Zombie - Softcover

Angelella, J.R.

 
9781616950880: Zombie
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1616950889 ISBN 13: 9781616950880
Verlag: Soho Press, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

A zombie movie-obsessed teen is forced to face a dark family secret in this shocking debut literary novel from a talented new author.  

"Wow! A crazy, wicked knock-out of a book!" -Garth Stein

Fourteen-year-old Jeremy Barker attends an all-boys Catholic high school where roving gangs of bullies make his days a living hell. His mother is an absentee pillhead, his older brother a self-diagnosed sex-addict, and his father disappears night after night without explanation. Jeremy navigates it all with a code cobbled together from the zombie movies he's obsessed with: Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, Planet Terror, Zombieland, and Dawn of the Dead among others.

The code is put to the test when he discovers in his father's closet a bizarre homemade video of a man strapped to a bed, being prepped for some sort of surgical procedure. As Jeremy attempts to trace the origin of the video, this remarkable debut moves from its sharp, precocious beginnings to a climax of almost unthinkable violence, testing him, and the reader, to the core.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J.R. Angelella has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and his short fiction has appeared in various literary journals. He and his wife, Kate Angelella, are co-writing two YA novels for Sourcebooks/Teen Fire, Crossed and Cursed, the first of which will publish in 2012. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. For more information, visit his website at www.jrangelella.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

According to my father, there are three types of necktie knots: the
Windsor, the Half-Windsor, and the Limp Dick.

“Jeremy, I’d bet my hand,” he says, adjusting his seatbelt, “that
every swinging dick at Byron Hall wears the Windsor.”

“Could you not talk about dicks first thing in the morning?”

“The ladies love masculine things,” he says, pinching his silver
tie at the base of its knot.

“Dad, it’s an all guy high school.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“What is?”

“The size of a man’s knot. His bastion of strength.”

“Don’t say bastion of strength. Gross,” I say, shivering.

“It’s true,” he says. “Fact. Proven.” Dad turns, facing me, and
exposes the flauntingly fat Windsor knot of his silver tie.

Welcome to Necktie 101. I will be your professor today.

According to Ballentine Barker, in order to make a Windsor,
you must cross the long, fat end over the short, skinny one; double
loop through the cross-over; make a tunnel over the loops;
and funnel it through. The Windsor usually makes you look like a
fuckwad.

What is that Bible story about the whale and Jonah? Or is his
name Jonas? And Jonah is swallowed whole by some gigantic whale
for whatever reason—I don’t know—and Jonah lives inside the
whale? And then the whale spits him out. Or is it that he swims
out? Or is it that he gets blown out through the blowhole? Or does
he die inside the whale? Am I thinking of Moby Dick?

We pass a sign on the side of the road that reads Baltimore: The
Greatest City in America. Get in on it.

“When they say that—get in on it—what do they mean?” I ask.

“That Baltimore is a secret not many people know about,” Dad
says.

“A secret?”

“Get in on it. Be one of the people in the know. Be in on the
secret. A part of the club.”

“What secret? What club?”

“It’s like referring to Baltimore as Charm City. The name creates
a buzz where no buzz is buzzing.”

“Buzzing?” I ask.

Dad says, “You ask too many questions.”

Jackson used to call Baltimore by a bunch of different names.
B-town. Charm City. Crabtown. City of Firsts. Monument City. Mob
Town. Murderland. He’d say them mainly to impress girls. They’d
stop by the house in the evenings. Groups of them. Whore-ds of
them. Get it? Whore-ds of them? And ask if he was home. They
would travel from far away. Randallstown. Ellicott City. Columbia.
Westminster. Cockeysville. Perry Hall. Take 81 South to Cold
Spring Lane or I95 to Russell Street past M&T Bank Stadium.
Travel just to see him. They’d stink of perfume, wearing short skirts,
tight tops, big hair, lipstick-red lips. Jackson would emerge from
his room, sometimes wearing only a robe, and descend down the
stairs like some Casanova Fuck. “Welcome,” he’d say, “to the City
of Firsts.”

What an ooze.

We drive past a middle-aged woman speed walking in pink
Spandex shorts and a black tank top. She has medium boobs, her
butt cheeks shifting back and forth with each step. The Spandex
cups her ass and hips such that she might as well be wearing underwear.
I immediately feel guilty, like I just lied to a priest. I think
about her tits. Amazing.

Dad taps his horn. “Ballentine likes what he sees,” he says. Dad
refers to himself in third person from time-to-time, including on
his voicemail messages. I am constantly reminded where Jackson
gets his ooziness. “A little beep-beep now and again keeps them
feeling young, son. Lets them know they still got it.”

“Do you think she has kids?” I ask.

“Not all mothers are your mother,” he says.

I’m surprised Dad mentions Mom at all, especially on the first
day of school as it always used to be her day. She would get up early,
make a big breakfast of pancakes and eggs and strawberry milk.
After, she’d pose me on the front steps of our house for the annual
first day of school photo. She kept the photos framed in a collage
on the wall, reaching all the way back to my first day of pre-school.
There’s a black rectangle on the wall where the collage used to
hang. Today there was no first day of school photo. Today there
was no breakfast or strawberry milk. I wonder where those framed
photos are now.

“Your mother is not here, Jeremy,” Dad says. “I am.” Dad’s car
drifts into the other lane, crossing briefly over the double yellow
lines before weaving around a garbage truck. “The size of a man’s
knot,” Dad continues, “indicates his massiveness.”

“Massiveness? Oh, Jesus.”

“Language.”

“Dad, seriously.”

“Listen. You need to hear this: Windsor equals monster. Half-
Windsor equals babyshit.”

“Babyshit?”

“Babyshit.”

Allow me to professor your ass with some Half-Windsor
knowledge.

The Half-Windsor folds like a paper football, easy with perfect
angles. Personally, I think it’s the best knot. It’s easier than the Windsor
because you only make one loop over the cross-over instead of
two. But getting the length right takes skill, practice, and a sense of
pride. Where the Windsor, more often than not, gives you a stumpy
bitch length, the Half-Windsor—if you get it right—hangs sexy
and perfect right to the tip of your belt. That triangular tip of the
tie skimming a silver belt buckle. It’s badass. Totally badass. But I
haven’t figured out how to tie it perfectly yet.

We drive past a private golf course—some members only club
surrounded in a super high fence to keep the wrong kind of people
out. There is a valley in the road, then a hill, which Dad accelerates
through, and as we reach the peak, I see Byron Hall in the distance.

Dad says, “Survival scenario—you’re in school. English. Zombies
crash through the windows. Unstoppable. Sick. Savage. Your
school is under siege. It’s a zombie apocalypse.”

“Crashing?” I ask.

He loosens his grip on the steering wheel, his fingers spread
open and relaxed. “Crashing.”

“I’m in English class and zombies are crashing through the
windows?”

Dad coasts down a straightaway of red brick houses with long
driveways. A man wearing a cowboy hat and mirrored sunglasses
navigates a wheelchair down his driveway to the street and slides
envelopes inside a mailbox. Dad rides the brake, cutting our speed
down quick, and looks over his shoulder as we pass, watching the
man spin and roll away from the street, retreating in his wheelchair,
completely legless.

“Dad, you said zombies were crashing through the windows of
my English class?”

“Right—crashing. They’re crashing.”

“Through the windows. A zombie apocalypse, you said.”

“What is your weapon and what is your escape plan?” He looks
at me longer than anyone driving should. “And no Minigun either.
You always say Minigun. Use another movie other than Planet Terror
as an example. Think outside the box.”

Stopped at a red light, I see the Byron...

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Verlag
Soho Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2012
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1616950889
ISBN 13 
9781616950880
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
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