friends from high school.
âDe rien, madame!â Marcel bowed and smiled. It was not beyond Janet to appropriate Marcel for retributive intercourse, Joshua realized. Marcel walked away, bouncing on the balls of his feet, like an Olympic diver.
âSo,â Janet said. âSeder at my place.â
âWhen is it?â Joshua asked.
âWhen is it!? Youâre a real bad Jew, Jackie,â Janet said.
âOkay, but when is your Seder?â
âApril sixteenth. Youâve got two weeks to Jew up.â
âReading from the same script every year, thanking the Lord for getting our ass out of the situation he put us in in the first placeâthatâs not my idea of a good time.â
âGod will smite you.â
âGod doesnât give a damn about me.â
âHe sheds his wrath upon the nations that do not recognize him, and on the kingdoms and individuals that will not proclaim his name. Iâd be careful.â
âWhatever.â
âAnd itâs a good story too,â Janet said.
âCameltits,â Noah said, proud of his cleverness. He was Dougâs son all right. Janet grabbed him above his elbow and pulled him away from the table. She dragged him into the womenâs bathroom, as he wailed like the little patient he was. Perhaps it was true that everything was Oedipal with boys. Perhaps Papa Freud was in fact right.
âYou havenât heard this from me, but Jan and Doug are separated,â Mother said. âHe sent Janet an e-mail from Dubai, except it was meant for some other woman and was describing his crotch.â
âHis crotch? You mean his penis?â
âDonât ask me for details, Joshua, for Godâs sake. Iâm your mother.â
âSo whereâs he now?â
âMaybe still in Dubai. Or in some downtown hotel with a hooker. Dead, as far as Janâs concerned.â
âAre they going to get divorced?â
âJanâs mad more than ever before.â
âIs she okay?â
âSheâs very mad.â
âPoor Doug. Sheâll destroy him,â Joshua said, and immediately realized that he shouldnât have.
âPoor Doug?â his mother growled, actually showing her incisors, but before she could say more Janet came back with Noah. His blond hair now was wet and pasted to his skull, with a neat straight line down the middle.
âNow,â Janet said, emptying the Ch â teau Margaux into her glass, lifting the bottle to ask Marcel for more. âNow weâre going to enjoy this goddamn lunch.â
Â
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INT. HOSPITALÂ â DAY
Major Klopstock, gun in hand, sneaks up the back stairs, barely lit by the streaks of sunlight from obscure windows and cracks. Every once in a while, he checks to see what floor heâs on. The undead LOW in distant hospital spaces. When he reaches the 25th floor, he carefully opens the door to look down the dark hallway, where all the lights are out. It appears to be zombie-free. He turns on his flashlight: itâs the neurosurgery floor. He moves soundlessly, pressing his back against the wall. He knows his way around that labyrinth. He opens a door to look in, but has to duck quickly as he spots a zombie munching on a brain from a glass jar. The undead one is too busy to notice Major K, who moves on.
Major K rummages through a file cabinet, looking for something in particular, throwing down what he has no use for. In the corner, he sees a small fire extinguisher. He puts it in his backpack.
As Major K is about to enter the nursesâ room, he hears a CRASH inside. He turns off the flashlight and presses his back against the wall, then crawls along it to look in through a small window. He sees a flashing move, too fast for a zombie â someone ducks behind a stack of boxes. He raises his gun and cocks it. He looks again, and this time spots an elbow of a living human sticking out, then an eye peeking from behind the box.