Джойс Оутс - Zombie

Lucky for Dad & Mom they were still on Mackinac Island when the scandal broke. Newspapers & TV & People & Time etc. Dad was spared the embarrassment of interviewers telephoning him & asking for a statement. Later he went on record saying It is an unconscionable act to experiment on any person without informed consent but I knew Dr. K__ & I am unable to believe that he is guilty of such. There must be some mistake . In private saying So unfair to a dead man! Dad removing his glasses & rubbing his hands over his eyes. & his tweed asshole mouth screwed up in pain. A great man’s reputation slandered posthumously, how can he defend himself!

Of this I have not spoken to Dad, nor will. There is not that kind of easiness between us. Or Dad speaking to me about the police harassment at the time of the Waldron boy’s disappearance.

But Dad removed the framed photos of Dr. M__ K__ & himself from his office at the University, & from home. If Grandma still has hers on the dining room wall I don’t know. I never go to Grandma’s any more. Nor to Dale Springs at all except sometimes to borrow $$$ from Mom.

A day is long & so the time has been long. Since GROUND ZERO. I stay close to the house as CARETAKER of the property. As Dad & Mom have entrusted me. Except some weekends driving in the Dodge Ram (which holds the road so well, & has a look of such pride) to Detroit on I-96 & once along Lake Erie to Toledo where I had never been before. & Ann Arbor where the University is even bigger than Mt. Vernon, a Gay Pride Festival in October. Returning on I-94 in the early dawn perhaps & the sky lightening in weird rosy-gray pleats & puckers & there are bright orange markers flying at me CONSTRUCTION AHEAD FORM SINGLE LANE 40 MPH but it is too early & the highway is deserted. & the THUMP THUMP THUMP of the pavement like a heartbeat. Like the Dodge Ram & Q__ P__ have a single heartbeat. & I suppose I am happy, or anyway at peace. & sometimes hitch-hikers. Did not want it to happen but our eyes met. & him high, & horny, & panting like a stallion. & in the filthy lavatory at the rest stop COMING so it was like scalding lava . & once in November feeling restless took the van north on Rt. 31 to the Manistee Forest. & it was snowing & so the landscape was altered. Like a new place or even a planet where I could not get my bearings. Could not find the road I had taken with SQUIRREL & so could not find the river. Got turned around, & pissed as hell mistaking east for west (but there are no direct roads) & ended up at Big Rapids the opposite edge of the Forest. Most days now I am on my medication as Dr. E__ prescribes. Three tablets daily, with meals. This causes my words to slur sometimes & drowsiness driving & in INTRO TO ACCOUNTING where I sit at the back of the room. But my temper is O.K. & I am not so angry & EYE CONTACT does not worry me. If it is ACCIDENT & not deliberate (on my part). Akhil coming to my door for instance & saying, Excuse me sir there is something wrong with the upstairs toilet I think .

Jean-Paul who is new to the house & is always asking questions, for instance downstairs in the cellar where there is a washing machine & drier OFF LIMITS to tenants but I allowed him to use it one day, with the promise he would not tell the other tenants. & needing the CARETAKER to help him every step of the way. I am used to a woman taking care of my laundry Jean-Paul says laughing.

Most nights I don’t go out, can’t afford it. Begging for fucking crumbs from Mom & Dad. Eating takeout from Burger King, Taco Bell, etc. & drinking six-packs watching XXX videos. Or TV flicking through the channels. It is hard to watch one channel for more than twenty seconds, or ten. Many times in the fall seeing Mr. & Mrs. Waldron the parents of the missing “Jamie” making their appeal on Michigan TV. & photos of “Jamie” & actual video-footage, home movies. & there was SQUIRREL smiling & waving at me, & SQUIRREL playing basketball at school, & SQUIRREL getting some kind of trophy. & a voice-over saying Please if you have any information please contact hot-line JAMIE a $50,000 reward is offered for any information leading to the discovery of & Mr. & Mrs. Waldron saying always the same words We have faith that our son is still alive, we have faith that we will see him again, alive & now Mrs. Waldron is crying & Mr. Waldron trying not to cry. & I’m losing it saying, loud & disgusted, What do you mean—alive? Why should he be alive? Why the fuck should HE be alive? & saying Fuckers, now YOU know . & flicking past the channel in disgust.

In November around Thanksgiving an unexpected news bulletin on local TV, someone claiming to have “sighted” the missing boy hitch-hiking in Chicago. But nothing came of this so far as I know.

Junie has been BIG SIS all my life. She is five years my elder. & as tall, & weighing maybe as much. Almost made the Olympics team as a swimmer in college, & was a star at women’s lacrosse . Now PRINCIPAL at Dale Springs Middle School.

Junie has always taken an interest in Q__ the kid brother. Her only sibling in the family. In high school when I had some emotional problems & the year I started college at Eastern Michigan & screwed up. It was Junie’s idea for me to study real estate & not return to college as Dad was always pushing saying college is not right for everyone. Saying Quen could be a terrific salesman if he’d only lighten up .

Left a message on the phone saying Accounting is a great idea, Quen. A hell of a lot more realistic than those other ideas of Dad’s .

Mom & Dad are proud of Junie & have been so since high school when she was a class officer & star athlete. Graduated fifth in her class, 1976. & a scholarship to U.M. to study public education & administration, Ann Arbor the classy state school not second-& third-rate like Lansing & Mt. Vernon. & at college did pretty well. & now a principal & ambitious to move elsewhere, taking summer “seminars” etc. at Ann Arbor. Junie is “social” & has lots of friends, the kind you go hiking with, or skiing. When Junie bought her own house, on the lake in a suburb called Graafschap Mom worried Now Junie will never get married . Junie has gone through stages of being pissed as hell at her kid brother Q__ & not speaking to me & one time (I was drunk or in some state not 100% conscious, in my leather clothes & ponytail) not acknowledging me when we ran into each other on the street. But since the arrest & the two-years’ probation when Mom & Dad were so upset, Junie has gone into gear as BIG SIS again. Like having a sex offender for a kid brother is a challenge to her, & she is not one to back off from challenges. Like I am one of her problem students only needing to be redeemed by some adult. Like I am somebody you can tease & nag with a smile saying Quen, you’d be really good-looking if you didn’t mope so much. & stand taller for God’s sake. & can’t you do something about your hair, & your clothes?

Invited me to her place for a dinner, two weeks before Christmas. Some friends of hers I’d met before I think, though maybe not—Junie’s teacher-friends look all alike. & talk alike. & a new faculty member at Junie’s school named LUCILLE. Another big woman with tits like hub-caps & a round smiling face & lots of “personality” like Junie. Teaches eighth grade. Handshake like a man’s.

It’s a dinner sitting at a table. Big seafood “paella” Junie made. & white wine. I arrived in the Dodge Ram a little late drinking en route, & mellowed out on ’ludes & this soft buzzing in my head like a dial tone. So I can tune out, & my face seems like I am listening. Junie & “Lucille” & the others all animated talking of politics in the state & in Washington, Clinton’s health plan & etc. & one guy, runty but talking like he’s sure of himself saying health care is the number one issue of our time, & we are not a civilized nation at present, & somebody else saying crime is the number one issue, Americans have become terrified of being victimized & are thus susceptible to dangerous right-wing paranoid politics. & from there to gun control, & abortion. & I’m O.K. drinking wine & I can see my cellar & cistern I have returned to their state before the cops came to harass me. Dinette table back in the cistern, & extension cord & 150-watt lights & the bandages, gauze etc. Ice pick, dental pick, knife, etc. & waiting for a plan to form. & excited knowing it will form, like a dream. No specimen beneath this roof. Forbidden . Except say it’s the start of vacation, or one of them is returning home for good. To India, to Zaire, to the West Indies. O.K.? & he’s all packed & his room cleared etc. & Q__ P__ CARETAKER volunteers to drive him to the airport. Not Kalamazoo but Lansing, the international airport. O.K.? & that’s cool, & kind. & as far as anybody in the house or at the University knows, he’s gone. Left the United States. & they don’t think of him anymore, he’s history. & on the way to the airport Q__ P__ gives him something to drink or eat & he falls asleep & the van is prepared again for a passenger in the rear & that’s cool. & after dark we return to 118 North Church. & it’s the middle of the night, & everybody asleep. & Q__ P__ carries his ZOMBIE down into the cellar & the door is locked behind him. & on the operating table the first procedure this time is not the transorbital lobotomy but “severing” the vocal cords. So if the ZOMBIE is O.K. or not he will at least be silent & trustworthy in that way. & I will get a diagram of the larynx or whatever it is from the biology library. & if I use a razor maybe. A light touch. You can feel them. They vibrate when you speak .