Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars

* * *

Joshua was the first one at Graham’s place, so he lingered alone in the living room, browsing the bookshelves. He picked up The Climax: The Art of Resolving Conflict and flipped through it. Rule #24: Not every revelation deserves screen time , he read. His phone buzzed with a message in his pocket. He decided that, today, if it came to that, he would point out the anti-Semitic implications of Graham’s anti-Weinstein rants. Enough was enough. He sensed that his newfangled decisiveness had something to do with his father — if need be, Joshua could be a tough Jew too.

Graham walked in with the same pretzels and soda bottles from last week. It was as though he were just plugging the products: no one ever ate pretzels; no one drank whatever was in the bottles, it may well have been dyed toilet-bowl water. Rule #33: Tension must pay off, otherwise it’s torture . Joshua, gearing up for a hypothetical fight, glared at him without a greeting.

“I like your zombie stuff, Josh,” Graham said unexpectedly, settling in his armchair. He instantly applied his thumb to his cleft chin, rubbing it with pleasure. Did he have a residual clit there? “I do think you have a few good ideas in that pumpkin of yours. I was thinking of putting you in touch with an agent guy I know. He’s a bit of an insufferable prick, and most of his clients are actually actors. But he’s always wanting to expand into screenwriters. And you might get to practice your pitching. What do you think?”

Rule #45: What you see is what you get. A flock of butterflies fluttered up in Joshua’s stomach. “I think that’s great,” he said. The phone buzzed again. He put the book away and sat down. Other than Zombie Wars , he couldn’t remember any of his other ideas at that moment. Saint Pacino watched over him benevolently. An agent, even of Graham’s breed, was something. Once again the phone buzzed, and then buzzed one more time.

“Are you going to look at that phone?” Graham asked. “It’s really annoying.” Joshua checked his phone. Rule #50: Plot don’t stop . The message was from Bernie.

Spaking of hard, has check up , the message read. Some leevel too higg. Ha anotjer tes. My prstte Prostate like roc. Hello cancer. Don tell Jan Rachel. Lov ypu.

Joshua’s first thought was: Bernie learned how to text. He then waited for another thought, but it was slow in coming.

* * *

“Why you want to have zombies?” Bega asked. “Do you have good reason? Or is it just because Hollywood?”

This time around, Bega’s T-shirt had a Ford logo, except it read Fuck instead of Ford .

“Well, there’s something about people just turning into consuming organisms,” Joshua said. “So that the living appear more human in contrast. They love, they suffer.”

“Who?” Dillon asked.

“The humans.”

“Have you seen 28 Days Later ?” Dillon asked.

“No,” Joshua said. “It hasn’t come out in the U.S. yet.”

“Joshua watches only old movies,” Bega said. “For him good movies are like wine, they need to become old. Everything after Star Wars is shit. He doesn’t want to be influenced by shit.”

Joshua must’ve stated this to Bega back at the Westmoreland, but he couldn’t quite recall it. Still, the mocking tone hurt.

“I hate all of the Star Wars movies. Particularly Star Wars ,” Joshua clarified defiantly.

Dillon assembled his face into an expression of unmitigated shock and offered it to Joshua.

“The thing with zombies,” Graham said, “is that they don’t fuck.”

“Really?” Dillon feigned shock again. “Like really ?”

“Really,” Joshua said. How does one become a Dillon?

“And they don’t fuck,” Graham continued, “because they have no functional bodies.”

“They could fuck,” Joshua said. “They could do anything I’d like them to do.”

“Zombies are not real,” Bega said. “When you see zombie in a movie you think: This is bullshit.”

“The way I see it is they’re the living dead,” Joshua said. “Their human biology is not dead, it’s just suspended, they’re in a kind of a coma. So that their bodies are not necessarily dead. There’s struggle inside them at the cellular level — good cells versus evil cells. That’s why Major K is developing a vaccine for the virus. If it works, good beats evil, and they can just return to being human. It will be a little bit like resurrection.”

“I always wondered how they digest the flesh they eat,” Graham said. “I mean, how much of it can they actually eat? Do they get overstuffed? Do they crave fresh protein? Can they eat raw steak too? Do they shit?”

“Well, you do have to suspend some disbelief,” Joshua said. “You have to accept that zombies are mythological creatures. Greek gods don’t shit.”

“Greek gods do fuck, though, as far as I know, and a lot,” Graham said. “They are jealous, they do all kinds of wacky stuff to each other, they cheat on their wives, they change shapes. They don’t just totter around howling.”

“It’s not about the zombies, it’s about the living,” Joshua said.

“But living don’t do nothing in your story,” Bega said. “They just kill lot of zombies. Good thing about zombies is you can kill million and nobody cares. You just shoot, they explode, nobody cares. It is for Americans to feel better about killing to make it easy.”

“They’re like terrorists,” Dillon said.

“Maybe there is one zombie your hero cares about,” Bega suggested. “Maybe he tries to save his wife or something.”

“There’s that family that Major Klopstock found,” Joshua said. “He wants to save them.”

“The name Klopstock is a bad idea, I promise you,” Graham said. “He can have a Jewish name, but could he at least be Major Abraham or Major David or something? Actually, Major David is pretty good — as in David versus Goliath. Let me pat myself on the back!”

He reached for the spot between his shoulder blades. One day his joint will pop.

“I like Major Moses,” Dillon said. “He takes them to the promised land.”

“I don’t want biblical names. I prefer Major Klopstock. It means nothing. I don’t think it’s even particularly Jewish. He’s just an ordinary guy with an ordinary name,” Joshua said.

“I don’t think that Klopstock is an ordinary name anywhere outside Brooklyn,” Graham said.

“Where is sadness?” Bega asked. “He lives in the world that is absolutely destroyed. He lost family. He lost his house, his city. Why is he not sad?”

“He is quite sad,” Joshua said. “He just doesn’t have time to stop and reflect upon it. Sadness will come after he survives.”

“Fuck sadness, movies are not about being sad,” Graham said, the red hand of excessive excitement emerging on his forehead. “Look anywhere around you, no sadness. Americans are proud people but we’re not sad people. We’re either deeply depressed or insanely happy. Either way, we don’t care to see other people’s misery. What we want to see is how to overcome the shit. We shall overcome! Overcome the shit! That kind of thing.”

“But how do you overcome death?” Bega was getting upset. “That’s why you have zombies. They are dead little bit so when you kill them you kill death.”

“I think death is part of life,” Dillon said.

“That’s depressing,” Graham said. “Who is going to watch a movie as depressing as that? You need to get a winner in there, Mr. Levin. Not the gentle Major Chickenstock. Someone who makes hard choices and goes for the kill if he needs to. People are losers, so they identify with the winner.”

“But that is not real,” Bega said.