Zoë

ZOË

George Williams

Copyright © 2016 by George Williams

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by Jeremy Medoff

Author photo by George Williams

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Praise for George Williams

George Williams writes with an electric energy, unpredictable inventiveness, and deft ear for dialogue that makes him one of the most exciting and compelling writers of his generation.

—Richard Burgin, author of Rivers Last Longer and Shadow Traffic

...shows a darkly comic sensibility more akin to that of the filmmaking Coen brothers (think Barton Fink) than to more obvious literary...Recommended to adventurous readers, who will surely enjoy Williams’s wildly irreverent inventions.

—Library Journal

Williams paints a grotesque picture of modern America, one filled with witches and terrorists, con men and succubi. Actually, I don’t know if there are any actual succubi in the pages...but it sure feels like there should be.

—Popmatters

George Williams, a self-described ‘reformed anarchist,’ writes a hyper-controlled, smart and taut prose that goes beyond the spare exactness of the Moderns. The sentences seem so easy, but their accretion is sly: William’s prose unveils a tough and dense vision, the steady shock of a live snapping wire.

—Stephen D. Geller

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Zoë

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by George Williams

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To Georgia

I

The day she was abducted was her fifteenth birthday. She lied to the nurse about cramps and the aura of an approaching migraine and was given permission for her mother to pick her up in front of the neoclassical Old Main building of one of the oldest high schools in Phoenix. Her stepdad was at work at the Motorola plant. Her mother’s ashes sat under her bed in an urn inside a box wrapped in what looked like butcher paper. With her backpack filled with textbooks, Zoë stood on the steps of the Old Main facing Arizona Avenue across the street from Elmer’s Taco and Chandler Blueprint and waved to an imaginary dark blue BMW SUV the ghost of her mother drove. What looked like a combination bookmobile, SWAT team command center, and Bimbo delivery truck with a dome on top pulled over to the side of the road. An old man waved.

It’s your old man, he said.

I don’t have an old man, Zoë said.

Grandfather.

I don’t have a grandfather, Zoë said.

Do you want one.

Does that truck have satellite TV.

See the dish?

PlayStation. Xbox?

Sorry.

Good. I hate gaming. High-speed Internet access?

Of course.

She stepped up into the truck and dropped the backpack on the floor and sat in the captain’s chair.

Where, the old man said.

The movie theater.

What do you want to see.

A movie that doesn’t involve a morally superior psychopath torturing people for the audience’s amusement. Guys are all into this torture porn. Makes me freaking sick. Girls too, the dumb cunts.

Some mouth you’ve got.

Some say it’s my best feature.

I meant your diction. Word choice.

You sound like an English teacher.

No, ma’am.

He pulled out into the traffic headed south and made an illegal U-turn.

What are you.

Officially, right now, a kidnapper.

I’m no kid.

True enough. I called you ma’am, didn’t I?

You were making fun of me.

A little bit.

What are you, Zoë asked.

An old man.

How old.

Ninety.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Another nine hundred and eleven years and I’ll be older than Methuselah.

Who’s Methuselah.

Do the math?

One thousand and one.

You went to a public school and you can do simple arithmetic. There’s hope for you yet.

Glad you think so. I wish I thought so. That high school was like a minimum security prison.

Was.

I ain’t ever going back.

I’m not ever going back. Ain’t. It’s déclassé.

Ain’t it though. Whatever the fuck déclassé means.

Of inferior social standing.

Whatever.

Whatever what.

What the fuck whatever.

Would you do me a favor?

I don’t know, old man, will I?

That’s not what I meant and you know it.

I’ve been taken advantage of twice. By the same guy. I fell in love twice. Can you believe that shit.

With the same guy? How is that possible?

You couldn’t possibly know. You’re not a girl. So what’s the favor.

Stop saying fuck.

Pay me a dollar every time I don’t say it.

That’s not the way it works.

How does it work.

Here’s how it works. Swear like this. Jesus Christ on the bloody cross. Holy Mary Mother of God. Goddamn it all to hell. Ye gods!

Ye gods? Zoë laughed. I don’t know if that’s hilarious or totally lame.

Try it. How do you like school?

Jesus Christ on the bloody cross. Holy Mary Mother of God. Goddamn it all to hell. Ye gods! I hate it! It was designed by wicked men hired by cryptotalitarians and run by idiots to turn children into zombies, morons, and corpses. Dirtbags who spend all day on their iPhones texting and networking, people who are never ever alone, tremble at the thought of being alone, really truly alone, even in a crowd, especially in a crowd.

I didn’t much like it myself.

Where did you study? Zoë asked.

At home. The library. At work.

College.

No ma’am.

High school?

No.

You didn’t even finish high school?

Why bother. When I was ten I was smarter than all my teachers put together.

How did you know that?

They told me. Not that I believed them. I couldn’t stand school either. I’d rather be out doing something, anything, than be held prisoner in a classroom tormented by boredom and given tasks an electrocuted monkey could do.

If you didn’t go to high school, what did you do? Chop cotton? Drive a forklift? Load trucks?

Experimented.

With what? Drugs? Any schmuck can do that. Any douchebag can get robotoxed.

I made stuff up.

Stories. Again, any schmuck can do that. I just made one up to get out of school early. I told the nurse I had cramps and felt a migraine coming. I get cramps, but I don’t get migraines. My mother did. She lay in bed with the curtains drawn. The slightest noise made her cry. Holding me helped it stop.

Made her.

She’s dead.

Sorry.

Me too. She died last year. My stepdad doesn’t know what to do with me. As if I were supposed to vanish from the face of the earth just because she did.

What about your real dad.

What about him.

Why don’t you go live with him.

What, under a bridge?

He lives under a bridge?

Maybe he’s a troll. I don’t know where he lives. On the planet somewhere, or else he’s dead. So what did you make up?

Things. I invented them. By the time I was twenty I had worked making cars, radios, telescopes, microscopes. By the time I was twenty-five I had worked in chemistry, metallurgy, and nuclear physics.

You’re pretty sharp for an old fart. Or a pathological liar. I had a friend like that in middle school. Like her brain was wired wrong. She lied about everything all the time. She spent the night and we watched The Incredibles and my mother made my favorite breakfast. Blintzes and Belgium waffles with fresh strawberries and powdered sugar and scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon. She even let us drink lattes and watch cartoons. Later I overheard her telling a friend we watched Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and ate Count Chocula and glazed donuts for breakfast and then took turns sticking our fingers down our throat and puking out my bedroom window into the rosebushes. First of all, my mother loathed donuts and Willie Wonka is the creepiest movie I’ll never watch again. I swear that movie was made by child molesters. And I’ve never, ever made myself puke. Do I look like I need to lose weight?

Why do you think she lied.

Because she’s a lying fatass two-faced bitch. First of all, when I broke up with my boyfriend, she fucked him because I wouldn’t, which totally messed with my head, and then, when we got back together, I let him fuck me, and then he dumped me for her best friend. So I fell in love twice with the same jerk and got fucked three times.

But made love only once.

All he wanted was my virginity.

All before the age fifteen.

How do you know how old I was.

Today’s your birthday.

How do you know that?

There’s a lot I know. Happy Birthday.

Happy birthday to me. Where are we going.

The old man made two lefts and turned east onto Superstition Highway.

To the theater.

What’s playing.

I have no idea.

Can I go online and check.

Feel free. But this theater’s not online.

Where is it.

One thousand nine hundred and seventy-one miles northeast.

I’d better text my stepdad and tell him I won’t be home for dinner. Ever.

You’re not afraid.

No. Why should I be. You don’t look like you’d hurt a fly. Besides, you’re older than dirt.

Zoë flipped open her Motorola and with both thumbs tapped on the keyboard. She snapped it shut.

What did you tell him.

jesus christ on the bloody cross holy mary mother of goddamn it all to hell i’m leaving town with a sleazoid with elvis presley sideburns driving a red ragtop Mustang 5.0 we’re on I-10 going a 100 he has a heap of burning love just 4 me we’re headed west to l.a. he’s going to make me a movie star. love and kisses yr ex step daughter ps don’t fk with mom’s ashes or i’ll cut your dick off and feed it to wild pigs and don’t try looking for me or else.

You typed all that that fast.

Almost as easy as talking.

Why would you send your stepfather such a vile text message?

Is that like a rhetorical question?

A leading question.

Or else.

Or else what.

I’ll tell on him.

Tell on him.

He tried to diddle me. Right after Mom died. I mean right after. She wasn’t even room temperature. He got drunk and came into my room. I suspected. All the time Mom was dying of cancer I suspected. I could read his filthy mind.

Ye gods. Don’t tell me what happened.

Ye gods I will tell you what happened. Me, an eighty pound munchkin, I kicked him so hard in the balls his lips burned blue.

II

They drove east of Phoenix past Signal Butte Road and Apache Junction and signs for the Elvis Presley Memorial Chapel and south on 60 past Gold Camp and Queen Valley to Superior up into the Superstition Mountains.

With earbuds Zoë listened to music on an iPod.

What are you listening to, the old man asked.

I’ve heard too much of it, Zoë said.

She yanked at the earbuds and tossed the iPod on the floor.

Too much of what.

You’ve never heard of it.

I’m sure I haven’t.

I wish I hadn’t. Two hundred thousand songs by ten thousand bands. I’ve never heard of most of them either. How can you live to be ninety?

Genes, I suppose. Luck.

I mean the boredom.

I haven’t been bored in eighty-five years.

I’m sick of these stupid bands playing their stupid effing music. They’re totally retarded. She rolled down the window. It’s quiet up here. We used to hike in the mountains. Once we found a rock with ancient pictures of animals carved into it.

Petroglyphs.

What, you don’t think I know that?

They passed into the Tonto National Forest.

Tonto means fool in Spanish, Zoë said. I bet you didn’t know that.

No, I didn’t.

Do you have a name.

Yes.

Well, what is it.

Skelton.

What’s so funny, the old man asked.

Is that like another rhetorical question?

Yes.

You have to admit it’s ye gods funny. An old geezer named Skelton.

I was a young geezer once. A teenage geezer. A baby geezer. A newborn geezer.

What, you were born looking the way you do?

There was a philosopher named Scruton. His parents named him Roger.

I don’t get it.

Never mind.

North of Superior they drove through the Queen Creek Tunnel and crossed a convoluted terrain of canyons, mesas, bluffs, and peaks. Scrub oak, mountain mahogany, and manzanita brush climbed the highest slopes and in the dark cool shadows of steep rock stood pockets of ponderosa.

What’s your first name, Zoë asked.

Mister.

Mister Skeleton. That’s pathetic. You kind of look like one, in a good way. Is that your idea of a joke.

No.

Don’t you have a first name?

A middle name too.

I have a middle name. Elyse. I always liked it better than Zoë. Zoë sounds loopy. Like I ought to be a fat girl with frizzy hair who’s always the best friends with the drop-dead blonde. When I really fall in love he’ll call me Elyse, not Zoë. Zoë’s like a dog’s name. Here, Zoë Zoë. Good, Zoë. Down, Zoë! Bad, Zoë! Or a zoo or zodiac.

What about zoology.

That’s cool.

Zoë is a beautiful name.

Of course an old geezer would think it’s beautiful. People used to name their daughters Mildred and Fanny. So what’s your name.

Mister Skeleton.

Ha ha.

Syke.

Like the goddess.

She was a girl.

They gave you a girl’s name. No wonder you dropped out of school.

With an S. S-Y-K-E. Named after my paternal grandfather, who came to America from a small town in Germany by the same name, only they pronounced it with one syllable. Somewhere along the way it got changed into two.

My last name is Hungarian.

I know that.

Just how do you know that. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs.

I’ll explain.

Are you going to kill me.

Goodness no. Why would I do that.

I was a half hoping you would.

Why would I do that. No, why would you want me to do that.

I don’t know. Kidnapped by a serial killer. Beats the crap out of high school girl. Or getting assaulted by your drunk stepfather when your mother’s lying dead in some goddamn funeral home.

Why don’t you kill yourself.

Kill myself? Why the fuck would I do that. Fuck you, you old fart. You think I’m some whiney emo who wants to slash her wrists or take an overdose of her mother’s sleeping pills? You think I’m some kind of cutter?

Cutter?

I’m an artist. A bright young woman. I take beautiful pictures.

I’m sure you do.

I’m going to be a photographer one day, or a musician. You wait and see, you nasty old bastard.

What’s a cutter.

You know those pathetic girls who mutilate themselves so I’ll feel something, they say. They don’t have the balls to put a bullet in their empty drums. Fuck them. I wish I felt less. If I were going to leave Arizona, so to speak, I’d use a gun.

I do not know, nor have I ever known, any such pathetic girls. I wish I felt less too. It really makes my head hurt. Every time you say the f-word.

The f-word, Zoë said.

Why are you laughing.

Can I use the n-word. Like, no. The a-word. The c-word. The o-word. The s-word.

S-word.

I don’t know. There must be thousands. Slat. Slung. Soupy. Syke.

Can you believe the shadows on those mountains?

They’re effing beautiful. Wait, you’re ninety. Why aren’t you half-blind?

Surgery. It was like someone turned on the lights. Your sight decade by decade gets dimmer and dimmer. It’s so gradual you don’t realize it until they cut out the cataracts.

Ouch. McNasty. I don’t want to grow old.

Up, or old.

Neither.

People do that, you know.

A lot of people?

Many people.

Then I don’t want to do that. You’re sharp for an old fart. Not blind either.

If I were meant to go blind I’d have gone blind eighty years ago.

I don’t get it.

What we were taught.

Taught what.

Never to stare at the sun.

What kind of moron would stare at the sun? Was everybody a dunce back in your day?

During a solar eclipse.

You saw a solar eclipse?

On a piece of cardboard.

In the higher country were pinyon pine and juniper tree along the rolling desert grasslands. Past Miami and Claypool and Globe they drove south on 70 and Old Winkleman Road and descended into Peridot, where dust rose from an All American Indian Rodeo near the Apache Cultural Center. Past Geronimo and Eden, Pima and Thatcher, irrigated cotton fields ran alongside the highway and near Safford and Solomon rose snow-covered mountains. They rode north on 191 through Three Way and before Mule Creek crossed into New Mexico and south on 180 rode past Gila and Silver City and Santa Clara. Past Hurley he pulled the van to the side of the road and took a map out of from under the seat and put on a pair of reading glasses.

Ye gods, he said.

What.

Can you drive?

I don’t even have a learner’s permit. Today’s my fifteenth birthday, remember?

Have you ever driven a car?

No. Yes. No. Not legally. What’s your problem, Syke.

We have to take the Interstate.

So. Take the Interstate.

I can’t, I won’t.

Why not?

On principle. They were built by Eisenhower to move tanks around the country.

You’re afraid, aren’t you.

Terrified. The Interstates are open-air concrete madhouses where demented Americans, distracted by grief, horror, and despair, ride around in their chariots yelling at on cellphones, eating, spilling coffee, vomiting out the window, weaving left and right, running over dogs and paranoiac schizophrenics and bag ladies with indifference, abandonment, or glee, depending on the psychotropic drugs they’ve been prescribed by a doctor at least as deranged.

Okay.

They changed places.

She adjusted the seat and driver side mirror and snapped home the seat belt.

Take off the parking brake and put it in gear.

There’s no clutch?

I gave up clutches in 1952. Gas right, brake left.

Okay.

The road is clear. Now press the gas pedal.

To the metal, Zoë said.

The four rear tires kicked up a cloud of rocks. They fishtailed onto the road.

Christ on the bloody cross! Syke shouted.

At Deming Zoë pulled up onto the I-10 ramp.

Stay in the slow lane, Syke said.

What slow lane.

Past the Las Cruces airport Zoë exited for 70.

You want to drive? she asked.

You’re doing fine. Just observe the speed limit.

70 took them downtown. The late afternoon sun lit up the desert and deepening shades of clouds moved across the mountains. On Pachado they passed the Las Cruces Police Department.

Help, Zoë yelled, I’m being kidnapped.

You’ve been kidnapped. You are now captive.

A hostage?

If you want. What could I get for you.

Nothing.

Nothing?

Not a thing. I’ve been kidnapped, Zoë yelled, I’m a captive but not a hostage because I’m not worth a damn thing.

You’ll need to roll down the window first. Don’t they teach you self-esteem in school?

Christ on the bloody cross, do they ever. In fourth grade once a week the teacher put us in pairs and made us write down five things we liked about the other person. Can you believe that?

Yes.

Are you going to brainwash me.

Why would I do that.

To get out of my mind all the lies I learned in school.

That’s not brainwashing.

I’d like to wipe the slate clean. Start over.

Your brain’s not a slate. We don’t start over every day.

Really?

Okay, every five hundred years or so. We’re due for a total make-over soon. What classes are you taking?

Were. I’ve been kidnapped, remember.

Not abducted?

I thought aliens did that kind of crap.

According to a Harvard psychologist. But he’s gone now.

He was abducted by aliens?

He died. I bet he wished he had been. What classes.

Mathematics.

Not a lie.

I’m not so sure. Look in the book bag.

Syke lifted the backpack from the floor.

Good grief, what’s in this? Bricks?

Lead. Open it.

Syke unzipped the bag and five fat textbooks fell out. He held one up. Mathematics and Social Justice.

See what I mean? Zoë asked.

What is social justice.

I don’t know, and neither do they.

Justice is impossible enough, but social justice?

I prefer anti-social justice, Zoë said.

That certainly sounds more concrete, Syke said. What about biology.

That’s straight enough.

World history.

Look at the book.

Goddamn America? Syke put on his reading glasses and read the table of contents. Paradise Lost. Christopher Columbus and Genocide. America the Slave Ship of State. John Adams: The First Bi-Polar President. The Industrial Revolution and the Machinery of Mass Murder. The Automobile and Global Extinction. Microchips Microwaves and Mind Control. Back to the Middle Ages: Gaia Garroted by CO2 Skinned Alive and Boiled in Oil. Pity the Planet. The Animal Insurrection and the Revenge of Nature. The Future of the Our Mother the Earth: Entropy, Heat Death, and the Hope of an Asteroid. Appendix A: Celebrating the End of the Reign of Homo Sapiens. Appendix B: Humans are a Cancer on the Gaia’s Body. Appendix C: What You Can Do to Reach Nirvana. See illustration. The Man-Monkey Candle Blown Out by Solar Winds. Appendix D: Minus Zero Population Growth: The Call to Auto-Thanatopsis.

Propaganda. What else.

Language Arts and Communication? Syke held the book up. Thin gruel.

It’s worse than you know. Read a passage.

One two three, said Jane. Three new dolls for my birthday! Three baby dolls that talk! All for my birthday! Now I have a big doll family. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a happy birthday. A happy birthday for me. Susan Pond turned on the TV in time to hear a man say, Hello, hello! This is Uncle Happy at River Park Zoo.

That’s the advanced section. Go back a few chapters.

Come, Dick. Come and see. Come, come. Come and see. Come and see Spot. Look Spot. Oh, look. Look and see. Oh, see.

My boyfriend’s dick made spots on his jeans. He called me a prick-tease.

At that age practically anything will tease.

All the teachers