Free Zombie by J.R. Angelella

neither looking at me the way every other student is doing.
    When I’m seated, Mr. Rembrandt surveys the class, looking at each student. “Now,” he says. He combs wisps of thin, brown hair over his bald spot. He adjusts his glasses and continues. “Roll call. Attendance. Who is present and who is not.” Mr. Rembrandt begins. “Jeremy Barker,” he says, my name the first alphabetically in the class.
    I raise my hand.
    “Yes?” Mr. Rembrandt asks.
    I keep my hand in the air.
    “Can I help you?” he asks.
    “Here,” I say, but would much prefer to say
fuck you
.
    “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Barker.” He looks back to his class list. “Welcome,” he says, then salutes me, and continues to call out names. After, he stalks through the desks. “Oh, freshmen, welcome to English Literature,” Mr. Rembrandt says. “Two things I want to touch on before we begin.” He claps his hands in succession, startling some of us. He stops clapping, poking his thumbs into his chest. “One—I am your leader,” he says. He sits on his desk at the front of the classroom. “And two,” he says, lifting two fingers, “this room is the room where the real torture begins.” He extends his arms out, like Jesus on the Cross. “I know that we have some ground to make up since I was unable to grace you with my presence yesterday. Gentlemen, as I’m sure you’ve already been taught, we will say the prayer that’ll begin and end every class for the next four years.”
    Mr. Rembrandt, making the Sign of the Cross, says, “St. John Baptist De La Salle.”
    As a class, also making the sign, we respond, “Pray for us.”
    Mr. Rembrandt says, “Live Jesus in our hearts.”
    And we say, “Forever.”

20
    A fter last period, I check my phone and wait at the circle for Dad, who doesn’t come.
    After most of the kids disappear, I call Mom’s cell, but she doesn’t answer.
    I call Dad’s cell again, but this time it goes right to his voicemail.
    Then I try Jackson, but his goddamn voice mailbox is full.
    The teachers’ parking lot is almost empty.
    Mr. Rembrandt stands at his car.
    He sees me and salutes.
    Chopping air.
    Bus.

21
    A car full of girls—windows down, music thumping—speeds into the front circle of school. The girls are dressed in the same short plaid skirts like the girls yesterday and the same tight, white blouses. They all look the same except for one, a girl who I know, which is surprising—the girl who refused to smile or wave back at me. She looks different from the rest.
    Sister Prudence High School girls.
    I pretend not to see them. We, the poor bastards at the bus stop, the collective, we pretend not to see them. We pretend not to see their smooth, long legs. We pretend not to almost smell their sweet, sweet scents. (Lip gloss? Lollipops?) We pretend not to wish to GOD to have x-ray vision and see through those white blouses. We pretend all the same damn things. We pretend these things, while flipping pages of a book, or checking our watches. That’s what we do. We pretend, and then we fantasize. We fantasize a glimpse of their underwear—a thong under that skirt. We just know it. We imagine what we have never known. We imagine how it must smell and how it must feel and how everything must fit together. These are the things we imagine.
    No dudes swarm the girls like they did the other morning, because those types of guys have long gone home. Only the poor bastards remain, and the jocks. The jocks either run long laps around the soccer field in shin guards and shorts or crash into each other on the football field, a mass of helmets and pads collapsing together into a pile of protected body parts. Coach O’Bannon wears a red track suit and attacks his players on the soccer field,screaming at them as they pass by, calling them horrible names and throwing whatever’s not nailed down in their direction. Mr. Vo, like in class, wears his trademark three-piece suit, this time with the vest partially