Zombies.
Yup. Zombies: that’s where we coalesce. All other monster ground is fraught with clutching fingers of disparity. Luckily we have other things to talk about. In second grade, this would have been a deal breaker. We’re adults now. When it comes to zombies, the Queen and I agree that we’re more likely to confront a flash zomb-mob, than a glistening Edward Cullen.
I know, my queen is heartbroken too.
“They’re coming to get you Barbara!”
No they’re not. And if they are, we’re safe. Neither one of us is Barbara. Okay, Okay, but just because she calls me that late at night, doesn’t mean it is my real name. She calls me the gimp too, but you won’t find that on my birth certificate.
Yeah, you could have fooled Dr. Grinder too. He was my first doctor. He saw a lot of unfortunate Rob moments. Doctor Grinder didn’t believe in Zombies. What was dead was dead. What was alive, well that was made to suffer through life’s pains. Life’s pains, that’s why Dr. Grinder was there.
One sixth-grade ball-tag frenzy ended with Justin Frey slamming a chain-link gate on my head. Why did he do that? Because I was it. I’d have done it too, with his head. A sixth grade “it” might as well be a zombie. Only problem is, “it” still consists of living tissue, and no matter how thick my skull is, the outer tissue still bleeds-Especially when smashed between a swinging gate and a steel pole. The C-latch gouged the top of my skull.
Good news for Jr. gimp Rob. I got out of school. The bad news? I got to spend the afternoon with Dr. Grinder. Dr. Grinder kept a metal probe for just such emergencies, and oh, how aliens cow mutilators would drool with envy every time he whipped that bad boy out.
“AHHHHHH!” That’s me. I’m screaming to the sound of scraping bone.
“Quit your sniveling,” That’s Dr. Grinder. “It can’t hurt that bad.” His Dremel sized steel poker wrenches against my skull.
“AHHHHHH!” That’s me again. “Yes it can. They could have impaled me with a fence post and it wouldn’t hurt this b--OWW!” In sixth grade, I’m not only failing biology; I’m failing Dr. diplomacy too. Like my horror movie mad scientists, Dr. Grinder is immune to reason.
Dr. Grinder has a point to prove, and that point’s digging deeper in my head. I cave before my cranium does. “OWWW! You’re right! You’re right! It doesn’t hurt. I’m a big baby! Now stop! Please! Stop!”
“That’s better. You’ll be fine” He slaps my back. “We should do a quick check-up while you’re here.” Snap! On goes the rubber glove. “Do you know my daughter, she goes to your school?”
“Nope! Never seen her!” I sprint from the office, before my mom could grab the consolation lollypop. Unlike gored zombie-bait, I’m all better.
Of course I knew the good doctor’s daughter. She dated a young Mr. Torres who was in my PE class. He scared me because his first name was printed on his T-shirt. That was before I learned there were no such thing as monsters, before I learned that Spanish pronunciations are different than English pronunciations, and before I learned that Hispanic families have different sets of traditional names than Anglo families.
“Mom, Jesus is in my PE class.”
“That’s nice dear. Tell him we’re sorry we missed him at church Sunday.”
“My parents say they’re sorry.”
“Why?”
“They missed you in church.”
Yes, that was the first time Jesus kicked my ass, sending me back to Dr. Grinder, but it wouldn’t be the last. At least Jesus didn’t eat brains. In church, we do that to him instead. Have you ever soaked your wafer in the wine? Try it next communion: looks like brains.
And that’s why the queen and I fear zombies: Symbolism. The early zombie movies were a metaphor for groupthink: angry mobs consuming life without restraint. Zombies are quite real in our nation, and it doesn’t matter which side of the red-blue line they devour you on.
They’re more than political. They’re all consuming on so many levels. What’s the worst part about zombies? We all can become one. For me that’s tough. I’m a stoic kind of gimp. I see the life’s tides change, and I remain still, my feet buried in the mud.
“Neither a chaser or a runner be…”
For the last year, I’ve isolated myself from most of the outside world. It’s not zombaphobia, although that would be reasonable. If I want to survive the great culling, isolation is a valid method. No, this just happened. Like the man in the time machine, the world passed, and I stayed still.
On the other hand, isolation is one way the monsters get you: they get you alone, away from assistance. The queen is here to protect me, but she can only do so much. She’s still flagging down svelte vampires. She doesn’t have time to babysit me.
So how do I protect myself from life’s zombies? What makes me different? Yeah, I can think, but if you stick a Rob in a box, and close it, that makes him both alive and dead: UNDEAD!
AHHHHH!
That’s right, you can thank the mad Dr. Schrödinger for zombie cats.
The only way to work through this is to act outside Rob’s box. How does a growing Rob thrive? Even jobless, I shouldn’t stop reaching out, interacting with my world. This week I signed up as a Red Cross volunteer. I also enrolled in school. I’m doing both part time, and both are efforts in zombie resistance.
See, the school is a way to re-acculturate Rob. I immerse him in a new people pool in hopes he’ll mingle pee with others. I’m taking classes that enhance my writing: Intro to Marketing, Web development, Yellow Journalism. It’s the Jason Voorhees trident of death.
Poseidon? No, that’s a boat, not a monster. You really need to read more. They did flip that ship for money in three different movies, though—scary stuff.
Scary stuff is also joining the Red Cross. I’ve always stood on the funding side of volunteerism. I threw money at problems until the green bills corked their cries for help. Now that I don’t have money to, I need to find other ways of returning the favor, other ways of being useful to my community.
I’m not used to that. It creeps me out a bit. Monday, I went down and talked to Jemmi, my local RC trainer. Jemmi’s a warm woman with a beaming smile, and an office cacophony of chirps and beeps from multitudes of social media devices. If you mixed your favorite HS counselor with Doc, from Back to the Future, you would have Jemmi.
“What do you want to do?” She asked, leaning over her desk, hands clasped, inhaling deeply.
“Well, I don’t know,” I leaned back, fingers clutching my chair between my legs, rocking back and forth. “I’m a writer, but I’m out of wor—“
“Well the Red Cross has four arms.” She holds up two of hers with two fingers extended on each. “First aid,” one finger down, “fundraising,” two down, both arms still up. “Disaster relief,” next down, “and” she says some speedy words here, but they flew out so fast that I didn’t catch them. Both her arms went down, and folded on her desk. Her fingers poised in church and steeple formation. “We really only recruit disaster relief in this office.”
“OK.” What else do I say? If I’m here to serve, then shouldn’t I serve where there’s a need, rather than creating a crisis to rally around first? That’s how the baby boomer brought us here to begin with.
“You don’t have a zombie resistance league?”
Jemmi explains the fundamentals of disaster relief and invites me to join once again. I wonder for a second, isn’t that a vampire thing? They invite you three times…or is that an occult thing? Crap! Mom was right! I never paid enough attention in class…
“OK.”
“First we need a quart of your blood.”
“What?” I bounce back.
“It’s a joke, Robert. “ Great. Jemmi is a comedienne too. “I need you to go fill out this paperwork.”
“What is it?”
“It’s legal stuff. Background, emergency contacts, stuff like that.” She’s extending a clipboard of paper with a pen.
Emergency contact? Why do they need that? It’s then that I realize what I’m signing up for. I’m not static standing stoic. I’m rushing forward to greet the horde. I’ve seen the zombie movies. Who are the first to get killed? The police, the fire department, and any other well-meaning ne’er-make-the-credits rushing towards the disaster to help.
Woosh!
Jemmi didn’t even see my shadow rushing away from that duty. I got a little freaked out. Like when Dr. Grinder snaps his glove.
It takes a special person to know that there’s danger and accept the risk for the sake of others. It doesn’t matter if it’s fire, flood, or decaying zombies. To live means to accept risks, to live in service of others means to accept their risks as well no matter how unfortunate, and sometimes stupid they are. This is the first time I’ve come face to face with that.
Still, I know who I am, and I know what I have to do: tomorrow I’ll call Jemmi back. I need to learn some things if I’m going to rush towards the zombies.
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