Pariah

wasn’t acceptable. Christians were supposed to respect the laws of the land. But the land had no laws any more. This wasn’t recreational usage, anyway. This was a life-or-death experiment. That made Karl smile. He’d always found the term “experimenting with drugs” disingenuous, but that’s what this was. He felt very scientific.

And itchy.

And sweaty.

And cotton mouthed.

33

“She only has four toes.”

“What?”

“She only has four toes.”

“I heard you the first time. What are you talking about?” Ellen pushed back from the dining table and stared at Alan, who sat there stirring powdered nondairy creamer into room-temperature coffee, his spoon tinkling gratingly with each rotation. Finally, patience exhausted, Ellen snatched the utensil from her in-the-doghouse paramour’s hand and tossed it across the room, where it clattered into the sink. Ellen smiled with petty satisfaction and thought, She shoots, she scores. Swish.

“Mona. She only has four toes on each foot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She was posing for me again today, so I could finish up the canvas I’d started-and don’t give me that look. Seriously. There’s no extracurricular activity and you’re not going to guilt me over an involuntary reaction. I got a boner. Sue me. Move on.” Ellen scowled but let her forehead relax, the creases ebbing. Alan continued. “I’d painted her with four toes on her feet and was looking to correct that. Not that I need a model for toes, but you know, it was curious is all. So she’s sitting there, in the same position…” Again Ellen scowled, the word “position” ever linked with carnality. Alan paused, let it pass, resumed his narrative. “And this time I scrutinized her tootsies…”

“Tootsies. How adorable.”

“Please? Could you please? Seriously? It’s enough, already. The point is I hadn’t goofed. She has only four toes on each foot.” Alan restrained himself from saying, “each beautifully turned foot,” or “each devastatingly sexy foot.” He pinched a testicle to suppress the erection he felt inevitable. Just the thought of those smooth, cartoony peds wreaked havoc on his libido. He’d once seen a porn video where a guy pulled out and came on the woman’s foot. At the time he’d thought it was the stupidest thing he could ever imagine. Things change.

“So what am I supposed to make of this little revelation?” Ellen said, unmoved by Alan’s news.

“Look, forget I said anything, okay? This is what couples do, right? They sit at the table and make small talk. Only I didn’t think this was so small. I thought it was genuinely interesting. It was just another thing to factor into Mona’s roster of oddness. Just forget it.”

“Consider it forgotten.”

Alan excused himself from the table and left the apartment. Better he should spend time alone. Was this some hormonal thing? Some pregnancy thing? The roller coaster ride had been fun-was “fun” even the right word? Fun? Interesting. The sex had been good. Stellar. Desperate, but explosive. But this? Did Mike deal with this or was this all some cumulative build up of hormones, grief, and immeasurable weltschmerz the likes of which the philosophers of yore never in their wildest imaginings grappled with? When he thought of it that way, Alan figured Ellen was entitled to some appreciable bitchiness. But it still was a compound drag.

He shuffled downstairs to his flat and swung open the unlocked door, taking in his miasma of death-world renderings, the gooey center of which were the portraits of his four-toed fantasy babe. Did he even want to fuck her? To be honest, yes, he surely did. The world was over, in spite of Ellen’s micro-attempt to repopulate it. New life just meant livestock for the ghouls outside, fresh meat for the grinder. What good were morals now? Maybe a sociopath like Tommasi had the right idea. Maybe so, but you had to be hardwired for that kind of thing. Nature versus nurture. Alan was a nice boy, period. A nice boy with a dirty mind, but really, was there any other kind? A nice boy with a clean mind was illusory.

He stepped into the kitchen and opened a package of Cheez-Its, scooping a handful into his mouth. Gone was the rationing mentality. He ate on automatic, not even tasting what he shoveled in. As a thick glob of orangey half-chewed mush wedged in his windpipe, hard edges scraping soft tissue, and he began to choke, the realization that eating had resumed its status as commonplace tickled his brain. Eating wasn’t no thang. He grabbed a bottle of Evian off the counter and took a few swigs, lubricating the doughy wad, swallowing hard, forcing it down. Not so long ago he’d have been nursing each cracker, savoring each bite, picking the crumbs off his shirt and putting them in his mouth, making it last. Now he was back to indifferent fistfuls. Alan walked over to the front windows and admired the crowd on York. The ol’ gang.

“Hey, folks!” he shouted, waving as if to oldest, bestest buddies. “Hey! How’s it going down there? Same old, same old, huh? Yeah, I know. But look at this!” He palmed another batch of Cheez-Its, Evian at the ready, and rammed them into his mouth. He chewed open mouthed like an ill-mannered child, flecks of fluorescent snack food spattering the sill and windowpane. He spat a gob of the near-glowing processed food onto the bald crown of one of the meatheads below, creating a pulpy yarmulke. No reaction from the target; a reliable disappointment. It was always the same faces down there; having immortalized them in paint, pastel, crayon, charcoal, graphite, and ink, he knew their pusses intimately. It amazed Alan that these brain-dead bastards could be capable of locomotion, yet never go anywhere. They milled around, never straying from their immediate surroundings, like penned animals. It reminded him of families he’d observed in the outer boroughs who never ventured into Manhattan, these urban provincial hicks whose entire lives played out in a square-mile radius. The things below were no different. At least veal had an excuse.

Not that it mattered any more. If anything, the majority of outer-borough zombies were probably indistinguishable from their former selves. Jesus, even in the apocalypse I’m a snob. Alan wiped his mouth and watched the same old, wishing he could change the channel. Absently, Alan snatched a newsprint pad off the floor and began to sketch the crowd.

Just to pass the time.

“Four toes. Four fucking toes.”

“This is more like it.”

Three roofs north of Dabney’s, Eddie grinned, testing the tensile strength of the jury-rigged swivel that anchored the butt of his fishing rod. He pushed his feet hard against the wooden footrests he’d nailed straight through the tar paper. Dabney didn’t want that craziness happening on his turf.

“Yeah, just like those fishing shows on cable. This is gonna fuckin’ rule!” Eddie let out a rebel yell and chugged his beer. He’d gotten to like warm beer. Dave sat nearby on a folding lawn chair, not sharing his buddy’s enthusiasm.

Eddie planted his ass in his makeshift fighting chair and prepared for a rousing round of “flynchin’.” The rod felt good in his hands. Sturdy. He cast the line-the noose weighted with a brass plumb bob-and jiggled the pole to test the swivel’s motility. Smooth. Beer in one hand, rod in the other, Eddie could almost imagine being on the high seas, maybe off the coast of Cozumel.

“I’m gonna ask Mona to get me one a them New Age tapes of ocean noise. Play that while I’m up here to help create the mood. That shit would be sweet, bro.”

“Yeah, sweet.”

“You bet your ass, sweet.” A few gulps of Corona, a light buzz, fishing with a buddy. Things had sweetened considerably recently. Whatever those pills were, they didn’t hurt, either. There was a playful, nerve-tickling quality about them, whatever they were. In concert with the beer? Nice. He felt small, electric surges in his thighs and groin. Even if they weren’t Mona’s secret weapon against being eaten alive, they were okay by Eddie. He closed his eyes and began to hum tunelessly, rocking his head side to side to simulate the motion of a boat. “Dude, make seagull noises,” he suggested.

“What?”

“Make some seagull sounds.”