Джойс Оутс - Zombie

DAD’S EYES behind his shiny glasses. Looking at me like when I was two years old & squatting on the bathroom floor shitting & when I was five years old playing with my baby dick & when I was seven years old & my T-shirt splotched with another kid’s nosebleed & when I was eleven home from the pool where my friend Barry drowned & most fierce DAD’S EYES when I was twelve years old that time Dad charged upstairs with the Body Builder magazines shaking in his hand. “Son? Son ?”

“W-What?” I stammered. “I’m listening.”

Dad was frowning. Fifty-seven years old with hairy black nostrils widening & pinching. “Why would ‘gym things’ require a special lock, son? Why would ‘gym things’ emit such a smell ?”

It came to me: Dad thinks I am drinking again & taking drugs again, is that it? & indulging in unclean habits again risking my health?

Of BUNNYGLOVES what could Dad know? Could he know?

Between the bedsprings & the skinny mattress was the fish-gutting knife & the ice pick & the .38 nickel Smith & Wesson pistol but I was paralyzed & could not make a sudden move to protect myself. Staring at my hands which were trembling just slightly as if the building was vibrating from beneath. I did wonder, Could I strangle Dad? But he would resist, he would put up a struggle, and he is strong. & in a struggle we would be so close . I was staring at my hands as if I had never seen them before, like learning my name is Q__ P__ & that is who I am, & there is nobody else for me to be, the fingers were stubby like a kid’s & the knuckles scraped & the nails with queer milky half-moons uneven & broken & edged with grime. How many times I had scrubbed my hands with the gray soap from Ace & cleaned under the nails with a knifeblade & yet it had all come back.

& then the answer came to me.

I said, “—I bet I know what it is, Dad. A dead rat.”

“A dead rat ?”

“Or a mouse. Maybe mice.”

“There are dead mice in here?”

Had he been thinking maybe food, spoiled food. Oh shit.

Rapping on the locker with his knuckles. The locker was painted army-green & badly scratched & wobbled when he struck it. Dad’s corduroy face creased with disgust.

I said, “I k-know it’s not the way I was brought up, Dad, or Junie. I’m sorry.”

“Quentin, how long has it been like this in this room?”

“Not long, Dad. A day or two.”

“Aren’t you bothered by the smell yourself?”

“I’m going to do some cleaning this weekend, Dad.”

“You’ve been sleeping right here beside this locker, this smell, & you’re not bothered?”

“I am bothered, Dad. I just don’t get uptight about it.”

“It’s very disturbing to me, son, that you might be lying to me.”

“Well, I don’t mean to lie, Dad. I just don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking why this locker is padlocked, and why it smells. You know what I’m asking.”

“Apart from the mice, Dad,” I said, “—I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Your mother is worried about you, and I’m worried about you,” Dad said, “—not just your future, but right now. What is your life right now, Quentin? How would you describe it?”

“My life ‘right now’—?”

“Are you working at that box company?”

“Sure. Only today’s a day off.”

“What were you doing in here when I knocked on the door?”

“Taking a nap.”

“A nap? At this time of day? With this—smell? Son, what has happened to you?”

I shook my head. I was looking at the floor but not seeing it.

If he looks in the bathroom, I thought, I’m fucked. The tub I didn’t have time to scrub. The shower curtain so stained & speckled. BUNNYGLOVES’ underwear wadded and soaked with blood & the pubic hairs I’d scraped off on the floor.

“Son? I’m talking to you. How do you explain yourself?”

“Well,” I said, “—apart from the mice, I don’t see what’s the problem.”

It went on like that. DAD’S MOUTH shaped certain words emerging like balloons & my mouth shaped certain words & it was familiar to me & there was a comfort in that. For finally Dad gives up for he does not want to know & wipes his face with a handkerchief & says, “Quentin, the main reason I dropped by is—how would you like to come home with me for dinner tonight? Your mom has made banana-custard pie,” & I said, “Thanks, Dad, but I’m not hungry I guess. I’ve already eaten.”

Twelve years old & in seventh grade & now I was wearing glasses & long-armed & skinny & hair sprouting under my arms & at my groin & their eyes sliding onto me & even the teachers & in gym class I refused to go through the shower refused to go naked moving through them & their cocks glistening & scratching their chests, bellies & some of them so muscular, so good-looking & laughing like apes not guessing except if seeing me & my eyes I couldn’t keep still darting & swimming among them like minnows if seeing me they knew & their faces would harden with disgust QUEER QUEER QUENTIN’S QUEER & that time Dad charged upstairs to get me where I was doing homework in my room & yanked me by the arm & downstairs & into the garage & showed me the Body Builder magazines & the naked Ken-doll from the playground I’d brought back hidden behind stacks of old newspapers & he’d found his face splotched & furious & at that time Dad did wear a goatee like Dr. M__ K__’s & this too livid with outrage. Twisting the magazines in his hands like wringing a chicken’s neck to spare himself the sight of the covers & the drawings somebody had done on them in fluorescent-red felt-pen ink. Nor the insides with more such drawings on centerfold models of male muscle-bodies & the young guy who looked like Barry might’ve been in a few years & many pounds heavier & a shiny pink upright banana lifting from his groin & parts of certain photos scissored out. This is sick Quentin Dad’s mouth worked, panted, this is disgusting I never never want to see anything like this again in my life. We won’t tell your mother starting to say more but his voice gave out.

Together we burned the evidence. Back behind the garage where Mom would not see.

Frontal lobotomy, also known as leucotomy (from leuco , Greek for “white”). Most extreme and irreversible form of psychosurgery. Procedure destroys white matter in both the left and right frontal lobes of the human brain. Neuronal pathways connecting the frontal lobes with the limbic system and other parts of the brain are severed. Desired results: “flattening” of affect to reduce emotion, agitation, compulsive mental cognition and physical behavior in schizophrenics and other mental patients. Children as young as five may be so treated.

This page, I razored out of the textbook. Back behind the psych library stacks where nobody could see. I COULD ALMOST SEE MY ZOMBIE MATERIALIZING BEFORE MY EYES.

Another book even better, Psychosurgery (1942) by Dr. Walter Freeman and Dr. James W. Watts of George Washington University—

When the patient is unconscious I pinch the upper eyelid between thumb and finger and bring it well away from the eyeball. I then insert the point of the transorbital leucotome into the conjunctival sac, taking care not to touch the skin or lashes, and move the point around until it settles against the vault of the orbit. I then drop to one knee, beside the table, in order to aim the instrument parallel with the bony ridge of the nose, and slightly toward the midline. When the 5 cm. mark is reached, I pull the handle of the instrument as far laterally as the rim of the orbit will permit in order to sever fibers at the base of the frontal lobe. I then return the instrument halfway to its previous position and drive it farther to a depth of 7 cm. from the margin of the upper eyelid. Again I sight the instrument as carefully as possible, and take a profile photograph of it in this position. This is the nearest approach to precision of which the method can boast. Then comes the ticklish part. Arteries are within reach. Keeping the instrument in the frontal plane, I move it 15° to 20° medially and about 30° laterally, return it to the mid position, and withdraw by a twisting movement, at the same time exercising considerable pressure on the eyelid to prevent hemorrhaging. Then to the opposite side, using an identical instrument, freshly sterilized.