Zombie (21 page)

None of us move.

He stops pacing. He grits his teeth. He winds back, aims, and follows through—his clipboard slicing the air like a throwing star, clearing our heads. It hits the back wall and crashes to the deck.

All of us move. Some of us slip.

W
aiting for us in the locker room are stacks of white towels and sealed plastic bags each with a Byron Hall Speedo—a blue jay on the ass—the bags with the word
SMALL
or
MEDIUM
or
LARGE
printed on the front in big white block letters. Kids throw the small bags around, teasing each other about a small dick size. The jocks steal the large bags right away, missing the point of what
large
actually means.

One jock rolls up his dress socks and stuffs them inside his Speedo, pumping the air in circles, so all can see. A short kid kicks him in the sock, which sends Sock Boy to the floor. Even I laugh at this. Sock Boy gets off the floor, twirls up a towel, and snaps it at Short Kid, who dodges the snap and locks Sock Boy up in a complex hold, before slamming him to the floor. Jocks jump in and separate them. They leap at each other like rabid dogs, calling each other creative names, but are kept apart. What Sock Boy didn’t know until now was that Short Kid is the only freshman on the Varsity Wrestling squad. Wrong plaid to towel snap.

Undressing in the locker room is an art form. The idea is to stay covered at all times. I’m surprised to see how quickly even the jocks change out of their plaid costumes and into their large Speedos. Even they are ashamed of their dongs flopping around like uncooked sausage.

I leave my button down shirt and tie on while I take off my pants and put on my Speedo—medium. (I got lucky and grabbed a medium when the smalls were being whipped around.)

A line forms in the communal shower. The jocks drench themselves in the shower first and, lovingly, turn the water to completely cold for the next person. As they pass the rest of us in line, they shake the water from their bodies like a dog after a bath. The fucks.

C
oach O’Bannon gives the color commentary over the aquatics intercom, depicting how we each look in our Speedos.

“Big dick, Randall. I bet your Susie Rottencrotch is a well-satisfied lady. Jeremy Barker, sporting the medium—not quite big, not quite small—the Goldilocks of dicks.” When Super Shy Kid and Dirtbag Boy come out, the last two to change, Coach O’Bannon really opens up the vents. “Looks like we got everyone’s favorite duo, Fatman and Robin. You ladies help each other get dressed?”

Dirtbag Boy clearly needed a large, but must have only been left with a small, his gut hanging over the front of his Speedo, the elastic waist cutting into his skin.

“St. John Baptist de La Salle,” Coach says.

Everyone says, “Pray for us.”

“Live Jesus in our hearts,” Coach says.

Everyone says, “Forever.”

“You two ballshwanks,” he says to Dirtbag Boy and Super Shy Kid. “You’re going to demonstrate the proper techniques for diving.”

The two kids climb the diving board while the class laughs, and I laugh too, but as I watch them climb to the high dive, I pray hard for a Zombie Apocalypse to strike.

If zombies came crashing through the aquatics door, blathering blood from the mouth, I would jump into the water and stay in the middle, treading water, because zombies can’t swim. Their eyesight is already blurry from being dead, so the chlorine would only make it worse. The best part of a Zombie Apocalypse, if it happened right
now? Coach O’Bannon would be the first to go. They’d fucking feast on his belly, tear out his white hair, bathe in his blood, and beat the ground with his bones. I think that’s, like, Jesse Eisenberg’s first rule in
Zombieland
—cardio. That all the fatties died first in the early days of the Zombie Apocalypse because they couldn’t outrun the undead.

Coach O’Bannon blows a whistle. “Get to the end,” he says, nodding at Super Shy kid.

Super Shy Kid steps to the edge of the board.

“Be a pencil. Just like your dick,” Coach says.

The class laughs again.

“Stiff back. Arms above your head. Bend the knees. Bounce and launch. Feet at the edge, goddamnit.” When Coach blows the whistle again, Super Shy Kid finally goes for it, not so much a dive as a standing long jump. His splash is big and ugly. His arms and legs flail and fight to keep him afloat.

“Don’t move. Stay out there,” Coach says. “Fatman, you’re next—same thing. Go.”

“Coach, I don’t know how to swim,” Dirtbag Boy says.

“Don’t care. Show me that you’re not some artsy fartsy ballshwank. Show me you got a pair of stones. Now dive.”

Dirtbag Boy looks to his friend in the water still treading and edges close to the diving board. He bounces up, barely, arms up, before launching himself forward. He executes the largest bellyflop I’ve ever seen. The class erupts into a collective groan. Dirtbag Boy pops up to the surface, fighting the water. He gulps for air, choking on chlorinated pool water. I look at Coach and my classmates and everyone is laughing. Dirtbag Boy’s face turns red. He goes under. Coach isn’t doing shit.

I dive from the side of the pool into the water. Perfect dive! My heartbeat thumps. I frogkick my legs under water and open my eyes and am hit with an overwhelming amount of chlorine that burns like holy fuck. I crash up through the surface of the pool and slide my arm around Dirtbag Boy and ferry him over to the side of the pool.

“I got you,” I say. “Stop fighting it. I got you.”

He chokes on water, coughing and spitting. His arms flail and flap at the surface. He reminds me of the man on the DVD in Dad’s office. We reach the side and Dirtbag Boy pushes me away; pulling himself out of the water, dry heaving on the deck.

“I didn’t need your help,” he says. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

“You okay?” Super Shy Kid asks, still in the pool.

Dirtbag Boy spits and says, “Yes.” Then to me, “Fuck you.”

“Fuck me?” I struggle to catch my own breath. “Fuck you.”

Coach O’Bannon is gone. I look for him but don’t see him anywhere. I stand and walk away from the fuck when I find Coach. He stands between us and the locker room, a bull kicking dirt behind him.

“Fatman and Robin. You’re done. Get changed. Get gone.” Coach lets them pass by, but he keeps his sights set on me. “You like to be a hero? Make you feel real good?”

“He was drowning,” I say. I wipe wet hair away from my face.

“You really think I am going to let a student drown? You really think I am going to kill a student in my class? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“He was drowning.” I have no fight left. O’Bannon wants my blood.

Coach tells the rest of the class to swim thirty laps, width-wise, across the pool. He says that diving will pick up another day. He approaches me and speaks low as kids crash into the water. “Show me how a hero treads water without using his hands for forty minutes.” He grabs my shoulder and pushes me into the deep end of the pool where I raise my arms over my head and tread water. I swallow so much chlorine water that when I get out of the pool at the end of class, I throw up on my walk back to the locker room.

I
n the locker room, there’s a war of jocks snapping wet towels. Legs are covered in welts the size of basketballs. Kids stand around watching, dressed in various stages—pants, no shirt; shirt and tie, no pants; tie, no shirt or pants. I open my locker and see my clothes hung neatly inside, my shoes tucked away with my secret combination piece of paper still there. My Windsor hangs in my locker like a bastion of strength. I pull on my pants, button up my shirt, and loop my Windsor over my head, sliding up the knot.

Towels continue to snap. Kids push each other. Someone brandishes a tube of toothpaste from his bag, uncaps it, and tries to shove it up another kid’s asshole. It becomes a thing. A group quickly forms, kill or be killed, and tries to pin this kid down so they can squeeze toothpaste up his ass. The Victim breaks free from hands and runs at Toothpaste Boy and wraps his arm around Toothpaste’s head and slams him into the lockers, swinging his fists, sometimes hitting body. The hard-packing sound of naked bodies has become a familiar one in only a few short days of this place. Towels turn their chaotic attack into a uniformed one and aim at the two assholes, whipping them with loud, wet cracks.

An aluminum bat leans against the wall in the corner, my Zombie Apocalypse weapon of choice. It’s an Easton. I grab the rest of my shit and move to the bench next to the bat and finish getting dressed, turning sideways—one eye on the fuckers fighting and one eye on the bat. One swing, that’s all it would take. Just one swing. I will fucking do it. Velocity. Torque. One badass motherfucker with an aluminum bat.

But the morons with toothpaste and towels don’t do a damn thing.

Everyone stops snapping and fighting and punching. They get dressed and leave.

A
fter Phys Ed, I go to the cafe, which is quiet for deep afternoon, most of the tables empty.

Dirtbag Boy and Super Shy Kid sit across from each other. No one else is there; their table is theirs—empty and alone. They are of the group of kids that don’t fit into a group. Their members live underground, afraid to show themselves, embracing ghost qualities. So they sit by themselves, each on a cell phone, neither speaking to the other. Dirtbag Boy’s face is flush, splotching with red patches. Super Shy Kid sees me, but quickly averts his eyes and avoids further eye contact. Maybe he has his own version of the Survival Code. I sit at the head of the table between them. They don’t look up from their phones.

“I know you guys probably don’t want to talk to me. Think I’m some kind of jerkoff.” I give them a moment to disagree and tell me that, in fact, they don’t think I’m a jerkoff, but they don’t say shit and keep dicking around on their phones. “I’m only here to say that I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” I say. “I didn’t mean to make the situation any worse.”

They say nothing—zip.

“Fuck you both in the ear then. I don’t need this shit. I’m trying really fucking hard to be your friend here and apologize.” I rifle through my book. “This is my last attempt because I’m already a fucking target. I don’t need to be more of one by hanging out with you two fuck-ups.” I slap the
Zombie Strippers!
DVD on the table. “I saw a movie last night that I think you both might like. It’s a Zombie Apocalypse movie and it stars Jenna Jameson.”

This gets their fucking attention. They look up at each other—excited little hornballs. Not surprised at all. They are already spanking it in their minds.

“Is this an apology?” Dirtbag Boy asks.

“It’s a B&T flick,” I say.

“B&T?” Super Shy Kid says.

“Blood and tits,” Dirtbag Boy says.

“You guys can borrow it,” I say.

“How much?” Dirtbag asks.

“We have cash,” Super Shy says.

“Nothing,” I say. “Consider it my amends.”

The boys smile. The deal is done. Super Shy Kids punches Dirtbag Boy in the arm and Dirtbag Boy returns the punch.

“We got titties,” Dirtbag Boy says, doing a doofy noodle dance in his chair, before spanking the air.

“We got titties,” Super Shy Kid says, singing a little song out of it.

They both raise an imaginary roof and I’m officially embarrassed for them when hands grab hold of my shoulders. I know who’s there by the smell alone—cheap and musky. Cam Dillard and his Plaid Fuck Monkies. They’re all wearing matching tracksuits and tennis shoes. Must be game day. Lord do they look retarded.

“You fuckwits call each other to coordinate outfits?” I ask.

They yank me out of my chair and keep me in the middle of their monkey plaid circle.

“I love this kid,” Cam says, clapping. “What a pair of lady balls he has.” Then he says, “Someone hold this kid’s thigh, please.”

A plaid grabs my ankle, straightening out my leg as Cam drops everything he has behind his punch, laying into my thigh. My muscle tightens and knots up, pain shooting in both directions. The Mongoloids push me back into my chair hard enough to send me and the chair crashing to the floor. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the loudest noise possible, my chair crash is a 7.3. The cafe is quiet, but only at first. Then it begins. Slow at first. Slow and soft, but quickly builds into a single angry voice.

DORK
.
DOOOOORK
.
DOOOOOOOOOOOORK
.
FUCKING DOOOOOOOOOOORK
.
FUCK YOU FUCKING DOOOOOOOOOORK
.
DORK. DORK. DORK. DORK. DORK. DORK. DORK
.

Brother Lee stands over me and grabs my elbow and lifts me with one hand, sitting me into my chair. Everyone’s still dorking me, dorking their brains out like it’s the last dork in the world, and he brandishes his cowbell and drumstick, hammering that sucker faster and harder than any two porn stars have ever had sex on film.

The room returns to silence and I am left alone again. Dirtbag Boy and Super Shy Kid are gone and have taken the DVD with them. Cam and his monkeys conveniently disappear too—the cheese dicks. A handful of kids sit nearby, minding their own business, acting as though nothing had even ever happened.

Coach O’Bannon walks through the cafe. He doesn’t see me, but I see him. I want nothing more than to tackle his old man ass and rip his fucking face off with my bare hands. Zink follows close behind O’Bannon, all track suited up too.

Zink salutes me as he passes. He yells across the cafe, “Mixer tonight. You better be there, Barks.” Then, before he leaves the cafe he yells the final word on the matter, “DOOOORK.”

O
f course, my cell phone dies. Totally and completely sucked dry of any juice. The way things have been going lately, this doesn’t surprise me even a little bit. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Mom or Dad or Jackson use a drained cell phone battery as an excuse. I wonder how many of their dead battery excuses were the real deal and I simply wrote them off as bullshit.