

Q__ P__ was allowed after negotiation (in which Q__ P__ took no part) to plead guilty to sexual misdemeanor committed against a minor . My lawyer & the prosecution lawyer worked it out. & Judge L__ was understanding. People were saying where money changes hands & it is the word of an inexperienced white man, unmarried, thirty years old, against the charge of a black boy from the projects, & this black boy, twelve years old, from a “single-mother welfare” family, there is not much mystery guessing what probably occurred. Nor what kind of “justice” would be extracted.

Just plead guilty, it’s worked out & you’ll be O.K.

But if my son is not guilty?—what a travesty!

Quentin would not do such a thing. He is my son, my boy & I know .

Quentin, O.K.? Agreed?

In fact Q__ P__ was visibly ashamed & repentant & had “learned his lesson”—one look at him, his grainy red-rimmed eyelids & parched lips, you knew.

Two years’ sentence—suspended. Psychotherapy, counseling. Regular reporting to probation office. Agreed?

Tearful before Judge L__ & my hands in my pockets, in my right trouser pocket fingering my good-luck GOLD TOOTH & Dad whispered for me to take my hands out of my pockets, please. & I did, & I thanked Judge L__ for his understanding etc. as my lawyer advised. & leaving the judge’s chambers I was having trouble breathing & Dad was gripping me by the elbow. Buck up, son those were his actual words everything is fine now & we’re going home . & out in the empty courtroom, Mom & Grandma & Junie & Reverend Horn who is a close friend of Grandma’s & who “vouched” for Q__ P__ to Judge L__ were waiting. I was wearing a new suit of small brown checks & a beige bowtie with narrow red stripes & my hair had been cut trimmed neat at the ears & the nape of the neck & I was not wearing my sexy aviator-style glasses but the clear plastic frames & I was not crying now but smiling & hugging my family the way you would do at such a time. I shook Reverend Horn’s hand Thank you, thank you I am so happy, so grateful. Thank you for your faith in me .

We were outside then. A warm rain speckled my face.

It was then Dad handed me the car keys to his 1993 Lexus. Which I had never driven before. I understood it was to show how Dad trusts me, & the family trusts me & I would not let them down ever again. & driving out of the rundown city up along the lake to Dale Springs where the houses are spacious & set on large wooded lots & the streets are lined with trees & in good repair I felt such a sense of HOMECOMING & BEING LOVED & I kept just at the speed limit of 35 mph ignoring how other drivers tailgated & honked & passed me impatiently. Junie who is Big Sis to me even now aged thirty-five & principal of a junior high school, with a fond smile for her kid brother, said, Quen was always the one of us who could drive a car then adding quick, —I mean is. Right, Quen? I grinned into the rearview mirror. Right, Junie .

There has always been a special feeling between Big Sis & me. On her side at least.

Driving home, my old home I was welcome in at any time but had outgrown yes but Q__ P__ is welcome there at any time & maybe parental guidance is a good thing. One of those warm-rainy windy April days. The Great Lakes sky like folds of grayish-white brain matter. Dad beside me in the passenger’s seat of this smooth terrific car & he’s wearing a custom-made suit & looks good for an old guy his age stroking his chin where, a long time ago, his goatee had been. & in the back seat Mom, Grandma & Junie, chattering together & Mom’s tears & the others comforting her & turning off onto Lakeview Boulevard bringing us home I almost could not remember why I was so happy & feeling so free thinking of BLACK COCK, shy shrinking boy-penis like a baby rabbit, skinned. I’d held it tight in my hand tickling the tip with the tip of the ice pick but the pills hadn’t taken effect yet for I was impatient & exhibited poor judgment (I see in retrospect—I was drunk) & the boy panicked beginning to bellow as he broke free like a frenzied animal crashing through the locked rear door of the Ford van SO HELP ME GOD I DON’T KNOW HOW. & running then naked but for his filthy T-shirt out into the street bellowing like a fire alarm rising louder & louder. MY ZOMBIE!

He had not asked for a nickel, he was trusting as a dog. Yet Q__ P__ could not trust him .

From the back seat they were asking me something & I wasn’t listening the way you don’t listen to females mostly but I must’ve answered O.K., maybe it was something about taking over as caretaker or maybe they liked my haircut. & Dad laid his hand on my shoulder. For the first time driving that day I believed I could feel the motion of the Earth. The Earth rushing through the emptiness of space. Spinning on its axis but they say you don’t feel it, you can’t experience it. But to feel it is to be scared & happy at once & to know that nothing matters but that you do what you want to do & what you do you are . & I knew I was moving into the future. There is no PAST anybody can get to, to alter things or even to know what those things were but there is definitely a future, we are already in it.

My name for him was SQUIRREL. That was my secret name & the name you may know of him is something else.

Q__ P__ did not mean for such to happen. SQUIRREL was not a wise choice of a specimen. I knew that, & have always known. I was resolute (how many times I have instructed myself!) SUCH WOULD NOT HAPPEN. Anyone with a family to care about him, Caucasian & suburban & living in Dale Springs!

Grandma is to blame for much of it. She would be hurt to know but that is so. Of course, not Q__ P__ her only grandson, nor anyone else, would ever disclose such a cruel truth to a woman so old.

Maybe I am wrong to say it is Grandma’s blame , I think probably it is no one’s. It is superstitious & retro to think in terms of blame, fault, guilt . Last night watching the TV coverage of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter confirmed this. Dad invited me over to the house to watch with them this historic event but I said Thanks Dad, I’ve got too much work to do ( work I am doing for you, Dad was the message) & stayed in my shitty caretaker’s quarters & ate my Hot Italian Sub from Enrico’s & got pissed on a couple of bottles of dago red. They said the explosions on Jupiter were millions of times greater than any manmade explosion on Earth but it was just little black puffs going off on the screen. Flashes & fireballs & plumes of flame. Meteor trails how many millions or billions of miles away colliding with Jupiter’s atmosphere & going off. Fragment Q hit about the time I nodded off.