Aleksandar Hemon - The Making of Zombie Wars

“Have you ever seen The Searchers ?” Joshua asked.

“What’s that?”

“ The Searchers , the John Wayne movie.”

“No,” Stagger said. “I can’t stand John Wayne.”

“So what’s your favorite movie?”

Stagger ripped the bloody tissue plumes out of his nostrils while considering the question, rolled down the window, and threw them out.

“ Star Wars. Attack of the Clones ,” he said. “But I don’t want to discuss stupid movies.”

“Let’s go and get the girl,” Joshua said without thinking. Stagger turned to look at him: first, in disbelief, and then, fist-pumping in the air. “Fuckin’ A!” he shouted and made a U-turn in front of a bus.

Few words were exchanged between them as they drove on. There was no quittin’ now. The realization provided joy and relief for Joshua — there was going to be an end to all this. He decided that, come Monday, he was going to write a long e-mail to Kimmy, lay down the whole story honestly and unflinchingly, detail all the undeserved humiliation, explain the exonerating circumstances, accept the responsibility, suggest that he’d been more than sufficiently punished, foreground the fact that he responsibly returned the girl to her mother, and promise he’d change his ways, having learned so much from his recent experiences. She will take him back in; or maybe she won’t. Either way all this will have been just a (heroic?) nightmare remembered; and selectively, God willing.

“Buckle up,” Joshua said. Stagger was gripping the steering wheel with his unbroken hand, the knuckles white with excitement.

“I don’t think so,” Stagger said. “I don’t think buckling up is something I can stand to do right now.”

They soon passed the Ambassador, turned a corner to behold Bega’s Honda, complete with the plush dice and a dent in the front right door, sitting in the driveway of a house with a porch — a very small house with a very small porch, but still. An immigrant with so much property? An asshole who constantly berates and complains about this country owns a fancy Japanese car and a cozy little house? Fuck that! They parked on the street, blocking the Honda with the STAGmobile. The street was asleep, except for a couple of sparrows chirping apoplectically at a half-empty birdbath on Bega’s lawn.

“I’ve got to pee again,” Joshua said. He didn’t, really, but he chased the sparrows away, undug his dick, and urinated into the birdbath. The arbitrary meanness of his act was gratifying: it was a form of freedom. “Fuck you!” he said to no one in particular. The sparrows landed on the skinny tree branches above the bath and watched, fidgeting as dark-yellow urine spread through the clear water like an oil spill.

Stagger rang the doorbell, and it buzzed like a laser in a James Bond movie. On the porch, there were a few cracked, empty pots, and a mound of coupon sheets so sodden they clearly predated the deprivations of the previous winter. Joshua thumbed the buzzer too, but this time there was no sound at all. Stagger pressed his face against the window in the parenthesis of his hands, even if the blinds prevented him from seeing anything. His nose was still bleeding, however; he left a bloody smudge on the pane.

“Probably not home,” Joshua said. “We should go.”

“I don’t think so,” Stagger said and banged at the door so vehemently Joshua feared the entire neighborhood would be in no time flattening their noses against their windows. It was fortunate that Esko had broken Stagger’s sword; otherwise heads and limbs would be flying.

“He’s not at home,” Joshua said.

“We’ll make him be at home,” Stagger said.

Bega opened the door in his boxer shorts, which were turned to the side at his hips, so it looked like his upper body was twisted at a weird angle. His chest was wispily hairy, cherry-sized nipples looming over his pasty abdominal folds. Joshua hadn’t anticipated a wide-faced white cat in Bega’s arms.

“Josh,” Bega said. “Good morning.”

“Is the girl here?” Stagger demanded.

Bega completely ignored him, asking Joshua: “What’s up?”

“Is the girl here?” Joshua asked. The cat was watching him intently, as if it knew everything that was to be known about Joshua. It looked like Bushy’s sibling: the same fluffy beige fur, the same pink nose, the same gaze, the same self-centeredness.

“Come in,” Bega said. “My home is your home.”

The cat was purring loudly, which bothered Joshua. Bega had never mentioned his cat. Bushy was dead while Bega had a living, purring cat. He was scratching it between the pricked-up ears, as if nothing had ever happened. I am considering slicing your prick off and putting it in your mouth until you choke , Bega had said before Esko wrung Bushy’s neck.

“Pretty cat,” Joshua said.

“Thanks,” Bega said. As if nothing had happened. “Her name is Dolly. She’s sweetheart.”

Dolly decided to wiggle out of Bega’s arms, and, maintaining a deep purr, scratch at the carpet on the floor, on which men in turbans and women in long, ballooning dresses faced each other under intricately woven canopies of leaves, while horses reared and heavenly birds spread their splendorously colorful plumes. The content cat and the carpet stood out in the morning drabness of Bega’s living room: a sofa with a blanket-and-pillow mound and three plastic porch chairs huddled around a plastic table, over which a paper-ball light hung from a prominent hook.

“That carpet is the only thing I have from Bosnia,” Bega said. “And this.” The other thing was a small painting of a closed window on the wall. Joshua studied the painting with exaggerated contempt.

“Where’s the girl?” Stagger demanded again, but Bega ignored him, again.

“We came to get Alma,” Joshua said.

“She’s in the shower,” Bega said. “Would you like some coffee?”

“If you laid your hands on her,” Stagger growled, “I’m gonna cut them off.”

“Who’s this?” Bega asked Joshua.

“That’s Stagger.”

“Yes, okay. But who is he? And what happened to his head?”

Joshua considered Stagger: the demolished ponytail, the bloody nose and tattooed body, the American flag shorts.

“He’s…” It was too difficult to explain. “He’s my buddy.”

“What does he want?”

“Where’s the girl, motherfucker?” Stagger insisted. He moved deeper into the house to look for her. Dolly abandoned the carpet and slithered away somewhere. What kind of person lets another person kill other people’s cats? What kind of person is that kind of person?

“He wants Alma,” Joshua said. “We want to take her back home.”

Bega should’ve offered his cat as a replacement, or at least as retribution. It was only fair. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a cat for a cat.

“Okay, no problem,” Bega said. “But you and your friend knock at my door at six in the morning. Is that how you do it now?”

“At least we don’t kill cats,” Joshua said.

Stagger banged at the bathroom door then tried to get in, but it was locked.

“What cats have to do with anything?”

“Cats have a lot to do with everything. You have your pretty little cat and no worry in the world. But what about other people’s cats? Do you ever think of other people’s cats?”

“You don’t say sorry, you don’t say good morning, you come and talk about cats and you want to push me around. You can’t do that,” Bega said.

“Oh yeah? Fuck you! I’m gonna push you all I want,” Joshua yelled and stepped closer to Bega, who was unmoved. “We can do whatever we want. You came to my house and killed my cat! And where’s the girl?”

“Girl!” Stagger shouted.