Pariah

Miss June 1982. This was tough. He’d “gone steady” with this gatefold since finding her in a thrift shop back in Akron that didn’t care how old you were as long as you had cash. He’d secreted her into his childhood bedroom and made sweet imaginary love to her countless times, his eyes tracing every velvet inch of her soft tan body. He’d overlooked her taste in music-The Rolling Stones, Bette Midler, The Cars, Bob Seger, Jimmy Buffett, The Eagles-in light of her overwhelming beauty. And he knew if they ever met he could swing her around to the real deal. Bette Midler? Jimmy Buffett? Well, she was from Hawaii.

Was she dead, too? Most likely.

She was probably one of those shambling piles of flesh-hungry rot. Maybe she’d been torn apart. The thought was too awful to contemplate. He held her in his quaking hands, unable to cast her into the abyss.

“There’s such a thing as too much optimism,” he said, folding her up with care and stowing her in a drawer. “Always have a back-up plan,” he added, patting the closed dresser.

Just in case.

21

Dabney was in his usual spot, selecting a suitable chunk to lob. When he found one that felt right, conformed to the hollow of his palm, he inched closer to the edge and scoped out the scene below, looking for a target. In his day he’d been a fair hand at amateur pitching and darts, so even though nine times out of ten he’d pick a recipient and miss, he at least liked to make the effort. He spotted a likely candidate down below, a slightly rotund one, seemingly stuck in one spot. From Dabney’s vantage point he couldn’t see why, but the corpulent corpse’s spilt entrails had tethered it to the base of a nearby streetlamp, and it was further anchored by the feet of its companions. It stood perfectly still as its cohorts shambled aimlessly around it.

Dabney rotated his wrist a couple of times to loosen up, then chucked the brick, admiring its graceful arc as it plummeted down across the avenue, then delighting in the unexpected as it collapsed the head of its intended target. The fat zombie disappeared as it sank into the crowd, creating a lumpy speed bump for its confederates. Dabney chuckled as he opened a can of mandarin orange slices and took a swig of the tangy syrup, the small, soft wedges of citrus brushing against his lips. He swished the liquid around in his mouth, savoring the sweetness. He remembered when he’d been laid low with chicken pox and then later mumps as a boy and how his mother had given him dishes of mandarin orange slices as a treat. They’d perked him up then just as they perked him up now, but thinking of his momma added a touch of melancholy and he put down the can and let out a mournful noise. “Oh, momma,” he sighed, then took in a big mouthful of preserved fruit. “Oh momma.”

“Why’d you do that?”

Dabney nearly shat himself, unaware he had company. He spun around and saw the girl. He was the only one in the building who hadn’t met her yet.

“You startled me,” he said, smoothing his features.

“Sorry.” She didn’t sound or look sorry, but she didn’t seem sarcastic either. “Why’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Throw the brick.”

“The brick? Oh, it’s something to do. Gives ’em something to chew on besides us.”

The girl contemplated his answer, then stepped over to the ledge and peered down, the toes of her boots resting right on the lip. Dabney began to sweat. “You ain’t planning on doing anything rash, are you, miss?” he asked. “Uh, miss? What’s your name, again?” He said again, but he didn’t know in the first place. For the first time since he’d arrived he felt out of the loop and rude, to boot. He should have come down and introduced himself. Thanked her. These tasty citrus slivers had come courtesy of this spooky little white girl and he hadn’t the manners to let her know he felt much obliged. He was too taken with his self-appointed role as The Roof Man, like some powerless superhero, or enigmatic loner, or plain old antisocial oddball.

“Mona,” she replied.

“Mona,” he repeated. “Well, Mona, you’re not thinking of doing anything foolish are you?”

“Like what?” she asked.

The feeling of deja vu struck Dabney, this scene less heightened than Karl’s would-be jumper scenario, but weirder. Karl had been in an agitated snit. This girl was quiescent as a newborn at her momma’s teat.

Stop thinking about momma, Dabney thought.

“Your standing right on the edge has me a little nervous is all,” he said. “Maybe you oughta come away from there and let’s get introduced. My name’s John Dabney. Most visitors to my roof just address me as Dabney, but either will do. And I guess technically it’s not my roof, per se, but I sort of think of it that way.” He felt foolish running his mouth but didn’t stop. “I guess I owe you an apology, Mona.” He paused, hoping he’d engaged her, waiting for the stock response that didn’t come. The buzzing of flies filled the pregnant pause with white noise. Why was it called white noise? Dabney wondered. White neighbors. White noise. He blinked back to the moment, looking at the girl who hadn’t moved an inch. She was stolid as a figurehead on the prow of a ship, expression serene, skin unblemished. “I owe you an apology,” he repeated, trying to anchor himself in the present.

Thoughts of his seafaring days assailed him. That fat zombie sank like a ship in the ocean of ambulatory corpses. Thoughts of his momma ricocheted around his upper story, too. Maybe those orange slices were spoiled. No. They tasted just fine. Delicious. He’d smoked hashish many moons ago, while in Tangiers. He’d sampled peyote and psilocybin mushrooms while out west. This was the way of the mind and Dabney didn’t pretend to know what he was all about, least of all on a neuron-by-neuron basis. It was the girl, maybe. Dabney was used to dilapidated specimens like Ellen and Ruth, even though they barely ever manifested in his domain. To see a healthy female so impalpable was putting the whim-whams on him. She turned to face him and sat down, crossing her ankles. Relief flooded Dabney. Even if it weren’t his fault, had the girl tumbled off his roof he’d have felt responsible-at least partially. Worse yet, the others might tar him with a grief-stricken guilty brush. The only thing worse than having no luck is to get some then lose it in a trice.

“What for?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“The apology?” Asked with unblinking eyes.

“Oh, oh. Oh, for not introducing myself earlier. For not showing my appreciation for the wonderful food you’ve brought us. I should’ve come down and said thank you. I would have. I don’t want to make excuses, it’s just…” Dabney trailed off and considered his next words with care. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, ’cause I mean no disrespect, but, uh, how come those things don’t attack you like everyone else?”

“I guess they don’t like me.” Dabney looked at her, waiting for the rest, but that’s all there was. No further embellishment. The statement lay there like roadkill. “I need sunglasses,” she said, then got up and walked back into the stairwell.

Dabney stared into the half empty can of orange slices.

Or was it half full?

“We need to send Mona out for more supplies,” Alan said. “Specifically toilet paper. I don’t mean to be disgusting or anything, but just as with great power comes great responsibility, so too does food come with an unfortunate byproduct. Not that responsibility is unfortunate but… All I’m saying is…” Alan moaned from behind the closed door, tossing the crap-smeared wad of newsprint out the bedroom window-there was no window in the bathroom. Only a couple of broadsheets remained of his last copy of the New York Press. “Who’d ever think you could be sentimental about something like toilet paper? Or those moist butt wipes? Oh, those were heavenly.”

“Agreed,” Ellen replied. She knew just how he felt. Unlike the rabbit pellets she was used to producing, all those victuals had gotten her innards producing waste again, and it wasn’t pretty.

“I mean, it’s bad enough hanging your ass out the window to relieve yourself, but to then sandpaper yourself is the icing on the cake,” Alan continued with an audible wince. “So to speak. It’s all so medieval.”

“Enough already,” Ellen said, marching away from the closed portal. “We need to have a building meeting and compile a list of necessities, provided of course that Mona’s zombie repelling wasn’t some fluke and that she’s