Breathers (36 page)

Two weeks ago, I was getting shot by a rent-a-cop and tossed into a cage at the SPCA. Now, I'm a celebrity. We all are. Elevated to stardom through the power of the Internet
and cable television. Packaged and sold to the public in a new, shiny box with a bright, colorful bow.

It's amazing what a little positive media attention can do for your social status.

So in spite of all the negative publicity that has been built up around the undead over the decades, we're suddenly a boon to the real estate market, the entertainment industry, and the local economy. Tourists flock from over the hill and from up and down the coast to see the famous Santa Cruz zombies, pumping money into local restaurants, hotels, and boutiques selling the latest in zombie-wear.

Sure, there are always drawbacks to the influx of out-of-towners, from the headaches of traffic congestion to an increase in public intoxication and violent crimes. But at least we help to keep the homeless population down.

Which reminds me, I need to go grocery shopping. But first I have to take a call from Jesse Jackson on line two.

hat is it you're looking for, Andy? What is it that you want?”

I'm watching myself on television, the Oprah Winfrey interview, and thinking I should have worn something that made me look less pasty.

“Equality,” the television version of me says. “We want the same rights as Breathers.”

The reaction from the audience is more Jerry Springer than Oprah, with men and women yelling out their opinions and slinging expletives. I half expect someone to pick up a chair and throw it at me.

I don't have to watch the rest to know what happens. While several audience members voice their support for me and for my cause, most of the studio guests disagree with my answer. Several of them become rather vehement in their objections and are escorted out. One of them hurls a raw egg that misses me and explodes on Oprah's forehead.

Not surprisingly, that part got edited out.

I switch the channel to CNN, where a panel of political, scientific, and social “experts” debates the adverse
health effects of allowing the undead to associate with the living.

“We still don't have any definitive data proving that, as a species, the undead are a health threat to the living,” says the moderator.

“Hello?” says one political analyst. “They're zombies. They eat human flesh. Didn't anyone else see
Dawn of the Dead
?”

The debate disintegrates into a discussion of Hollywood versus the real world, so I flip over to MTV, where
Real World: Zombie in the House
portrays a house full of Breathers living with a zombie.

“He stinks,” says one of the housemates. “Worse than garbage. I can't even describe it.”

“Kind of like hot, stale vomit,” says another housemate.

“Yeah. Except only worse. And he keeps drinking my shampoo. Do you know how much a ten-ounce bottle of Paul Mitchell costs?”

I switch over to the
BBC World News
on KQED and watch a report about zombies in Rome rioting outside the Vatican after being refused entrance. On CNBC, I get to watch a rash of zombie beheadings in the Middle East, while in Germany, Breathers are shown celebrating around the burning body of an unidentified zombie.

Channel to channel and program to program, the living dead are being debated, debased, and destroyed. While I expected an inevitable backlash against all of our recent media exposure and push for civil rights, I didn't anticipate that it would come this soon. Or with this much fervor.

Our right to exist, to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, is being disputed, challenged, and condemned—politically, socially, philosophically. Even athletically.

On ESPN's
Outside the Lines
, a Miami college football player who collapsed and died during practice has been banned from rejoining the team.

“I don't want to eat anyone,” he says. “I just want to play football.”

I don't have to hear the prognosis of his chances of ever playing football again to know the answer.

I continue to flip through the channels, searching for a news program or a talk show or a deodorant commercial that puts a positive spin on zombies, but all I find is the same message, repeated over and over: We're not any closer to being accepted as members of society.

If anything, it seems like we're moving further away from that possibility. Before we developed a social cause, we were at least tolerated. Sure, there were the occasional dismemberments or rides through town attached to the bumpers of SUVs, but for the most part Breathers tried to pretend we didn't exist. Kind of like the homeless.

Or sexually transmitted diseases.

Now, we've alerted everyone to our presence, made them aware that we have a voice, and they're not happy about it. It's not that they don't want to hear us. It's more like they're angry we had the audacity to speak up.

“They're nothing more than animals.”

“Pit bulls with opposable thumbs.”

“Inhuman.”

On the
Fox News Report
, the talking head is venting his fair and balanced opinion about zombies and, the next thing I know, a photo of my face appears on the screen over his shoulder. Seconds later, there's a split screen and my therapist is staring out at me from my television.

It's strange seeing Ted's face this way. I'm used to seeing him in artificial light, catching glimpses of him over my
shoulder. But on my parents’ fifty-two-inch, high-definition flat-screen television, tinted and colored and sharpened, Ted looks more plastic, more fake, more wrinkle free. Maybe it's the stage makeup and the lighting. Either that or he's had another glycolic acid peel.

At first Ted starts talking about what it's like to treat a zombie psychologically, which is something he must have read in a book because he never actually treated me. He drones on and on for a couple of minutes and I'm about to change the channel, when he starts talking about me, about all of the sessions we had together—the way I smelled, the way I walked, the way I had to write everything on a dry erase board.

And I realize I might be in big trouble.

He keeps talking, sharing all of the details of our sessions— all of my anguish, all of my guilt, all of my hopelessness. Then he relates how that all changed, how I suddenly became more self-assured, more combative, more independent.

What ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?

I wonder how bad this is going to be. If I need to call Ian. If I need to schedule a news conference. If I can diffuse the situation before it explodes in my face.

I wonder if I can play this off as though I'd been pretending all those months. Playing the part of the consummate zombie. Kind of like a sociological experiment.

I watch Ted, with his smug little smile and his stupid gold hoop earring and his artificially colored hair, spilling his guts about me, and I wonder …

Maybe there's another option.

ed is smiling at me with that strained, fake plastic smile of his. It's been more than a month since I've seen him in person, but I think he's had his teeth whitened.

“Hello, Andy,” he says. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

A surprise? Yes.

Pleasant? Only in the way that passing kidney stones is pleasant.

No one else is in Ted's office. The receptionist has gone home. His last client left ten minutes ago.

“How have you been?” he says.

“I've been busy,” I say.

He stares at me from behind his desk, still smiling, his gaze eventually shifting from me to the phone on his desk, then to the red, digital clock on the wall.

… thirty-nine … forty … forty-one …

“Yes,” he says, finally. “I've seen you on television. You seem to have made quite a remarkable recovery.”

“Just eating right.”

Ted's smile falters, exposing several wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. Must be time for his monthly Botox fix.

“Well,” he says, swallowing. “What can I do for you, Andy?”

“I was hoping we could talk,” I say.

He makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a cough and nervous laughter.

“Sure,” he says, reaching across his desk and grabbing a business card. “Just give Irene a call tomorrow to set up an—”

“I was hoping we could talk now.”

Ted sits there with his hand extended, the business card held out, shaking in his fingers. He's smiling so hard I can almost hear his caps crack.

“That's … my office is closed,” he says. “Perhaps you can come back—”

“All I need is a few minutes.”

Ted looks at the clock, perhaps hoping that if he stares long enough, my few minutes will be up and I'll just leave.

… twenty-two … twenty-three … twenty-four …

He swallows with an audible
click.

“Is there a problem?” I ask.

Ted turns to look at me, then shifts his gaze past me to the open door leading to the outer office. I'm not a mind reader, but my guess is Ted's wondering if he can get out from behind his desk and make it to the door before I can reach him.

“No,” he says, standing up. “No problem.”

“Good,” I say, then walk over and close the office door.

Ted freezes halfway out of his chair. “What are you doing?”

“Just ensuring our doctor-patient confidentiality,” I say. “You do believe in doctor-patient confidentiality, don't you?”

Ted doesn't say anything. Just stays there, halfway out of his chair, his lips twitching.

I made sure to lose the paparazzi on my way to Ted's. And, as far as I know, no one saw me enter the building.

Sure, I'm taking a risk hunting white-collar Breather rather than trolling for a nice, juicy homeless person, but you never
really know what you're getting on the street—cirrhosis of the liver, drug abuse, skin ulcers, respiratory infections. At least with Ted, I know I'm getting someone who took care of himself, even if he is a little artificially preserved.

Besides, there's this desire in me, this animal hunger and need for revenge that I just can't seem to ignore.

Ted watches me approach, his eyes filled with a wild look that only a predator can appreciate. His eyes dart from me to the phone to the door to the window with the knowledge that escape is unlikely. But he still has to try.