Джойс Оутс - Zombie

“ You , Quentin? You had a dream?”

“Yes, doctor.”

“What was it about?”

“Baby chicks.”

“Excuse me?”

“Baby chicks. Little chickens.”

There was a pause, & Dr. E__ pushed his glasses against the bridge of his nose & continued to look at me. Those piss-eyes alert & wondering, the first time in sixteen months. “Well—what did you dream about the baby chicks, Quentin?”

“I don’t know,” I said, & this was true, at that time, “—they were just there.”

Feeling so good afterward I almost—almost!—told Dr. E__ I had no further need of him & his shit-prescription he could stuff up his ass.

& later that day which was Tuesday, & SQUIRREL would not be working at Humpty Dumpty & it was a muggy-drizzly day so he would not be at his friend’s swimming pool next-door to Grandma’s, I was walking fast across the University campus making a detour as always around Erasmus Hall & I was wearing my khaki shorts & a loose-fitting MT. VERNON U. T-shirt & my aviator glasses & caught some quizzical eyes I believe & some registering of approval. Summer school was in session & the kids in clothes like mine. Except of course the old-fart profs you always encounter on campus & they’re staring at you like you are a freak or a Nazi. Or worse. But I was feeling high after last night’s BABY CHICK dream & puzzling what it might mean & sure the answer would come to me, & soon.

& in Darwin Hall where I hadn’t been for years & years climbing to the third floor like I knew where I was going. Poked my head into a big lecture hall & that wasn’t it. Poked my head into Dept. of Biology Office & that wasn’t it. Poked my head into a lab smelling strong enough to make my eyes sting & that was it. Where years ago I’d seen stacked cages of cats, rabbits, monkeys with electrodes in their skulls. Some of them unmoving in their cages & some turning & twisting. Some of them sightless though their eyes glittered. & all of them soundless though opening their mouths & emitting silent cries set the air to vibrating though unheard. It must’ve been Dad who’d brought me?—or I’d wandered away from Dad in another place & pushed into the lab AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY: DEPT. OF BIOLOGY drawn by the smell. Yet that day it was just a lab, a long room with sinks & counters & instruments etc. & the wall of cages was gone. & a young Asian-looking female grad student who’s alone in the room blinks at me like she’s a little scared of me which is O.K. by Q__ P__, that’s the only kind of female you can trust. So I ask where are the animals & she says what animals & I say there used to be cats, rabbits, monkeys in this lab & you were experimenting on them & she says when was this? & I say a few years ago & she says she’s only been here two years & doesn’t know anything about it & things are changed now in the department. & she was sort of backing up & I saw she would back up against a big-screen computer on a table & she did & could not back up any farther so I thought DON’T: DON’T ALARM THE CUNT & I did not press forward farther but changed tone as I can do, I am skilled at doing & getting better every day. Is she a biology student I ask & she says she’s a biogeneticist doing research for her Ph.D. & I say I am a physics grad student doing research for my Ph.D., I am Professor R__ P__’s assistant. & she looks at me with her flat face & dark-slanted eyes & I see she doesn’t know who the fuck R__ P__ is! Which is a laugh. A real laugh. & Erasmus Hall just across the quad. So I’m a little short of breath & run my hands through my hair which is greasy & like quills but I don’t press any farther forward. & we go:

“Where are vocal cords exactly?”

“Excuse me?”

“Vocal cords. Where are vocal cords exactly?”

“Vocal cords? Like in—your throat?”

“Human vocal cords, but I’m talking about animals,” I say. I am speaking calmly, reasonably. You would know I was a fellow scientist by my demeanor. “Lab animals’ vocal cords are cut, aren’t they? How is it done?”

& she’s looking at me a little scared again & uncertain. Saying, “I don’t do that kind of research.”

& I say, “I don’t either, I’m a Ph.D. in physics I said. But how is it done? Is it easy, or tricky?”

& Flatface shakes her head like she doesn’t know. & I’m getting a little pissed but not showing it. Saying, “O.K., where are your vocal cords exactly?”

& Flatface puts her fingers to her throat like she’s checking does she have any. “You can feel them,” she says. “They vibrate when you touch them, when you speak.”

QUANTIFIABLE & UNQUANTIFIABLE MATERIAL!

For a long time, how many fucking years of Q__ P__’s life it had seemed maybe, like a scientific experiment, like it was a principle of shifting to the left or the right for instance, a few inches & no more. Or growing taller. & all the Universe would rearrange. & others were born with radar for such but not Q__ P__. The principle (though not articulated at the time, being too young) of pushing up close behind the boys in the cafeteria line, Bruce & his friends. Or entering the showers in high school at the right instant, with just the right stride & angle of head & shoulders. & yesterday purchasing three dozen baby chicks at this farmers’ market in Ludington for that was something Q__ P__ had never before done in his life & to do it just once was to be somebody new . Or, those months at Eastern Michigan U. where Q__ P__ strove to RE-INVENT MYSELF purchasing clothes & shoes not of his own taste but that of others closely observed, & showering twice a day (for a while, until my skin began to flake away like scales) & even forcing a new handwriting & new signature which it required many weeks to master. But it was mastered!

Some shift to the left, or right, or up, or down, or in thickness, or in thinness. Some alteration of skin tone, or freckles. Or a more baritone voice not reedy & nasal any longer. & Q__ P__ would be pledged to DEKE for instance! But what seemed so easy was in fact so hard.

If you had a heart, that is how it would be broken.

& the other day driving Mom & Grandma to this nursing home in Holland, Mich. Presbyterian auspices. Where they visited some old shriveled female relative & brought her potted dyed-blue flowers & I paced around the lobby for a while then outside in the parking lot & somebody in a wheelchair & their family glancing at me & finally one of them says, a youngish guy but his voice quavering, Excuse me? Would you please not stare at my mother? & on campus that day so charged up seeing SQUIRREL-SQUIRREL-SQUIRREL in every kid of a certain height & figure my cock was hard as a club & hair erect as quills & I had to seek a men’s room to jerk off before EXPLODING. & I’m pushing through some doors & there’s a lighted stage & some guys & females in leggings or whatever are rehearsing some dance to kettle drums & horns & they’re so absorbed in their dancing they don’t see Q__ P__’s eyes glaring up at them out of the shadow. & finally somebody comes over to me, some faculty cunt, female with thick glasses & asks who am I please? & I turn to her not-surprised & say, like this is the most natural reply to an asshole question, I am the presence standing here at this juncture of Time & Space—who else?

& that night in my sand-colored 1987 Ford van with the American flag decal covering the rear window cruising Cedar Street, Dale Springs & parked in shadow & with my binoculars trained to the mostly shaded or darkened windows I thought, If this is where I am this is who I am . & so it was.