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CHAPTER 13
Chicks, man.
“She’s not answering her cell,” Virgil said, pocketing his iphone. Apple ships to the Caymans. From there it’s black market prices to St. Aggies. Virgil’s favorites apps include:
“Matilija Horvath,” Kyle said, hoisting his feet onto the small green wooden table that held their Red Stripes.
Dusk was fading as they sat on the porch of their man cave. On the table with the beers was a pad of newsprint and a black fine point sharpie. The evening’s task was to come up some interesting PR and “guerilla” advertising ideas. However, one thing currently dominated the minds of human and zombie alike:
Chicks, man.
“Thee most awesomely original babe name in the universe,” Kyle said. “Don’t you think she looks like Elizabeth Shue in “Leaving Las Vegas?”
“I think she’s screening my calls,” Virgil said, ignoring his friend. “Johnette would’ve told me she got the boot. This is fucked up, is what it is.”
“So was she a flesh eater or not?” Kyle asked Virgil. “You guys do such a good job with the tanning, I couldn’t tell. Was she, Virg? I’m going with human. Right? She’s one of my tribe? Matilija?”
“The asshole-ites?” Virgil said. “Fuck should I know? I got serious woman trouble here and you’re going on about some new chick name you can’t pronounce?”
“I can pronounce it,” Kyle said. “Where’d this pronounciation thing come from?”
“From the fact that you called her ‘Matilla’ instead of Ma-ti-lee-yah?”
“Bullshit-“
“Stop,” interrupted Virgil. “Just…you know? Game over. You did it, now own it.”
“Least I didn’t have a little yellow hanger coming out of the left nostril the whole time.”
“You fuckin’ serious?” Virgil pinched-wiped his nostrils quickly several times.
“You couldn’t not look,” Kyle said. “It was mesmerizing.”
“Duder, we got a rule about that.”
“Sorry. I was concentrating on saying her name correctly?”
“Who’s name?” Virgil asked.
“Fuck you,” Kyle said.
“You talking about Ma-ti-lee-yah?”
They both took swigs from their beers. This was friendship between guys. A tug of war between “love you man” and getting shanked.
“She’s got a pulse,” Virgil said.
“Knew it,” Kyle said.
They both took a sip from their beers.
“Look, knowing Johnette, she’s probably knee deep in some new kick ass marketing thing. You know how it rolls with her – she’s the president of the Type A Union Workers Local 151,” Kyle said.
“Maybe…” Virgil trailed off.
“She’s a fast tracker, Virg,” Kyle said. “She’ll lift her head from her Excel spreadsheet in about a week and remember she’s on a Caribbean island with a badass for a boyfriend.”
“I guess. So you gonna ask Matilija Horvath out?” Virgil asked.
“Nope. Just continue my campaign of sneaking glimpses and being awkwardly witty until she mentions her boyfriend in the elevator or a rich guest bones her.”
“Cool.”
“Yep.”
They each took sips of beer. If one were to take a snapshot of this moment, it would be the quintessential beach bum daydream. Two guys in cargo shorts, kicking back in cheap weather beaten furniture, drinking beers while looking out at the sunset over the Caribbean ocean. No sign of personal issues, relationship worries, career decisions, flesh eating. Just the low “chaka chaka” of reggae and the warm glow of sunlight’s last goodnight.
“Do zombies dream?” Kyle asked.
“Okay,” Virgil said. “First thing. Enough of the word ‘zombie’. Do I walk around calling you homo sapien?”
“No.”
“No, I don’t,” Virgil said. “So y’know, cut me a little slack bruthah. I’m still getting used to this zom- walking dead thing myself. And yes, we dream. Mostly of huge fuckin’ steaks – raw.”
Kyle nodded silently.
“Kidding. About the steaks.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Kyle said. “So, if your body is done growing and you’re still alive – is that kinda like being immortal?”
“Not sure on that one,” Virgil said. “’nuther?”
Virgil held up two more Red Stripes. Kyle nodded yes.
“I mean, how long can you keep human flesh from becoming road kill?” Virgil asked, opening the bottles with a small rusted bottle opener he found in Thailand during a surfing vacation years ago.
“Well, it looks like you guys have it down to a science now, right?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah, but it took a lot of experimentation – and some science. We drink a shitload of water. There’s this guy, Zbarsky, who fucks around with all kinds of embalming chemicals. His old man, and his old man’s old man worked on preserving Lenin’s body.”
“No shit?” Kyle said. “That’s pretty cool. I mean, Lenin looks good by dead fascist dictator standards.”
Kyle took the beer Virgil handed him and sat back, ruminating.
“In a couple weeks, I have to undergo a procedure,” Virgil said.
“Or what?” Kyle asked. “You’re pretty dead as it is.”
“It’s nothing. Anyway, about immortality – “
“Nunununooooo,” interrupted Kyle. “What’s this procedure?”
“They’re gonna carve out my innards and replace them with foam rubber,” Virgil said, taking a long drag on his Red Stripe.
Kyle nodded silently. The pictures running through his head were an odd mixture of gruesome and curatorial.
“Can I have your liver?” Kyle asked.
Virgil smiled as he answered with “My what?” in a terrible Cockney accent.
“Your liver. It’s a large ehh, glandular organ in your abdomen,” Kyle said in his own terrible John Lennon.
A little Monty Python humor to make light of the absolutely weird and perhaps terrible idea of your best friend’s organs being replaced by foam rubber.
“I don’t think its immortality,” Virgil said. “Not as long as I have a final say in the matter.”
“Cool,” Kyle said. “But seriously, we gotta put one of your organs under glass and keep it around as a paper weight or door stop.”
“Chicks’ll dig it?” Virgil asked.
“At least the kind we like.”