The Living Dead

that he had been the funny kid when he was in school; did Harriet think there had been something wrong with him he had been covering for? Then he remembered they were both the funny kids, and thought: what was wrong with us?

It had to be something, otherwise they'd be together now and the boy at the gumball machine would be theirs. The thought which crossed his mind next was that, if little Bobby was their little Bobby, he'd still have ten fingers. He felt a seething dislike of Dean the lumber man, an ignorant squarehead whose idea of spending together-time with his kid probably meant taking him to the fair to watch a truck-pull.

An assistant director started clapping her hands and hollering down for the undead to get into their positions. Little Bob trotted back to them.

'Mom,' he said, the gumball in his cheek. 'You didn't say how you died.' He was looking at her torn-off ear.

'I know,' Bobby said. 'She ran into this old friend at the mall and they got talking. You know, and I mean they really got talking. Hours of blab. Finally her old friend said, hey, I don't want to chew your ear off here. And your mom said, aw, don't worry about it . . .'

'A great man once said, lend me your ears,' Harriet said. She smacked the palm of her hand hard against her forehead. 'Why did I listen to him?'

Except for the dark hair, Dean didn't look anything like him. Dean was short. Bobby wasn't prepared for how short. He was shorter than Harriet, who was herself not much over five and a half feet tall. When they kissed, Dean had to stretch his neck. He was compact, and solidly built, broad at the shoulders, deep through the chest, narrow at the hips. He wore thick glasses with gray plastic frames, the eyes behind them the color of unpolished pewter. They were shy eyes—his gaze met Bobby's when Harriet introduced them, darted away, returned and darted away again—not to mention old; at the corners of them the skin was creased in a web of finely etched laugh lines. He was older than Harriet, maybe by as much as ten years.

They had only just been introduced when Dean cried suddenly, 'Oh you're that Bobby! You're funny Bobby. You know we almost didn't name our kid Bobby because of you. I've had it drilled into me, if I ever run into you, I'm supposed to reassure you that naming him Bobby was my idea. Cause of Bobby Murcer. Ever since I was old enough to imagine having kids of my own I always thought—'

'I'm funny!' Harriet's son interrupted.

Dean caught him under the armpits and lofted him into the air. 'You sure are!'

Bobby wasn't positive he wanted to have lunch with them, but Harriet looped her arm through his and marched him toward the doors out to the parking lot, and her shoulder—warm and bare—was leaning against his, so there was really no choice.

Bobby didn't notice the other people in the diner staring at them, and forgot they were in makeup until the waitress approached. She was hardly out of her teens, with a head of frizzy yellow hair that bounced as she walked.

'We're dead,' little Bobby announced.

'Gotcha,' the girl said, nodding and pointing her ball-point pen at them. 'I'm guessing you either all work on the horror movie, or you already tried the special, which is it?'

Dean laughed, dry, bawling laughter. Dean was as easy a laugh as Bobby had ever met. Dean laughed at almost everything Harriet said, and most of what Bobby himself said. Sometimes he laughed so hard, the people at the next table started in alarm. Once he had control of himself, he would apologize with unmistakable earnestness, his face flushed a delicate shade of rose, eyes gleaming and wet. That was when Bobby began to see at least one possible answer to the question that had been on his mind ever since learning she was married to Dean who- owned-his-own-lumber-yard: why him? Well—he was a willing audience, there was that.

'So I thought you were acting in New York City,' Dean said, at last. 'What brings you back?'

'Failure,' Bobby said.

'Oh—I'm sorry to hear that. What are you up to now? Are you doing some comedy locally?'

'You could say that. Only around here they call it substitute teaching.'

'Oh! You're teaching! How do you like it?'

'It's great. I always planned to work either in film or television or junior high. That I should finally make it so big subbing eighth grade gym—it's a dream come true.'

Dean laughed, and chunks of pulverized chicken-fried steak flew out of his mouth.

'I'm sorry. This is awful,' he said. 'Food everywhere. You must think I'm a total pig.'

'No, it's okay. Can I have the waitress bring you something? A glass of water? A trough?'

Dean bent so his forehead was almost touching his plate, his laughter wheezy, asthmatic. 'Stop. Really.'

Bobby stopped, but not because Dean said. For the first time he had noticed Harriet's knee was knocking his under the table. He wondered if this was intentional, and the first chance he got he leaned back and looked. No, not intentional. She had kicked her sandals off and was digging the toes of one foot into the other, so fiercely that sometimes her right knee swung out and banged his.

'Wow, I would've loved to have a teacher like you. Someone who can make kids laugh.' Dean said.

Bobby chewed and chewed, but couldn't tell what he was eating. It didn't have any taste.

Dean let out a shaky sigh, wiped the corners of his eyes again. 'Of course, I'm not funny. I can't even remember knock-knock jokes. I'm not good for much else except working. And Harriet is so funny. Sometimes she puts on shows for Bobby and me, with these dirty socks on her hands, we get laughing so hard we can't breathe. She calls it the trailer park muppet show. Sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon.' He started laughing and thumping the table again. Harriet stared intently into her lap. Dean said, 'I'd love to see her do that on Carson. This is—what do you call them, routines?—this could be a classic routine.'

'Sure sounds it.' Bobby said. 'I'm surprised Ed McMahon hasn't already called to see if she's available.'

When Dean dropped them back at the mall and left for the lumber yard, the mood was different. Harriet seemed distant, it was hard to draw her into any kind of conversation—not that Bobby felt like trying very hard. He was suddenly irritable. All the fun seemed to have gone out of playing a dead person for the day. It was mostly waiting—waiting for the gaffers to get the lights just so, for Tom Savini to touch up a wound that was starting to look a little too much like Latex, not enough like ragged flesh—and Bobby was sick of it. The sight of other people having a good time annoyed him. Several zombies stood in a group, playing hacky-sack with a quivering red spleen, and laughing. It made a juicy splat every time it hit the floor. Bobby wanted to snarl at them for being so merry. Hadn't any of them heard of method acting, Stanislavsky? They should all be sitting apart from one another, moaning unhappily and fondling giblets. He heard himself moan aloud, an angry frustrated sound, and little Bobby asked what was wrong. He said he was just practicing. Little Bob went to watch the hacky- sack game.

Harriet said, without looking at him, 'That was a good lunch, wasn't it?'

'Sen-sational,' Bobby said, thinking better be careful. He was restless, charged with an energy he didn't know how to displace. 'I feel like I really hit it off with Dean. He reminds me of my grandfather. I had this great grandfather who could wiggle his ears and who thought my name was Evan. He'd give me a quarter to stack wood for him, fifty cents if I'd do it with my shirt off. Say, how old is Dean?'

They had been walking together. Now Harriet stiffened, stopped. Her head swiveled in his direction, but her hair was in front of her eyes, making it hard to read the expression in them. 'He's nine years older than me. So what?'

'So nothing. I'm just glad you're happy.'

'I am happy,' Harriet said, her voice a half-octave too high.

'Did he get down on one knee when he proposed?'

Harriet nodded, her mouth crimped, suspicious.

'Did you have to help him up afterwards?' Bobby asked. His own voice was sounding a little off-key, too, and he thought stop now. It was like a cartoon, he saw Wile E. Coyote strapped to the front