The Making of Zombie Wars Read online

  “We’re meeting at Marcel’s.”

  “That’s fancy.”

  “My treat. Unlimited wine intake too, to help you along with being really busy.”

  “What time?”

  “God, I can always count on you being a slut, Jackie.”

  * * *

  Janet had a mailing list, and her little brother was on it, so whenever she managed to offload an obscenely priced Gold Coast condo onto some rich fool, Joshua would receive a postcard featuring Janet—her hair Photoshopped for extra blondness, her grin expressing the full range of the positive-thinking pathology—and a banner that read: JANET DID IT AGAIN!! The extra exclamation mark was the dagger, the infuriating extra touch of heedless superiority. He’d repeatedly begged her to take him off the list, but she never had and probably never would.

  Joshua showed up at Marcel’s Cork Room in an aerodynamic bike helmet, fluorescent yellow shirt, and enhanced-crotch bike shorts. His initial intention had been to go get his bicycle, still locked by Graham’s, before lunch. But the plan was changed after Stagger had dropped off his phone and keys on the porch, and Joshua had had to interrupt erasing the recorded exchange re: Ana to check the cell phone call log, since calling his marine buddies in Iraq from Joshua’s phone was not beyond Stagger. Ana had called him a few times, and he’d listened to her tantalizingly brief messages, unable to summon any gumption to call her back. Her voice sounded throaty, the voice of a woman with spunk and depth.

  He expected some pleasure from embarrassing Janet by showing up in his bike shorts, his balls bulging squeezily, at her fancy downtown French restaurant, where Armani-clad men guzzled vintage wine while devouring hundred-dollar steak frites. But Janet did it again: she was there already in full-blown yoga attire, complete with tight-ass sweat pants. Moreover, the restaurant was empty, except for Marcel at the bar, nursing his pastis, watching despondently the U.S. troops on the TV churning up sandstorms on their way to Baghdad. Noah, Joshua’s insufferable little nephew, was there as well, lining up chairs to make a convoy of trucks. Why wasn’t he in school? Marcel glared over at the unstoppable Noah, evidently tempted to say something. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t—Janet practically kept his Cork Room in business, closing many of her multimillion-dollar real estate deals with the wine from a shelf Marcel kept only for her.

  Mom was contemplating her arugula, brooding over her duck breast. She was unhappy, and more so than usual. She wore a Native American necklace matching her feather earrings, her hair blown into a rigid shape. Joshua leaned in to kiss her cheek but was wise enough not to ask what was up. He saw her tumid ankles, the swelling crawling up her shins toward her knees, her burst capillaries like a tattoo of the Amazon and its tributaries. Once upon a time, he’d fallen asleep with his head in her lap, as she’d stroked the hair away from his temples. Once upon a time he’d watched her with pride as she leapt from a springboard, bending perfectly in midair to slip into the pool as into a glove.

  Janet was staring at the TV over the bar—the intrepid invaders were mesmerizing.

  “Marcel says he’s bleeding money because people are angry at the French for not joining the party in Iraq,” she whispered. “I’m as patriotic as the next guy, but I draw the line at boycotting wine. What are we fighting for if I can’t have my Bordeaux?”

  Joshua filled up his glass with 1983 Château Margaux and rinsed his palate with it. If there was a perfect thing in the world, it was Château Margaux ’83, and no coalition of the willing could drive a wedge between them. He’d had his first wine in 1983: he was almost thirteen, Bernie had left an open bottle on the table; not even his vomiting later could dampen the memory of that first-kiss experience. He imagined sharing a bottle with Ana, her lips claret, teaching her to sniff it, to feel it on her palate, teaching her the tasting vocabulary. Noah slid into the chair next to Joshua and matter-of-factly said: “Camelfuckers.”

  “Watch your language, young man,” Janet said sans conviction.

  “Camelfuckers,” Noah repeated.

  “Secret word, Noah! We don’t use it in front of other people. We talked about secret words, didn’t we?”

  Mom looked up at Noah, then at Joshua, and rolled her eyes—this was some kind of signal to him, but he could not decode it. She’d moved to a downtown condo after the Wilmette house had been sold as part of the divorce settlement; she’d wanted to be able to walk to theaters and museums and Symphony Center; to date and have lunches with her fellow ballast board members. But lately she left her condo only to go to her hairdresser or book club. Janet was worried that she was depressed and developing an addiction to sleeping pills. Janet worried meant Janet called Joshua to complain.

  “How’s your father?” Mother asked him.

  “Rachel!” Janet said. She’d started calling her Rachel after she’d had Noah, the title of Mother now available to her as well.

  “I don’t know,” Joshua said. “Haven’t talked to Bernie for a while.”

  Janet was shaking her head to indicate her disapproval and worry. The Levins were a family whose communication system was founded on decoding secret words and silences. What was not actually uttered was always what mattered more. It was like poor-man’s psychoanalysis, except they were not particularly poor. The first time he’d taken Kimmy to a family dinner she’d quickly recognized, smart as she was, that they’d been reading her and talking about her in the Levin code. Moreover, Mother had randomly rolled her eyes; Janet had kept topping off Kimmy’s wineglass, intent on getting her loose and tipsy; Doug had ogled her shamelessly. What would the Levins say about Ana?

  “He’s on a cruise,” Janet said. “I told you that.”

  “With his big-tits babe?”

  “Rachel! She’s older than you.”

  “Where did they go, Joshua?” Mother said. “Where are they cruising?”

  “Mom, please,” Joshua said. “I don’t know.”

  “Israel,” Mother said. “The Holy blasted Land.”

  “Wasn’t there another suicide bombing there last week?” Janet asked.

  “He probably didn’t even leave the cruise ship,” Joshua said.

  “He probably didn’t even leave her tits,” Mother said.

  “Tits,” Noah said, smashing the top of his crème brûlée with a spoon.

  “Secret word, Noah!” Janet said. “Could you cut it out, Rachel, please?”

  “I hope they’re booked on the Titanic,” Mother said. “I hope she ends up holding his hand as he turns to ice, like that boy in the movie.”

  “Tits,” Noah said.

  “All right, you’re in time-out, young mister,” Janet said.

  Time-out meant that Noah was afforded more time to plan another irritating thing to do or say. It was clear from his impish grin that his mind was now thinly stretched between camelfuckers and tits. What is it with boys? How do they slide into fucked-upness so quickly, with such natural ease? Joshua refilled his glass with Château Margaux then put the bottle down. Janet pointedly picked it up to add wine to Mother’s and her glasses, as Marcel hurried over to snatch the bottle from Janet’s hand.

  “Merci bien, monsieur!” she said with a courtly nod, thereby pretty much exhausting her French vocabulary. She’d convinced Doug to marry her in Paris; neither of them could understand what the official had been saying, so they hadn’t answered properly when she’d asked them if they’d take each other for better or for worse, or whatever they said in France. It’d been a running joke between Doug and Jan that they were not sure they’d been married. Doug, priapic as he was, had certainly behaved as if they were merely good friends from high school.

  “De rien, madame!” Marcel bowed and smiled. It was not beyond Janet to appropriate Marcel for retributive intercourse, Joshua realized. Marcel walked away, bouncing on the balls of his feet, like an Olympic diver.

  “So,” Janet said. “Seder at my place.”

  “When is it?” Joshua asked.

  “When is it!? You’re a real bad Jew, Ja
ckie,” Janet said.

  “Okay, but when is your Seder?”

  “April sixteenth. You’ve got two weeks to Jew up.”

  “Reading from the same script every year, thanking the Lord for getting our ass out of the situation he put us in in the first place—that’s not my idea of a good time.”

  “God will smite you.”

  “God doesn’t give a damn about me.”

  “He sheds his wrath upon the nations that do not recognize him, and on the kingdoms and individuals that will not proclaim his name. I’d be careful.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And it’s a good story too,” Janet said.

  “Cameltits,” Noah said, proud of his cleverness. He was Doug’s son all right. Janet grabbed him above his elbow and pulled him away from the table. She dragged him into the women’s bathroom, as he wailed like the little patient he was. Perhaps it was true that everything was Oedipal with boys. Perhaps Papa Freud was in fact right.

  “You haven’t heard this from me, but Jan and Doug are separated,” Mother said. “He sent Janet an e-mail from Dubai, except it was meant for some other woman and was describing his crotch.”

  “His crotch? You mean his penis?”

  “Don’t ask me for details, Joshua, for God’s sake. I’m your mother.”

  “So where’s he now?”

  “Maybe still in Dubai. Or in some downtown hotel with a hooker. Dead, as far as Jan’s concerned.”

  “Are they going to get divorced?”

  “Jan’s mad more than ever before.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s very mad.”

  “Poor Doug. She’ll destroy him,” Joshua said, and immediately realized that he shouldn’t have.

  “Poor Doug?” his mother growled, actually showing her incisors, but before she could say more Janet came back with Noah. His blond hair now was wet and pasted to his skull, with a neat straight line down the middle.

  “Now,” Janet said, emptying the Château Margaux into her glass, lifting the bottle to ask Marcel for more. “Now we’re going to enjoy this goddamn lunch.”

  INT. HOSPITAL — DAY

  Major Klopstock, gun in hand, sneaks up the back stairs, barely lit by the streaks of sunlight from obscure windows and cracks. Every once in a while, he checks to see what floor he’s on. The undead LOW in distant hospital spaces. When he reaches the 25th floor, he carefully opens the door to look down the dark hallway, where all the lights are out. It appears to be zombie-free. He turns on his flashlight: it’s the neurosurgery floor. He moves soundlessly, pressing his back against the wall. He knows his way around that labyrinth. He opens a door to look in, but has to duck quickly as he spots a zombie munching on a brain from a glass jar. The undead one is too busy to notice Major K, who moves on.

  Major K rummages through a file cabinet, looking for something in particular, throwing down what he has no use for. In the corner, he sees a small fire extinguisher. He puts it in his backpack.

  As Major K is about to enter the nurses’ room, he hears a CRASH inside. He turns off the flashlight and presses his back against the wall, then crawls along it to look in through a small window. He sees a flashing move, too fast for a zombie — someone ducks behind a stack of boxes. He raises his gun and cocks it. He looks again, and this time spots an elbow of a living human sticking out, then an eye peeking from behind the box. There is GROANING in the hallway, then more zombies roaming. He pushes the door open and slips in, pointing the gun at CANCER PATIENT (37), bald, skinny, and wearing a hospital gown.

  MAJOR KLOPSTOCK

  (whispering)

  Do not make a sound!

  She shakes her head and stays silent. She shifts her gaze to look at something behind Major K. Still pointing his gun at her, he turns to see NURSE (55) and a chubby BOY (12), both shivering in fear. There is a FOREIGNER (40) kneeling next to them, holding a cell phone, from which a cord stretches to an outlet.

  FOREIGNER

  Power out.

  MAJOR K

  Everything’s out.

  Ana lived way out in Lincolnwood, in a building that looked like a depressing dorm, what with its dun color and standard-issue windows, but was called the Ambassador. She buzzed him in, but didn’t tell him her apartment number. On his way up, Joshua pressed his ear against suspect doors, each of which offered the sounds of myriad lives: a radio gibbering in an obscure language; Mexican oompah-oompah music; a desperate, barking dog; the hum of an empty space. Ana’s place was up on the Ambassador’s top floor. There was a crowd of shoes in front of the door, lit dispiritingly by the skylight. Some were lined up, some thrown together: men’s shoes, wide and deep and brown; Chuck Taylors; fine Italian leather shoes. There were women’s high heels too, and flat ballet shoes and even flower-patterned rain boots. Visions of the Holocaust shoe heaps came to Joshua and in their wake a memory of Nana Elsa’s Florida plastic flip-flops, conforming to her bunions perfectly. She’d had them for at least fifteen years and wouldn’t hear of getting rid of them. In fact, she never got rid of any of her shoes; Papa Elie disposed of them behind her back, so she never let her precious flip-flops out of sight. She wanted to be buried with those flip-flops. Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

  Joshua took his tennis shoes off and placed them at a distance from all the others. Then it occurred to him that that might be interpreted as his being a snob, and moved them a little closer, but still not touching any other shoes. He walked in, somewhat embarrassed by his white tube socks—his grandmother’s grandson, he too had a hard time getting rid of things. A teenage girl walked out of the bathroom, her purple shirt severely tucked into a pair of latex-tight jeans. She considered Joshua and said, “Hi!” with a ladylike nod. “Hi!” Joshua nodded back. She was lanky, her long mane brushing her skinny, half-pubescent behind. She had narrow, awkward-looking feet and a constellation of pimples on her chin, but she seemed to be at ease with herself. You could tell she was Ana’s daughter: the same green eyes, the same long neck, the same, if unripe, sadness.

  “I’m outta here,” she said. “You kids have loads of fun.”

  Her English was purely American, no accent whatsoever. Should she not have a Bosnian accent? She slipped past Joshua, picked her shoes off the pile, and scuttered down the stairs. In Joshua’s memory of his adolescence, there was no need to worry about the ease: he’d spent much of his teenagehood watching old movies in the basement, thus escaping the ubiquitous unease.

  In the center of the dining room there was a long table, thick with plates of food and bottles of booze. Everyone crowded around it, teeming like wildflowers, no space between the chairs. On the far side of the table, Captain Ponomarenko and his faithful wife drowned in a sofa, their chins nearly touching the edge of the table. Bega was there too, fully present in his Bad Brains T-shirt, Corona in hand, pontificating to a woman slowly backing away as he leaned into her to make his indisputable points. What was he doing there? Had she invited people Joshua knew? Why would she do that? She had invited Stagger too—or so he’d claimed—to this party. Terrified, Joshua scanned the room. Apart from his students and Bega, everyone was comfortingly anonymous. He waved wordlessly at everyone, which everyone ignored. He stood at the door, waiting for something to happen and determine what he should do next. Eventually, he turned to go elsewhere and there was Ana behind him, her short hair so freshly hennaed as to approach purple, matching nicely her sky-blue summer dress and her cleavage beaded with sweat. She had a tray of thin-sliced meat in her hands.

  “Teacher Josh,” she said. “Super to see you.”

  She wiggled past him and he had an urge to grab her and keep her by his side. Her face was flushed, and Joshua determined he should be hot as well: he wiped the imaginary sweat off his forehead with his hand, and everyone laughed. “I’m Joshua,” he said, but no one bothered to introduce themselves. Bega finally raised his beer to greet him then poured all of it into his mouth.

  “What are you doing here
?” Joshua ventured to ask.

  “Bosnia is small world,” Bega said. “And world is small Bosnia. And I live close.”

  The rest of the guests raised their glasses, except for Captain Ponomarenko and Larissa, who hailed him with an ungenerous stare, as if his arrival irreversibly spoiled the reigning harmony. Ana joked in her language with the people at the table and everybody neighed with laughter looking at him. They all appeared Eastern European, but he could not determine what exactly it was that made them so. The flat back of male heads, perhaps. Or the dark circles around their eyes. Or the abundance of defiantly unhealthy food. Or the huddling around the table. On all other nights we eat either sitting up or leaning back; on this night we lean forward and giggle at strangers.

  Ana put the platter down and returned to him. “What did you say to them?” he asked.

  “You don’t know if you don’t learn Bosnian,” she said and winked at him mischievously. “Let me show you where is the kitchen.”

  It wasn’t clear why he needed to know where the kitchen was, but she touched him above the elbow to direct him and his biceps rubbed against her breasts. He could feel their fullness, their weighted maturity. Kimmy’s breasts were small, somehow expressive of her control, as if she willfully prevented them from growing.

  “So, you know Bega,” Joshua said. “Small world.”

  “I know him. He lives close.”

  “Captain Ponomarenko and Larissa are here too. They hate the thought of me.”

  “Yes,” she frankly confirmed. “But I like you.” There was the momentary purse of her lips and a flash of the dimples before she smiled, rendering Captain USSR and his wife harmless and irrelevant. She bespoke the supreme authority of the governing hostess—everyone in her domain was going to be taken care of. Kimmy had a similar quality, but her domain was spare: he and Bushy were the only ones populating it. Ana pulled up her bra and Joshua compliantly followed her to the kitchen.

  “You know Bega?” she asked.

  “We’re in the same screenwriting workshop.”