Free Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

employees’ bicycles all chain-locked) to his home on Cedar Street, a distance of 2.3 miles. SQUIRREL didnot live next door to Grandma as I had originally surmised but was often at that house, swimming in his friend’s pool & listening to loud rock music & goofing off like adolescent kids will do. (A good sign, SQUIRREL was not a next-door neighbor of Grandma’s. For next-door neighbors are always among the first to be questioned by the police.) It was easy to trail SQUIRREL home on his bicycle.
    It is easy to trail anyone home, of your choosing. No need even to be INVISIBLE.
    I learned the family name. & telephoned once or twice just to hear the phone ring in that house. A female voice answered (his “Mom”?) & I asked for him (his name which does not suit him, much) & left only the message This is Q__. I will call back . There are two younger children in the family, at least. & “Mom” & “Dad” of some age around forty. “Mom” like any other woman on such a street as Cedar Street, Dale Springs & “Dad” the executive-type drives a Buick Riviera & carries a briefcase. So far as I could figure, SQUIRREL is a student at Dale Springs High, Q__ P__’s old school he hated & wished to have burnt to the ground. With everybody in it.
    The address is 166 Cedar, Grandma’s address is 149 Arden. Parallel streets & the same kinds of houses, mostly colonials in wooded lots like Grandma’s. SQUIRREL’s family’s house is pretty big, with a white picket fence & giant trees—elms? oaks?—& Grandma’s house is smaller, with a part-fieldstone facade. Grandma came to live here when Grandpa died about ten years ago. To be near her son & daughter-in-law. & the other day at Grandma’s whereshe made me blueberry waffles (a late breakfast before I started the yard work) it came to me that Grandma was an old woman & would not live much longer. & she would be leaving an estate of course. This house, & her savings & investments & there was the rental property at 118 North Church worth how much?—$80,000? $100,000? In all, Grandma would leave a sizable estate. Maybe she would leave something to her grandson & granddaughter? In recent months I was led to believe that I was her favorite & not Junie any longer. But I could be mistaken—with females & their feelings about one another you can’t tell.
    In any case Grandma P__ would leave a sizable estate when she died to Mr. & Mrs. R__ P__. & they would not live forever, either.
    It seemed right that Q__ P__ CARETAKER should inherit the house on North Church. Maybe the old woman has had such a thought herself by now. This is just between you & me Quentin. Our little secret!
    Standing on tiptoe to pat my cheek. A fattish old woman but frail, too. They say their bones are weak, hollowed out inside & easy to break. Her washed-out no-color eyes I had a weird flash miniature QUENTINS were mirrored in! For once they have loved you as their baby, their own strange flesh born of their bodies or their children’s bodies, always you are BABY in their eyes.

37
    A plan was forming like a slow dream & I did not push or hurry it. Though knowing SQUIRREL’s summer schedule would end by Labor Day. Which left how many weeks for Q__ P__ to make his capture?—only about five. & SQUIRREL worked at Humpty Dumpty only three days a week.
    Now in the heat of Michigan summer I quit my medication totally & had less timidity of EYE CONTACT I saw things normally not-seen. & they sank deep in me, & brooded. A responsible man makes his own luck Dad has said. Quoting one of the great philosophers.
    From that Saturday at Grandma’s spying on my prey through the hedge I knew I would have my SQUIRREL. I never doubted. He could tease & taunt me diving in the pool, & yelling & laughing running & streaming water in his tight swim trunks & at the Humpty Dumpty he could look through me like nobody was seated in the booth in which I sat but that would not forestall what would happen. Fragment Q of the big comet