The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1

by Donald Harington

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 messengers 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 arrow-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.

  Then Tish did a very strange thing. She introduced the Mouse to Doc. “Hoimin,” she said to it, “I want you to meet Doc Swain. You owe him three apologies.”

  The Mouse spoke to Doc! “Haughty,” it said. “If ya’ll ponny spression. Please da meetcha. Da lidda pigeon says ta me I should big ya poddon I ate ya legs off. It was mistook identity, belive me. I taught ya was a edible bug, ya know?”

  Tish and Squire Sam were doing some kind of dance with their sniffwhips. The Mouse kept on talking to Doc. Doc thought he was dreaming. Suddenly from down the Roamin Road came strolling Squire Hank Ingledew. Doc knew he was dreaming.

  “Like to skeered yore other three gitalongs off, I bet!” Squire Hank said to Doc. “Aint this some critter? Name is Hoimin, which is jist the way he misspeaks Herman. Got a story as long as my right sniffwhip, but he caint talk good English. Lissen to him!”

  The injunction was hardly necessary, because Doc couldn’t avoid listening to him; the Mouse wouldn’t stop talking. Every other utterance seemed to be “ya know?” or “if ya’ll ponny spression” and the Mouse kept asking Doc, “Hodda ya like dat?”

  “Where did ye find this?” Doc asked Squire Hank, and reached out to touch the white fur.

  “Tish found him, down the creek a ways,” Squire Hank said. “Doc, I got a long story to tell, myself. But what’s a-gorn on here? What’s all these folks doing? Trying to deliver another message?”

  When Squire Hank had been brought up to date on events, he commented, “Now that is the pure-dee dumbest notion ever I heared!” and he turned to his son and said, “Sam, boy, why in blazes didn’t ye jist try writin another message on the typin machine?”

  Squire Sam looked blankly at his father, not hearing him. Then the younger squire turned to his girlfriend and asked, “What did he say, Tish?” and Tish waved and wiggled her sniffwhips into all sorts of odd positions, and Sam said, “Oh,” then he said to his father, “There wasn’t time, Dad. And there wasn’t any guarantee the wind wouldn’t have blown the second message away too. We’ve got to get Her attention before dark!”

  “Wal, why don’t ye jist run up thar and hop in Her lap?” Squire Hank asked.

  Tish seemed to be taking the older squire’s words and translating them into some kind of sign language for the younger squire.

  “What good would that do?” Sam said to his father. “You’ve told me never to reveal myself to Her, and if I did, it would just frighten Her.”

  Tish spoke, timidly but with conviction. “I have an idea, sirs. What if we had Hoimin march at the front of the arrow? The Woman would see Hoimin because he’s white.” As she spoke, she expressed this in her sign language for Sam’s benefit.

  The two squires looked at each other, then looked at Doc, and Doc looked at them and then at Tish and at Archy and at Hoimin, who was looking at each of the others in turn and saying, “Hey, ya know sumthin? Da lidda sweety is positively kerspang on da button, ya know? Attawaygo, beby!”

  If he were dreaming, Doc did not want to wake up. The reason he knew he was dreaming was that there was no possible way a fellow who had endured all that he had been through for the past several days could even hope to stay awake. He had to be asleep. He hadn’t had a good day’s sleep since the day before the night Lawrence Brace had shot himself in the gitalong. Doc was somewhat ashamed of himself for falling asleep right in the middle of the most dramatic and essential portion of the rescue operations, but it couldn’t be helped. He was asleep, and here was this preposterous daymare of this great nemesis of his, the White Mouse, who was suddenly speaking like a laboratory rat with a Brooklyn accent and who was about to become the hero of the whole affair.

  The nice thing about dreams is that you don’t really have to exert yourself and be active. You can sit back and just watch all these things happening to you and to others, and you don’t even have to respond, if you don’t feel like it. Doc wasn’t even required to resume his position at the left flank of the arrow. Squire Hank took that place, and Doc just stood over to one side—or, if he was dreaming, just crouched asleep over to one side—and watched.

  The arrow of hundreds of roosterroaches of Stay M
ore, under the direction of Squire Hank and Squire Sam, and Tish, the latter practically riding on Hoimin’s long pink scaly tail, reformed itself in the yard of Parthenon, right beneath the porch upon which the Woman sat, gazing at Holy House. The arrow began moving out across the yard, with Hoimin at the head, or point. “Hey, lookit me!” Hoimin hummed. The arrow followed Hoimin. “C’mon, Lady, lookit me!” Hoimin squealed, over his shoulder. “Fevinsakes awready, Lady, willya lookit me?!?!”

  And the Lady looked at him. When Her gaze shifted downward, caught by a ball of fur hopping, skipping, bouncing, and dancing, someone—it appeared to be Squire Sam—dropped back and arranged the last few hundred roosterroaches into a new formation:

  A great philosophical question which had often preoccupied Doc Swain in his casual musings was the possibility that in dreams not only is the dreamer dreaming but also every participant in the dream is dreaming. If I dream that you are there, you in turn are dreaming that I am here. Therefore, Doc reflected as he watched this procession, every last one of those roosterroaches out there is only dreaming that he (or she) is doing this, and also, of course, the Great White Mouse is dreaming.

  …and also, of course, the Woman was dreaming. Surely She Herself had to think that She was dreaming, seeing this strange sight. (I think I dream, therefore I dream I think I am. Et cetera. Philosophy was complicated, Doc realized.)

  So the Woman went on thinking She dreamed, as the procession slowly wound its way down the Roamin Road toward Holy House. But then the Woman stood up, unsteadily, and put down the glass of whatever had been responsible for the dreaming. Then, instead of going out into Her yard to follow the arrow to Holy House, She turned, and went into Parthenon. She was gone for a moment, and then returned, muttering loudly to Herself, “Goddamn Newton County Telephone Company!” She raised one hand to become a visor on Her forehead, and peered out across the Roamin Road into the gathering dusk, where the arrow was fading into the direction of Holy House. She took a step down Her front steps. “Gran, I’ve only had four gin-and-tonics,” She said to the air. “Well, maybe it was five. But I’m not drunk. I swear. I know what I’m seeing. Unless I’m dreaming.”