Zombie (7 page)

somebody’s left-behind
New Anthology of English Verse
& I leafed through it in the student union, not at the tech college but at the University where sometimes I come by in the early evening & these words from a poem by “Gerald Manley Hopkins” leapt out at me & rang like the bell of the Music College.

Because now it is spring, it is April & Q__ P__’s first year of probation is behind him.

Dad & Mom & the relatives were ashamed but THAT IS HOW IT PLAYS OUT as my lawyer, in fact he is Dad’s lawyer, in Dad’s hire, has said. THAT IS HOW IT PLAYS OUT.

If your son had come up before a black judge, or a woman judge—it might’ve been much, much worse.

Q__ P__ was allowed after negotiation (in which Q__ P__ took no part) to plead guilty to
sexual misdemeanor committed against a minor
. My lawyer & the prosecution lawyer worked it out. & Judge L__ was understanding. People were saying where money changes hands & it is the word of an inexperienced white man, unmarried, thirty years old, against the charge of a black boy from the projects, & this black boy, twelve years old, from a “single-mother welfare” family, there is not much mystery guessing what probably occurred. Nor what kind of “justice” would be extracted.

Just plead guilty, it’s worked out & you’ll be O.K.

But if my son is not guilty?—what a travesty!

Quentin would not do such a thing. He is my son, my boy & I know
.

Quentin, O.K.? Agreed?

In fact Q__ P__ was visibly ashamed & repentant & had “learned his lesson”—one look at him, his grainy red-rimmed eyelids & parched lips, you knew.

Two years’ sentence—suspended. Psychotherapy, counseling. Regular reporting to probation office. Agreed?

Tearful before Judge L__ & my hands in my pockets, in my right trouser pocket fingering my good-luck GOLD TOOTH & Dad whispered for me to take my hands out of my pockets, please. & I did, & I thanked Judge L__ for his understanding etc. as my lawyer advised. & leaving the judge’s chambers I was having trouble breathing & Dad was gripping me by the elbow.
Buck up, son
those were his actual words
everything is fine now & we’re going home
. & out in the empty courtroom, Mom & Grandma & Junie & Reverend Horn who is a close friend of Grandma’s & who “vouched” for Q__ P__ to Judge L__ were waiting. I was wearing a new suit of small brown checks & a beige bowtie with narrow red stripes & my hair had been cut trimmed neat at the ears & the nape of the neck & I was not wearing my sexy aviator-style glasses but the clear plastic frames & I was not crying now but smiling & hugging my family the way you would do at such a time. I shook Reverend Horn’s hand
Thank you, thank you I am so happy, so grateful. Thank you for your faith in me
.

We were outside then. A warm rain speckled my face.

It was then Dad handed me the car keys to his
1993 Lexus. Which I had never driven before. I understood it was to show how Dad trusts me, & the family trusts me & I would not let them down ever again. & driving out of the rundown city up along the lake to Dale Springs where the houses are spacious & set on large wooded lots & the streets are lined with trees & in good repair I felt such a sense of HOMECOMING & BEING LOVED & I kept just at the speed limit of 35 mph ignoring how other drivers tailgated & honked & passed me impatiently. Junie who is Big Sis to me even now aged thirty-five & principal of a junior high school, with a fond smile for her kid brother, said,
Quen was always the one of us who could drive a car
then adding quick,
—I mean is. Right, Quen?
I grinned into the rearview mirror.
Right, Junie
.

There has always been a special feeling between Big Sis & me. On her side at least.

Driving home, my old home I was welcome in at any time but had outgrown yes but Q__ P__
is
welcome there at any time & maybe parental guidance is a good thing. One of those warm-rainy windy April days. The Great Lakes sky like folds of grayish-white brain matter. Dad beside me in the passenger’s seat of this smooth terrific car & he’s wearing a custom-made suit & looks good for an old guy his age stroking his chin where, a long time ago, his goatee had been. & in the back seat Mom, Grandma & Junie, chattering together & Mom’s tears & the others comforting her & turning off onto Lakeview Boulevard bringing us home I almost could not remember why
I was so happy & feeling so free thinking of BLACK COCK, shy shrinking boy-penis like a baby rabbit, skinned. I’d held it tight in my hand tickling the tip with the tip of the ice pick but the pills hadn’t taken effect yet for I was impatient & exhibited poor judgment (I see in retrospect—I was drunk) & the boy panicked beginning to bellow as he broke free like a frenzied animal crashing through the locked rear door of the Ford van SO HELP ME GOD I DON’T KNOW HOW. & running then naked but for his filthy T-shirt out into the street bellowing like a fire alarm rising louder & louder. MY ZOMBIE!

He had not asked for a nickel, he was trusting as a dog. Yet Q__ P__ could not trust
him
.

From the back seat they were asking me something & I wasn’t listening the way you don’t listen to females mostly but I must’ve answered O.K., maybe it was something about taking over as caretaker or maybe they liked my haircut. & Dad laid his hand on my shoulder. For the first time driving that day I believed I could feel the motion of the Earth. The Earth rushing through the emptiness of space. Spinning on its axis but they say you don’t feel it, you can’t experience it. But to feel it is to be scared & happy at once & to know that nothing matters but that you do what you want to do & what you do you
are
. & I knew I was moving into the future. There is no PAST anybody can get to, to alter things or even to know what those things were but there is definitely a future, we are already in it.

My name for him was SQUIRREL. That was my secret name & the name you may know of him is something else.

Q__ P__ did not mean for such to happen. SQUIRREL was not a wise choice of a specimen. I knew that, & have always known. I was resolute (how many times I have instructed myself!) SUCH WOULD NOT HAPPEN. Anyone with a family to care about him, Caucasian & suburban & living in Dale Springs!

Grandma is to blame for much of it. She would be hurt to know but that is so. Of course, not Q__ P__ her only grandson, nor anyone else, would ever disclose such a cruel truth to a woman so old.

Maybe I am wrong to say it is Grandma’s
blame
, I think probably it is no one’s. It is superstitious & retro to think in terms of
blame, fault, guilt
. Last night watching the TV coverage of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter confirmed this. Dad invited me over to the house to watch with them
this historic event
but I said Thanks Dad, I’ve got too much work to do (
work I am doing for
you,
Dad
was the message) & stayed in my shitty caretaker’s quarters & ate my Hot Italian Sub from Enrico’s & got pissed on a couple of bottles of dago red. They said the explosions on Jupiter were millions of times greater than any manmade explosion on Earth but it was just little black puffs going off on the screen. Flashes & fireballs & plumes of flame. Meteor trails how many millions or billions of miles away colliding with Jupiter’s atmosphere & going off. Fragment Q hit about the time I nodded off.

How is there BLAME in those fireball plumes. If they explode on Jupiter or Earth. If they are fated by the Universe since the beginning of time or manmade. So there is no BLAME in Grandma. I am wrong to be pissed at a woman so old. Who is so good to me.

It was like this. Grandma requested would I drive her to places because she does not drive a car any longer & that was O.K. by me—sometimes. (For Grandma paid me, of course.) Would I drive her to some other old woman’s house, or to visit some pathetic old cripples in some nursing home & wait around for her & drive her back home & that was O.K. If I was free & didn’t have too much caretaker shit to do at the house or homework from Dale Tech. (In fact the semester was over, the courses were ended.) & then Grandma got the idea to hire me for yard work, mow the lawn (which is approximately one half-acre) & trim the hedge & sprinkle fertilizer in the rose beds etc. & that was O.K. in theory. Grandma would pay me $50 to $75 cash for just a few hours’ work & I did not need to be too thor
ough, she never came out to examine it. An operation for cataracts or something in one or both of her eyes so maybe she couldn’t see too well & I didn’t inquire. Grandma slipped these bills to me saying
This is just between you & me, Quentin. Our little secret!
meaning not Dad nor the IRS would know.

Maybe Grandma was lonely & that was why. Trying to get me to stay for supper etc. There was another old woman, a widow who was a friend of Grandma’s & sometimes I would drive this other old woman to
her
home & she would tip me, too. Like a taxi service. In my 1987 Ford van with the American flag decal in the rear window.

Even before SQUIRREL it was a season of many plans!—buzzing my head like ideas from outer space! I would wake in my van not knowing where I was in a parking lot of some tavern in some city unrecognizable to me & it’s morning & fierce pounding sunshine in my eyes like spikes—& in a cold calm check the rear of the van, the neatly folded plastic garbage bags & plastic sheets etc., & discover no evidence. Or I would wake in my caretaker’s quarters but not in bed, on the sofa fully clothed except unzipped & my hard cock poking free, the TV going loud & it’s morning of some day unknown to me, empty bottles or beer cans underfoot, & roaches scurrying over the pizza crusts & bells of such sweetness chiming from the Music College, it was like something MIRACULOUS had happened in my sleep! A voice said
If you go down into the cellar, Quentin, he awaits you
.

Who? Who awaits me?

You know who
.

My ZOMBIE? My ZOMBIE?

But the voice disappeared into the TV ads & foot
steps overhead & plumbing. & next-door in the kitchen Big Black Guy (as I called him) from Zaire thumping at roaches with a rolled-up newspaper. As I have requested him not to do.

Knowing then it is just Q__ P__ alone in the Universe. If you want something to happen,
you
do it.

There was talk of Q__ enrolling for summer session at the tech college but the registration days came & went. I had informed Dad & Mom & Mr. T__ that I had passed both courses & liked the college O.K. but wasn’t decided yet about continuing. & Dad got excited saying
What of your future, son?—you are over thirty years old, you can’t be a caretaker all your life can you
& the word “caretaker” on his tongue like a turd. & I said. & Dad said. & Mom said the fall was a long way off & no decision had to be made quickly. So that was how the discussion ended that day.

An envelope from Dale College came to Q__ P__ at 118 North Church Street, a transcript of my grades probably. I ripped it up without opening it & tossed the pieces away.

Mowing Grandma’s lawn one Saturday in July & trimming the evergreen hedge & I heard kids shouting & laughing next door in the neighbors’ swimming pool. DON’T LOOK the voice said calmly. But it was a tease. It seemed to know beforehand. Five or six teenaged kids including one boy about fifteen just blew my mind, his swim trunks streaming water when he climbed out of the pool after diving a perfect dive & his young muscle-hard body like something shining I couldn’t take my eyes off. & I made my way along the hedge to get a better look & it went through me like a knife seeing his face. Enough like Barry’s face to be his TWIN! Except Barry was younger in my memory of course & dark-haired, & this boy was older, tall & lean & quick & loud & his hair a fairer brown like streaked from the sun.

Barry, my friend from seventh grade at Dale Springs Junior High which was just a mile or so from Grandma’s house!—the buff-brick building I’d drive by on my way to Grandma’s, only a block or so out of my way.

Barry who’d drowned in a swimming accident at the school, struck his head on the side of the pool & sank & so many kids yelling & wild tossing volleyballs it wasn’t noticed till we were almost all out of the pool. How many months, years later I overheard Mom say to one of her women friends on the telephone
Quentin is still mourning that poor child’s death, I don’t think he will ever get over it
.

Newspaper clippings I saved for years, photos of Barry alone & with his basketball teammates in the special memorial issue of the school newspaper, & a grimy sock of Barry’s I had taken from his locker, kept in one of my SECRET PLACES between my mattress & bed springs & one night reaching for the sock to fondle I discovered my treasure was gone. & whoever had taken it, Mom, or Dad, never spoke to me of it. Nor did I give any sign.

& NOW BARRY WAS RETURNED TO ME! But golden-shining in the sun & in fact better-looking, sexy that way young teenaged boys are so self-assured & swaggering with their buddies & showing off to girls. “SQUIRREL” was my immediate name for him, that blond-brown-streaked hair & his energy & clowning-around & loud giggle. “SQUIRREL” just came to me & so it was. This could not be just chance. Q__ P__ struck like somebody’d hit me over the head with a hammer. & my cock alert, in wonderment.

For here was my true ZOMBIE. No questions asked.

Q__ P__ calm & collected though returning to the hedge etc. Taking up the clippers & continuing work. All thoughts of dark-haired dark-skinned specimens, Ramid & Akhil & Abdellah & the rest beneath the roof at 118 North Church & even Velvet Tongue flushed away in those quick seconds like shit down a toilet.