Chapter 8: Marilyn Monroe's Tits

I’m dressed up like zombie Michael Jackson. The shiny red jumpsuit getup and everything. Tabitha is dressed up like Elvira, even though she doesn’t have the tits or hips for Elvira.

We’re over at Eli’s apartment, drinking before we go to out to the bars, and I think I might already be drunk. Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell, but I keep bumping my knees on the coffee table when I get up to grab another beer and I just managed to spill Keystone Light all over Marilyn Monroe’s tits. I think those are pretty good signs that I’m drunk.

“You need any help, baby?” I ask Tabitha. She’s helping wipe beer off Marilyn’s tits. They are nice big tits, and I’m jealous.

Tabitha just rolls her eyes at me and keeps wiping.

“There there,” she says to Marilyn, whose white dress now has a piss-yellow spill down the front. “I’m sure it’ll wash out. Why don’t you go back in the bedroom and take it off, and I’ll throw it in the washer.”

“Okay,” Marilyn says, and she goes ahead and pulls the dress off right there in the kitchen.

X

There are three zombies standing with me in the kitchen, but I’m the only zombie Michael Jackson, so that makes me happy.

One of the zombies, who has a screwdriver in his neck, says, “Where’s your white glove, man?”

“It’s in my pocket. I took it off because it was hot.”

“You should wear the white glove,” says a second zombie, who has an exposed eye socket.

“Michael Jackson doesn’t wear a white glove in the zombie scene of Thriller,” I say.

“You don’t really look like Michael Jackson without the glove,” the first zombie says. “You just look like a dork with a Jheri curl.”

I burp beer and pretend I didn’t hear him.

Fucking zombies.

Chapter 9: Watching Salt and Pepper Get It On

My knees are twitching. My hands are crawling into my sleeves, and now I’m pretty sure I am drunk. My brain is lurching around inside my skull and I can taste foam in my nose. The words to Thriller are looping through my head.

‘Cause this is thriller

thriller night

and no one’s gonna save you

from the beast about to strike!

The kitchen is a tiny apartment kitchen, with just enough room for the sink and the fridge, but there are like fifteen people crammed into it.

Tabitha is leaning against the counter across from me. She is also leaning against Marilyn. Marilyn has put her dress back on, but she pulled the top back down to let Tabitha feel her tits.

“See, they feel completely real,” Marilyn is saying. “You’d never even know if it weren’t for the scars.”

I know I should find this hot, watching my girlfriend rubbing another girl’s fake tits, but I don't. I can't, mostly because everyone in the kitchen is watching her rub the fake tits. The zombies are watching. So is Dracula. Even slutty Little Bo Peep is watching. They're slouching over their beers, not talking, not blinking, letting the scene fill their eyes up.

Michael screeches in my head.

You close your eyes

and hope that this is just imagination.

I close my eyes and the room spins.

I open my eyes; everything’s worse: Elvira fondling Marylyn. Zombies and vampires crowding in. Hot needles threading my stomach. Foamy boogers.

I fall two steps across the kitchen, brace myself for landing. Slam into Tabitha’s shoulder. Nuzzle my nose into her neck.  “Hey baby, who’s your new friend?”

“Fred …”

“You two look nice together. You’re wearing black; she’s wearing white. It’s like watching salt and pepper get it on.”

I kiss and nibble below her ear.

“Fred.”

She wrenches her head away from my teeth.

“Yeah baby?”

“Fred, stop,” she says.

“Why?”

“You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“But I’m your boyfriend.”

“No. You’re not.”

“Since when?”

“Since now. Fred, I hate to break it to you like this … but I think I might be a lesbian.”

Chapter 17: Get Down with Zombies

I step outside and light a cigarette. The sky is full of sunshine — hard, blue sunshine that does nothing to chase the shivers out of my bones. A dead gray street surrounds me. Shadows skulk in the windows. Leftover Halloween decorations still haunt the building next door: Skeletons with paper bones taped to windows. Faded grins and dusty capers. Mush-mouthed jack-o’-lanterns mug from ledges. Witches on strings sweep cobwebs out of the sky.

The cold air makes me need to pee. I decide maybe I’ll find a bar, take a leak, and kill my hangover. I’m sick of being hung over. It’s been a week since I called Tabitha out of desperation, and I've been drunk every day since then. Tabitha likes to drink. It's her favorite pastime (aside from gluing cow faces onto the heads of Victoria's Secret models ... and studying crime-scene photos). Now that I'm back with Tabitha, that means I'm getting drunk every night. Fucking every night. Feeling hungover every morning. I may need a break.

Weirdly, I'm getting a little burned out on getting drunk and fucking Tabitha.

“She’s using you,” Craphole Joe says as I slam into this dark little pit called The Gold Standard.

“Yeah, you’re just serving as a dildo until something better comes along,” Jumper says.

“Shut up,” I say.

GET DOWN WITH GAWD BEFORE GAWD GET DOWN ON YOU, God Talk Radio says. In bed, I reply in my mind as the door slams shut behind me.

X

I stumble outside three hours later with my veins loaded full of beer. My thoughts are sloshing around in my skull and there’s no doubt this time that I’m drunk.

I turn to go up the street and hey … is that one of the zombies from Eli’s party? The one with the screwdriver in his neck?

He’s lurching toward me with his lips ripped back to show his teeth and his eyes bugged out and rolling around in his face. His hands thrust out of ripped-up sleeves, his nails rusty red and splintered from rending flesh. White earbuds plugged into his ears are feeding him thoughts.

“Sup,” he says, trying to play it cool as he closes the distance between us. Like he's just another guy.

I see through his ruse.

The bunnies, sensing danger, snarl and cluster around the zombie, driving him back until he gives up and shuffles away.

The bunnies are very protective of me. They may hate me — they may mock and ridicule and abuse me — but they respect the fact that I’m their only conduit to the world. Without me, they’d be nothing, which is probably the only reason they haven’t already killed me.

“Fucking zombies,” Dumper says.