Zombie (28 page)

“You’re fine,” she says. “Don’t worry so much. You carry it in your eyes. It’s okay to take a break once in a while.” She brushes the back of her hand against my cheek.

Aimee orders a fancy flavored tea—mandarin orange mint tea that smells like an Indian spiced fruit bomb. The barista is a dude with a tiny bird-sized bone stuck horizontal through his nostrils and he toils like each drink is the Sistine Chapel. The barista passes the hot tea to Aimee and I say, “This one’s on me. My treat. I insist.” I pay the barista as Aimee sources us a table.

When she is far enough away, I say, “Buddy, I need you to hook me up with whatever fancy tea a fancy tea drinker would drink.”

“You got it, boss.” The barista measures and scoops tea leaves into a tiny glass jar from an unmarked baggie under the counter and fills it with steaming water. “This is my own special blend. I call it
Howard’s Hawthorn Horny Heroin
.” He hands me the glass jar with the tea and a mug. “Nice to meet you. I’m Howard.” His teeth are yellow little fuckers and his nose bone is bothersome.

“Now when you say
heroin
,” I say.

“All you need to know is that hawthorn is
the business
.”

“I’m sorry, Howard, you’re going to have to help me here,” I say.

Howard taps the glass of my crazy, fucked-up horny tea. “The berries, leaves, and flowers of the hawthorn plant improve a man’s blood flow.”

“No,” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “Circulation.” Howard makes two fists. “This will relax your blood vessels.” He loosens his fingers before tightening them back up into fists. “If you know what I mean,” he says, looking past me to Aimee. Howard punches the air. “This one’s on me,” he says.

Aimee sits in the back room filled with tiny tables, ours with a nice wobble that causes us to almost spill our drinks when we shift our weight from elbow to elbow.

“What did you order?” she asks.

“You know, I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s supposed to be really good for you.” I pour the tea into my mug and blow on the surface. “It’s way too hot right now, otherwise I’d let you have a sip.” I am one God-awful actor.

Aimee takes the mug from my hands and takes a sip. She looks back at the barista. “Howard made this for you, didn’t he?”

“Are we going to miss the art exhibit?” I take my mug back from her. I too take a sip and it tastes like boiled tree bark.

“Did he give it some crazy name?” She locks her eyes onto me and I am weak. I give in and tell her.

“
Howard’s Hawthorn Horny Heroin
. Something about circulation. And relaxing blood vessels. I’m not entirely sure.”

Aimee cups her hands over her mouth and shouts Howard’s name and he looks up from behind the cappuccino machine, whipping foam or whatever, to see Aimee flip him off with two middle fingers. Howard salutes her.

“Howard likes to play practical jokes. I come in here a lot and he’s always trying to trick me into trying some crazy new tea. I’m sure your blood vessels will be fine.”

“Okay.” Jesus my Christ, what kind of response is
okay
? I try and recover the conversation. “I like the cobblestone floors in here. Feels like olden days.” I really wish I hadn’t said
olden days
. God. I want to punch myself in the face.

“There used to be an amazing cinema upstairs called
The Orpheum
.” Aimee dabs her lips with a napkin. “Everything changes, except maybe Howard.”

“I’ve got to give it to him, Howard’s crazy fake tea is good,” I say. “It has a rich, earthy flavor to it.”

“You hate tea,” she says. “I can tell you hate tea. You hate it, but you’d never say you hate it, because you’re too sweet.”

“I need to confess something,” I say.

“I love confessions,” she says, leaning forward, ready for a secret. “Is it dangerous?”

“There is the potential for danger,” I say.

“Will there be an adventure?” she asks.

“I’ve been nervous that I won’t have anything to say to you,” I say. “I feel like I’m talking underwater.”

“With me?”

“With everyone, but you’re the only one who makes me self-conscious about it. I’m tired of trying to get people to listen to me.”

“I think your
Howard’s Hawthorn Horny Heroin
is giving you strength of voice and power of soul.” She touches my hand.

“You’re making fun of me,” I say.

“I am,” she says. “But only because you are so serious.”

“I don’t know anything about tea,” I say.

“Sadly, the movie theater upstairs closed down a couple years ago, so we can’t see a movie and go to dinner after to talk about it.”

“You like to tease me,” I say.

“Love to tease you,” she says.

“Everything changes,” I say.

“Nothing stays the same. Huge high-rises,” she says. “Faux classic architecture. Condominiums.”

“My mom designed one of those buildings,” I say. “She says she did. I don’t believe much of what she says anymore.”

“She and your Dad divorced?” she asks.

“Not technically, but practically.”

Aimee blows on the surface of her tea.

“I remember when my Dad used to take me to this place called
Wonderland
out in Howard County,” I say. “It was this kiddy park with rides and cotton candy and castles. I think it’s a tiered parking lot and an insurance company now.”

“For five dollars you could go upstairs, get a huge bucket of popcorn, and see a double feature,” Aimee says. “Every night, a new double feature. Two movies and a bucket of popcorn for five bucks. Now it’s a space for rent. To the highest bidder. Tonight, it’s Mykel’s art exhibit. Tomorrow, who knows? Next week it’ll be an H&R Block.”

“What movies did you see there?”

“Stanley Kubrick’s
Lolita
and Martin Scorcese’s
Taxi Driver
. An Akira Kurasawa double feature—
Rashomon
and
Seventh Samurai. White Heat
and
Chinatown
. Real quirky combos. One time I saw Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s
Singing in the Rain
and it was supposed to be followed by Oliver Stone’s
Platoon
. There was a problem with the projector. Everyone left except for me. I waited. One of the employees turned off the lights in the theater and pumped the recording of a thunderstorm through the sound system. To this day, it’s one of the most memorable moments of my life.”

“Did they ever fix the projector?”

“
Platoon
never looked better.”

“It makes sense that you like directing,” I say. “Working on
A Doll’s House
must be amazing.”

“I like a good story and
A Doll’s House
absolutely has a good
story,” she says. “What I like about theater and film is breaking down characters over a few hours into their most important emotional parts.”

“Like the thunderstorm in the movie theater,” I say.

“Exactly.” She clinks her teacup against mine.

“Do you think miracles belong in drama?”

“You’ve been speaking to Father Vincent Gibbs.” She strangles the air. “He’s already been arguing how we should interpret the ending of
A Doll’s House
and we haven’t even cast our play yet.”

“What do you believe?” I ask.

“They exist in real life, then they exist in drama, because drama is an authentic representation of real life.”

“I want to believe in miracles,” I say.

“You are a little Torvald, aren’t you?” Aimee folds her paper napkin and soaks up condensation on our table. “In the final moments of
A Doll’s House
, right before his wife leaves him for good, Nora says,
Oh, Torvald, I don’t believe in miracles anymore
, and she leaves. The stage direction for Torvald says
a glimmer of hope flashes across his face
, and he says:
the greatest miracle of all—?
”

“My dad played Torvald once. Before he was drafted. I never knew my Dad acted until recently. My mom told me. I wish I never knew.”

Aimee reaches across the table and holds my hands. “No more miracles,” she says.

“I have another confession to make,” I say.

“Lucky me—I’m learning all of your dirty little secrets tonight,” she says.

“I haven’t heard of most of those movies you mentioned. I pretty much only know zombie films.” I sip my tea and feel douchey. “I should know more.”

She smacks my cheek with her open palm. Not hard, but hard enough. It hurts, but in a way that I like and appreciate. She folds her hands in her lap.

“I hardly know anything about zombie movies,” she says. “Teach me something. What are your top five favorite zombie movies?”

Without even thinking about it: “
Night of the Living Dead, Planet Terror, 28 Days Later, Zombieland
, and
Dawn of the Dead
, the 2004 remake.”

“I am not a huge fan of gore. I like violence when it’s appropriate, when it builds to a crescendo, like in
Taxi Driver
. But zombie movies seem to splash around in it. Like in
28 Days Later
. Now I thought that was a political film about infection, not zombies.”

“Nope. Zombies,” I say. “I’d bet my hand. Total Zombie Apocalypse.”

“I’ve seen it a few times and had no idea it was a zombie film,” she says. “No one ever resurfaces as a zombie. They get infected with bad blood. That’s not a zombie.”

“
Necroinfectious Pandemic
is the appropriate terminology, if you want to get technical.”

“You are such a little zombie snob. You’re a Snombie. If the word
pandemic
didn’t make you a Snombie, then the word
necroinfectious
most certainly did.”

“I like zombie movies,” I say.

“It’s your thing,” she says.

“Is this a date?” I ask.

“Isn’t it?” she asks.

“There’re so many rules,” I say. “I don’t know what this is.”

“First dates usually end with a kiss,” she says.

“Did I get a green light?” I ask.

“You’re funny,” she says.

“In a bad way?” I ask.

“I like funny.”

“I like you, Aimee, and guess what? No nosebleeds.” I drink the rest of my
Howard’s Hawthorn Horny Heroin
. Howard gives me thumbs up from behind the counter and I give him the double middle finger, just like Aimee.

“Where do you go when you have nothing to say?” Aimee asks, crossing her arms.

“I listen, mostly.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

The man in the back scribbles in the margins of a book, before closing it.

“Right there—where are you?” Aimee asks, her voice calm and soothing like she’s rocking me to sleep.

“I go deeper in. I listen to myself. I try to hear myself how I want others to hear me.”

Aimee sits up, pulling her chair closer to the table’s edge. “I think you’re eccentric. Not crazy. But I think you move around like some kind of a God. Not
the
God. But like
a
God. Passing judgment. Soaking up information, a God-like, judgmental sponge, overseeing everything. Examining situations like chess pieces in play.”

“If I’m a God, then you should worship me.”

“I’m not finished,” she says. “You’re constantly starting over. You run in cycles of asserting yourself and being passive. No one listens when you tell them to stop because you don’t make them listen, because you don’t command it.”

She wants to know where I go, but if I take her there, it’s very possible she leaves and will never come back. Like everyone else. To a place with plaid jackets and sick men in fat neckties. Women’s magazines in board game boxes. Giant, donkey dicks. A place without sex where sex is a currency and I am broke. Short skirts. Tight tops. Big tits. Handguns. Homemade videos. James Dean. Polaroids. Rich kids. Faggots, queers, cocksuckers, rim jobbers and cumshooters. A place where no one has a face. This is the place and this place decays and eventually everything turns to black.

“Jeremy,” she says, “wherever you go, you’re allowed to go there. I just want you to know that it’s okay.”

A
familiar voice cuts through our conversation. Mr. Rembrandt stands at our table, the eight-fingered freak smiling down on us.

“Aimee White and Jeremy Barker.” His soft voice makes the room feel dark blue and cold, the ocean floor. “What a small, little world we live in. My favorite student and assistant director, on a date together—what a small little world indeed.” He looks different outside of school—taller, more present. “I hope I’m not intruding. Father Vincent and I were on our way upstairs to see Mykel’s exhibit.” He holds a book dog-eared to hell in his hand—
Notes from Underground
.

Back at the counter, decked out in his priestly collar, Father Vincent is ordering drinks. He turns and waves.

“Super, small world,” I say.

“Mr. Rembrandt,” Aimee says.

“Please. Tonight, call me Richard,” he says. Rembrandt combs white hair over his bald spot with his fingers and adjusts his blue-rimmed glasses. “It’s nice to see that young men still get dressed up for dates.” He pinches my knot and centers it at my neck. “And that a necktie knot is treated with respect. Your Windsor. My word.” His eight normal fingers curl like spider legs. “I love its authenticity.”

Father Vincent approaches with two iced coffees and passes one off to Rembrandt. “Hey, hey, you guys.” His smile immediately draws one from me. “Great minds think alike,” he says. Father Vincent raises his to-go cup. “Salute.”

“Look, it’s miracle man,” Aimee says.

She’s so funny that I can’t help but laugh at him.

“Will you two be attending Mykel’s chopography exhibit?” Rembrandt asks.

“We will,” Aimee says. “Like you, Jeremy and I wanted to get some tea first.”

“Richard and I had dinner at that new Mexican restaurant down the way to discuss
A Doll’s House
.” Father looks at the front door. “Across from The Sound Garden.” He sips his iced coffee and snaps his fingers. “Important talks—casting, casting, casting.” Father Vincent runs his finger around his collar. “What the heck was the name of that restaurant?”

“Lista’s,” Rembrandt says.

“I’ll never remember that.” He pulls out a tiny pencil and a little booklet from his inside pocket, the same one from Reconciliation. It’s the size of his palm with unlined paper inside.