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Winner of the Inaugural James A. Winn Prize in Nonfiction
My son wakes up reaching for another's body-How come you get to sleep with Papa? he asks, I want to sleep holding someone, and means: I want to be held. He pretends to be the thing undead, grunting and stretching out his hands towards another body, any body. His little sister's is the closest, her eyes, her cheeks, her hair. He stomps and moans until his need for touch is met. He presses into walls and doors, but their inanimate caress won't do.
Zombie, of West African origin, sonically resembles Kikongo zumbi, meaning "fetish," as in a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked, abnormally, to a particular object or part of the body.
I massage his back in motions we name animal and violence: bats slap his shoulder blades with my open palms; elephants come down along his spine in my heavy fists; a snake slivers the length of his back, almost burrowing at the neck; and then there are spiders and a whale, ostriches, a cheetah, and his favorite, knives, my fingers clenched together so the hand turns blade, chopping faster and harder so his exhaled sounds vibrate, and he laughs at the way sound stutters in his throat. Faster, he keeps asking, willing my body to be capable of more than it is.
Zombie is also linked to Kimbundu zambi, meaning "god"-creator, ruler, supreme being, spirit. Originally the name of a snake god, later meaning "reanimated corpse" in voodoo.
He refuses to believe something unseen can exist outside the body, even as his body edges closer to power and demands its own worship. I am a scientist, he repeats. And not just any kind, a herpetologist. And not dedicated to the study of just any reptile, but lizards, only lizards. I don't know where the obsession started. I know obsessions are common for children on the autism spectrum, but this is his only one. Perhaps it began after I d had a few margaritas walking down the cobblestone streets of Key West, while he ran after the wild chickens that roam freely there, his arms open to grab hold in embrace or pluck a fistful of feathers. He doesn't remember,...