Pariah (30 page)

Or at least dilute it.

He swirled his brush in some linseed oil and studied his subject. Mona sat on a stool between the front windows, one leg perched
on the footrest, the other dangling limply a few inches above the floor. Though fully dressed—Alan didn’t wish to invite further scorn from Ellen—Mona was barefoot and once again Alan was attempting to not be aroused by Mona’s sumptuous calves and now, of all things, her well-turned feet. Most feet he’d encountered, male or female, were functional but unattractive collections of jutting tendons, knots and joints, often rough and calloused. Mona’s were just the opposite, their tops smooth and doll-like, almost like adult baby’s feet. How could a girl who did so much walking have such pampered-looking tootsies?

An unbidden boner sprang to life and Alan’s posture involuntarily hunched. He wore another oversize shirt to mask any protrusions, but still. If her lowest extremities had this effect on him, what would total nudity do? He’d survived adolescence without ever having come in his pants or having had a wet dream. This was no time to regress. He concentrated on technique and execution, his strokes deft and provocative—but not
too
provocative. What a waste that no one of note would ever see these works. He’d always been modest about his art, having been raised to believe humility a virtue. All diffidence had ever gotten him was a whole lot of nothing. He’d never gotten any public accolades and never would. Not that doing art had anything to do with that, but, well, yeah,
yeah it did
. Art for art’s sake was pure, sure, but it was also masturbation with a fancier pedigree. Ellen thought he was a genius, even if that was an audience of one. That counted for something, even if she was sore at him.

His erection hurt.

Alan looked away from the canvas he was working on to the most cluttered wall. Amid the myriad zombie studies hung six sizable portraits of Mona. Unconsciously he’d spread the zombies away from the paintings of Mona, manifesting the old precept of art imitating life. Zombies. Mona. Sure, she was alive, but in spite of
her fetching appearance she lacked vitality, her eyes communicating no more than those of the undead outside. Reptile eyes. Insect eyes. And yet still the hard-on persisted. Alan tried to will it away, thinking of disgusting things. But what was more disgusting than his waking life? In the old days if he wanted to suppress a boner he’d think about maggots and rotting cantaloupes and roadkill.

All of which seemed rather quaint now.

“
Why not
?” Eddie said, trying not to sound like a whiny little bitch. Mona stood before him, implacable. More infuriating than her unwillingness to comply with his simple, reasonable request was her refusal—or was it inability?—to elaborate. She’d gotten them every little goddamn thing, but now this sudden veto? It made no sense. Eddie mopped his forehead and stared in disbelief at this petite yet immovable object. He blinked as a stinging trickle of perspiration leaked into his eye.

“No guns,” she repeated.

“But come on, it’s a good idea. You
know
it.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“But we could start takin’ ’em out. We could cut a path for you ahead of time.”

“Don’t need one.”

“Maybe
we
could even go out. You ever think about that?”

“No guns.”

“
Fine
, we’ll discuss this later. Maybe hold a vote. You believe in democracy or are you some kind of . . .” He stopped himself. What was he going to call her? A commie? That seemed a little out-of-date. “Maybe the others can convince you.”

“Nope.”

“
Fine
.”

“Fine.” Uninflected. It wasn’t even snotty. He hated that. Eddie
turned his back on her and stomped upstairs, pausing for a second to pound on Dave’s door and bark, “Dave-o, grab your gear, we’re goin’ fishin’!”

On the roof, Dabney snored as he napped under his rickety lean-to. Eddie couldn’t understand why he chose to live outside like an animal.
Fuckin’ moolie would probably be happier living up in a coconut tree
. Eddie scowled as he waited for Dave. Fuckin’ Mallon might’ve gone homo, but at least he still knew how to be a man, have fun like a man, whatever. The whole gun thing had put Eddie in a foul mood. Why that stupid little cunt couldn’t see the advantage to scoring some firepower was beyond him. What, she was afraid of guns? Guns could do some serious damage to those rotten skinbags down on the street. That’s not a plus? Please. Eddie thought about his little encounter in his old digs. A piece would’ve been sweet.
Pow!
From ravenous zombie to dark, wet stain.

“What’s up?” Dave said as he barged onto the tarpaper.

“
Shhh
, I don’t wanna rouse the eggplant,” Eddie whispered. “You brought the gear bag?”

“Yeah, but what’s it for?”

“The Comet wants to go sport fishing, bro.”

“Huh?”

Eddie beckoned Dave to follow him across several rooftops until they reached the one furthest south. Eddie opened the bag and pulled out the two heavy-duty Penn reels. “You can reel in a fuckin’ three-hundred-pound marlin with these babies,” Eddie grinned.

“So?”

“So, we’re going hump angling, Davy. Gonna catch me a zombie, bro.”

Dave stood back and watched as Eddie put together the rod-and-reel assembly. For a change it wasn’t that hot, but sweat poured off Eddie’s brow like a mini-Niagara. His eyes were wild. “This’ll be just like angling for marlin or sailfish or shark or any of those big
motherfuckers. You remember that fishing trip we took to Costa Rica, bro? Same as that, only better.”

“Eddie, dude. I dunno, man, this is a little weird, don’tcha think? I mean, what if you actually catch one? And what are you gonna use for bait?”

“You mean
you
don’t wanna get on the hook? I’m just fuckin’ with you. Okay. Okay, I don’t need to use a lure, okay? I can make a noose. Oh, dude, that is perfect. What an awesome combo: fishin’ and lynchin’. Call it
flynchin’
! Oh, dude, that’s genius.
Genius
!”

Scary is what it was, Dave thought. Eddie seemed more agitated lately, a little zippy. But not zippy as in
zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
. Zippy like that time he did three consecutive lines of blow in the men’s room during a company holiday party with one of the traders. Tweaked.

“Eddie, have you been taking those pills you filched from Mona?”

“Ix-nay on the ills-pay, bro. Keep your voice down. I don’t want the nigger to hear.”

“You have been, haven’t you? You even know what they are?”

“They’re her fuckin’ secret,” Eddie whispered, teeth clenched. “Why else does she got so many of them, huh? Dude, it’s so perfectly clear.
I
figured it out.”

Eddie stood up, rod and reel ready for action, and cast the line into the crowd below. Within seconds the line jerked, the tip of the rod dipping. Eddie positioned himself behind a sturdy metal steam pipe, bending at the knees for more leverage. “Grab my waist,” he commanded as he laughed in triumph. “This bitch ain’t gettin’ away!” Dave wrapped his arms around Eddie’s midriff and dug his heels in. Eddie dipped forward. The thing on the end of his line was putting up a struggle. His bronze biceps bulging with each crank of the reel, Eddie looked like a well-oiled part of the apparatus. It was about the most absurd image Dave could conjure: two
men on a roof, aping the Heimlich maneuver, attempting to reel in a zombie

“Help me reel this cocksucker in!” Eddie roared, no longer caring about Dabney.

Dave added muscle and soon a rotted head appeared at the edge of the roof, monofilament cutting into its wrist, which was caught between the noose and its neck. Eddie yanked the rod vertical, cackling at the sight of the zombie’s stricken visage. For something brain-dead it looked plenty scared and more than a little pissed. Thick blackened blood oozed from where the line was scoring the epidermis and it groaned piteously. Eddie jerked the rod again, attempting to haul his quarry over the edge. Instead the line cut straight through the purulent flesh and dismembered the wretched thing. With the zombie’s weight no longer balancing them, the sportsmen toppled backward, Eddie’s coccyx crunching against Dave’s groin, eliciting a doglike yelp. Dave rolled out from under his laughing companion and cradled his injured batch.

“Almost got ’im,” Eddie guffawed. “The little fish that got away!”

“Who fuckin’ cares?”

“What’s your problem?”

“Never mind.” Dave lay there moaning, cupping his area.

“Wanna give it another go?”

“Do I look like I wanna?”

“
Pfff
. What a killjoy. S’matter with your nads, bro?”

“Forget it, okay? Just forget it.”

Eddie sauntered over to the roof wall and looked down, his prize absorbed by the crowd, no sign of it below.

“That sucks,” he said.

“Well, what would you have done with it, anyway? Hung it over the mantelpiece?”

Eddie slipped a hammer out of a loop in his shorts. “I wanted
to smash all its teeth out and then basically torture it for a while. Cut on it and take it apart and shit.”

“Oh. Sorry that didn’t work out for you.”

Eddie smiled and said, “Thanks,” not catching the unconcealed sarcasm in Dave’s voice. Eddie clapped his bud on the shoulder and said, “We can try another time, right, amigo?” Dave nodded. “I’m goin’ back down, you coming?” Dave shook his head. “A’right, catch you later, bro.”

Eddie trotted across the rooftops, then disappeared into the stairwell. As Dave stepped onto their roof, Dabney sat up and said, “Your homeboy is a goddamn lunatic, you know that, don’t you?” Dave nodded again. He was temporarily out of words. Words just didn’t seem to cut it right about now. Even “inadequate” seemed inadequate.

From his bed, Karl lobbed the Good Book across the room. What was so good about it? It was riddled with riddles, chockablock with useless parables. No wonder people spent their whole lives reading the same tome over and over and over again. No one could make sense of this, at least not in a practical, how-to-apply-this-to-my-daily-grind kind of way. Karl had always noted people reading the Bible in public, especially on the subway. Mostly black and Hispanic people, predominantly women, their brows always creased in intense concentration, and highlighter pens poised to accentuate key passages for future rumination. Maybe it was racist, but Karl had been then, and was now even more, convinced that though they read the individual words, the sum made no sense to these devout ladies and occasional gent. Karl had gone to college and couldn’t fathom half of what he read and reread.

Karl knew there was a God, but His guidebook was the work
of human beings, and humans could seldom be trusted. It was a book created by committee, too, which also didn’t bode well. Karl had a rule of thumb: any movie with more than three screenwriters was likely going to suck. The stories in the Bible had been circulated plenty before they were set down in ink. It was like the telephone game.

Big Manfred had an LP called,
Satan is Real
, by these gospelers, the Louvin Brothers. Big Manny had found nothing funny about it, however, especially not its title. Satan
was
real to the old man, and there was nothing even remotely amusing about that. Sure, the record cover displayed a hokey image—the lily-white brothers dressed in snappy white suits in the flaming pits of hell, a ridiculous cardboard-looking red devil on the horizon—but the album’s message was clear: don’t sin, obey the Bible, be a good Christian. Simple as that. The weirdest part was the brothers looked mighty cheery as they simultaneously preached and roasted.

Karl rolled over onto his stomach to ease the knot there, a combination of hunger and disquietude. He hadn’t eaten in three days in protest of the food procured by Mona, but what if he was wrong? Maybe she wasn’t in league with Lucifer, in which case this boycott was in vain. Plus, if she were an emissary of the Lord, wouldn’t his hunger strike be blasphemous? It wasn’t like he could just ask her, either. If she were a hellish minion, surely she would lie and say otherwise. But if she was sent by God, she’d likely lie or evade the question, too. It was not for him, a mere mortal, to question divine intervention. And as sure as he was that God existed, he wasn’t as certain about Beelzebub. Karl always figured the devil was the invention of man, kind of a scapegoat for rotten behavior. Why be burdened with personal accountability when you could blame Satan?

“This is unbearable,” Karl moaned into his pillow. He dropped
off the bed and assumed a posture of supplication, interlacing his fingers and tilting his head heavenward. “Am I being tested? I mean, wasn’t I being tested
before
Mona arrived? Isn’t this whole stinking mess a test? If I starve myself, isn’t that protracted suicide, which is a mortal sin? So, I guess what I’m saying is, I should eat, right? If Mona is here on Satan’s behalf, I’ll need my strength to outwit her, right? Or if she’s one of Yours, I should . . .”

What was the point? He gave up. No answer was forthcoming, ever. Maybe on Judgment Day. Karl wondered if the line into Heaven was like the ones at Six Flags. Each depiction he’d ever seen of the line to the Pearly Gates was evocative of the ones at every theme park he’d ever attended. Did technology in the afterlife move forward as it did in life? Had Saint Peter upgraded from The Book of Life to a computerized database? Maybe he just had a BlackBerry or an iPhone.