Zombie Read online

  “W-What?” I stammered. “I’m listening.”

  Dad was frowning. Fifty-seven years old with hairy black nostrils widening & pinching. “Why would ‘gym things’ require a special lock, son? Why would ‘gym things’ emit such a smell?”

  It came to me: Dad thinks I am drinking again & taking drugs again, is that it? & indulging in unclean habits again risking my health?

  Of BUNNYGLOVES what could Dad know? Could he know?

  Between the bedsprings & the skinny mattress was the fish-gutting knife & the ice pick & the .38 nickel Smith & Wesson pistol but I was paralyzed & could not make a sudden move to protect myself. Staring at my hands which were trembling just slightly as if the building was vibrating from beneath. I did wonder, Could I strangle Dad? But he would resist, he would put up a struggle, and he is strong. & in a struggle we would be so close. I was staring at my hands as if I had never seen them before, like learning my name is Q__ P__ & that is who I am, & there is nobody else for me to be, the fingers were stubby like a kid’s & the knuckles scraped & the nails with queer milky half-moons uneven & broken & edged with grime. How many times I had scrubbed my hands with the gray soap from Ace & cleaned under the nails with a knifeblade & yet it had all come back.

  & then the answer came to me.

  I said, “—I bet I know what it is, Dad. A dead rat.”

  “A dead rat?”

  “Or a mouse. Maybe mice.”

  “There are dead mice in here?”

  Had he been thinking maybe food, spoiled food. Oh shit.

  Rapping on the locker with his knuckles. The locker was painted army-green & badly scratched & wobbled when he struck it. Dad’s corduroy face creased with disgust.

  I said, “I k-know it’s not the way I was brought up, Dad, or Junie. I’m sorry.”

  “Quentin, how long has it been like this in this room?”

  “Not long, Dad. A day or two.”

  “Aren’t you bothered by the smell yourself?”

  “I’m going to do some cleaning this weekend, Dad.”

  “You’ve been sleeping right here beside this locker, this smell, & you’re not bothered?”

  “I am bothered, Dad. I just don’t get uptight about it.”

  “It’s very disturbing to me, son, that you might be lying to me.”

  “Well, I don’t mean to lie, Dad. I just don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “I’m asking why this locker is padlocked, and why it smells. You know what I’m asking.”

  “Apart from the mice, Dad,” I said, “—I don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Your mother is worried about you, and I’m worried about you,” Dad said, “—not just your future, but right now. What is your life right now, Quentin? How would you describe it?”

  “My life ‘right now’—?”

  “Are you working at that box company?”

  “Sure. Only today’s a day off.”

  “What were you doing in here when I knocked on the door?”

  “Taking a nap.”

  “A nap? At this time of day? With this—smell? Son, what has happened to you?”

  I shook my head. I was looking at the floor but not seeing it.

  If he looks in the bathroom, I thought, I’m fucked. The tub I didn’t have time to scrub. The shower curtain so stained & speckled. BUNNYGLOVES’ underwear wadded and soaked with blood & the pubic hairs I’d scraped off on the floor.

  “Son? I’m talking to you. How do you explain yourself?”

  “Well,” I said, “—apart from the mice, I don’t see what’s the problem.”

  It went on like that. DAD’S MOUTH shaped certain words emerging like balloons & my mouth shaped certain words & it was familiar to me & there was a comfort in that. For finally Dad gives up for he does not want to know & wipes his face with a handkerchief & says, “Quentin, the main reason I dropped by is—how would you like to come home with me for dinner tonight? Your mom has made banana-custard pie,” & I said, “Thanks, Dad, but I’m not hungry I guess. I’ve already eaten.”

  12

  Twelve years old & in seventh grade & now I was wearing glasses & long-armed & skinny & hair sprouting under my arms & at my groin & their eyes sliding onto me & even the teachers & in gym class I refused to go through the shower refused to go naked moving through them & their cocks glistening & scratching their chests, bellies & some of them so muscular, so good-looking & laughing like apes not guessing except if seeing me & my eyes I couldn’t keep still darting & swimming among them like minnows if seeing me they knew & their faces would harden with disgust QUEER QUEER QUENTIN’S QUEER & that time Dad charged upstairs to get me where I was doing homework in my room & yanked me by the arm & downstairs & into the garage & showed me the Body Builder magazines & the naked Ken-doll from the playground I’d brought back hidden behind stacks of old newspapers & he’d found his face splotched & furious & at that time Dad did wear a goatee like Dr. M__ K__’s & this too livid with outrage. Twisting the magazines in his hands like wringing a chicken’s neck to spare himself the sight of the covers & the drawings somebody had done on them in fluorescent-red felt-pen ink. Nor the insides with more such drawings on centerfold models of male muscle-bodies & the young guy who looked like Barry might’ve been in a few years & many pounds heavier & a shiny pink upright banana lifting from his groin & parts of certain photos scissored out. This is sick Quentin Dad’s mouth worked, panted, this is disgusting I never never want to see anything like this again in my life. We won’t tell your mother starting to say more but his voice gave out.

  Together we burned the evidence. Back behind the garage where Mom would not see.

  13

  Frontal lobotomy, also known as leucotomy (from leuco, Greek for “white”). Most extreme and irreversible form of psychosurgery. Procedure destroys white matter in both the left and right frontal lobes of the human brain. Neuronal pathways connecting the frontal lobes with the limbic system and other parts of the brain are severed. Desired results: “flattening” of affect to reduce emotion, agitation, compulsive mental cognition and physical behavior in schizophrenics and other mental patients. Children as young as five may be so treated.

  This page, I razored out of the textbook. Back behind the psych library stacks where nobody could see. I COULD ALMOST SEE MY ZOMBIE MATERIALIZING BEFORE MY EYES.

  Another book even better, Psychosurgery (1942) by Dr. Walter Freeman and Dr. James W. Watts of George Washington University—

  When the patient is unconscious I pinch the upper eyelid between thumb and finger and bring it well away from the eyeball. I then insert the point of the transorbital leucotome into the conjunctival sac, taking care not to touch the skin or lashes, and move the point around until it settles against the vault of the orbit. I then drop to one knee, beside the table, in order to aim the instrument parallel with the bony ridge of the nose, and slightly toward the midline. When the 5 cm. mark is reached, I pull the handle of the instrument as far laterally as the rim of the orbit will permit in order to sever fibers at the base of the frontal lobe. I then return the instrument halfway to its previous position and drive it farther to a depth of 7 cm. from the margin of the upper eyelid. Again I sight the instrument as carefully as possible, and take a profile photograph of it in this position. This is the nearest approach to precision of which the method can boast. Then comes the ticklish part. Arteries are within reach. Keeping the instrument in the frontal plane, I move it 15° to 20° medially and about 30° laterally, return it to the mid position, and withdraw by a twisting movement, at the same time exercising considerable pressure on the eyelid to prevent hemorrhaging. Then to the opposite side, using an identical instrument, freshly sterilized.

  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 d
ay 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.

  14

  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!

  15

  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 b
reathe. 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.

  16

  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.