Pariah (27 page)

Some of Revelation rang true, or at least true-ish. The things outside
had
been raised from the dead. But Karl couldn’t recall witnessing any procession before a large, white throne, nor did he see those not written in the Book of Life being cast down into a flaming lake of sulfur. And while the zombies were horrible—indeed
biblical
in their horror—Revelation was so specific about the plagues to befall mankind that omitting them didn’t jibe.

Angels with giant sickles killing thousands.

Marks on everyone’s foreheads, some put there by an angel, others put there by the beast.

Locusts flying out of Hell, each with a human face and wearing a miniature crown and breastplate, bearing the hair of women, the teeth of lions, and the stingers of scorpions.

Millions of angels riding horses with the heads of lions.

Hailstones and plagues.

Okay, so maybe there’d been a plague.

Reading this stuff was giving Karl the sweats. He felt like he’d submitted himself to regression therapy to recall repressed memories. When he got to the part about dogs not being allowed into Heaven he remembered Chessie, their retriever, and frowned that she wouldn’t be there. Dogs got lumped in with sorcerers, the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and everyone “who loves and practices falsehood.” Was God afraid those doggies would pee on him because he looked like a statue? What good were those multi-eyed monstrosities if not to keep God’s throne free of visiting pooches? Karl didn’t like that.

Karl did like that the devil’s new army was called Gog and Magog. That was kind of cool, but a bit beside the point—although Karl considered referring to the things outside as Gog and Magog from now on, to spruce up conversation. It seemed better than “those fuckin’ zombies.” In Karl’s opinion, the apostle John, who’d penned this book, might not have been the most reliable witness. He might, in fact, have been a raving lunatic. This was just one man’s account, which by current standards seemed like fairly sloppy reportage. How about corroboration? How about three sources? But then again, who knew? What was supposed to be metaphor and what was literal? What was parable and what was prophecy? Karl’s head throbbed. As he popped a couple of Tylenols he noticed faint concussions in the distance.

Karl’s apartment was in the rear of the building so he didn’t bother looking out the window—his “view” solely that of the building across the alley. He hurried upstairs to find Dabney on the roof, nude in the rain, the sky above a miserable hue. Dabney didn’t seem to notice Karl’s presence; his head was thrown back, his eyes clenched shut. Was he humming or just mumbling to
himself? Another dull thud erupted and Karl looked south, divining the direction of the noise. The sky there was blackened, flame licking up from below. As if in a trance, Karl made his way to the southernmost building. On the corner he stood on its fascia and stared at the distant conflagration, his stomach churning. He steadied himself, gripping a metal pipe.

“Oh my God,” he said in a hushed tone, remembering a passage from Chapter 9:

The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from the sky which had fallen to the earth. The key to the pit of the abyss was given to him. He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit
.

Maybe the mutant locusts would be coming after all.

This is unusual
, Alan thought, paintbrush in hand, midstroke on the full-size canvas. Across the room reclined Mona—fully dressed—on a vintage velvet chaise; yet here he was painting while being tormented by a very insistent erection.

Mona’s pose wasn’t particularly sexy and her expression was vapid and mildly sullen as usual, her eyes lightly closed. In her lap was the Hello Kitty backpack, which she held like a real kitty. She remained perfectly still, which was a great plus for a model, except for her head, which almost imperceptibly nodded in time with her bromidic tunes.

So why was he hard?

She wore her usual longish black cargo shorts, Doc Martens, tank top. Nothing racy. Was it her expanse of exposed belly flesh? Her stomach was a smooth, unblemished plane of slightly convex skin, her navel a delicate vertical pit. It was pleasing to the eye, no doubt.

Mona’s right leg dangled off the edge of the chaise and the left was bent at the knee, the foot resting on the cushion. And there it
was: betwixt the top of her boots and the hem of her shorts. It was her calves. What a bizarre time to pick up a fetish, but there they were, round and firm and strong. Calves. Alan had noticed calves in the past, but usually in conjunction with high heels and the way calves really looked full and lush above a pair of pumps, but other than that they’d held no fascination for him before. Breasts, yes. Ass, definitely. But calves? And Mona wasn’t wearing pumps. But now that he’d noticed them—especially the left one, which bulged from the bend of her knee and the pressure from her foot resting on the cushion—he couldn’t take his eyes off them.

Alan took a swig from a can of lukewarm Fresca, burped, and got back to work. He’d blocked in the figure and was tightening up the areas of flesh, the clothing indicated as black negative space. He considered whether or not to add detail like the creases and folds in the material, but opted to keep the treatment more graphic. He focused on her face, drawing his eyes away from that luscious drumstick. Instead he studied her lips, always pursed in a slight moue. Highlights of early-afternoon sunlight coruscated on them and periodically her tongue would poke out to keep them moist.
Focus on the work
. Alan swirled his brush against the palette, mixing a pink subtle and sensuous enough for those lips.

As he daubed on small touches of roseate-hued pigment he felt a light touch on his shoulder and flinched, causing the brush to skate across the surface of the canvas, marring the work he’d done.

“Jesus!” he barked, spinning on his heel to see who’d caused this accident.

Ellen was there, looking guilty, her eyes cast down. She bit her lower lip, her expression conciliatory—until she noticed the bulge in Alan’s pants. Then her expression hardened almost as much as the business in Alan’s drawers.

“You asshole,” she hissed.

“What?” he asked. “What?
I’m
the one who should be mad. You just made me . . .” Once again his words trailed off as Ellen looked up and locked eyes with him. He feebly gestured at the canvas, a Francis Bacon-like diagonal streak across the painted Mona’s face. “I mean,” he sputtered, and then his face assumed Ellen’s previous expression of guilty conciliation.

“I should have known,” Ellen spat.

“I’m just painting her portrait,” Alan said, defensive.

“Yeah, with a fucking hard-on.”

“It happens,” Alan stammered. “It’s sometimes an involuntary action, like breathing and the beat of one’s heart. Autonomic. I wasn’t even
thinking
about sex. It just happened, honest.”

Mona, eyes shut and oblivious to this exchange, kept time with her tunes.

“Yeah, a pretty young thing comes to model for you.”

“With all her clothes on,” Alan added. “
With. All. Her. Clothes. On
.”

“Yeah, for now. This time.”

“Don’t be crazy. I’m just painting.”

“You get wood when you paint the zombies outside? If you do, then all is forgiven. But look me in the eye and tell me you get hard when you paint them. Go on, tell me that.”

“I can’t. I don’t. But that’s different.”

“Yeah. You don’t want to
fuck
them. Well, that’s fine. This is fine. Go ahead and
fuck
that little girl on the couch. Get
her
pregnant, too. See if I care.”

“
You’re
the one who wanted me to paint again,” Alan whined, his words chasing her out the door. “
What,
I’m only supposed to paint zombies and
you
?” Ellen stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. The room shuddered and Mona’s eyes opened.

“What?” she asked, looking at Alan.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh. Okay.” Mona closed her eyes and Alan began to correct the pink streak.

Wait a minute.

Get her pregnant, too?

“It just bugs me is all,” Eddie said. “She gets to go out and we’re cooped up in this dump forever. And I’m sick of her stock answer: ‘
I guess they don’t like me
.’ ” Eddie affected a nasally effeminate voice. “The fuck is
that
shit? No, she’s onto something and she’s too selfish to share the secret with us. This is some kinda bullshit power trip.”

“That’s crazy,” Dave said. “What could possibly motivate something like that? She doesn’t seem the type. That’s too, I dunno, devious.”

“Bitches are all devious, bro.
All of ’em
. I don’t buy the whole brain-damaged thing she’s putting over on us. The whole veggie thing. She knows what she’s doing and
I don’t like it
. Everyone in this lame building should be pumping her for how the fuck she does it.”

“She’s our savior, dude,” Dave said.

“Yeah. She’s our
savior,
dude. We’re her fuckin’
pets
. She goes out and walks around and what? She’s touched by an angel or something? Yeah, right. She’s a
person
, same as us. She’s got some kinda secret and I wanna know what the fuck it is and I aim to find out.”

“And how do you propose doing that?”

“You know, sometimes you talk all fancy and I just wanna flatten you, Mallon. You pull that lawyery shit on me one more time—
one more fuckin’ time
—and I’ll lay you out. Count on it.”

“Jesus Christ, Eddie. What’s gotten up your ass?”

“Not you. Not ever. Look, just get the fuck outta here, okay? I wanna be alone for a while and sort some shit out.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“And thus endeth the nagging,” Abe said, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Ruth’s wrist. No pulse. No breath. Dead. Abe sighed and moved his grip from wrist to hand, his fingers meshing with hers, his posture defeated. He didn’t look at her face, just stared ahead at the floor between his feet, nudging ruts into the pile of the carpet with the toe of his slippers, then smoothing them with the flats of his soles. “Ai,
yaaaaaaah
,” he sighed again, stretching it out. He tightened his grip on her hand. It had been years since he last held her hand, just held it. They used to walk hand in hand all the time. They even had correct and incorrect sides. It never felt right when he held her left hand; something seemed unbalanced. With his free hand he stroked his freshly shaven chin, a small scrap of toilet paper stuck there by a dot of blood. He plucked it free and neatly placed it on the bedside table.

“Oy, Ruthie,” he said, then sighed again. In place of tears a lot of sighing was in the offing, Abe not being given to displays of emotion, even when there was no audience. No living audience, at any rate. With reluctance he turned to look at Ruth’s visage; her eyes were still open. He hesitantly placed his fingertips on her eyelids and attempted to press them closed, but unlike the movies they wouldn’t stay shut. Even in death Ruth was contrary. He pulled the sheet over her, debating what to do next. Tell the others? He supposed he’d have to. It seemed unlikely that Ruth would be springing back to life—or
unlife
, take your pick. She died the old-fashioned way, free of zombie molestation. She was clean. Well, sort of. Abe wrinkled his nose. Ruth had, as it was euphemized,
“voided herself,” filling the air with yet another bad smell and the sheets with something worse. How very un-Ruthlike. “Oy, Ruthie, Ruthie, Ruthie.”

So much for the family plot, he mused. Ruth had made such a to-do over her desire to be buried alongside her parents and sister. She also figured he’d predecease her—so much for woman’s intuition, too. What was he supposed to do now? She’d want a eulogy, a service of some kind. She’d expect the Mourner’s Kaddish, in Hebrew, no less, and since his bar mitzvah he’d forgotten pretty much everything. Did she have a prayer book tucked away somewhere? Probably. He seemed to recall her filching one from her sister’s funeral. Hopefully it was phonetic. He’d look later. But if he was to respect her wishes, which seemed the right thing to do, silly though it may be—pointless, even—so be it. She wouldn’t be getting the whole
megillah
, but he’d do his best to accommodate her superstitions as best he could. He stared across the room at his reflection in the mirror of Ruthie’s dressing table.

“
Avel
, vhat can you do?” Abe said in comic Yinglish inflection. In Judaism the mourner was called an
avel
. It was a self-admittedly bad pun. It brought him no comfort. “There goes that second Social Security check.” Again the joke didn’t help. He was bombing to an audience of none. Miriam, Hannah, and David had never laughed at his jokes, nor did their kids. Ruth had seldom laughed at them. It had been ages since he’d even attempted mirth, except for the lame waiter joke at the celebratory dinner on the roof. Everyone else in the building was listening to music again, and watching TV. Those little screens hurt his eyes. Most of Abe’s music was on vinyl. And what he wouldn’t do to be able to listen to some of his comedy records right now. The best medicine there is.

On shaky legs, Abe trudged into the living room and dropped into his threadbare upholstered chair, parted the dingy chintz curtains, opened the dusty venetian blinds. Déjà vu on top of
déjà vu on top of feeling beaten down and laden with wearied grief.