The Cockroaches of Stay More

by Donald Harington

  “Morsel, Freddy,” Doc returns.

  The boy stops, and twitches his whips. “You got some sick folks in thar, smells like?”

  “Yeah, got me a regular house pittle,” Doc says, with no little pride. A thought occurs to him. “How’d you like a job, as orderly?”

  “Job?” says Freddy. “Orderly?”

  “It don’t take much,” Doc assures him. “I got three fellers banged up kind of bad, and I need somebody to help me look after ’em.”

  “Maw says I’m right disorderly,” Freddy confesses.

  “Wouldn’t ye like to be a doctor when you grow up?” Doc suggests. “I could train ye how.”

  “Grow up?” Freddy says, offended. “Doc, I done reached my imago last week, didn’t ye notice?”

  Sure enough, the boy is full grown, in imago, but it’s hard for Doc to realize that children like Freddy, who had been coming to Doc for treatment ever since Freddy was in his first instar, have a habit of getting mature and old. “All the more reason I can use ye,” Doc says.

  “Wal, I reckon there are worse things to do,” Freddy allows, and climbs the steps.

  And Freddy is right. There are worse things to do. Thus childless Doc Swain, without sons of his own to follow in his footsteps, acquires a protégé, pupil, and intern. His first night on the job, Freddy is green and slow to learn. He wonders if he should remove the cobwebs from the house pittle, and has to be instructed in their uses. He is told the names of the sleeping spiders but is not eager to be introduced to them when they wake. He is shown the store of edibles and given a feeding schedule for the three patients, or rather the two who can eat, but he is not able to resist consuming a share of the food himself. But the patients like him, and they ask him to run an errand for them: go to Holy House and summon their wives and children to come to the house pittle during visiting hours.

  Freddy asks Doc, “What did ye say the name of this business is?”

  “House pittle,” Doc tells him again for the third or fourth time.

  “Okay. When is visiting hours?”

  Doc hasn’t decided, and he tries to decide, but remembers that Time is resting, the present tense is with us, and we are stuck in the here and now, without any hours. “Oh, just whenever,” he tells Freddy, and Freddy receives permission to run his errand.

  Almeda Sizemore comes from Holy House with her twenty-three children to visit Leroy, Claudine Ledbetter brings her seventeen children to visit Stan, but poor Gene Stapleton the goner is also a bachelor and has no visitors except his old mother, Hester. Even villains have mothers, not to mention wives and children. Did you ever think of that?

  “What?” says Freddy.

  “In any story,” Doc tells his pupil, “the bad guy, regardless of how bad, still has mothers and sweethearts and wifes just like all the rest of us, jist as much as the good guy, if not more so.”

  Freddy mulls over this philosophy. With the house pittle full of visitors, he would just as soon sit out here on the porch with Doc, watching the world go by and mulling over philosophical thoughts. “You may be right,” he allows, to his teacher.

  The world goes by. A stately, strong-looking roosterroach comes up the road, his head held high. “Morsel, Doc,” he says, and climbs the porch.

  “MORSEL, SAM,” Doc says, raising his voice so much that Freddy jumps. To his student he explains, “Squire Sam is deef as a post.”

  “What’s a post?” Freddy wants to know.

  “A figure of speech,” Doc says. He asks of Squire Sam, “HOW’S EVERTHANG OVER AT HOLY HOUSE?”

  “I haven’t been over there since last night,” Sam says. “I thought maybe you could tell me, but I see you’ve moved back to your clinic.”

  “IT’S A HOUSE PITTLE NOW,” Doc declares, and attempts to pantomime the care and treatment and feeding of patients. Freddy joins in with the pantomime, especially the feeding part, but is overdoing the pantomime to the point of clowning. “He’s just deef, Freddy,” Doc cautions. “He aint stupid.” To Sam he invites, “COME LOOK WHO WE GOT.” He leads Sam into the house pittle and shows him the three villains.

  “What happened to them?” Sam whispers,

  Doc does not whisper. “YORE DAD WHOPPED THE SOUP OUTEN ’EM.”

  “Oh,” Sam says, and manages to figure it all out, without any further yelling from Doc or pantomiming. The ladies are looking accusingly at Sam, as if he were the assailant who had mutilated their loved ones. Sam returns to the porch, and crouches. He stares in the direction of Parthenon.

  “His sweetheart is up yonder at Partheeny,” Doc explains to Freddy. “Squire Sam don’t know it, but his sweetheart has done went and married another feller, Archy Tichborne, the preacher’s boy, and they’re up yonder honeymooning at that house.” Doc raises his voice and asks Sam, “YOU FIXIN TO GO HOME?” Sam doesn’t answer for a while. Doc says to Freddy, “I don’t know if I should warn him, or not.” Freddy shakes his head.

  “Maybe not,” Sam says at length. “Maybe I ought to just go live in Holy House, and watch out for things in this corner of Stay More.”

  “GOOD IDEE,” Doc says. “YORE CLOCK HAS DONE STOPPED ANYHOW.”

  “Yes,” Sam says. “I know.” Doc wonders how he knows. Has someone told him? He can’t hear the Clock striking, or rather he can’t hear the Clock not striking, which is even harder to hear than the Clock striking. Sam adds, “We’re stuck in the present tense.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Doc agrees. “But maybe not forever. Maybe the Man and the Woman will come back.” He realizes he isn’t raising his voice, that he has wasted his words. He starts to repeat himself, “THAT’S WHAT I?” but Sam interrupts.

  “The present tense can’t be cured by starting the Clock again, or by restoring what has been lost. The present tense always creates a mood of expectancy. But maybe expectancy sometimes lasts forever.”

  “Freddy, are you payin attention?” Doc asks of his protégé. “That’s pure-dee genuine philosophy, and Squire Sam is going to be our philosopher. We’ve had enough of preachers and religion. Now we’re going to have some philosophy!” Doc wishes he could volunteer to be a deacon in whatever kind of church Sam is going to establish.

  “Is Man gonna come back?” Freddy inquires of the new philosopher.

  “You’ll have to ask it louder,” Doc tells Freddy. “Speak up, so’s he can hear you.”

  “Yes, Man will always come back,” Sam says without waiting for Freddy to repeat himself. “But that’s future tense.” Then, seeing that Doc looks astounded that he can hear, he adds, “Doc, you know, that grease from the mountings of a bell recently rung really works.”

  INSTAR THE SIXTH:

  The Convert

  Chapter thirty-six

  Though they do not exactly sleep together, Tish and Archy retire for the daylight hours in each other’s company to the inside of the vanity in Sharon’s bathroom, where they hide before the wrath of Squire Hank, who has banished the three deacons from Parthenon, has chased Chidiock Tichborne from one end of the house to the other without catching him, and has told Archy that he and his “bride” are welcome to spend the day but must vacate the premises at sunset. Tish has tried to protest to the Squire that she and Archy are not actually married; she has wanted to return to Holy House in search of Sam and her good friend Hoimin, but Squire Hank, in a foul mood, hasn’t listened to a word she has said. Now she and Archy, not before having a newlyweds’ quarrel that has virtually estranged them and left her in copious tears, are attempting to sleep inside this vanity, and Archy at least has been able to fall into fitful slumber. Archy has declared his intention to get them unmarried as soon as he can present the case to the Justice of the Peace, who is Doc Swain. As soon as he gets them unmarried, Archy intends to strike out alone for Mount Staymore or the world beyond. It has been his fondest wish to take Tish with him, but he does not want a nonvirgin even as a traveling companion. Now he feels no love for her. “I wouldn’t give ye a marble if you begged for it!” he has
declared.

  Did she err in telling him of her brief affair with Squire Sam? He had demanded the whole truth; she had had no choice, but stopped short of telling him she had borne an easteregg. She had had to explain how she knew the names of all the collectibles in Sam’s food treasury. Archy had already guessed that there was something going on between Sam and Tish, what with the way Sam had saved her life by spoiling Man’s aim of a bullet at her, the consequences of which had created all this turmoil in Stay More. Archy had even become friends with Sam during the nights they attempted to do something for Man, and, while Sam had told Archy nothing about his feelings for Tish, Archy guessed that they were “sweethearts.” Tish simply had to confess to what Archy already suspected, and Tish had never told a lie in her life.

  She can understand Archy’s bitterness and it hurts her, for she really likes Archy. If Sam had not come into her life, she would have been thrilled at the prospect of being married to Archy. Any girl in Stay More would give her right sniffwhip to be Archy’s wife. Compared with Sam, Archy is so matter-of-fact, down to earth, commonsensical, not to mention much more handsome. Sam’s not bad-looking at all, but he just doesn’t have Archy’s big eyes and firm mandibles and sleek wings. And somehow Tish feels much more comfortable with Archy. Sam, even apart from his deafness, seems somehow remote, unnatural, not of this world. He is not “just folks,” the way Archy is. He is too different, even though it is unlikely that he will ever want to live again in that peculiar apartment inside the Clock, now that the Clock has stopped.

  Will Sharon ever come home and wind the Clock? What would life be like for Tish if she stayed here in Parthenon when Sharon returns? Even if Sharon returns, and Tish doubts it as much as Archy does, Tish is not certain she would want to live with Sam in Parthenon (assuming, of course, he ever asked her to). She would get lonesome for the folks of Carlott and Holy House, for her brothers and sisters, her mother and f—. Tish thinks again of her westered father, and sheds another tear.

  Unable to sleep, she climbs to the top of the vanity and explores it, half-blinded by daylight and stumbling among the paraphernalia that Woman uses to prettify Herself, although Tish cannot at first determine the function of each of the items: the brush and the comb are obviously for the hair, but what are all the plastic rollers for? And the board with thousands of grains of sand stuck to it? Is that for cleaning the teeth? The various bottles and jars, tubes and cylinders, vials and compacts intrigue her, and, although she can read, she can only guess at their contents and uses.

  She is not alone. She turns and sees Archy approaching her, stiffly, his gitalongs moving strangely along the countertop, and, more strangely, her sniffwhips detect the unmistakable odor of his slumberscent. He is asleep, yet walking! His eyes are vacant. As he moves toward her, he murmurs in sad, despairing tones, “West! west! west!”

  She is so startled she cannot speak, but she is not afraid of him. She waits. He comes up to her, and lifts her up in his strong touchers with the aid of his fore-gitalongs. He carries her.

  “My wife—west, west!” he says.

  He carries her toward the edge of the countertop. Does he intend to throw her off? Or, in his dream, does he imagine he can fly away with her? Is the “west” he keeps repeating the west of his intended directional destination, or is it the west of nonexistence? What is he doing with her? At the edge of the countertop he stops, holds her even higher for a moment above his head, and she has a panoramic view down below of an oval pond of water enclosed in a glistening white porcelain bowl elevated above the floor, a pool of crystal water framed in its wooden shore.

  She tries to speak, but he silences her with a kiss, a profound, passionate, and yet anguished kiss. Then he heaves her out into the air! And she drifts down inexorably toward the waiting waters. She beats her nonexistent wings futilely and kicks with her gitalongs and manages to cry, “Oh, Archy, how could you?” but the last syllable and the question mark are strangled in the water.

  Tish does not panic and drown. She treads water with her gitalongs and keeps her sniffwhips dry. The shore is too high, but the wall of the porcelain bowl, aglint in the afternoon sunlight, is not far, and she swims slowly toward it, reaches it, and seeks purchase with the tips of her gitalongs, but the wall is smooth and impervious; she cannot grip anywhere. She scrambles, she claws, she lunges and crawls, but cannot clutch hold of the wall. It is the same all the way around, an unbroken bank of mockingly white and pure enamel. “Archy!” she calls upward, hoping to wake him and summon his aid, although she cannot imagine what aid he might give her. But he has disappeared, he has gone back to wherever he had begun his dream, to finish it, or he has wandered sleepwalking into some other part of Parthenon.

  She floats. She does not tire, yet, and she keeps as calm as she can, telling herself that the merest thought of despair might weaken her or unsettle her, and let her drown. Time passes, or, since time has ceased to exist, and it is only the present tense, the tense presence remains definite, suspended and endless. Daylight passes. Tish feels hunger and knows that it’s breakfasttime. If the Clock still worked, it would say “EGG,” but the Clock is west. Tish thinks of Egg, she thinks of Easteregg, she wonders how her sixteen babies are coming along, growing steadily in their capsule in the place where she and Hoimin hid it. Another long month or so will pass before the capsule hatches, cracks, and lets the sixteen out into this cruel world. Will any of them find their way back to Stay More and will anyone in Stay More tell them of their mother, drowned and westered in a—, in a—? Tish has been in this water so long, she has gradually fathomed its purpose: it is not a reservoir of drinking water, or washing water, but a water which has been forced from some subterranean source like a spring and will return to a subterranean location to carry away the wastes of Woman. It is therefore a water potty. Will anyone tell those sixteen poor babes that their poor mother westered in a water potty?

  When will Sharon return to find a black bug, perhaps still alive, floating in Her water potty, and cause the water to flush the bug away? For that seems to be Tish’s only fate. Thinking of fate, she remembers her fairy godmother, the Fate-Thing, and wonders why that kind protectress wants to wester her in this fashion. Perhaps, Tish reflects as night comes on, the Fate-Thing knows that everyone must wester eventually, and the Fate-Thing has chosen for Tish this dramatic, exceptional, extraordinary west.

  From time to time, or, since there is no Time but only a sense of the necessity of repetition, Tish calls out, “HELP!” She cannot know that her father, presumed west himself, is also occasionally, between bites of lime peel and egg shell, summoning the strength to holler, “HELP!” In this same household, their cries go unheard, the father’s because his is encased and muffled by thick plastic bagging, the daughter’s because hers is confined within the solid walls of the porcelain bowl, which indeed serves as a megaphone directing the cries of “HELP” upward, if only there were someone to hear her….

  There is someone to hear her. He appears, perched like a guardian angel on the edge of the round wooden seat, peering down at her. It is not Archy. Tish tries to sign “Help me,” with gestures, but she cannot work her gestures in the water. She tries to sniffwhipspell “H-E-L-P,” but her sniffwhips are too wet to spell. She can only moan, in exasperation and relief, “Oh, Sam!”

  “Tish,” he says. “Mrs. Tish Tichborne. You know, it sounds like someone clucking.”

  “I KNOW! I KNOW!” she yells, hoping he can hear her. “BUT I’M NOT! HONEST I’M NOT!” She sobs, and having used up the strength of her voice, can only sigh, “If you could get me out of here, I could explain it to you.” She talks to herself.

  “Explain it to me now,” he says, as if he has heard her.

  “You can’t hear me,” she declares, “and I’m too tired to holler or try to spell with my sniffwhips.”

  “I can hear you,” he declares.

  “You can?”

  “Yes, Doc prescribed something for my prongs which apparently works. I can he
ar whatever you have to say.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!” she exclaims. “So listen careful.” And she begins to talk, as fast as she can. She relates to Sam the whole story of her recent dealings with Archy, and of sleepwalking Archy’s unconscious attempt to wester her by throwing her into the water potty. She is careful to explain that the wedding took place without her consent or active participation, that the marriage was practically decreed by the groom’s father. She is also careful to express her opinion that Archy did not deliberately intend to wester her, but was only acting unconsciously out of some deep-seated frustration or disappointment. She concludes the entire story by remarking, “I don’t really think we’re married. Do you?”

  “Not if the officiant was a defrocked Frockroach, as it were,” Sam says. “Chid had no authority to perform the marriage.” Sam relates to Tish how his father, Squire Hank, is at this moment looking all over Stay More for Chid. Chid dare not return to Holy House, for the roosterroaches there feel that Chid has abandoned them, and they are in a mood to wester him if he ever shows up there again. “But as for Archy…”

  “I think Archy has gone west,” Tish declares. “I mean westward west, I mean thataway.” She attempts to gesture. “In any case, I don’t care if I never see him again.”

  And now, having said this, Tish is surprised to discover that Squire Gregor Samsa Ingledew is proposing to her. “Tish, will you marry me?” he has asked. Has she heard him correctly?