The Cockroaches of Stay More Read online

  The general jubilation over the discovery of samfood threatens to make us complaisant, sated, and indifferent to the plight of Lawrence Brace, who westers slowly. But Doc Swain and my father and I, at least, and a few others, even Archy, when he’s not out sniffing around for you, continue to discuss and plot ways to get help for Man.

  I suggested that we attempt to get word to Woman, to Sharon. I proposed that we attempt to write to Her. All my life I wanted to write a love letter to Sharon, but there was no way to make the words. Not even with the help of all the strongest roosterroaches, including my mighty father, could we even lift the cumbrous log of a pencil, let alone manipulate it.

  “Ink, maybe,” Doc suggested. “The old-timey kind that comes in a bottle and Humanfolk used to dip a goose-feather in.”

  Hunting through and upon Lawrence Brace’s writing desk for nonexistent ink, we discovered—or rather I should give Archy proper credit for it, for it was he who first climbed the machine and summoned the rest of us to observe it—the IBM Selectric, with its “on” button still engaged and its vitals humming. Doc told the others some things I could not hear, concerning his previous exploration of the machine and his own theories of its use and function. The several of us climbed all over it, hopping from letter-button to letter-button, reading the letters and numerals there. It was Archy who realized that if enough pressure was exerted against the buttons, it would cause the machine to impress a letter upon the sheet of paper which contained only the words already impressed: “Stay More, Arkansas,” and “Lawrence Brace,” and “Myth, Meaning and Narrative in the Poems of Daniel Lyam Montross,” and then the fragment of a sentence, “What are we to make of.”

  Archy began jumping up and down on the “I” key, yelling “THIS ORTER DO THE TRICK!” But for all his efforts, nothing whatever happened. The machine went on humming, but remained inactive. Your young fellow Archy is strong, stout, and agile, Tish, but for all his acrobatics—-jumps, backflips, somersaults—his weight was not enough to budge that “I” key. I tried, myself, and in all modesty I am the strongest of us all. I too jumped high and came down hard, and, while I could not do backflips and somersaults like Archy, I could exert more downward push upon the key. But to no avail. My father, the second-strongest roosterroach in all Stay More, tried to climb up and join me, but the key would scarcely accommodate both our bodies, and one or the other kept slipping off. We could, however, push downward on its edges, and, with Archy jumping up and down on the top, and Doc pulling down on one side too, we managed, with much grunting determination and super-physical exertion, to depress the key!

  The type-ball jerked, clattered, and slammed against the page. We fell down, panting, sighing, but victorious. There it was, our handiwork upon the page.

  What are we to make of I

  “Now, a comma, quick!” I exclaimed, exulting.

  “WHAT’S A COMMA?” Archy asked.

  “Down there!” I pointed, and he leapt upon the comma key, followed by us three others, and we got it down, down, down:

  What are we to make of I,

  “Where’s the ‘W’?” I asked, scampering about, and we all hunted.

  “UP OVER THAR!” my father called, and we joined him two rows up, and used all our strength to complete a three-letter word, “WHO.” Getting that “O” down nearly exhausted me, and we fell to the bottom key, which wasn’t a key at all, but the space bar, an easy bar to depress, but, for readability, an essential bar.

  None of them had the energy to heed my command, “Now let’s find the ‘A’ key!” They crouched and rested on the space bar, and then my father suggested we all needed a bite to eat to recoup our strength. After a visit to the cookroom for a heavy snack, the lot of us returned to the writing machine and continued our labors for another hour, until the whole bunch of us were exhausted. I began to wonder if this was really the afterlife, the prophesied Hell, in which we non-Crustians, true to predictions, had to work. We were all working for the first and only time in our lives, and it was not pleasant.

  A major difficulty occurred when the typing of the words reached the extreme right of the page, and we were at a loss for the means of moving the type-ball back. We could not budge it. Again it was clever Archy who figured out that the very large key inscribed RETURN might have something to do with moving the type-ball. But even with six of us crowded upon it and jumping up and down in unison, we could not depress it. Archy squeezed between the keys and discovered that the underside of the RETURN key was attached to a bar which, if a dozen strong rooster-roaches pulled down on it at the same time a dozen others piled on top of the key, would cause it to lower sufficiently to activate the violent return shuttle of the type-ball.

  After hours of this hell, we observed our creation, and it was good:

  What are we to make of I, WHO AM HURT BADLY SHOT MYSELF IN GITALONG CAN’T MOVE PLEASE HELP SEND HELP AT ONCE

  I studied it, and wondered if, grammatically speaking, we shouldn’t have put in some more punctuation, but decided it wasn’t necessary. The several of us, after another big meal and a rest, and the recruitment of additional help from other Holy House and Carlott males (we had to threaten to withhold their samfood unless they helped), began the laborious task of chewing through the remainder of the sheet of paper and removing the written portion from out of the writing machine.

  Then came the tricky part. We had to take the message, now freed from the machine, carry it like an enormous sheet, forty or fifty of us holding it around the edges, down from the machine, down from the desk to the floor, across the floor, out of the ponder room, through the loafing room to the front door, which was shut tight; but, like all doors, with a narrow space between the bottom of the door and the top of the sill. By careful manipulation—a couple dozen or so went out through a bullethole and tugged from the opposite side—we were able to slide the sheet under and onto the porch.

  I collapsed. A combination of relief and weariness enfeebled me. I still had not fully recovered from the ordeal of several nights previous, when I had been hit by Man, the same Man whom I was now so determined to save. Doc Swain hobbled over to my side and told me to stay put for a while. I had overexerted myself, writing the message and supervising its removal from Holy House. Now, Doc said, he and my father would supervise the carrying of the message to Parthenon and leave it there where the Woman would see it, providing, of course, that they didn’t encounter much opposition from Chid and the deacons who, it was presumed, had laid claim to Parthenon. Doc said I should stay and rest. There was only an hour or so until dawn, and the “messengers,” fifty strong, had to get the message to Parthenon before daylight. The rain had stopped, the Roamin Road was now reasonably dry, and fifty valiant roosterroaches carried the sheet of paper down into it, and headed for Parthenon.

  I could only watch. I wanted to help, or at least to go with them, but truly I was tired unto west. So I remained on the porch and watched the message procession. The white sheet shone in the moonlight as it moved slowly along the Roamin Road.

  Then a morning wind uprose, and I could feel its force along the length of my sniffwhips, which also told me that it was a dry wind, not a rain wind. Good weather was coming…but for our purposes, bad weather, because the wind itself, a gentle but firm breeze, swept up under the sheet of the message and snatched it loose from its carriers—or from most of them; some, a dozen or so, clung desperately to it, and were carried aloft. Most of these dropped away and fell safely to earth, but a few, including my father, continued clinging to the sheet as the wind lifted it high like a kite into the night sky, westward out across the so-called “Lord’s Garden and Refuse Pile,” out across a fallow field, out toward a line of trees bordering Swain’s Creek, then downward over the creek, off into the night, out of sight. Whether the precious sheet of paper had landed in the creek or sailed beyond it, I could not tell. As author of the message, I could only feel the frustration of having no ultimate reader of it.

  Eventually, the dejected messeng
ers returned to Holy House. Doc Swain hobbled over to where I was crouched, and sank wearily down beside me, shaking his head and sighing almost audibly. I could not speak to him, because of my disappointment, and he could not speak to me, for a long time.

  Dawn came. Doc went to watch over his “patient,” who, we were convinced, was now in the last day of His life. I slept. I dreamed, around noon and thereafter, of you, Tish, and of my father, and of skyscrapers, and fabulous food, and of all the things I have ever dreamed of, but mainly of you: you and my father were meeting by a creek bank, and you were saving him, or he was saving you. I dreamed of an angellike snow-white rodent. I dreamed, finally, of the Woman, Sharon, and of a person who was both myself and Lawrence Brace.

  The vividness of the dream woke me. It was still daylight, but I discovered that Doc and Archy too were already awake, unable to sleep or troubled by their dreams. Despite the full daylight, we began to wake the others, and to assemble in a hubbub of complaining and of discussion. Archy came up with the bright idea of setting the house on fire, in hopes the fire would attract Her attention. When Doc scoffed and said the fire might burn the Man and most of us before it was noticed, Archy suggested that we might set fire instead to the old three-hole privy out back beyond Carlott. Okay, but how? There were kitchen matches, and these could be carried laboriously, two rooster-roaches at each end, up to the privy, where we could attempt to create enough friction on one of them to ignite it, possibly at the expense of igniting whoever made the effort. But what if we simply could not get the privy to burn?

  I grew tired of trying to listen to all of this. “All right, fellows, that’s enough,” I said firmly. “Now listen to me. I want every able-bodied roosterroach of Stay More—excluding, of course, those who are already at Parthenon—to assemble here in the loafing room immediately. Is that clear? Wake up all of those who are still asleep.”

  My order was promptly carried out. Within minutes I had an audience of a thousand.

  “Neighbors, friends, and good folks of Stay More, all of you,” I began. “Crustians and non-Crustians, Smockroaches and Frockroaches, and Carlotters, the future of Stay More is in your hands, or rather in your gitalongs, which are needed today as they have never been needed before, not to run and hide but to march, purposefully and resolutely, in order to save the life of the Man Who established this home and Who nourished most all of you from infancy. You Crustians once adored Him and praised Him and asked favors of Him, and you non-Crustians who were indifferent to Him still fed from the crumbs fallen from His table. None of you would be east were it not for Him!”

  I paused, both for dramatic emphasis and to gauge their reactions. Many of them were nodding their heads in agreement, but all of them were eagerly awaiting the heart of my message. I went on. “We have different beliefs, different religions, different customs, and different opinions, but one thing we all have in common: we share Man’s table! His habits are always such that He has leftovers, and we clean up the leftovers. Even you Carlotters, ye wretched of this earth, who have not until recently been able to dine on Man’s foodstuffs but instead scavenged in His back yard, you have chosen your proximity to Him! Why not live in the remote forest, far from Man? Because everything in you desires that nearness to Him, that occasional sight of Him, despite the abuse that He has occasionally heaped upon you.

  “Let’s face it, we love Him! In spite of ourselves, almost, and certainly in spite of Him, we love Him. And yet He now lies westering, and we do nothing. Oh, the bravest of us have tried to help and failed, but there is something remaining that all of us can do.

  “And this is what it is. The Woman of Parthenon, who alone can summon help for Him, and provide help for Him that we cannot, does not know that He is westering. We must inform Her. How? Here’s what I propose: all of us should go immediately down the Roamin Road to Parthenon, where She always sits on Her porch in the hour of gloaming, before it gets too dark for Her to see us. We will form ourselves, all our numbers, into an arrow, which will point in the direction of Holy House and begin moving slowly but steadily back in this direction, drawing her attention this way.”

  My words were interrupted by a great murmur of protests. I could not hear any of it, but I could see that they were all talking at once, to each other, and in my direction. Some of them shouted questions at me, a few of which I could hear. How did we dare journey to Parthenon while it was still daylight? The diurnal creatures—birds and reptiles and mammals—would devour us all! We would all be eaten!

  I waved my sniffwhips for silence. “Not if there are so many of us!” I cried. “In our numbers is our strength! In our numbers is our safety!” My eyes searched the crowd for a sign of bravery, and fell upon a cluster of young damsels. In other circumstances I would have been petrified by shyness in their presence, but this was an exceptional situation. “Girls,” I said, “don’t you remember your ‘train’ on the night of the play-party, just the other night? The Cerealia? Don’t you remember how the sight of so many of you scared all other creatures out of your path? And gave a heart attack to a toadfrog?”

  The girls of Stay More, at this reminder, raised their heads proudly, then raised their sniffwhips to volunteer, one and all. Above their upraised sniffwhips, the windows of the loafing room presented me with a view of the setting sun.

  “We don’t have any time to lose!” I cried. My lieutenants, at a signal from me, began distributing crumbs of chocolate chip cookies, high in energy. Everybody had an early breakfast as I concluded, “Fellows in the vanguard, ladies in the train, children last! Our cry shall be, ‘SAVE HIM!’ Okay, let’s go!”

  “SAVE HIM!” shouted the multitude and finished the breakfast, then headed for the exit holes of Holy House.

  On the Roamin Road to Parthenon, we did not yet form ourselves into any figure, file or shape, but rushed in a body, myself leading, toward the house two furlongs away. Birds circled over us, and some of them dived for a closer look, but none dared attack. Snakes slithered out of our path. A possum couldn’t believe his luck, but then was afraid to, and scampered off. A tarantula leaped frantically to get out of our way. A praying mantis prayed, but not for prey. We reached Parthenon without the loss of a single roosterroach.

  As I expected, Sharon sat on Her porch, in Her rocker, one hand holding a drink, which She raised to Her lips. She was listening to music coming from within Her house, and Her gaze drifted toward Holy House.

  Quickly I directed my lieutenants, Archy chief among them, to arrange everybody into a shape:

  I myself took the position at the extreme front point of the arrow, with Archy at the lower point flanking my right and Doc Swain hobbling along at the upper point on the left. I counted cadence: “Hup, two, six, twelve! Hup, two, six, twelve!” The crowd yelled “SAVE HIM!” continuously. We moved steadily but not slowly in the direction of Holy House until I was sure we were out of sight, then we broke ranks and rushed back to the yard of Parthenon, reformed, and repeated the whole process. The third time the arrow was formed, I relinquished my position to Archy and rushed to the porch of Parthenon to observe the arrow from Sharon’s vantage, and, more importantly, to observe Sharon, to see what She was doing.

  She was doing nothing. If She even saw the arrow, I could not tell. Her gaze was not directed downward toward the yard, toward the road, toward the huge throng of marchers, but rather outward toward Holy House. I thought of rushing up into Her lap to attract Her attention, to shift Her gaze out of its fixation on Holy House and downward, but I decided it wouldn’t work; it would only perhaps scare Her and make Her rush into Her house.

  Dusk was rapidly approaching. Soon it would be too dark for Her to see the arrow even if She looked in that direction. I was at a loss, and becoming hopelessly dejected.

  Suddenly the entire mob making up the arrow began rushing back toward Parthenon. I thought at first they were coming back to reform one more time. But they were running in fear from a creature who was not intimidated by their numbers or their arro
w-shape. A great white mouse. The Great White Mouse. And following the mouse was a female roosterroach who, my eyes and then my sniffwhips told me, was you.

  Chapter thirty

  Doc didn’t follow. He abandoned his position as leader of the left flank, broke rank, and stood aside on his three weary legs to watch the frantic retreat. He felt rage and helplessness, futility. These folks had not been frightened of the snake, the tarantula, the mantis, the birds, and the possum that had been in the path to Parthenon, and yet they were now running from the Great White Mouse. He didn’t blame them, but Doc had told himself that he would never run from it again. In all his idle hours he had plotted and planned what he would do when he met up with it again, and now he was ready. “Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, White Mouse!” he yelled at it, and stood his ground, albeit standing on only three gitalongs, having lost the other three to the aforesaid Mouse on the aforesaid occasion.

  “Don’t skeer all those folks, Hoimin!” a female voice called, and Doc saw that there was a girl standing right behind the White Mouse. The girl was Tish Dingletoon, reported drowned days ago; daughter of Jack and Josie (reported westered in a crash days ago); reported sweetheart of Squire Sam, who was now running toward her from the north, also unafraid of the White Mouse; the same Tish who was, Doc recalled, also the reported sweetheart of Archy Tich-borne, who was now running toward her from the south, also unafraid of the White Mouse.

  “TISH!” shouted Squire Sam and Archy simultaneously, and ran to embrace her.

  The poor girl could not look in both directions simultaneously, but she had one sniffwhip fixed on Sam and the other on Archy. Doc had both of his fixed on the White Mouse, who, however, was not paying him any attention whatever.