Pariah

even willing to go out there and do it again. So I’ll get some paper, and top of the list will be moistened butt wipes.”

“Huzzah,” Alan shouted. “Thank you!”

Alan vacated the window and looked around for anything else to tidy with. Maybe Mona would come through with the goods, but until then he needed to do something. As bad as the Press was to read, it was twice as bad to wipe with.

A year or two ago Alan had undergone a minor surgical procedure and had been given an overnight basket by the staff, mostly dull items like a cheapo toothbrush, no-name toothpaste, a packet of generic facial tissues. But the highlight was a pump-spray bottle of Personal Cleanser. Friends would come by and he’d amuse them with its label, which bluntly proclaimed it to be “No-rinse, one-step cleansing for the perineum or body” containing “Gentle surfactants [to] aid in the removal of urine and feces.” He’d brought it home for a goof, but it had made his life far more bearable over the last several weeks. When he’d moved in with Ellen, he gallantly shared the last few spritzes with her, and now he wished he hadn’t.

Oh, for those gentle surfactants.

Alan’s butt stung from the newspaper and felt distinctly unclean. He felt like some tormented Bible character, which was already easy to do given the state of the world. But this was more personal. A civilized adult man should not have to walk around with a poo-crusted tush. He rummaged through a nearby drawer and filched a pinkish baby-T and finished his hygiene ritual. The soft cotton-poly blend did a better job and was much kinder to his hinder. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Satisfied he’d done the best he could, he lobbed it out the window to join the Press in the alley below. Hopefully Ellen wouldn’t mind or even notice that he’d used a garment of hers. Then it hit him.

Oh fuck me.

Oh double fuck me twice.

Not hers. This wasn’t some hipster baby-T, it was an actual T-shirt that had belonged to her baby, no doubt imbued with all manner of sentimental value. Perspiration began to pour off his forehead.

Oh Jesus.

As a child, Alan and his mother had been invited by a coworker of hers to spend a weekend at the workmate’s summer cabin in Upstate New York. The work chum was a charming man, but Alan disliked him because he figured the guy wanted to put the make on his divorcee mother. Little had unsophisticated seven-year-old Alan realized the guy was gay. After dinner Alan excused himself, then raced into the guest bathroom and spent a fitful several minutes vomiting through his ass, only to be confronted with an absence of toilet paper. Panicked, sweaty, ass raw from the torrential outburst and too humiliated to cry out for toilet paper, he searched the tiny rustic chamber in vain for anything to wipe with. He ended up using a flowery lavender hand towel, which he balled up and tossed out the window. In a private after-dinner moment Alan scooted outside and buried it in the adjacent woods. Weeks later the coworker asked his mother if she had accidentally packed the towel with her things.

Hopefully Ellen wouldn’t notice.

“I want batteries,” Karl said, clutching his exanimate boombox. “Lots of batteries.”

“Maybe some of those emergency lights, like for when there’s a blackout. It would be awesome to have light after dark again. To read without eyestrain? That would be amazing,” Alan chimed in, Ellen playing secretary and jotting down all the suggestions. All but Mona had gathered in Ellen’s apartment and were seated in the sweltering living room, made all the hotter by the group’s body heat.

“Hey, what about one of those camping generators?” Dave said.

“Good one,” Eddie said, slapping Dave’s back.

“I’d like some fresh razors. Oh, since we’re talking batteries, how’s about a couple of those electric razors?” Abe suggested, earning him appreciative oohs and ahhs from the hairy-faced men in the room.

“And a fuckin’ hair clipper,” Dave said, ruffling his scraggy hair. “ ’Scuse the language,” he added, looking at Ruth’s reproachful expression.

“Eventually, and I know it’s not a necessity, but maybe some art supplies,” Alan said.

“Yeah, like you said, ‘not a necessity,’ ” Eddie sneered. “So chill on that shit, Picasso.” Since Alan stopped furnishing him with custom whacking matter, Eddie had ceased to be an art lover.

“Slow down,” Ellen said, her pen skating across the sheet of notepaper. The list was pretty long. The basic necessities were more nonperishable foodstuffs, fresh water, Alan’s precious-although she must admit they were superior, especially in the absence of bathing-moist butt wipes as well as traditional toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, dental floss and dental rinses, more candles and flashlights, and deodorant. “I don’t know how many trips Mona is going to want to make.”

“Hey, if she’s immune to those things, what else has she got on her schedule?” Eddie snapped. “We makin’ her miss her soaps? Pfff.”

“Yes, the exercise will do her good,” agreed Ruth, earning her a rare smirk of approbation from Eddie.

“And who’s to say she wants to be our little errand girl?” Ellen countered. “Who’s to say she won’t look at this, go ‘the hell with these a-holes’ and hightail it out of here, list in hand, gone, gone, gone?”

“Why so pessimistic?” Alan asked.

“I just don’t want to overwhelm the girl by being too greedy,” Ellen said. “We have a potentially very good thing with Mona and I don’t want us to turn into a bunch of jackals who drive her off with our yard-long shopping list.”

“Girlies love to shop,” Eddie said.

Ellen ignored him and reviewed the list. “Okay, in terms of needs versus wants, this is a pretty reasonable list. But how’s she supposed to carry all this?”

“She could take my shopping cart,” Ruth suggested.

“Old ladies and their shopping carts,” Eddie scoffed.

“I don’t see you making any useful contributions to this discussion,” Ruth sniped.

“Maybe she could boost a car,” Eddie said. “I could tell her how.” No one was surprised that Eddie possessed this know-how.

“You think if she knew how to drive she’d be hoofing it?” Karl said. “How’s she supposed to get through all the forsaken cars down there?”

“Maybe she could just take the shopping cart from the market. It’s not like anyone will mind,” Alan threw in. Nods all around.

“One more thing,” Eddie ventured. “Guns.”

Karl looked askance at Eddie.

“Ooh, I don’t know,” said Ellen, with a slight frown.

“What don’t you know? Guns would come in mighty useful against those fuckers out there.”

“How? We’d be like hunters in a blind shooting at ducks. You can’t shoot them all. We’d still be stuck here.”

“We should have guns,” Eddie reiterated.

“It would be sport shooting, nothing more,” Ellen added.

“So?”

“So what’s the point? I don’t like the thought of guns in the building. You think if you shoot a bunch you’re going to win a prize? This isn’t Coney Island, Eddie.”

Typical patronizing Upper East Side Jewy liberal, Eddie thought. What Ellen thought was, I don’t like the thought of you having guns, Eddie Tommasi. Too dangerous for the rest of us chickens.

“Just ask her, okay?” Eddie said, smoothing his features. “Let her be the judge. She brings ’em back, great. She doesn’t, so be it.”

Having omitted Eddie’s request for firearms, Ellen handed over the list and asked, “Is that too much, Mona?” She’d decided to always address the girl by name when speaking to her. Her theory was that maybe she’d had her sense of identity eroded by walking amongst the undead for however long she’d been out there on her own. Ellen