Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos (9 page)

Before the pill wears off, Fairy_26 and I sit in her tree-branch apartment and talk.

“It’s not every day a fairy carries me out to visit a sixteen-year-old trillionaire pirate–slash–spiritual–leader on an aircraft carrier at sea,” I say.

“It’s pretty normal for me,” she jokes, shrugging.

We’re close to each other on the smooth wooden sofa that juts out from the wall and which is covered in soft green moss cushions. I’m not sitting as much as I’m tipped back.

My legs are straight. My arms are outstretched toward the place where the opposite wall meets the ceiling. My backside isn’t touching the sofa at all. Fairy_26 lounges on the floor in front of me, sitting on one hip, with one arm propping up her light weight. Having changed when we returned, she’s dressed entirely in white: white, knee-high, high heel boots, white leg-warmers, white thigh-high stockings, and a short, white, T-shirt dress. Her green hair and blue eyes almost glow. Segmented with black lines, like veins on supple leaves, her otherwise transparent wings stick out from slits in the back of her dress. They open and close, peacefully.

“I think Guy Boy Man likes you,” I tease, looking at her from my gross white eyes.

“Oh, please.”

“You can hover.”

“All fairies can hover. Besides, Guy Boy Man has
hundreds
of hot young female followers. His gothic castle is full of them.”

“You’re different.”

“You’re married.” She doesn’t look at me when she says it. Suddenly she’s frowning, picking at the soft moss cushions beneath us.

“I’m married.” I mentioned it in passing, passing over the ocean, wondering if it mattered to her, wondering if it mattered to me. Now I’m trying not to look at her, trying not to want what I want, hating myself for being who and what I am, for being so weak, and so dangerous.

“Do you have kids?” she asks, glancing up at me.

“One,” I say, nodding stiffly. “A son. Francis Bacon. He’s fifteen.”

Fairy_26 forces a polite smile. Her eyes turn back to the floor. She brushes the palm of her hand, back and forth, over the moss she’d been picking at a few seconds earlier. “That’s the hardest part of being awesome. The idea of no more babies.”

“They’re a lot of work.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“You’ll meet somebody,” I assure her, mindlessly. “You’ll have babies. You’re young. You have plenty of time.” It strikes me as strange I’m saying these things when it goes against everything I believe. It’s hopeless. We shouldn’t reproduce. Why am I doing this? I’m encouraging her to have something I don’t want her to have. I just want her to have me. Only me. Nothing and no one else. But I don’t want her to have that. I want her to have more. I want her to have better. I’m worthless. I’m important only inasmuch as I’ve donated sperm—DNA spilled into the disgusting gene pool—and I’m raising a future zombie. I’m important only inasmuch as I work for the albinos, doing things I don’t understand for reasons I can’t remember, and inasmuch as I use what money I make to buy top-end consumer electronics, destroy them immediately, and go back to purchase newer versions that they made while I was gone. I want Fairy_26 to have everything she can’t have. Me. Someone better to disappoint her. Lasting happiness. Babies that never grow up, that never die, that sleep through the night, that smile and gurgle through the day, that don’t need to be fed, and that don’t need to be changed: into zombies. Babies that can look after themselves when you’re sick of looking after babies or when you’re bored and you want to go out.

“I’m awesome, Buck,” she says, smiling sadly at the non-flowering plants covering the floor, like she’s having the same thoughts.

“So am I.” I sit up. “So. What should we be doing?”

She shrugs. “Having fun, I guess.”

“What do you want to do right now?” I ask. “What sounds like fun?”

“Nothing,” she confesses.

I wrack my mindless brain. “What about music? What about dancing?”

“You don’t want to dance,” she says, frowning at the ground.

“You’re right. I don’t
want
to. I need to. I have to. I must!”

She laughs, glancing up at me.

“If I don’t start dancing in the next couple of minutes, something terrible is going to happen.”

“Like what?” Her wings blur into motion. She smiles at me. When she’s hanging in mid-air, she rubs her hand down her leg, over the amazing patterns the moss made in her bare skin.

“I don’t know. I’ll turn into a movie executive and you’ll become a record industry rep.”

“That’s not funny, Buck,” she says, seriously.

“Okay, I went too far,” I admit. “But we better start dancing.”

“All right.” She flies over to her sound system and starts it. Supernatural music pours out. I can almost feel it brighten the dead and dark parts of me.

My wife wakes up at three in the morning and walks in on me eating the cat. “What do you think you’re doing?” Her arms reach out at me in the zombie equivalent of putting her hands on her hips. She’s wearing a ruined evening gown. Once it was shining golden fabric that moved like liquid. Now it’s scraped and scratched. It’s torn. The lustre is gone. It’s coming apart at the seams.

“You wanted me to eat,” I say, telepathically, with a shrug. “I’m eating.”

“I didn’t mean Constance.”

I take a bite of cat thigh. “Well, I guess you should’ve been more specific.”

“Don’t do this, Buck.”

Chewing, not looking up at her, I say, “Don’t do what?”

“Don’t make this about me.”

After I swallow, I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You want to fight.”

“You’re the one standing there with your arms outstretched like your hands are on your hips.”

“I’m a little disappointed,” she admits, gesturing toward the screaming room. There’s no screaming now. Just the sound of a woman’s exhausted sobs breaking into a coughing fit. “After all, we just got groceries.”

“I’m sorry, Chi.” I lift the thigh to my teeth and tear off another piece. “I wanted something different.”

“Why didn’t you say so at the store? We could’ve bought somebody foreign or something.” She points at the bloody mess on the table in front of me: the carcass. “Constance was Francis Bacon’s cat, you know. He loved the stupid thing.” Without doing anything differently, she stops pointing and glares at me.

With my broken teeth, I tear the last of the thigh meat off the bone. With my undead tongue, I push it inside my cheek. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll get Francis Bacon another cat.” I suck the inside of bone, trying to get the marrow. Then I drop the thin white stick on the floor.

Chi turns away, with her arms outstretched, like they’re crossed. “I don’t know how you can be like this. You’re so cold.”

I don’t know how
she
can be like this.
I’m
cold? She’s thinking about leaving me. She tells a complete stranger she’s thinking about leaving me. Fine. Leave me. Go ahead. Sounds great. I’ll be free. What’ll you be? Huh, Chi? Will you have what you want if you don’t have me?

Grabbing one of Constance’s remaining legs, I drag her body closer. “What do you want from me? You want me to care? I’m depressed, okay? I have a chemical imbalance. It’s not my fault.” I chew the cat meat I’d kept inside my cheek.

Still turned away, she shakes her head. “That’s really convenient, isn’t it? That’s your excuse for everything now.” She mocks me. “‘I don’t want to kill the catatonic girl because I’m depressed.’ ‘I’m physically incapable of having zombie sex in the screaming room and making the humans watch because I’m depressed.’ Is that what you’re going to say about everything from now on?”

Am
I
your problem? Is our
marriage
your problem? Should we just dissolve this, all of this, like another teaspoon of salt in the undrinkable water of the world? It’s already impure, right? It’s like Guy Boy Man says, “Good always comes from bad so by doing bad we increase the good.”

“Look,” I say. “I’m sorry I’m not the perfect husband. I’m sorry I’m not whatever the hell you want. Barry Graves probably. He’s so handsome and sensitive. When I’m done eating Constance, we’ll go into the stupid screaming room and I’ll give you a stupid five-minute distraction from your own stupid unhappiness.”

She shuffles to face me; her expressionless face is disgusted. “You’re a real romantic, Buck.”

I wrench one of Constance’s forelegs back and forth. Bones crack. Everything gives in to strength; to force; to violence: tendons, ligaments, muscles. I tear off Constance’s leg. I hold it up to her. “Do you want some?”

She fumes: putrefaction, decay, rancid rot. “No, I don’t want some. I can’t believe you just asked me if I want some.”

“Are you sure?” I keep holding it up to her. “Good kitty.”

“What is it, Buck?” she asks, suddenly sincere. “What’s the matter? Aren’t I enough for you?”

I take a bite and chew. “You’re making this into something more than it is. I just wanted to eat cat.”

I don’t know why she always wants to talk about everything. We never resolve anything. We just keep talking.

“This is an indication,” she says, accusing me. She points at me with her arms. “This
says something
about our
relationship
.”

“Come on, Chi. You know this happens. It’s perfectly natural. It goes on in zombie houses all the time. It probably happens in, I don’t know, fifty percent of zombie homes.”

“I think that number is a little high.”

“Twenty-six-point-nine percent. Whatever. They only come down on you if you eat somebody else’s cat.”

“I’m not worried about that, Buck. I’m worried about our relationship. Relationships are based on trust and communication.”

I don’t know anymore. I don’t know
what
I know anymore. Before I started feeling so miserable, I never thought Chi might be cheating on me. Now I think she is. All the time. I think I’m the biggest idiot that ever lived. I think she and Barry Graves are meeting in secret whenever they can. They’re laughing at me. They’re having passionate sex and afterwards they’re laughing at me. At how stupid I am. It makes me furious.

“I can’t do anything right as far as you’re concerned!” I cry. “You’re never happy! And it’s always my fault! All you do is criticize me! I don’t do this; I don’t do that. But then, when I make the effort and I try, you’re not satisfied with the result because it’s not exactly the same as when
you
do it! You show me the right way, like I’m stupid. Like I’m”—I wave the arm around some more—“an infant!”

“It isn’t . . . ! I don’t mean . . . !”

“You make doctor’s appointments for me!” I yell, telepathically. “You practically try to force feed me! I’m not a child, Chi! Stop mothering me!”

“I care about you, Buck! I worry! You haven’t been looking after yourself! You quit eating human flesh! You took a shower! With soap! I’m pretty sure you even washed your clothes!”

“I. Never. Washed. My. Clothes.”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you could’ve given me a little space! Maybe I’m going through some things right now! Maybe I’m trying to work some stuff out!”

“How am I supposed to know that? You never told me that!”

“I think it’s pretty obvious!”

“What do you want from me, Buck? Do you want me to sit back and watch you starve to death?”

“Well I’m eating now!” I take another bite of cat. I point at myself with bone. With my mouth full, I say, “What do you want from
me
, Chi? Do you want me to completely give in to you? Do you want me to do
whatever
you want,
whenever
you want? Is that who you thought you were marrying? Some whipped chump who was going to work all day, come home and make supper, and rub your feet while you watch TV? Well I’m sorry, but that’s not me! I’m not your plaything! I’m not your slave! I’m not going to let you keep me chained up!”

“That’s not what I want!”

“What
do
you want?”

“I just.” She sends me silence. She sends me her search for words she can’t find and that don’t exist. “I don’t know,” she says, finally, with a sigh. “I want you to talk to me before you eat the cat.”

I know Chi is ready to make peace now but it isn’t over. It’s never over. It’s insurmountable. The same things just keep happening. “What good would talking have done? You would’ve tried to talk me out of it.”

“Of course I would!”

“See? That’s why I didn’t talk to you about it.”

Her shoulders fall. “I don’t know what’s happening here, Buck. I really don’t.”

I finally swallow. “Nothing is happening here. I’m eating some cat. That’s it. I’ll replace it. It’s not a big deal.” With my jagged teeth, I pull and tear the last of the meat from the legs. Chewing, I drop the little bones on the floor with the others.

“It’s a big deal to me!”

“Maybe I should make you a doctor’s appointment,” I say, snidely. “He can put you on anti-depressants. Then it won’t bother you.” Why am I being like this? Why am I egging her on? Do I
want
her to leave me?

“You blame me for everything!” cries Chi.

“No! You won’t accept responsibility for anything!”

“Fine. It’s my fault. Are you happy now? It’s all my fault.” Hurt, she shakes her head and looks away.

“It’s not
entirely
your fault. It’s
partly
your fault.”

“Well, thanks for your generosity.” She’s still not looking at me. “Since you’re being so kind, please, tell me exactly
which
part is my fault?”

“The mothering part.”

“Which part is
your
fault?”

“Not expressing my feelings and wishes in an open and honest manner and instead seething with furious resentment that I directed inward when I should’ve directed it toward you.”

“Yeah,” she laughs, angrily, turning back to me, nodding. “That sounds like it would’ve made our lives
a lot
better.”

“You want to know what this is?” I lift up what’s left of Constance: what’s left of her corpse. Limp, she hangs in pieces. Held together by sinew and ligament, tendon and bone, she dangles. “This is an
incensed
comment on how I, willingly, gave up my genetic imperative to sleep with as many females as possible to be with you but you didn’t give up your genetic imperative to have children to be with
me
! I never wanted to have a kid in the first place, Chi! You talked me into it!”

“We agreed!”

“No.” I drop Constance onto the table. “You
argued
.
I
gave in.”

“I can’t believe you, Buck. I really can’t.”