Джойс Оутс - Zombie

A true ZOMBIE would be mine forever. He would obey every command & whim. Saying “Yes, Master” & “No, Master.” He would kneel before me lifting his eyes to me saying, “I love you, Master. There is no one but you, Master.”

& so it would come to pass, & so it would be. For a true ZOMBIE could not say a thing that was not , only a thing that was . His eyes would be open & clear but there would be nothing inside them seeing . & nothing behind them thinking . Nothing passing judgment .

Like you who observe me (you think I don’t know you are observing Q__ P__? making reports of Q__ P__? conferring with one another about Q__ P__?) & think your secret thoughts—ALWAYS & FOREVER PASSING JUDGMENT.

A ZOMBIE would pass no judgment. A ZOMBIE would say, “God bless you, Master.” He would say, “You are good, Master. You are kind & merciful.” He would say, “Fuck me in the ass, Master, until I bleed blue guts.” He would beg for his food & he would beg for oxygen to breathe. He would beg to use the toilet not to soil his clothes. He would be respectful at all times. He would never laugh or smirk or wrinkle his nose in disgust. He would lick with his tongue as bidden. He would suck with his mouth as bidden. He would spread the cheeks of his ass as bidden. He would cuddle like a teddy bear as bidden. He would rest his head on my shoulder like a baby. Or I would rest my head on his shoulder like a baby. We would eat pizza slices from each other’s fingers. We would lie beneath the covers in my bed in the CARETAKER’s room listening to the March wind & the bells of the Music College tower chiming & WE WOULD COUNT THE CHIMES UNTIL WE FELL ASLEEP AT EXACTLY THE SAME MOMENT.

Purchased my first ice pick, March 1988. Cruising the van along Rt. 31 & out to the Lake Michigan shore & through the little half-assed towns Stony Lake, Sable Pt., Ludington, Portage & Arcadia. In my down jacket, wool cap, my glasses with dark plastic shades slipped over them, a week’s growth of beard & keeping my voice low like it’s hoarse stopping at a crossroads store selling groceries plus hardware & it was no trouble making the purchase & nothing suspicious. Old guy watching TV by a woodburning stove & he rings up my purchase on an old-fashioned cash register & his face is wizened like a prune & I say, making a joke, A man needs a fucking ice pick this time of year, huh?—fucking winter , & the old guy blinks at me like he doesn’t know the English language so I say, grinning & making a joke of it, These ice storms, huh?—fucking Michigan winter & this time the old fart seems to hear or at least sneers his lip & agrees. & I’m thinking should he ever be asked to identify the purchaser of said ice pick & they show him a photo of Q__ P__ (shaven, with regular glasses & no cap) he’ll shake his head & say Naw, that don’t look anything like him .

Parked the van overlooking the ice-jammed shore & the lake & the sky steely gray & a glare so you can’t tell where one ends & the other begins so you could climb up from Earth into Heaven if you believe in that kind of shit WHICH Q__ P__ DOES NOT! & I had the ice pick in my hand poking & prodding & thrusting into its target & so EXCITED suddenly with no warning I COME IN MY PANTS before I can fucking unzip, oh Jesus IS THIS A SIGN WHAT’S TO COME?

Mondays & Thursdays are trash pick-up mornings on North Church. So I drag the yellow plastic cans out to the curb by 7:30 A.M. which is O.K. because I am an early riser not requiring sleep like weaker people. Wearing my sweats & a Tigers baseball cap & looking just ahead of me where I’m walking like I’m a guy minding my own business & there’s this voice out of the fucking sky!—there’s this soft humming voice!—& I almost didn’t hear then I heard it & whirled around like it’s Vietnam & I’m a hopped-up grunt like in the movies & it was one of the tenants!—just one of the tenants Ramid so polite on his way up to campus & hooded up like a little kid & with the face of a little kid & his eyes like chewy dates & he’s asking do I need some help? & I’m staring at him, there’s EYE CONTACT but only for a moment then I’m cool, I’m saying no thanks it’s my job. But thanks .

Dr. E__ asks What is the nature of your fantasies, Quentin? & I am blank & silent blushing like in school when I could not answer a teacher’s question nor even (everybody staring at me) comprehend it. Saying finally, so quiet Dr. E__ had to cup his hand to his ear to hear, I guess I don’t have any—what you call “fantasies,” Doctor. I don’t know .

At the time of BUNNYGLOVES, RAISINEYES, BIG GUY I did not have access to my caretaker’s quarters of course nor the cellar at 118 North Church. Only my van & the two-room place on Twelfth Street. The tub in the bathroom.

My procedures were crude & I was continually thwarted in my experiments. A radio had to be played loud, heavy-metal sound on WMWM out of Muskegon & sometimes fucking ads would come on, the intrusion of some stranger’s voice at a delicate moment. & if my hands shook or if I was ’luded-out & could not perform as I bid my hands to do like in a dream when you’re moving through glue. & if I got TOO EXCITED TOO FAST. Oh shit.

BUNNYGLOVES who I had such hope for, him being the first, convulsed like a madman when I pushed the ice pick at the angle in the diagram through the “bony orbit” above the eyeball (or whatever it was, splintering bone) & screamed through the sponge I’d shoved & tied in his mouth actually snapping the baling wire securing his ankles but he did not regain consciousness dying in twelve minutes while I ran cold water on his face to wash away the blood & revive him. My first ZOMBIE—a grade of fucking F.

RAISINEYES lived for seven hours in the tub sometimes almost conscious & snoring or rattling his breath so I thought IT’S WORKING! IT’S WORKING! MY ZOMBIE! but I had to lift the eyelid of his remaining eye (I only “did” one) & secure it with tape, it never kept open by itself. I would move his arms & legs to get the circulation going. & handled & squeezed his cock (which remained limp & clammycool like a chicken’s innards) but NOTHING HAPPENED. & then it was over & SHIT WHAT A DOWNER.

BIG GUY was most promising for by then I believe I had learned to use the ice pick skillfully, it’s a skill you learn with practice, using a hammer like Dr. Freeman said instead of, what I’d been doing before, just pounding with the flat of my left hand, to drive the ice pick up into the “frontal lobe.” Also, BIG GUY for a part-nigger part-Huron Indian drop-out college basketball player-junkle-dealer from Lansing was weird, he was so healthy , I mean looked healthy , his hair thick & glossy-black & his bones so long & hard, his muscles, flat stomach & chest hair & his penis a length of blood sausage, his skin a deep rich plum-black I was crazy to lick with my tongue & my teeth to gnaw. Even his toes, his big toes!—JUST CRAZY FOR HIM. Yet BIG GUY let me down like the others for he never regained what they call consciousness after the operation & like RAISINEYES was breathing these deep shuddering snoring gasps after I yanked out the sponge thinking he was choking on it. Hey? Hey c’mon? You’re O.K. c’mon open your eyes? But the left eye I’d gone into with the ice pick was shot & the right eye wasn’t much better, rolled back in his head like it wasn’t even an eye but something else. BIG GUY lived maybe fifteen hours I think dying as I was fucking him in the ass (not in the tub, in my bed) to discipline him as a ZOMBIE & I only comprehended he was dead when during the night waking needing to take a piss I felt how cold he was, arms & legs where I’d slung them over me & his head on my shoulder to cuddle but BIG GUY was stiffening in rigor mortis so I panicked thinking I would be locked in his embrace!