Free Pariah by Bob Fingerman Page B

motherfuckers!”
    Emily started to cry.
    “What are you doing?” Mike bleated as he hastened to the window, grabbing his wife’s arm. “You could drop her.”
    “And what, Mike?
What?
She’d be taken days before her time? Maybe I’d be doing her a favor. Look at this fucking world we’ve got here. And look at this family. A
balls-less
dad and a
worthless
mom with
sand
in her tits. She’s gonna fucking
starve
, Mike.
Starve.
So will we, ultimately, but Emily’s got no reserves. She’s wasting away. And
blue
.”
    “ ‘Balls-less’?” her husband peeped.
    “
That’s
what you got from all that? Brilliant.”
    Over the prickly clatter of sleet the zombies heard the commotion above and stared up at the scene of domestic turmoil, hunger being the only urge left to animate their lifeless eyes. Ellen looked away from Mike back at the throng. She could win this bunch over in a second if she’d just fling herself and the petite hors d’oeuvre in the organic-cotton sling down to them. The lunch crowd would go wild, then move on. She remembered how the world had gaped in stupefaction and revulsion as Michael Jackson dangled his infant son out a hotel window. The multitude below, with their caved-in faces and bleached skin, reminded her of Wacko Jacko, but
she
was the one dangling the baby.
    She slumped against the wall beneath the window and joined Emily in tears. Mike closed the sash and crouched down to comfort his girls, but his touch and gentle tone brought none. They were disconsolate and he was, truth be told,
balls-less
. But who wouldn’t be? Was it balls-less or just common sense to not leave the building? How could he? Ellen and Emily’s wailing grew louder, amplified by Mike’s sense of worthlessness. He rose and left the room to get some water for Ellen, but by the time he reached the kitchen, forgot his reason for being there, opened the front door and stepped into the common hall, his own expression as absent as those normally worn by the zombies.
    “Quite a racket they’re raising,” Abe said, gesturing into the door, which hung ajar.
    “Huh?” Mike said, his thoughts muddled. He blinked and focused on his neighbors, Abe and Paolo, the good-looking South American from 2B. “Oh, yes. Rough day.”
    “Aren’t they all?” Abe said, earning earnest nods from both younger men.
    “Indeed,” Paolo added. “These are dark days.”
    Feeling the need to talk to people who presumably wouldn’t scream at him, Mike joined in, though he wasn’t feeling very conversational. “They’re hungry, Ellen and the baby. Hungry and tired. And frustrated. Ellen wanted me to go out and get supplies, but that’s not going to happen.”
    “And that, my friend, is the difference between your generation and mine,” Abe scoffed. “If
I
had a starving child you can bet your last goddamn cent I’d be out the door trying to provide for her, damn the consequences.”
    “Easy for you to say—,” Mike started, but Abe cut him off.
    “Damn right it’s easy for me to say. As I recall you were home when this all began. Me, I hadda schlep all the way from the garment district to get home. I braved all kinds of madness to get home to my frightened little wifey. Granted, if I’d had some foresight I’d have stopped at the grocers before coming in, but hind-sight’s twenty-twenty.”
    “It was different then,” Mike stammered. He’d really thought other men would commiserate with him over female troubles; bad to worse.
    “Different! Feh. There were those lousy zombies all over then and they’re all over now. What, you think they weren’t chowing down on everyone in sight that day? Eighty-three years of age,
I
managed to get myself home intact. If any of you young
men
—,”the word curdled in Abe’s mouth, “—had any
cojones
you’d go out and do what I did. Show the same resourcefulness and—”
    Mike was tiring of having his gonads impugned and was about to protest—albeit weakly—when Paolo chimed