Джойс Оутс - Zombie

My first three ZOMBIES—all F’s.

Yet Q__ P__ did not give up hope. Nor have I to this day.

HOW A DUMB ACCIDENT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Supposed to meet a guy, young Wayne State kid, at the fountain at Grand Circus Park, downtown Detroit, it was a hot muggy summer night seven, eight years ago & Q__ P__ in the city for the weekend alone & fresh-faced amid the winos around the pigeonshit fountain strung out on Thunderbird & heroin some of them so far gone you’d mistake a young guy for old, a white guy for black, eyes bloodshot or filmed over in mucus & skin gray-moldery like an exhumed corpse. & this was the time I think this was the time when I was taking a course in learning to be a real estate agent in Mt. Vernon, my big sis Junie’s idea & it was a reasonable one, just didn’t work out. Maybe I’d been drinking too but I wasn’t drunk, for sure I am never what’s called DRUNK but steady on my feet & steady-eyed, steely. & I was looking pretty damn good in my tight jeans & palomino-skin jacket worn for reasons of style despite the 90° heat, my hair like wings oiled & combed back from my face curving just under my ears. Just come from sleeping & waking dazed not knowing where I was at first in the balcony of one of the big old palatial movie theaters on Woodward FIERY BOY LOVE & FORBIDDEN ECSTASIES. & now it was midnight & thrumming from electricity though Woodward & Gratiot were practically deserted. & I waited for my friend, & waited, & he never came & I was pissed wasting much of a Saturday night & went to some bars on Grand River & must’ve gotten drunk & afterward walking along the sidewalk I was grabbed from behind by two or three unknown assailants, might’ve been more of them standing watching, a nigger gang?—just teenagers but big & strong & laughing-elated doped to the eyeballs throwing me down like it’s a football tackle onto the filthy pavement & KICK KICK KICKING yelling Where’s your wallet, man? Where’s that wallet? I’d just seen a cop-cruiser pass through the intersection but nobody came to my rescue, if there were witnesses on the street they didn’t give a shit just walked away, or stood laughing at whitey getting pounded, his glasses broken & nose bloodied & the more he squirmed like a fish on a hook the more the kids laughed & yelled ripping my palomino-hide jacket & got my wallet within seconds but still laughing, chanting Where’s your wallet, man? Where’s that wallet? like these were words to some nigger music which maybe they were. & I’m sobbing & trying to say No! don’t hurt! oh hey please! no, NO! like not even a child but a baby, an infant might, & I’m pissing my pants & when it’s over & they’re running away I don’t even know it I’m still sobbing, trying to hide my face, double up like a thick writhing worm trying to protect my insides with my knees, & a long time afterward somebody comes over to peer at me & ask, Man, you alive? You want some ambulance or somethin’?

It was when I saw my face next day the revelation came.

Blinking & leaning close to the mirror because I didn’t have my glasses, & there was this FACE! this fantastic FACE! battered & bandaged (& blood leaking through already) & stitched (more than twenty stitches they gave me at Detroit General for three bad gashes) & the lips bruised & swollen & these were bloodshot-blackened EYES UNKNOWN TO ME.

& I understood then that I could habit a FACE NOT KNOWN. Not known ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. I could move in the world LIKE ANOTHER PERSON. I could arouse PITY, TRUST, SYMPATHY, WONDERMENT & AWE with such a face. I could EAT YOUR HEART & asshole you’d never know it.

Phone rang & it was Mom. Asked how I was & I said. Asked about my classes at Dale Tech & I said. Asked about my sinuses & I said. Asked about the caretaker’s job (which was Dad’s idea for Q__ P__, not Mom’s) & I said.

Has it been six months since my dental check-up Mom asked & I said I didn’t know & Mom said she was afraid it was more than six months possibly a year? & did I remember all the dental work I’d had to have done ten years ago when I’d neglected to have my teeth examined regularly & cleaned & I said & Mom said should she make an appointment for me? with Dr. Fish? & I stood there holding the phone receiver & through the opened doorway & along the hall at the mailboxes there was the one called Akhil talking with the one called Abdellah & I wondered what they were saying. If I could hear them, if the language they spoke was my own.

Couldn’t remember where I’d hidden them. Groping around on top of the beams filthy with cobwebs & desiccated husks of insects & my fingers came away empty. ROUND-LENSED GLASSES & CLEAR PLASTIC FRAMES. In school across the aisle his silky hair & face I stared at & the light winking off the lenses like there was a SECRET CONNÉCTION between us.

Except there wasn’t.

Or maybe there was & he denied it. Pushing me away if I stood too close in cafeteria line. Bruce & his friends & I’d slip in behind them & pretend like I was standing with them sometimes pushing up against them, a boy’s back.

BRUCE BRUUCE BRUUUUCE! I would whisper jamming my fingers in my mouth & my mouth against the pillow wet from drooling.

A door opened in my dream & I was BRUCE.

His parents came over to talk to Dad & Mom. I hid away hearing their terrible voices. Dad came finally to get me —Quentin! Quen-tin!— flush-faced & his glasses damp against his nose & his goatee quivering when he discovered me hiding curled up like a big slug behind the trash pail in the cupboard beneath the sink. What do you mean biding from me, son? Do you think you can hide from me? Led me by the arm into the living room where Mom was sitting stiff-smiling on the cream-colored brocaded sofa with two strangers, a man & a woman, Bruce’s parents, & their eyes like shattered glass in their angry faces & Dad stood with his hands lowered to my shoulders & asked in a calm voice like somebody on TV news had I purposefully hurt Bruce? tangling his neck & head in the swing chains purposefully ? & I jammed my fingers in my mouth, I was a shy slow-seeming child & wide-eyed & the light of fear always quick in my face. I stared at the carpet & the little round plastic things that bore the weight of the coffee table & the sofa & were intended to protect the carpet & I wondered if there was a name for such things & who is the source of NAMING, why we are who we are & come into the world that way—one of us BRUCE, & one of us QUENTIN. Mom began to speak in her high quick voice & Dad cut her off calmly saying it was my responsibility to speak, I was seven years old which is the age of reason. & I started then to cry. I told them no it was Bruce, it was Bruce who hurt me, scared me saying he would strangle me in the swing chains because I wouldn’t touch his thing but I got away, I got away & ran home & I was crying hard, my elbows & knees were scraped & my clothes soiled.

& Mom hugged me, & I was stiff not wanting to press into her breasts or belly or the soft place between her legs.

& Dad said it was all right, I was excused. & Bruce’s parents were on their feet still angry but their power was gone. Bruce’s father called after me like a boy jeering, & what did you do with our son’s glasses?

Mom called. Left a message on the answering tape saying she’d made an appointment for me with Dr. Fish. Also would I like to come to dinner Sunday.