Джойс Оутс - Zombie

So started the motor & drove through the picnic area, so many people! families! so many kids! the smell of charcoal-grilled meat, & slowly through the park & this weird thought came Yes but you could release him even now, dump him into the woods & somebody would find him. For it is TODD CUTTLER he saw, & not Q__ P__ . But I was pissed with him. Always you get pissed with them, & want to punish. Taunting me & following me in my head all these weeks. Looking through me in the Humpty Dumpty like there was nobody where I sat. & provoking me, that sidelong dimple-smile & green eyes. & I was driving south into Mt. Vernon along the lake & began to feel a warning. & turned on the radio to listen for news, for it was 8:08 P.M. now & by now SQUIRREL would be missed. & maybe the police had been notified? & beginning to search, & set up road-blocks? There was nothing on the news. But that might’ve been a trick. Yet I could not return home till nighttime, & dark. & there is where you fuck up, Quentin, for all your plans . I heard the mockery in Dad’s voice yet did not blame him. & so decided suddenly I would turn, & drive north of the city after all, on Route 31 familiar to me as my own face. & so past Holland, & past Muskegon & by 9:20 P.M. & darkness I was beyond Ludington & in the Manistee Forest & feeling O.K. knowing I had made a right decision. For it had not been so, what I had told Dad’s lawyer. That the Mt. Vernon cops cruised North Church & harassed me.

Yet it seemed now so obvious it was so. & I did not know it. & SQUIRREL’s disappearance in Dale Springs would alert the police to known sex offenders in that area. & how any would there be—dozens, a hundred. & Q__ P__ on the computer with these. & so it was shrewd to escape Mt. Vernon, & I parked on the side of a forest trail & went into the rear of the van & the light came on & the smell of urine stung my nostrils & excited me & I saw the body, the boy, flat on his back on the floor, head hidden in the burlap sack, part naked & his skinny rib cage moving still breathing! still alive . I had crushed something in his throat I believe—windpipe? larynx? & so tied him with tape & rope it was like a child would tie somebody, wound round & round. Hello I said. Hi . Squatted over him & touched & caressed & stroked but the little penis was limp & cool like a dead thing, I squeezed it to rouse some life in him & his muscles jerked & he seemed to cry out inside the sponge. I yanked off the burlap sack—& there was his face. His face, but changed. & not so good-looking now. The lower part of his face was taped over but the eyes fluttered open. Now you see my true face, now you know your Master . Splashed Evian water on him & a focus came into his eyes & I saw the terror in them. I won’t hurt you, I am your friend. If you don’t fight me . My voice tender & cajoling. Yet he did not seem to hear. There was the terror in his eyes, & the tension in his body tight as a board. A homely kid with blood-caked nostrils, I was getting pissed at him. His cock shriveled so tiny, like a ten-year-old’s, & that look in his eyes. & thrashing his head, & trying again to fight—to fight me !—weak as a broken worm.

MY ZOMBIE. FIGHTING ME . & losing control then I turned him over onto his belly & straddling him & gripping the little pigtail banging his face against the floor & fucking him in the ass my cock enormous so the skin tore & bled, ONE TWO THREE thrusts piercing to his guts like a sword Who’s your Master? Who’s your Master? WHO’S YOUR MASTER?

Do bones float?

& if so, but no flesh is attached, & the bones themselves scattered & lost to one another, what identity is there. I never think of it.

Aug. 26 & I was no sooner home & out of the shower & beginning my CARETAKER tasks for the day than the loud knocking came at the front door. & I knew.

I had not listened to any news reports. For why should Q__ P__ have listened. It was 7:50 A.M. I did not know anything, I was not aware of anything. But freshly shaven & my thinning hair combed sleek & damp against my skull & my eyes veined with red but hiding nothing behind my clear-framed plastic glasses. Wearing a clean plain white-cotton T-shirt, old chino work-pants, sandals. (It would be another hot-humid day.) & heard the knocking on the front door & that crackling sound of a police radio, a police squad car pulled into the driveway behind the Dodge Ram. I did not look but I knew. & heard the door being unlocked & opened, it was one of the tenants on his way out & there on the front steps two Mt. Vernon police officers. & their voices asking after Q__ P__ was he a resident of this house? & I stood cold & paralyzed in the hall thinking of the cistern! the dinette “operating” table! the surgical supplies! the store of food, & blankets, & the full-length mirror! & in the CARETAKER’s quarters the Polaroid-mementos of my failed ZOMBIES, & the memento in formaldehyde of BIG GUY, & other items no eyes but Q__ P__’s must ever see. The Dodge Ram I had taken care to cleanse as thoroughly as possible, before dawn working frantically barefoot & bare-chested washing away all evidence. For there was little blood in the van, mainly piss & the lingering stink of piss. My soiled clothes, wig etc. I had shredded & buried in such scattered sites along Route 31, Q__. P__ himself could never recall. & my .38 pistol, the knives & my solitary memento of SQUIRREL I had placed in safekeeping far from 118 North Church.

Yet there was no choice but to come forward, & declare Yes I am Q__ P__ . & calm & quizzical approaching the police officers at the door, one uniformed & the other in suit & tie. Greeted me & asked would I step outside. But I did not. Nor did I invite them inside. For this was not like the arrest after the black boy ran bellowing into the street when they dragged me from the van & threw me on my belly & face in the dirt & cuffed my wrists behind my back so I screamed in pain. This was not an actual arrest—was it? But only a questioning. For there were many names on the computer, known sex offenders . For they had no evidence, & they had no warrant or they would already be at their search. Don’t let them inside the house , Dad’s lawyer had said. Don’t go anywhere with them voluntarily. If they continue to harass you, call me. Any hour of the night or day—call me . They were asking could they come inside & I shook my head no, I did not think so. They were polite asking again would I step outside & I was polite & reasonable saying, trying not to stammer, I did not think so. & this surprised them, who are accustomed to bullying citizens. I asked them what did they want? & they looked at me, the older of them in the suit & tie sucking his lip, You know what we want, son, don’t you , & I shook my head no, no I did not, & steeled myself looking at his eyes, & I saw no certainty in them, nor in the face of the other. & this went on for several minutes. & what I knew was that I knew, & they did not. & that I knew of my rights as a citizen. & would not acquiesce to police harassment of a man on probation, who has not violated probation. & a man who is “gay” & does not advertise the fact but is not ashamed of it either, & guilty of nothing because of it either. & at last they spoke of a “young boy” who had been “abducted” the evening before in Dale Springs & he was missing & his bicycle found in an alley & they only wanted to ask a few questions of me, what I might know of this or might have heard, etc., here or at the precinct station, & if I had no objection they would like to look around the premises a little. & I shook my head & repeated no I did not think so, my lawyer has advised me to call him if there is trouble of any kind from the police, if I am harassed in any way & I would like to call him now.