S.G. Browne

At my Tuesday writers’ group in the Mission, we always start the workshop off with an exercise.  Last time was my turn to facilitate, so I decided on an exercise where each of the members in attendance would provide one element to use for the beginning of a story.  Those elements included:

a setting, an object, a profession, an animal, and a mythical creature.

 For this exercise, those elements turned out to be:

a hair salon, a sousaphone, a nurse, a gerbil, and a leprechaun.

Below is what I came up with:

One day at the hair salon, I’m giving a simple cut and wash to my third Thursday three o’clock, when in walks a leprechaun with a sousaphone.

“Mind if I play?” says the leprechaun.

I look at the leprechaun, all three feet of him, staring up at me over the lip of the tuba, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s a bad idea to say “no.”

“Sure, whatever,” I say, figuring it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The woman in the chair, my third Thursday three o’clock, looks at me in the mirror and says, “That’s strange.”

I figure she’s talking about the leprechaun, who’s standing by the hair driers playing the opening notes of “The Girl From Ipanema,” when in walks a nurse with a gerbil on a leash.

And I’m thinking that this looks like trouble.

For the recently reanimated, getting used to your undeath can be a challenge. In addition to the stigma associated with spontaneous resurrection and the constant threats of dismemberment and immolation by a society that no longer considers you human, there are a number of physical challenges that most new zombies aren’t prepared to face. Like the emotional fallout from a rapidly digesting pancreas, the embarrassment of having one of your main body cavities burst open, or the frustration of trying to keep your tissues from liquefying. Just to name a few.

At Undead Anonymous, we’re here to help.

Sponsored by the Department of Resurrection and the SPCA, Undead Anonymous offers a safe, nurturing environment for zombies to gather. Whether you’ve died in a car accident, been stabbed to death, beaten to death, mauled by dogs, committed suicide, choked on your own vomit, or just plain died of a heart attack, at Undead Anonymous, you’ll find the guidance you need to navigate your new existence.

So stop by and join one of our meetings, get to know some of your fellow zombies, and discover that there is life after undeath.

A friend asked me what the difference was between an ordinary zombie and a dysfunctional zombie.  So I explained.

An ordinary zombie is just dealing with the fact that he has no rights and that he has to obey the rules of a discriminatory society that reviles him, all while dealing with his gradually decomposing body and the smell of hydrogen sulphide escaping from his various orifices and the embarrassment of having one of his main body cavities burst open in public.

A dysfunctional zombie, on the other hand, would be subversive and belligerent and would likely end up being sent off to the county redistribution center to be used for cadaver impact testing or left out to rot on a hill to help in the scientific study of criminal forensics.  Or else he could end up with his head in a chicken roasting pan at a face-lift refresher course for budding plastic surgeons.

I’ve always enjoyed hanging out in toy stores.

Not the toy stores in shopping malls or the stores that have educational toys and games that teach children about nature and the environment. Please.

No, I’m talking about the crack houses of toy stores. The ones bursting with the colors of an acid trip and stocked with syringes of over-indulgence. The ones filled with a variety of narcotics to feed the addictions of the future consumers of the world.

The Disney Store.
FAO Schwarz.
Toys “R” Us.

With six different locations in Manhattan alone, the Disney Store may be the most insidious of the three, and while FAO Schwarz has a definite edge in high-end temptation with its Fifth Avenue address, my favorite toy store for pure, unadulterated addiction is Toys “R” Us.

Located in Times Square, the flagship of Toys “R” Us is the place to get the mass-produced drugs, the crystal methamphetamine of toys made affordable to those children whose parents aren’t wealthy enough to shop at FAO Schwarz or who can’t afford to clothe their children in everything Disney. Sure, it has a sixty-foot-tall indoor Ferris wheel, a thirty-four-foot animatronic T-Rex from Jurassic Park, and a life-sized Candyland board game. But it remains accessible and affordable to the masses.

At Toys “R” Us you’ll find just about everything for the consumer-in-training.

Legos and action figures and collectible toys.
Hot Wheels and scooters and pedal cars.
MP3 players and video games and DVDs.

But the drug of choice at Toys “R” Us, the epitome of consumer addiction, is Barbie.

Standing two floors tall, Barbie’s Dollhouse is home to everything Barbie – her various personas, clothes, vehicles, homes, furniture, toys, friends, lovers, pets, and activities. It’s like the Emerald City, except it glows a bright, cornea-burning pink.

Up and down the seemingly endless streets of Barbie’s city, you’ll find all of the pursuits a twenty-first-century capitalistic plastic icon needs: a supermarket, a swimming pool, a roller rink, a volleyball court, a movie theater, a twenty-four-hour gym, a hair salon, a culinary school, a plastic surgery clinic, a yoga studio, a laser hair removal spa, and a gynecologist’s office.

And to make sure she’s never underdressed, Barbie owns over one hundred and twenty different outfits, so no matter where she goes, she’ll look stylish knowing she won’t have to wear any single outfit more than three times in a calendar year. And with a Kool-Aid stand and a bubble gum shop to hone her entrepreneurial skills, Barbie never has to worry about being able to afford her house, motor home, pool, hot tub, horse stable, or karaoke machine.

I’m riding in the back set of an Audi A6, sitting next to roughly four sticks of dynamite.

Most of that is in the form of a pyrotechnic cake with nine, three-inch mortars of Grade B professional fireworks with a street value of $120.  Without a pyrotechnician’s license, possession of Grade B fireworks is a felony.

I’m sitting next to a felony.

If that’s not bad enough, the dirver of the Audi A6, my college buddy Brian, has a vanity plate on his car that reads:

EXCLR8

So I keep asking him to slow down.

I’m not so worried about the four sticks of dynamite on the seat next to me going off.  But if we get rear ended, the six rockets in the trunk directly behind me come to roughly another four sticks of dynamite.

And I’m wondering if it’s such a good idea to wear my seatbelt.