Джойс Оутс - Zombie

I was excited getting a HARD-ON razoring out these pages, I knew this was a TURNING POINT in my life. How many thousands of transorbital lobotomies these guys performed in the 1940s & 1950s & how easy to perform, the author of Principles of Psychosurgery stated he did as many as thirty sometimes in a single day using only a “humble” ice pick as he called it!

Dad & Mom had hoped for me to become a scientist like Dad, or a doctor. But things had not turned out that way. But I knew I could perform a transorbital lobotomy even if it was in secret. All I would need is an ice pick. & a specimen.

At Tuesday’s group session Dr. B__ urged us to speak from the heart . There are eleven of us. Eyes are avoided. O.K. men let’s get the ball rolling, who wants to begin? There was a weird buzz at the back of my head. Kept looking back over my shoulder & shifting my ass in the chair but there was nobody behind me or nobody I could see. Remember nobody’s judging anybody else. That’s the bottom line, guys .

Fluorescent lights & some of them flickering. Cement-block wall painted mustard yellow & posters & fliers & sign-up sheets & a picture of Magic Johnson with some message on it & no windows except the one door with thick glass reinforced with wires like circuits of the brain & I’m wondering if it’s one-way glass & we are being observed like laboratory rats maybe videotaped? though when we came through that door that’s the same door we come through every week I would swear.

O.K. men let’s get the ball rolling, speak clearly & from the heart. Who wants to begin?

Bim goes first, Bim’s a white guy my age with a face like crumbly cheese & the Haldol tremors & a perpetual runny nose so there’s a glisten of snot in his nostrils like teardrops, once he gets talking & laughing & talking fast he can’t stop & I’m staring at the floor trying to think what Q__ P__ can say, three weeks in a row sitting here staring at the floor & deaf-&-dumb like a moron. If you don’t cooperate/communicate YOU’RE FUCKED. Next is this other white guy Perche in his forties always wears a plaid coat & necktie always grinning & trying to shake hands with everybody, saw me out on the street one day & called out QUEN-TIN! like we’re buddies & I stood there staring at him not eye-contact but chest-level & he stares at me & comes a little closer his hand held out to shake & I’m in my own space rigid & not-breathing & finally he backs off saying Excuse me, I thought you were somebody I know . & next there’s this fat guy, a kid younger than me with a beer gut all around his cowboy belt & pushing up toward his chin like a bloated frog, Frogsnout’s my name for him & he talks too fast too & sweats & pants & though I’m not listening I can’t help but hear; some bullshit about him haunted by the memory of, can’t stop thinking of, so fucking sorry for his sister’s kids he burnt up by accident pouring gasoline around the house & lighting it for revenge not knowing anybody was home & this takes a long time. & there’s the black guys of whom two are cool dudes I call Velvet Tongue & The Tease, these dudes true bullshit artists both on parole from Jackson Q__ P__ could learn from but DON’T MAKE EYE CONTACT. So I don’t.

Forgot my morning meds & lunchtime & so on the way down here swallowed two ’ludes. Eating a double cheeseburger & fries & drinking Bud in the van, got a six-pack at a 7-Eleven & drank four beers straight, throat’s so fucking dry. Cruising the expressway & the riverfront & down by the projects. OFF LIMITS since sentencing. Taking a chance if a cop pulls me over & I’m drinking but no cop is going to pull me over, white guy with a neat haircut driving a van with O.K. headlights, taillights, safe within the speed limit & keeping to the right-hand lane. Q__ P__ got his driver’s license aged sixteen & always a damned careful driver.

So I’m cool & mellow & listening to the other guys or seeming so & Dr. B__’s frowning & nodding like they do, like they’re listening, too & taking it all in. & I’m not going to panic ’cause it’s my turn after the next guy. & I know I’m fucking up not contributing to the discussion as Dr. B__ calls it. & I know he’s already been giving me bad marks or??? on the reports. Nobody’s going to judge you, men. Just speak from the heart. It goes no further than this room, O.K.?

My shoulders hunched like a vulture’s & I’m staring at my shoes which are jogging shoes stained like rust. Quen-tin? How about you? & I open my mouth to speak & there’s this voice comes out, it’s Q__ P__’s but like another guy’s too, somebody on TV maybe, or I’m imitating Bim, Perche, Frogsnout, stammering saying how ashamed I was to betray the loving trust of my Mom & Dad & that was the worst part of what’d happened to me, not just this once but many times since the age of nineteen, though I had never been arrested before & never did anything illegal but many smaller things. (Why I said nineteen I don’t know, just an age that sounded O.K. It was aged eighteen in fact, the incident at Ypsilanti & how upset Dad & Mom were.) I wished I could turn the clock back to infancy I said! & start Time again. When I was pure & good. When I was with God. I said I believed in God but did not think He believed in me because I was not worthy. There is that way Mom’s face creases & collapses when she cries because she is getting old & my face collapsed like this & the guys were embarrassed & looked away except for Perche sucking it up like cum & Dr. B__ frowning & nodding. One of the black guys Velvet Tongue passed me a tissue but not looking at me & my voice was going fast now like a runaway trailer-truck down a mountain road. Said how sorry I was about the twelve-year-old boy I was accused of “molesting” (but did not supply details that he was black & retarded & a natural zombie— I’d thought!)—said I did not know what had happened exactly if I’d approached the boy myself in the alley back behind the dumpster where my van was parked or if the boy had followed me there & picked me up without my knowing. Because sometimes things happen to me I can’t comprehend. Too fast & confused for me to comprehend. This boy looking so much older than twelve with eyes piercing like blades demanding money from me or he would tell on me, he demanded $10 & when I gave him $10 he demanded $20 & when I gave him $20 he demanded $50 & when I gave him $50 he demanded $100 which was when I lost it & screamed at him & shook him BUT I DID NOT HURT HIM I SWEAR.

By this time I was stammering & my face was wet with tears! I had not known there were tears inside my eye sockets so close to leaking & once begun it’s easy to cry & half the guys were looking away from me & the other half mainly white guys were looking & Dr. B__ was flush-faced like he’d come in his pants asking questions about the boy as if this was some kid I’d known like in the neighborhood not a total stranger & weird questions like had I felt affection for the boy & did I feel that feeling affection was being manipulated & that was why I lost control , it was control of my own emotions I had lost wasn’t it? & feared? & I was shaking now a little imitating Bim, the hand-tremors & twitchy mouth & my face shining with tears & I looked up at Dr. B__ for the first time daring to make eye-contact because the tears protected me & I said in a loud clear voice like it was a surprise to me & a wonder —Yes doctor. I felt affection & that is why I lost control .

After each of our sessions Dr. B__ fills out this report for the probation office, I know. We are not allowed to see these reports which are confidential but that evening I was told something to make me hopeful, Dr. B__ pulling at his beard like it’s his dick & kindly smiling the way they do they’re making a gift to you of your own shit. Quen-tin you are making true progress at last, a breakthrough, getting in touch with your emotions Quen-tin!