The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories Page 31

  I would have despaired then, had it not been for the instinct stronger than reason which told me that I must struggle to regain my belly, for only then would the world look right to me.

  Gathering all my strength, I grappled with the washbasin again, thinking longingly of the slime which once I had gloried in, knowing that never again would I frolic in those pipes. Once again I was reminded of those revels, the races in the cracks around the bottom of the toilet, our gallant disregard for the pellets put down by the room’s human occupant, the pride one felt in escaping a clumsy human foot. And because I was, after all, an insect, I drew myself together and attempted to regain my feet. Using my strange forelegs I embraced the washbasin, pulling myself up until my upper half rested upon it, inadvertently standing as I now remembered that humans did, coming abreast of a reflecting surface, and so inadvertently into what I would take to be my face.

  I screamed for a full minute, so overcome by tremors that I fell to what I know must have been my knees, pressing my new face against the cold porcelain. Trembling, I crumpled, noticing in transit that I bent now in several directions, most notably at the waist. Instinct guided me so that I fell in a series of stages, bending and folding and coming to rest at last on my belly, and the simple fact of lying as the gods intended gave me some small cheer.

  Still I might have died then, of simple horror, if a new hope had not presented itself. As I lay with my head under the washbasin I was aware of a small progress going on in the baseboard near my head. Even though my ears had been sadly dulled I could hear them coming—bold Hugo and grumbling Arnold, with Sarah and Steve and Gloria chittering behind. They must have been drawn by my cries—surely they were coming to rescue me.

  Arnold came first, looking brightly from the murk beneath the baseboard. Because I could not interpret his expression I lay silent, waiting to see what would come. Hugo pushed up beside him, studying my left elbow, and the others came out, rank on rank, looking at me and talking among themselves. They looked so familiar, all those beloved faces, so concerned that I was sure they had come to help me and so, speaking softly so as not to flatten them with my huge voice, I said:

  “Hugo. Arnold. Thank heaven you have come.”

  But they didn’t answer. Instead they bowed their heads together, antennae intertwining, and although I could not make out what they were saying I was sure they were talking about me as they would never talk in my presence if I were myself again.

  Pained by this, I turned at last to Gloria, who had been close to me in the way of a cockroach with another cockroach, and because she was not chattering with the rest but instead looked at me with a certain concentrated expression, I whispered, full of longing:

  “Gloria, surely you will … “

  Gloria laid an egg.

  Before I could help myself, I had begun to weep. Now this itself was a new experience, and so fascinated was I by the sensation, by the interesting taste of the liquid I excreted, that I forgot for a minute about the little delegation along the baseboard.

  In the next moment, they attacked. Uttering cries of hatred and revulsion, taking advantage of me in my weakened state, they marched on to me, crawling along my foreleg, heading toward my vulnerable face. They may even have thought to feed upon my eyes.

  I cannot explain what happened next. Perhaps it was my pain and resentment toward these, my former brethren, perhaps it was only a sign of my metamorphosis; I only know that my pale flesh began to crawl and I rose, cracking my skull on the washbasin, nevertheless striking out, flailing, trying to scrape them off.

  Landing in a cluster about my knees, they regrouped, and in the pause I tried to explain, to apologize, to beg them to recognize and accept me, but in the next second they attacked again. And so, goaded, I did what one cockroach has never done to another; I lashed out, first at Gloria, sending her flying against the baseboard; I could tell she was injured, but I was too angry to care. Then I squashed Sarah with my fist.

  The others fled then, leaving me alone next to the basin, and as they left, a strange new feeling overtook me. I had for the first time power, and as I thought on the injuries the others had done me, this new power tasted sweet. Almost without effort I rose once more, coming quite naturally to my feet. Then, because it seemed the reasonable thing to do, I struck the faucet until water came and washed what was left of Sarah off what I now know to be my hands.

  In the next few hours I discovered my kingdom anew. The room which I had always assumed to be the world was rather small, bounded on four sides by walls and filled with appurtenances which I gradually identified according to their functions. Experimenting with my joints, I applied part of myself to a chair. In time, remembering what I knew of humans, I took up some of the rags laid over the back of the chair and put them on my person, working my head and arms into a large, stretchy garment designed for that purpose, and grandly tying another garment around my waist.

  Troubled, I went about the room again and again and again, finding at last an object with pictures on bits of paper bound together, understanding from the pictures that I had done something wrong and then re-garbing myself according to what I saw.

  From time to time I would go back to the basics and if I saw so much as a sign of one of my fellows, I would poke at the crevices with my shoe.

  I was occupied thus when there was a sound on the other side of the door and before I could gather myself to hide, the door opened and another human—a female—let herself into the room.

  She spoke, and so complete was my transformation that I understood her. “Where’s Richard?”

  Because I was afraid to try my voice, I answered her with a shrug.

  “You must be one of his thousand cousins.”

  I nodded. I was somehow comforted by her phrase; I had always taken humans to be isolated, and it made me feel somehow secure to know that their families were as big as ours.

  “Well, when is he coming back?”

  I shrugged again, but this time it did not satisfy her. She came closer, apparently studying me, and she said, finally, “What’s your name?”

  “J-Joseph.” Even I was pleased with the way it came out.

  “Well, Joseph, perhaps we can go out for a bite and when we get back maybe Richard will be here.”

  I didn’t know why, but I knew I wasn’t ready. “I—I can’t do that.”

  “Oh, you want to wait for him. Well, that’s your business.” She looked at me through a fall of red hair and for the first time I found hair attractive. She was soft all over and, inexplicably, that was attractive too.

  “But I am—hungry.” I had not had anything since morning, when I found something behind the toilet bowl.

  “I’ll bring you a hamburger,” she said. “If Richard comes while I’m gone, bring him down to Hatton’s.” She studied me for a moment. “You know, you’re not bad looking. But why on earth do you have your shirt buttoned that way?”

  I will never forget what happened next. She stepped forward and fumbled with my upper garment, yanking it this way and that, patting it into place, and when she was satisfied she stepped back and said, “Not bad. Not bad at all.” In the next second, too fast for me but not for my heart, which followed her, she was gone.

  How I exulted then! I whirled around the room like a spider, rejoicing in my many joints, knowing for the first time a certain pride in all my agile parts and the soft flesh that covered them, thinking that I would have the best of both worlds. I had been the largest and finest in the insect kingdom; now I would be the handsomest in the human world: a prince among cockroaches, a king among men. I spun and danced and celebrated my new body and then, in an orgy of release, I went back to the corner by the washbasin and with one of Richard’s shoes I battered all the antennae which came at me from that miserable little crack.

  “You, Ralph. Hugo. Now I understand. The lesser will always hate the great.”

  I was talking thus when a strange weakness overcame me, so that I had to stand suddenly because m
y beautiful joints had betrayed me and would not bend. Instead I stayed on my feet next to the room’s one window, looking out on the world below and thinking that once I had eaten, my strength would return and I would go out into it, a man among men.

  And I would take the female with me. Now that she had seen me she would have no more use for this shabby Richard, who lived in this tiny, wretched room. She and I would find a nest of our own, and then … The thought dizzied me and I backed into a soft place set on four legs and because I could no longer remain upright without a tremendous effort I settled back in the softness, lying with a certain degree of discomfort on my back.

  I was lying, so, noticing a certain strangeness about my mandibles, when a male, probably Richard, opened the door and came into the room.

  In the next second he saw me lying in what I assume is his bed and some new transformation must have overtaken me for the face of which I was so proud did not please him at all, nor did my shape, lying among his bedcovers, nor did the limbs which I waved, calling out for him to stop screaming and wait …

  I can hear his voice downstairs now, screaming and screaming, and I hear a female bellowing the alarm and I hear the voices of many men and know that they are armed. They are on the stairs now with chains and clubs and to my fear I find that large as I am I can move again, half this, half that, and I make my way to the basin and try to fit beneath it, and I cry out, pleading with my brethren to let me join them.

  “Hugo, Arnold, let me come back.”

  I am trying desperately to make myself small against the baseboard but part of me still protrudes from underneath the basin—I can feel the air against my naked, hardening carapace. They have broken down the door now, they are upon us.

  Hugo, Arnold. It’s me.

  —New Worlds, 1966

  On the Penal Colony

  Notebook found in candy bin

  General Store,

  Old Arkham Village, Arkham, Mass.

  Friend, if you are reading this, I am already dead. I, Arch Plummer, am giving this notebook to Hester Phyle with instructions to burn it as soon as she knows Gemma and I and our friend are safe. The truth must out. Unspeakable secrets fester here. Atrocities. If the three of us don’t make it, Hester knows what to do. The horror must be exposed!

  If we make it, Gemma and Laramie and I will hold a press conference and blow the lid off this place. If we don’t, Hester has promised to leave this where you will find it. Whoever you are, the future depends on you.

  If you pulled this out of the barrel in the General Store instead of Olde Arkham™ candy corn or packaged pemmican or arrowheads or that cornhusk doll your daughter wanted, then Gemma and Laramie and I are already dead. I beg you. Call The Times and Hard Copy now. Leave no stone unturned. Contact the network anchors whether or not they can pronounce the language. Bring The National Enquirer.

  *

  “And on your right note the authentic eighteenth-century architecture. Every house in Old Arkham Village is more than two hundred years old! Now count the windowpanes. Every window is 12 over 12.”

  “Mom, can we leave now?”

  “Quit hitting your brother!”

  “I want to watch TV.”

  “ … paints made from natural substances. Blueberries. Buttermilk. Now, the village tavern. Our colonists will be happy to answer any questions you have.”

  “Harry, that one is smiling at me.”

  “It’s his job. Don’t get too close.” Dad lights a match and winks. “Watch this.”

  The “colonist” rips off the flaming wig. “Eeeowwww!”

  *

  You come for the day and you say “Ohhh, quaint.” You have no idea what’s really happening just below the surface in our idyllic colonial village, deep in the Massachusetts hills. Underneath the mobcaps. Underneath the earth. You’re all malled out so you bring the kids, drop your candy papers and Ziploc sandwich bags, deface the property, take your snapshots, and go. You cart in foreign guests to impress them with your nation’s heritage—eighteenth-century houses and shops; oh, wow, these things are old! Or you bring Gran because she is old.

  Or something shakes loose inside you and starts rattling around. You get hungry for your past. Not necessarily your past. A past. Any past. Some commercial visionary resurrected all these old buildings and moved them here to supply an early American past for all of you late Americans to enjoy even though you never had one. At twenty bucks a pop, it’s your past too.

  So you pack up the kids and throw grinders and a six-pack of brewskis into the cooler and come rolling our way as if this is some kind of Colonial Mecca, God’s own solution to two problems: crime and rootlessness. Well I can’t tell you about rootlessness—who cares whether your great-greats hit Plymouth Rock or Ellis Island or rolled in hanging from the axle of a truck? But I can tell you a thing or two about crime.

  *

  “ … scheme for a model prison.” Bullfinch Warden hocks; the sound is heard clear to the back of the tram. “As our country’s leading penologists you can see what we have accomplished here. Forget license plates. Forget telemarketing and Readers’ Clearing House as revenue producing activities for prisoners who turn back the proceeds to the state. We are at the apex here. The prison of the future. Convicts as capital.”

  *

  Crime? You want to see crime? This place is a crime. Maggoty food and floggings in the picturesque village square, torture so deep that you never hear the screams. Murderous trusties, sadistic screws. But what do you know anyway, you stuff home made gingerbread into the kids and buy them the thirteen-star flag and you lead them onto the scaled-down replica of the Bonhomme Richard and you go, “Oh, wow, these are my people.”

  You trudge through the landlocked whaler, humming to the canned gabble on the Auditron, and no matter where you came from, you’re all, like, these are our forefathers. You get to feeling all-American even if you just landed on a raft. Correction. Early American; you ride Paul Bunyan’s blue ox and you bong your knuckles on the genuine authentic half-sized Liberty Bell and if the screws aren’t looking maybe you try to scratch in your initials, but only a little bit, and you feel as American as hell.

  And, wuoow, you think, what a cool solution to America’s problems. Punishment and restitution, all in one place! Symbiosis. Patriotism and profit. Plus rehabilitation, us hard-timers in tricorns or aprons and mobcaps answering your stupid questions about beef jerky and square-headed nails. And we are so fucking polite! You push a button and the National Anthem plays and the replicated flag goes up over the to-scale replica of Fort McHenry. Your heart swells up like the Barney balloon in the Macy’s Day parade and you’re like, America, wow!

  *

  “Note the presentation. It’s based on a revolutionary new concept. It’s not what you’re doing, it’s what it looks like you’re doing that shapes society. Hence the ideal village. Happy villagers.”

  *

  Happy! What do you care about us? What do you know?

  You see us sweating in our period costumes and you think, fine. Hardened criminals working their way back into the fabric of American life. How heart-warming. When they get out they’ll be all-American, yes!

  *

  “I don’t know, I turned the other way and the prisoner just …” The guard produces two bloody ears.

  “Shut up, they’ll hear you.”

  “But Warden, what are we going to do?”

  “Shut up. The state examiners!” Bullfinch Warden snarls, “Get him out of here.”

  “He’s so deep in solitary that …”

  “Not the perp. The tourist who got hurt. We can’t have this getting out.”

  *

  You think we look charming. If you think about us at all. Hester lays out bayberry candles and you get all mushy: I love America. Delightful. You note the glint in the 12-over-12s that us hard-timers clean every day at dawn and you get all proud. American ingenuity. Quaint.

  Well, you don’t have a clue. See, you can watch us cobble
or pot until you get bored and then you can buy your barley sugar sticks and take the Ethan Frome or Hester Prynne shuttle back to the Molly Pitcher or the Crispus Attucks Parking Lot and get in your RVs and go. We stay.

  I could tell you about charming. I could show you the underside of cute. Old Arkham Village is our nation’s heritage all right, but it’s not what you think. Rehabilitation, sure: let cons do time in pretty-pretty early America. Whittle by the fireplace with the mantel painted in authentic imitation cranberry-and-buttermilk paint, except we can’t have knives. Press criminals through the all-American grid. They come out the other side like potatoes, mashed. Homogenized. You can mold them into anything you want. It’s America all right, America straight out of Lizzie Borden by Simon Legree. We, your model prisoners, live by the numbers. Bullfinch Warden has thumbscrews and a gift for hurting people so the marks don’t show. Then there are the trusties with their Red Devils and their cattle prods. And at night, stalking the catwalks in our dormitory hundreds of feet below Betsy Ross Lot 3, the screws.

  *

  “Honey, let’s fuck here.”

  “Eeek, what would our forefathers think?”

  “Our forefathers are off duty. The place is closed.”

  The tourists are lying together on the greensward. A noise comes out of the ground like a great, communal groan. She leaps out of her lover’s arms with a shriek. “Ernie, somebody’s listening, let’s get out of here!”

  *

  I am writing in my own blood, by what light sifts through the bars in the subterranean part of Old Arkham Village that you never see. This is our home nights until dawn, Thanksgiving and Christmas, when even public parks in the State of Massachusetts close.