Stacy

After two hours of fear and fangs at the Mayan exhibit, I met a stream of white twenty’s with torn, bloody shirts moaning and groaning, staggering down the Delmar strip. Could a zombie apocalypse actually be happening? I reached out, “Go back to Pittsburgh!”

 “We belong dead! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

 A bald black guy in his 40s startled me. ‘Stacy’ wanted to sing like a troubadour. I left him and crossed the street to a two-piece combo playing on the sidewalk. He followed, close on my heels. I ventured, “What’s the plan?”

 “What kind of music do you dig?”

 “Jazz, blues, classical.”

 “You look like Mozart, brother.”

 “More like Einstein.”

 “I can see that. There's better music on the corner. I know the band.” He leaned in. “What you want is a black girl.”

 “You’re married, I can tell,” he added.

 “No, actually I’m not.”

 The look in his eyes was disbelief. “Wait’ll we get inside. You’re gonna love the music.”

 The zombies were at the bar. “Let’s get a couple drinks. We’re gonna have a good time. Come on,” he says.

 I showed him an empty billfold.

 “I got the money.”

 He disappeared and came back with a round. We got nowhere with the cute girls and nothing from the others, their laughter tinged with indifference or malice. Maybe it was me. The cover band couldn’t start soon enough with Stevie Wonder's I Wish.

 The zombies rushed the stage to catch the funky blast-beat. I elbowed my way through the crowd. Stacy followed. The singer came closer, singing on top of the general shout, the keys showed off speed, the zombies made a serpentine, seething mob, shouting, jumping, bumping to the primitive beat.

 I Wish was over. The zombies vanished amid shouts of laughter and applause. The band lapsed into lackluster sounds. Different. Stacy clamped his hand on my shoulder, “Why are you being like that, man? You’re ruining a good time. Stay here, I’ll buy another round.”

 Everything’s fine. We’re drinking, talking about lighting up the scoreboard, when he goes over to a table with a guy and two black girls. One girl was knocked out on the table. They had been watching me. Stacy came back with a changed voice and a new smell. “Here, drink this.”

 I did and put it down. “I feel funny.”

 “Don’t be sick. Come to my house. We’ll have a good time.”

 “Who’s gonna be there?”

 “Nobody, just you and me.”

 I could’ve poked into what my skin knew. Now was not the time. I reached for the car keys, took a deep breath, walked out the front door, and looked behind to see him following. We left opposite ways on Delmar. I laid a patch and drove off, my head swarming with motley confusions.

 What if I was the creep in his nightmare?