Dead Set (2 page)

“Sure,” Zoe said. She knew the question was coming and had an answer ready. She'd even made up a friend in case her mother wanted details. A girl from the drama club who had a big part in the school's annual musical. She knew her mother would like her to know someone into music.

“Good. I'm glad you're not alone all the time.”

Zoe nodded. “Classes are pretty easy compared to Danville. A lot of the teachers look like they're on Valium. Except for one. He's okay.”

Her mother rubbed her feet through her stockings. “What's so special about him?”

“He teaches biology and has this pretty cool collection of animal bones and body parts,” said Zoe. “He showed us the skeleton of a bat the size of your thumb.”

Zoe's mother gave her a tired smile. “Nice. He sounds like Matt Everson. Did you ever meet him? He was a friend of your father's back in the old, olden days.”

Whenever she said the “old, olden days,” Zoe knew her mother meant back when she and Zoe's father had lived in an old warehouse populated by artists in the industrial part of San Francisco. Back then, Zoe's mother had been a graphic designer, designing album covers for little punk record labels. Her father had been road manager for a couple of bands and played around with computers in his spare time. Later, he wrote software all the time and started making money, but Zoe had been an infant and didn't remember when they moved from the leaking warehouse to the house in Danville with the backyard full of almond trees. Sometimes she wished they had stayed in the warehouse. It would have been so great growing up around paintings and sculptures, the plasma cutters, and the welding equipment the artists used. Maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe Dad wouldn't be dead.

She heard her mother sigh. She'd picked up the mail Zoe had piled on the coffee table. Her mother was staring at a fat official-looking envelope. “Shit. More insurance papers.”

“I still don't understand what the problem is. Do they think Dad's alive and hiding in the basement or something?” asked Zoe.

“I don't know,” said Zoe's mother wearily. “It's some goddamn thing. A piece of paper that should have been filed with some department and wasn't. Or it was and got lost. Suddenly, to these people, your father never existed.” She opened the envelope and looked at the papers. Very quietly she repeated, “Like he was never even here . . .”

Zoe turned up the TV. She couldn't stand hearing her mother talk like that. It hurt seeing her so lost and hurt. Zoe knew she should tell her mother she loved her but she couldn't do it because she didn't really feel it. Where that feeling, and a lot of others, should be was a deep dark void. Instead of talking and maybe saying the wrong thing and making things worse, she watched people on the TV screen praying to old, animal-headed Egyptian gods.

“I swear I'm not a stupid woman, but these insurance people speak Martian or something.” Her mother shook her head and put the papers back in the envelope. “That's why we have a lawyer now, so he can speak Martian to the insurance company's Martians.”

“Just make him make them believe that Dad was real.”

“I know. That's the idea.”

“I hate them,” said Zoe.

“So do I. Are you hungry?”

Zoe nodded.

“Why don't you grab us some plates.”

They watched TV while they ate the now-lukewarm chicken. A chubby English archaeologist explained how in the Egyptian underworld the dead were judged by Thoth, who weighed their souls against a feather. If the soul weighed less than the feather, it went on to the Western Lands, sort of like the Egyptians' heaven, he explained. “But if the soul weighed more than the feather,” he said, “a crocodile-headed beast devoured it and the soul would vanish from the universe forever.”

When they finished eating, Zoe took the leftovers and dishes into the little kitchen. Back in the living room she found her mother asleep on the couch. Zoe turned off the TV and went quietly to her room, closed the door, and undressed for bed.

Feeling so rotten all the time was exhausting, she thought. For a while after her father died the doctors gave her sleeping pills because she couldn't close her eyes for days at a time. Now, except on those nights when the black dogs came, sleeping and dreaming were her favorite things in the world.

Z
oe stood in the almond grove behind the old house, though this one wasn't exactly like the real grove. It was better. The hills in the distance knifed high enough into the sky that they were topped by snow. Zoe's house wasn't there. None of the houses in the development were. In her dreams, the grove stood in the middle of a great green plain that stretched from horizon to horizon. The sky was the color of twilight and dotted with pale blue, trembling stars. Zoe always liked this time and this place because, although the light was fading, she could see everything, even in the darkest places.

Valentine, her dream brother, was waiting for her in the tree fort, throwing unshelled almonds down at her. Valentine had dark eyes and black, unruly hair that he was always pushing out of his eyes, just like her father used to do. Valentine wore the same dirty white T-shirt, ripped jeans, and sneakers he'd had on every night since she could remember.

She laughed and picked up the nuts as they landed at her feet, throwing them back at Valentine with one hand and shielding her face with her other. They ran around the treetops, through the wooden maze of planks and ropes, trapdoors, and stairs that made up their ever-growing fort, whooping and throwing almonds at each other. She felt lighter, almost like a kid, when she was with Valentine. She hadn't always felt that way. Things changed after her father died. Dreams became the only place where she could blow off steam and feel free and happy.

When Zoe made it to the roof of the fort, Valentine was standing by the wooden railing, looking at the distant mountains.

“Something is walking through the snow,” he said, pointing. The mountains were hazy through a halo of fog. Zoe looked hard and thought she could see a tiny dot moving across one of the snowy peaks, leaving a trail of even, microscopic footprints.

“What is it, do you think?” she asked.

Valentine shook his head. “An animal, maybe. Maybe a person,” he said quietly.

“Could it be Dad?” Zoe asked.

“Why would it be him?”

“I don't know. Maybe he's there looking out for us.”

Valentine turned to her.

“Do you really feel like anyone is looking out for you?”

“Just you.”

He squatted down to pick up some dried leaves that he methodically held up and dropped over the side of the railing, one by one. “On the other hand, it would be nice if whoever's walking on our mountain is someone we knew.”

“Assuming it's a someone.”

“Yeah.”

Zoe had known Valentine for as long as she could remember. He'd always been a part of her dreams, but she'd stopped talking about him years before when she saw the looks she got from other children and their parents, and she realized that not everyone had a dream brother. She'd asked him once why she was the only person she knew who had a dream brother like him. Valentine had become very quiet and climbed high into the tree, too high for Zoe to reach, and he wouldn't come down or talk for the rest of the night.

“Maybe it's Mom up there,” said Zoe. “Spying on us.” She turned her back on the mountains and sat down, resting her back on the railing. She leaned back and looked up at the stars, willing herself to fall up into them. It didn't work.

“Are you and Mom still not speaking?”

“We're speaking,” said Zoe. “Just not about anything.”

“Just take-out chicken,” Valentine said. He dropped a leaf onto Zoe's head. She batted it away.

“That's about as deep as it gets with us right now.” Zoe turned around and let her legs dangle over the edge of the fort. The air felt good. “I feel so stupid. I'm lonely, but I don't want to see anyone or talk to anyone.”

“What about your friends back at the old house?”

She got up, ignoring the question, and looked back up at the mountain. Zoe tried to find the dot moving through the snow but the fog had moved in and she couldn't see a thing. “Sometimes I wish I could see you when I'm not asleep,” she said. “You're the only one I can talk to.”

Valentine knelt down beside her. He looked around conspiratorially, and then lifted up his T-shirt. He was skinny, and his ribs stuck out under his ghost-white skin. Valentine put his hand over his heart and slid his fingers into his chest. When he pulled his hand out, he was holding a small tin compass. It looked like the kind of piece of junk you'd get in a box of kids' cereal. Valentine put the compass in her hand.

“When you're awake and you need me, you can look at that,” he said. “We can't talk but you'll always know where I am because the blue half of the hand will always point to me.”

Zoe shook the compass, half expecting it to break, and walked around the tree fort. Just as Valentine said, the blue hand always pointed to him.

Zoe went back and hugged her dream brother. “Thank you,” she said. Valentine hugged her back.

Later, they picked green, unripe almonds from the tree and threw them, in the special way that Valentine had taught her, straight into the sky. The almonds flew up and out of sight, every now and then hitting a star and sending it spinning.

When that got boring, Valentine turned to Zoe. “Why do we always stay up here?” he asked. “Why don't we ever climb down?”

“It's dangerous out there in the world,” said Zoe. “There are things down there.”

They looked over the edge of the fort. Below them something large and scaly, like one of the animal-headed gods she'd seen on TV, swam silently through the green grass as if it were water.

 

Two

I
n the wild, the differences between scavengers and predators are simple,” said Mr. Danvers in class the next day. “A predator, say a wolf or a shark, will generally catch and kill its prey. What does that leave for the scavengers?”

A girl with short blue hair and black, kohled eyes said, “They find stuff to eat. Animals and things that are already dead.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Danvers, reaching for something on his bone shelf. He pulled down a jar the size of a two-liter soda bottle and turned back to the class.

“They'll steal stuff, too,” said Zoe. It was the first time she'd spoken up in any of her classes. She liked that Mr. Danvers didn't make you raise your hand if you knew the answer. “On this show I saw they said some predators, lions sometimes, would rather steal food from another animal than go and find it on their own.”

Mr. Danvers smiled at Zoe. “Good addition, uh . . .”

“Zoe,” she said.

“Good work, Zoe. Yes, stealing food might be rude, but it's a lot more energy-efficient than hunting for it yourself.” Mr. Danvers unscrewed the jar and poured a pile of yellow-white animal teeth onto his lab table. “Everyone gather around up here. We're going to see what predators and scavengers use to catch and eat their lunch.”

After class Zoe went to her locker and exchanged her books for a brown-bag lunch of leftover fried chicken. The blue-haired girl came over. “Cool shirt,” she said. “Very retro.”

Zoe had to look down at her shirt to understand what the girl was talking about. “Oh, I guess so,” she said. The shirt was black and much too big for her. She'd cut off the sleeves and collar. There was a large blue circle on the front and the words
THE GERMS: GERMICIDE.

“I grew up with it, so I never thought of it as retro. It was my dad's,” Zoe said. “He knew all these guys, back in the day.”

The blue-haired girl bugged her eyes in mock, sitcom shock. “Your dad hung with Darby Crash?”

Zoe nodded, nervous about the sudden and intense attention.

“Does he still do cool stuff like that?”

Zoe shook her head. “No. He's . . . he died.”

“Oh,” said the blue-haired girl. She took a step back. “I'm sorry. I'm pushy and I talk too much.”

Zoe shrugged. “No. It's okay.”

“I'm Absynthe,” said the blue-haired girl. She leaned in conspiratorially. “Really Courtney. My mom says it's for Courtney Love but I think it sounds like I should be on TV with a monkey sidekick. All my friends call me Absynthe. With a
Y
.”

“Hi. Absynthe with a
Y
. I'm Zoe.”

“I was headed down to the cafeteria of doom to meet some friends. You want to eat with us?”

Zoe hesitated. Sitting with people meant she'd have to talk, and talking was still a black and frightening thing. Plus, she'd found a shady spot under an emergency staircase where she could eat her lunch alone. Still, being around people all day and never saying a word to anyone was getting old.

“Okay,” she said. “Sure.”

They walked to the lunchroom and Absynthe led Zoe to a table where three other girls were sitting. “This is Jessie, Molly, and Rexx,” said Absynthe. “Everyone, this is Zoe. Her dad toured with the Germs.” Absynthe said the names fast enough that Zoe wasn't sure she could put the right names with the right faces.

“He didn't really tour with them,” said Zoe, sitting down. “He used to work in clubs and knew a lot of the bands.”

“That's still pretty fucking hot,” said a tall blond girl in a fifties gas-station shirt with rolled sleeves. The name over her breast pocket read
STEVE
, but Zoe was pretty sure she was Jessie.

“Was your dad in a band? Would I have heard of him?” asked a girl in a shiny black PVC top. Rexx, thought Zoe. The girl slurred her words and giggled enough that Zoe knew she was high.

Zoe shook her head. “No, he didn't play. Mostly he road-managed,” she said, then quickly added, “But he knew everyone. You can see his picture in a bunch of books and on even some live records around the L.A. punk scene.”

A short-haired, tough-looking girl in a black tank top and jean jacket said, “Your old man still into music? My band has a demo tape.” Molly, thought Zoe.

“No,” Zoe said. “He doesn't do music stuff anymore.”

Out of the corner of her eye Zoe saw Absynthe trying to signal the other girls. When Molly started to ask about Zoe's father again, Absynthe shook her head so the girl would drop the subject. Molly looked away. Zoe opened her lunch bag and closed it. Looking at the cold friend chicken, she suddenly wasn't hungry.

“To the Germs and the other golden oldies,” said Rexx.

Golden oldies? thought Zoe. Then she remembered that not everyone grew up listening to twenty-plus-year-old punk bands. To these girls the Germs and X were as old as Chuck Berry and the Beatles.

“And your dad,” added Absynthe.

Rexx pulled a silver flask from her purse and poured vodka into the other girls' Cokes. Not high. Drunk, Zoe thought. When Rexx saw that Zoe didn't have anything to pour the vodka into, she looked baffled for a moment and then clumsily shoved the flask at her. “It's okay. Take a shot under the table.”

Vodka splashed from the flask onto Zoe's shirt and into her eyes, burning enough to make her eyes water.

“Shit!” she yelled, jumping to her feet. The bag of chicken fell on the floor. She left it there.

“You okay?” asked Absynthe.

“I'm sorry,” said Rexx, laughing so hard that she had to lean on Molly. She slurred, “Oh, man, I'm really sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Zoe. “I've got to wash this out of my eyes.”

She walked quickly out of the lunchroom, went to a bathroom, and rubbed water into her eyes until the stinging stopped. When she stopped, her eyes were bloodshot and looked like she'd been crying. Instead of going back to the lunchroom, Zoe headed for the nearest exit and pushed her way outside. She went down the stone steps and kept going.

That's what you get for talking to people, she thought.

H
er right eye hurt all the way home and her clothes were wet and carried the antiseptic reek of vodka. Zoe rinsed her face and the T-shirt in the bathroom sink. She was glad her mother wasn't home so she didn't have to explain why she stank of booze. She squeezed out the shirt in the sink and decided to hang it outside so that maybe the smell would evaporate. There was a fire escape outside her window, so she climbed out and up to the roof. A rusty pole that had once held part of a clothesline was a good enough place as any to leave the shirt. When she was done, she went back downstairs, wiping her wet hands on her jeans.

As she went, she remembered the last time she'd seen her father wearing the shirt. It was the day after his very last birthday party. He and Zoe's mother had bought a new cabinet to store their huge collection of old vinyl records. Zoe was helping her father sort the collection, first by genre, then alphabetically. They concentrated and didn't talk much, but it was a sweet and comfortable silence that said neither of them had to chatter just to fill the air with words. Still, Zoe couldn't help herself when she thought of exactly the right question to spring on her father.

“Riddle me this, how many members did Black Flag have over the years?”

Her father looked up and set down a beat-up copy of
Plastic Letters
by Blondie.

“Uh, eighteen or so. Around that,” he said.

“Here's the real question: who had more members, Black Flag or King Crimson?”

Her father leaned back, looked at the ceiling as if thinking, then back at her.

“I don't know prog rock that well. Since when did you listen to the stuff?”

“I don't. I just wanted a question that would stump you.”

“What's the answer?”

“Excluding session players, King Crimson had twenty-five actual members, so they win.”

“You're quite the little music geek these days.”

“Gee, I wonder where I get it from?”

Her father smiled at her.

They sorted records for a few more minutes. Zoe set aside a copy of
Double Nickels on the Dime
to listen to later. She said, “I know you were in bands back when dinosaurs still walked the earth—”

“What a lovely way to put it.”

“You know, you never told me why you quit.”

Her father put a stack of Martin Denny records to the side and paused for a second to scratch his ear. “I quit because I sucked,” he said. “Okay, I didn't actually suck, but I was mediocre. One afternoon I was at the band's rehearsal space in this old warehouse off Mission Street and I could hear another bass player practicing in the next room. I never saw who it was, but he or she was a monster. Really beautiful sound. Loud, aggressive, but smart, too, you know? I knew I'd never be able to do that, even if I practiced all day for ten years. I was mediocre and that's all I'd ever be and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being second rate.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It wasn't fun. On the other hand, if I had been good I'd have been on the road all the time living out of a van and I'd never see you or your mom.”

“So, lucky us you sucked.”

“Lucky us,” her father said. He stopped for a minute to stare at a worn copy of
Fun House
by Iggy and the Stooges. “Okay, here's a philosophical question for you, is Sonic Youth punk?”

Without hesitation Zoe said, “Hell yes. Yeah, they played noisy avant-garde and stuff, but they did it punk, so yeah. They're in the club.”

Her father smiled without looking at her. “You only say that because you want to be Kim Gordon when you grow up.”

“Or a cowboy. I haven't ruled that out yet.”

“I'm not sure your mom would let you keep a horse in the backyard.”

“I won't tell if you won't.”

“It's our secret,” said her father.

Z
oe sat on the sofa, alone in the apartment. Do I go back to school or hide here and watch TV all day? she thought. Neither. Both options were too depressing to seriously consider. She put on a ripped Clash T-shirt that she'd bought at a garage sale for fifty cents and went out.

Zoe walked along Ellis Street in the opposite direction of the school, turned north after a few blocks, and kept walking, heading nowhere at all, just killing time. She walked with her hands in her pockets and her head down, not even looking where she was going, only glancing up at streets corners so cars creeping through the red lights wouldn't mow her down.

She'd been walking for about half an hour and guessed she was somewhere along the edge of North Beach. Up ahead was an old shop with rusting metal grates over nearly black front windows. A hand-painted sign on the side of the shop said
AMMUT RECORDS. RARE, USED & LOST.
”

Zoe went to the windows and peered in. The glass was so dark and dirty she wasn't sure if the place was open or had been abandoned years ago. But there was a dingy little sign in the front door that said
COME IN
. Zoe pushed and the door opened smoothly, without even a squeak.

Inside, the shop was cool and the air was pleasant, not musty like she'd been expecting. There weren't any lights on, so the place was lit by the little sun that streamed in through the dirty windows. But it was enough. Torn and dusty posters for bands that were old before Zoe was born were thumbtacked to the walls. There were rows and rows of bins, all full of battered vinyl LPs. Zoe had always found something mysterious about the old records stacked in her parents' closet. It made no sense to her that dragging a needle across a flat black piece of plastic could make all the music they'd grown up with and loved. When she was six, someone had explained to her that the grooves on the LPs were really little hills and valleys and that the needles made music from bouncing through them. One day when she learned that her fingerprints were little hills and valleys, she got a sewing needle and dragged it across her fingers. All it did was draw blood. Lesson learned. People weren't records. Records were.

“Hello,” came a deep voice. Zoe looked around and saw someone standing behind a counter near the door. The man was tall and completely bald. His skin was very pale. His forehead was high and smooth because it looked like he didn't have any eyebrows. It made him look a little like E.T., Zoe thought.

“Can I help you, young lady?” the man said.

“Are you Am . . . ?”

The man smiled. “It's a tricky name to say right,” he said, and came around from behind the counter. “Just call me Emmett. All my friends do.” He extended his hand and Zoe shook it.

She couldn't begin to guess his age. When Emmett turned his head one way, the shadows on his face made him look eighty. When he turned another way, he looked twenty. But she was sure that he couldn't be that young. His skin was strange. Smooth and stretched a little too tight, like Laura's aunt's face. She got Botox injections all the time and Laura said that she'd had about fifty face-lifts. Emmett didn't seem like the face-lift type, but who knew?