The Cockroaches of Stay More Read online

  The play-party is meant to be an innocent frolic. Compared with the more adult and more exciting square dance, the play-party is supposedly a chaste gathering, approved by the most hidebound Crustians, but still the occasional incident of unrestrained lust will occur, off in the “brushes,” the forest of weeds on the edge of Carlott. The couple abandoning the Platform and giving in to their desires do not reappear during the whole night, for the act of sexual congress is a complicated congeries of anatomical hookups, end-to-end splicings and interconnections, from which the couple cannot extricate themselves until the male’s marble has been thoroughly enthroned within the female’s chamber, a process, literally, that takes hour upon hour.

  Thus, tonight, while Tish was still waiting for Archy to take notice of her, and the repertoire of games had gone from “Skip to My Lou” to “Shoot the Buffalo” to “Humpin the Santa Fe” and “Spinnin the Spider,” the party was suddenly silenced by the abrupt appearance of Brother Chidiock Tichborne, who was dragging into view the still-conjoined bodies of a youth and maiden whom he had discovered “making the beast with two heads” off in the brushes.

  The unfortunate couple were embarrassed beyond all mortification, not simply for having been surprised in the act by the minister but also for their inability to separate, to unclasp, to unlink, to undo all the various latches, clamps and sphincters that linked them together, tail to tail in opposite directions. The girl was weeping piteously, and the boy was growling in helpless rage, with their faces so downcast as to make them unrecognizable.

  “Looky here!” shouted Brother Tichborne in a voice that surely carried all the way to Holy House. “Sinners! Afore the sight of the Lord! All of y’uns bow down on yore knees!”

  The assembled crowd of young folks, or at least all the Crustians among them, knelt, or crouched, in attitudes of fear and submission. A few remained flagrantly unbowed at first, but Brother Tichborne’s voice and his lashing sniffwhips soon stunned them into prostration.

  “These here play-parties and dances has got to stop!” the minister boomed. He expatiated on the temptations of the flesh, the pitfalls of dancing, and the teachings of our Lord Joshua Crust, who had expressly forbidden any activity that might exalt physical pleasure. But he held his ultimate censure for the end of his sermon:

  “And who do we have here?” he thundered, and kicked the offending boy under the chin, and then moved along the length of their conjunction to kick the girl also. “Hold up yore heads!” he yelled at them. “Raise yore faces and let all the world and Man see who ye air!” He kicked them again, and the boy and girl slowly raised their eyes to look woefully at the congregation, who, however, did not need this proof of their identity, having already identified them by smell through trembling sniffwhips. The boy was clearly Isham Whitter, a Carlotter, and the girl was just as obviously Lucy Whitter, his sister.

  “IN-CEST!” shouted Brother Tichborne. “He that lieth with his own sister is damned to eternal shame! She that lieth with her own brother shall bear monsters as children! Cursed be them both! No sin is more worser in the eyes of Man!” Brother Tichborne began tripping over his own tongue: “The insectuous incest—the incestuous insect is the low-downest, unmanliest, kickworthiest sinner in the world!” And he kicked the couple again.

  The minister could have used the awful example of Ish and Lucy Whitter to harangue and exhort the multitude for the rest of the night, but behold! a sudden blinding light flashed upon the scene from the open rear doorway of Holy House, and there stood the towering silhouette of Man Himself!

  If the assembly had not already been overwhelmed by Brother Tichborne, they were petrified by the appearance of Man, and all of them crouched as low as they could get. Then when He moved, they all found their gitalongs and scurried in every direction until they were hidden from the sight of Man, either beneath the Platform or into the deepest forest of the grass and weeds.

  Brother Tichborne alone, or rather alone with the offending incestuous couple, who still could not unjoin themselves and flee, or were attempting to flee in opposite directions and thus canceling each other’s attempts, remained on the Platform. The minister genuflected into most devout prayer and worship.

  A thousand—nay, two thousand, for everyone has two—sniff-whips and four thousand eyes watched warily as Man came stumbling down the back steps of Holy House and staggered out into the direction of Carlott. Man was not carrying His terrible swift revolver. His hands were empty, and free to swing through the air, grab at the air, to balance Himself, to grope His way out into the darkness.

  As He approached the Platform, Brother Tichborne raised his head and clasped his touchers and his fore-gitalongs together in abject entreaty. “Lord, if it be Thy will,” he prayed, “piss upon me!”

  But Man did not reach the Platform. He stopped, and held His great hands to the sky. “SHARON!” He called in the most deafening voice, and two thousand tailprongs were lowered away from the sound. Even louder He called again, “SHAY-RONNNN!”

  Then He pitched forward and fell headlong into the grass of Carlott, where He lay inert and seemingly lifeless for the rest of the night.

  Brother Tichborne announced, “The Lord but sleepeth. Let us pray.” He led them in an unenthusiastic prayer, and then he made a few routine announcements: the Crustian Young People’s Fellowship would hold a sunset-to-sunrise hymn-sing Saturday night. And at the Sunday night worship service and prayer meeting, open for the first time to Carlotters, who were free, for the duration of the service, to enter Holy House, there would be a special call to Rapture, right before the very eyes of the Lord Himself. Everybody welcome!

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” a voice said beside Tish, and she turned to see that the roosterroach standing next to her, brushing her body with his own, was Archy Tichborne. He smiled handsomely at her, noticing her for the first time in his life, but she was too bashful even to smile back.

  Chapter five

  If Greg Sam Ingledew’s tailprongs had not been long since stunned into deafness by the continual announcements of his Clock, he might have heard, all the way to Parthenon, the calling voice of Man, who had cried the name of the Woman twice. She had heard it, across those two furlongs of empty town.

  Although Sam could hear only the imagined steady locking of his little chateau, his sense of sight and smell were greatly refined in compensation, and he could detect the slightest changes in Woman as She Herself picked up the distant calling of Her name. She was sitting in Her cheer-of-ease, a marvelous piece of furniture with a high back of padded cushions to support Her spine, other cushions to support Her bottom, other cushions to support and rest Her arms, which ended in lovely hands that held a book, in the wan light of a kerosene lamp on a round table beside Her cheer-of-ease. Sam appreciated that She preferred, although electricity was available to Her, to light Parthenon only with the comfortable glow of kerosene lanterns and lamps. It was easy on all four of his eyes; his ocelli, or stargazers, did not alarm the bejoshua out of him every time She lighted a lamp.

  When the distant wail, “Sharon,” wafted through the open screen door of Her room, the Woman dropped Her book into Her lap, involuntarily emitted three different scents of fear, annoyance, and excitement, which Sam’s sniffwhips thoroughly perceived and classified, then spoke aloud, after the second sound of Her name, “Oh, for crying out loud! Larry, why don’t you just drop dead?”

  Sam did not hear this, but he could clearly determine that She had heard something from afar, that She was disturbed by it, and that She had spoken out against it. She did not immediately resume reading Her book.

  Sam’s mother had in his second or third instar explained to him the circumstances, handed down from Grandpa Ingledew, whereby Woman inhabited Parthenon, which, in ancient Stay More, had been one of the general merchandise stores for a whole population of Man, or Men, as well as Women and Children. The ancestor of this Woman, Sam’s Woman, had been a proprietress of this merchandise store, which occupied the central r
oom of her dwelling, her bedroom and sitting room occupying one side of Parthenon. The ancestor-Woman, a fabled demigoddess named Latha, had later abandoned Parthenon, and it had remained unoccupied through countless generations of roosterroaches, just as all the other buildings of Stay More were uninhabited and most of them disappearing through rot, neglect, windstorm and rainstorm, fire and vandalism. A generation ago (a roosterroach generation from east to west is about two whole years), this Woman, Sharon, suddenly returned to Stay More and reoccupied the dwelling-part but not the store-part of Parthenon. Sharon, Sam had discovered before he lost his hearing, was the actual granddaughter of Latha, and the two Women still communicated by the instrument which sat permanently on the same round table which held the kerosene lamp.

  Sam had even seen the ancient demigoddess Latha on more than one occasion, when that Woman had come to visit Her granddaughter, and the two had sat together in rocking cheers on the porch in the dusk, although usually when Latha came it was daylight and Sam was fast asleep. But the one time Latha had come at night and Sam had crawled boldly beneath Her rocking cheer to listen to the two Women talk, his hearing had been excellent and he had been able to catch enough of the conversation to deduce that his Woman, Sharon, although She had grown from earliest childhood to adulthood in Stay More, had gone away and lived for years in a city, then in a town, then in a city again, before coming back to Stay More to clean up and fix up the old Parthenon and live in it alone. The grandmother, Latha, had been concerned that Sharon might become very lonely in the dead village, but Sharon had protested that She would not be. This had been before the Man had come.

  Because of his lifelong residence in the Woman’s bedroom, Gregor Samsa Ingledew knew a few things that no other roosterroach of Stay More actually understood, and one of these was the name of the Man, which was Larry. Since the only roosterroaches who now inhabited Parthenon were Sam and his father, Squire Hank Ingledew, and since Squire Hank spent most of his waking hours hanging out at Doc Swain’s place, only Sam had been present on the one occasion when Larry had actually come to Parthenon, one night, and had talked with the Woman at length, had argued with Her, and, about the time the Clock struck “TUTTI-FRUTTI,” had removed the garments which covered Her body, had removed the garments which covered His body, and had climbed together with Her into Her bed, where, beneath the quilt required by the chill of autumn, He and She had made movements which Sam could only conjecture about. Then They had slept. Sam had remained awake beyond dawn, waiting for Them to awaken, but he had finally drifted into sleep and had awakened to find the Man gone and the Woman complaining loudly to Herself about Her stupidity and Her hangover and Her need for a cigarette.

  Now Sam watched Sharon, who had heard the calling of her name twice, followed by a long silence. Sam’s sniffwhips detected an unmistakable scent of yearning. The bristles on the lower tier of sniff-whip segments are especially sensitive to scents of yearning, wanting, inexpressible wistfulness, in either one’s fellow roosterroaches or in Man, and it is considered good luck to pick up, on one’s sniffwhips, such a pining smell. There is a popular saying, “More rare than pine is the smell of pining”—which is rare indeed, for there are few pine trees in this part of the Ozarks.

  Sharon pined. And because he clearly detected it, Sam grew excited, knowing that some good luck would occur to him. He was not ordinarily superstitious, certainly not like the vast majority of roosterroaches, who could not even turn around without observing some of the most ridiculous beliefs and practices, but Sam believed that superstitions are more credible rules of conduct than religion, for which he had no use whatever: he knew enough to conclude that Woman had not created him; certainly Sharon had not. He did not believe that Joshua Crust had been the son of Sharon or of Larry or of any of Their ancestors. He did not believe that Sharon would continue feeding him only if he sang praises to Her…although he felt like singing praises to Her anyway. He did not believe that when he westered he would go to live forevermore on Her right hand. She wouldn’t want him on Her right hand or Her left. And as for this Rapture business which that mountebank Chidiock Tichborne preached and extolled, Sam would love to be raptured by the Woman but not in the westerly sense, and certainly not by a firearm, which the Woman did not own.

  But he did believe that the scent of pining brought good luck, and the very best luck he could wish for, which sometimes he dreamed about in his daily sleep, would be some magic that would either transform the Woman into a roosterroach, or, better, metamorphose Sam into a Man. And yet, desiring this with all his heart, he realized that such metamorphosis was sheer fable.

  Sam stepped out from his Clock and crept to the edge of the mantelshelf. The Woman was picking up the black talking-instrument and cradling it against Her ear, while one of Her fingers twiddled the belly of the other half of the instrument around and around. Sam wondered if she was only calling Tel-Med, perhaps for a program with a name like “What to Do When Your Ex-Lover Drunkenly Yells Your Name in the Middle of the Night.” But she began talking into the thing, and one never talks to Tel-Med. Of course Sam could not hear what she was saying, nor could he, this time, even imagine it. Could he hear her if he moved closer? Very close? Say, right up the cheer-of-ease? Dare he?

  First he wanted to be sure that he was scrupulously clean, although he had already had his evening bath and it was too early for his morning bath. He scrubbed his head vigorously, then washed both of his sniffwhips, counting each segment as it passed between his lips, 356 segments in all, each responsible for absorbing some information about the world around him. Next he washed and scrubbed his tail-prongs with his rear gitalongs, and tested each prong, wiggling it and standing it erect, for although his tailprongs were no longer sensitive to sound they were still capable of full erection. He could also use them, if the occasion required, for feeling his way backwards; reverse sniffwhips, as it were.

  How does a fastidious genteel roosterroach know when his nightly (or thrice-nightly) ablutions are finished? Of the 178 segments on each sniffwhip, the last two, at the very tip, have as their sole function an appraisal of one’s own cleanliness, tidiness, and aroma. Sam no less than any other roosterroach would rather have lost both his tailprongs and been totally deaf than to lose the tips of his sniff-whips. Whenever an individual loses these, through accident, battle, or failure to keep them clean, that individual is almost certain to be dirty, stinking, and flowzy…until he regenerates the tips.

  For all Man’s repugnance toward him, the roosterroach is the most immaculate of insects, permitting no speck of dirt or disease to remain upon his body. And Gregor Samsa Ingledew was the most immaculate of roosterroaches. Not just in his person but in his surroundings: he kept the interior of the Clock, and most of its exterior too, spotless. The Woman, who was a fastidious housekeeper Herself, would have been proud of Sam, if She knew he existed. She did not. Didn’t She ever wonder, when She was dusting Her room, why the Clock and the mantelshelf never needed to be dusted?

  Sam climbed down the mantel and gained the floor. He was about to approach closer to a female, other than his mother, of any species, than he had ever been since his life began. For all his excellent grooming, which along with his intelligence, squirehood, and residential situation made him the most attractive and eligible bachelor of Stay More, Sam had a congenital flaw more damaging than deafness: he was enormously and painfully shy of females. All Ingledews had been, as long as anyone could remember. It was a family legend, nay, a longstanding family joke: if every Ingledew male had been the subject of some great story of heroic deeds, he was also the butt of some hilarious anecdote involving his shyness toward females and the extraordinary circumstances of fate or feminine intrigue that had permitted at least one male Ingledew in each generation to marry and perpetuate the family name…as well as the congenital dread of females.

  But his terrible shyness toward any member of the opposite sex would not now prevent Sam from approaching Sharon, for he did not intend to let Her see him.
She was absorbed in Her conversation over the black talking-instrument. He selected the best route to get as close as possible to Her voice without being seen, and climbed up the very back of the tall cheer-of-ease, an easy task of crawling gitalong over gitalong through the nap of the fabric. Reaching the summit, he climbed down the other side, right behind Her head. He was very careful not to touch Her hair, and very careful to keep an escape route in sight in order to vanish in an instant in the unlikely event that She began to turn Her head in his direction.

  From this proximity, Her voice was almost booming, although She spoke quietly. He could hear, if not every word, at least some of it.

  “…and feel so sorry for him but don’t see that there’s a blessed thing I or anyone could do…” She was saying. She was, Sam assumed, talking to Her grandmother. He had anticipated that She might be putting a call through to the Man Himself, but Holy House did not contain a talking-instrument. Sam was surprised to discover that he was glad She wasn’t talking to Larry, which would have made Sam jealous. Jealous? he said to himself, in wonder. I am jealous of Man? Well, why not?

  “…if he could just give up and go away,” She was saying. “Vernon has offered to evict him if I only tell him to. Vernon really hates what he’s doing to that house, letting it go to ruin and shooting it full of holes. No, no, Gran, I’m not worried he’ll shoot me. I never go near the house. He only shoots late at night, when he’s blotto, I guess, and maybe his demons are pursuing him. Yes, maybe he’s shooting at his demons….”