Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One)

by Wingate, Susan

  “K.”

  “Spaghetti good?”

  “Mmm.” I nodded my head making a yummy noise.

  “Good.” She stopped eating and tipped her head slightly to the right. “I love you honey.”

  I nodded my head at her and gave her a big toothy smile.

  She stopped smiling. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth after you eat.” Mom took a big swig of her white wine and stood. “When you’re finished, rinse off your plate before sticking it in the dishwasher, please.”

  “K.”

  “I’m going to clean up the kitchen.”

  “K.” Me. “K.” Her. Mom said K too at the same time as I did.

  I shot her a sniggly squinty smile and crossed my eyes. She shot the same kind of smile back at me, crossed her eyes too, then I said it properly. “Okay, mom. I will.”

  She kissed the top of my head. It felt as if the Pope was putting the sign of the cross on my forehead, it felt that good.

  “I’m so proud of you and your spider, Susie. You’re a brave little girl.” When she said it this time, it felt like she meant more than just the fact I’d trapped the spider. But, she didn’t say anymore.

  October 7, 2010 - - NOTES FROM TODAY’S CAPTURE OF ARACHNID ANDROMEDUS MAXIMUS SCARIUS.

  1. Using a pint-sized Tupperware bowl and a piece of cardboard from an old Skecher’s shoebox, I caught a spider (see exhibit A) and placed her in an aquarium (see exhibit B).

  2. Using another nameless and definitely more inferior plastic container, I place a peeled banana and a quarter of an apple into said container to attract bugs who enjoy their fruit (see exhibit C).

  3. When she seemed to just be languishing about at the bottom of the aquarium and not eating bugs, I realized she could not capture bugs (sort of like I captured her) without the use of her web. You see, spiders cannot climb glass for some freaky reason. Therefore, I made a haven in her aquarium and placed a structure there where she might think to build a web suitable for catching bugs who like fruit.

  4. She has been building a web all day today and has caught a couple of bugs in it which she has already killed, paralyzed and maimed for her own selfish survival.

  EXHIBIT A

  EXHIBIT B

  EXHIBIT C

  SEVENTEEN - Dead Deer + Dinner Guests = Uno Crapola Date Night

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Mom put both hands on her hips. “He and his father will be coming over at 6:30 this evening. Period.” She glared at me.

  I glared too but not at mom. I glared at the house across the street.

  “How am I suppose to eat with that weirdo sitting across from me at the table?”

  “You can be so mean sometimes, Susie.” She placed both hands on the waist of what used to be my favorite satiny blue dress of hers. Tonight the way it showed off her body just seemed so totally inappropriate that I was at a loss for words which usually cannot be said about me. I am a vocabulary queen, if you must know. Tonight, however, it felt as if she had wadded up that whole stupid dress and shoved it into my mouth and I was gagging on it.

  “Everyone knows he’s a freak, mom.”

  She turned away and pulled out a baking dish out of the cupboard and set it next to the four Yukon gold potatoes that sat dripping on our fake granite counter. The potatoes looked like they’d just run a potato marathon or something, in that pile of sweat. I picked two up and began bouncing them along the counter in their own special potato race.

  Mom, however, preempted my joy and snatched the potatoes out of my hands.

  “I need to cut these.” She rinsed them again like I had cooties or something on my fingers.

  “Sorry.”

  “Grab me the half and half and butter, will you? Please?”

  I ambled over to the refrigerator and opened the door. The wrong way I guess ‘cause mom jumped me.

  “Don’t put your hands on the front of the refrigerator, Susie. How many times do I have to tell you that? Hmm?”

  She was coming at me with a wad of paper towels and the Windex.

  “Sorry.” I backed away from the refrigerator.

  Phfft. “I just cleaned.” With only one pump from the bottle, she wiped and her words joggled when she spoke them. She sounded tight, edgy.

  “Why are you so jumpy. It’s just stupid and his dad.”

  “If you act out. You’ll eat in your room.”

  “Fine!” I stormed out of the kitchen and down the hall to my room. “Fine!” I screamed again just before slamming the door.

  Dearest Diary,

  Mom is so weird sometimes. I think she’s already forgotten dad. How can she forget dad?

  I couldn’t write anymore. I flopped on my bed and laid my head back onto my soft feathery pillow and stared out my window. A web sans the spider that went with it, swung gently from an a soft lilting breeze as the evening was settling in long stripes of yellow broken up by long strips of tall green or brown and making shadows appear like giants crawling toward nighttime of trees and telephone poles.

  When I awoke it was with the doorbell. The Ryders were here. My nose caught dinner’s smell—roast beef and au gratin potatoes. The scent of butter made me sit up in bed.

  I wiped a cord of drool from my mouth. A long line of it ended up like slug slime along the sleeve of my gray tee-shirt.

  From my room, you could hear voices other than mom’s as she greeted them.

  Susie!

  Mom called to me from the kitchen and it reminded me of how Mr. Ryder had called for Matt.

  Susie! Time for dinner!

  I wished she wasn’t yelling like that. Not angry. Not giddy. But fake. For them.

  EIGHTEEN - Please! No Ear Wax!

  Porkbutt hoagie.

  That’s all I could think about. I even thought I smelled bacon once in my state of delirium.

  Locked there, under Morlson's ear explained how creepy crawlies like me can get into windows and through the slimmest of slim openings. My legs flattened out and went straight, all except for my claws, they hooked into the weave of Morlson’s cotton pillowcase. Still, if I didn’t want to do permanent damage to my new-found body, it was best that I remain calm and not move.

  Pinned like that made the world sound as if I’d gone into a tunnel, or under water, because every noise echoed like when you put a microphone inside your mouth. It got all loud and distorted and felt so close-up that my ears wanted to pop. Yes. We spiders have ears too but they aren’t outside of our bodies like the dumbo-looking things humans tote around all day long. Our ears can’t pin you into a flabby sandwich of flesh. Ours are sleek and, dare I say, ear-o-dynamic. 

  And, just as I began to get more than a little freaked out and claustrophobic about my situation, Ms. More-body grinded her teeth and sucked in a wad of snot that sounded as if she'd sucked back a dump-truck load of boulders they went hurtling back against her soft palate like a booger avalanche plummeting down into the Hudson Bay, and, ultimately, sliding down her hungry throat.

  Ick. No more cow's milk for Morlson!

  Then, lucky for me, the Queen rolled again, the other direction this time and back off of me.

  Phweeee! I gasped in a deep gulp of air. It was then, when I got my air back, I realized she might’ve killed me by suffocating me under that the lard-filled slab.

  “Oh. My. God!”

  “You ok-k-k-kay?”

  “Did you see that?”

  “Y-y-y-yep. D-d-d-did.”

  But fat-butt woke just as we were discussing my near-death experience. I skittered away from any further danger of being crushed by her again, to the far edge of the bed, nearest the window.

  From outside, Delilah’s eyes glowed halo green as she peered into the room and patted at the window pane. I waved her down so toady wouldn’t see her.

  I got all animated then, waving six of my eight legs at her, shooing her away from sight.

  “No. Delilah! Go away. Lay down!” I whispered loudly at her.

  The bed rocked as Morlson lumb
ered from her back to her side and then into a sitting position.

  Chmak chmak chmak.

  Her lips smacked after a smelly yawn that filled the bedroom with scents of mildew and cheap hooch. A tinny zzzzz filled my tiny spider ears and made me lick my chops.

  The culprit, a fruit fly buzzing, spinning drowning circles in less than a half-empty wine glass. The glass sat on a cluttered nightstand with a couple of wads of nose tissue, a greasy plate that glistened oily remnants of meat and crust in the moonlight. A TV remote sat wedged under the lip of the plate. Its plastic contrasted of matte black plastic and shiny fingerprint smudges from the oily whatever she’d consumed while in bed before nodding off into icky-teacher-la-la-land.

  Morlson grumbled, looked over at the glass, picked it up and swigged down what was left, fly and all. My gag reflex kicked in once more, as if I was being held captive in limbo somewhere between human and spider.

  “Oh. My. God.” Just then, I swallowed hard trying to hold back to stop from escaping my lips a building and embarrassing burp. “Did you see that?”

  “Sh-sh-sh-she swallowed the f-f-f-fruit f-f-f-fly!” He paused for just a sec, smirked and said, "I d-d-d-don't know wh-wh-wh-why she swallowed the f-f-f-fly!"

  “Too much.”

  Morlson pressed off the bed. Her tent-sized nightgown glowed from a dim light coming from down the hall where she headed. It captured the outline of her naked body.

  Gag.

  NINETEEN - Things I Wish Would Never Happen

  The one thing I hated about dad and, like, I mean, it’s the only thing I hated, is that he went on these annual trips with “the guys” to go hunting in MA for deer.

  Lord.

  But mom says everybody’s different and we must accept everyone for who they are not what we want them to be.

  And, before, mom made me sometimes go into that room, when we would have company over which we don't very often anymore because when dad died people stopped coming over. I think mostly ‘cause mom would never stop crying around them.

  I cried too but with mom it was gushers of tears, the kind that ripped your heart out, you know. So, we hardly get anybody over here except for like one of her friends from work and then that's only every six months or so when she comes by to eat popcorn and have a glass of wine and, also, for their gossiping sessions about the people at Costco. For those visits, I don’t have to sit under the watchful eye of the dead deer, Moose.

  God. It’s so sad and horrible.

  I just couldn't shake the thought that when dad died the "ghosts of deers past" came and got him.

  Anyway, I held my plate with both hands like a homeless child and stood at the edge of the hall staring into the dining room. The room of “all things dead.” I felt Moose watching me out of the corner of his soft brown oversized marbles.

  That room had gone, in one fell swoop from a place where the creamy muslin curtains caught the sunlight in the morning and cast off gauzy shadows in the evening, where the leaf-shaped shards of glass in the chandelier twinkled over a candlelit dinner at night and where they prismed rays onto the beige walls during the day, where mom and dad held hands and laughed with me telling them about everything that had happened during the day, where I passed by just before leaving to catch my bus as I tried to catch just a little leftover aroma of mom’s meal from the night before. To, now--a sad empty tomb where no one should ever enter, and certainly a place where no one should ever eat.

  “Susie.” Her juicy red overly painted lips urged me in, even though she knew how I felt about that room. She even winked at me, tugging at me with a cock of her head, nearly blinding me with that stripe of teal blue ice crystal eye shadow she decided to color her eyelids in.

  I refused.

  She gave an uncomfortable cough. “Now.” She tried to pull me in again with a more dire jerk of her head.

  I shook my head defiantly.

  She looked at Mr. Ryder. Paul. Her new best friend looked befuddled. “She doesn’t like the deer head.”

  Mr. Ryder, Paul, looked up. Then he stood up, up from the chair he’d taken over, the very chair where dad used to sit.

  He pulled off his argyle cardigan. I was surprised not to see a road map of our town crumpled into the fabric of his white shirt underneath. He must've ironed it for their date! And, then, he draped the argyle thing over his arm and walked up to the poor, poor dead Moose and stared at him for like an eon. In fact, everyone was now looking at the sad head of dead Moose mounted there on our wall, except for me. I was watching Mr. Ryder.

  But, then, he undraped his cardigan and flung it over Moose’s antlers like a veil or something.

  Matt let out a snort. The dork.

  Mom laughed out loud.

  Mr. Ryder looked at me and put his hands out like he just solved the most difficult problem in physics. If there’d been a drum roll it would have ended right then with a big fat stupid ‘ta da!’

  I just rolled my eyes and turned around, spinning away on my heels.

  Mom called at me but she couldn’t very well freak out in front of our dumb guests, now, could she. “Susie.” It sounded pathetic. I didn’t care. I have my boundaries.

  When I reached the kitchen I heard footsteps coming up after me. I expected the fight.

  But I wouldn’t be waiting, looking at her when she entered so instead I just placed my dish on the kitchen table and slid out a chair and was beginning to sit.

  “Why is it there?”

  I turned fast. Bat boy had his plate too and had stopped in front of the refrigerator, which, by the way, had zero finger smudges on it.

  “What?” My question let him know that his question bothered me.

  “The head. Why is it there?”

  I collapsed down into my chair. “My dad.”

  “Where’s your dad?”

  I hated him for asking.

  “Dead.” But I wasn’t finished. “Like your mom.” I turned to my plate. I didn’t care to see his stupid hurt expression.

  “Oh.” He walked up behind me and then around to the side of me and set down his plate too.

  “Did they tell you to come in here or something?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you here.”

  He sat down.

  God.

  “It’s gross. The head.”

  I snapped a look at him when he admitted it.

  Then, he ruined the moment by mushing his potatoes around with his fork.

  Creep Kid continued, “I cannot abide by hunting.” It was like a gong going off when he continued, again. “The killing of anything.” Gong! Gong! Gong!

  My God. Was this wack-job the only person in the world who got me?

  Talk about depressed...

  But, he wasn't finished.

  “Humans, insects or animals.” Then after finally having his say, he’d dozed a heap of au gratin onto his fork, he poked at an inch-sized square of meat which he held in place with his butter knife. He stuffed the entire mountain of gruel he'd built into his wide-mouthed-frog mouth. “Mmm.” Nodding his head kind of slow, he chewed making yummy noises and saying, “Mmm. Good.”

  I looked away, stunned, at my plate. “Yeah. Mom’s a good cook.”

  He nodded as he stared at his plate too like one of those dogs with a yo-yo head that people put in their rearview windows. Matt "Yo-Yo-Head" Ryder.

  It got too weird, too uncomfortable, and it began to feel like someone poking me in the shoulder over and over and over until I burst out,

  “Why are you two here?” I slammed down my fork.

  “Your mom invited us.” He sort of twitched but he didn’t look up just then.

  “Not tonight. I mean. Why did you move here. To our neighborhood.”

  But, then his head lifted real slow like and our eyes connected. He just looked at me without any expression whatsoever.

  He stared at me for a sec then he looked back down at his plate. He brought his eating hand down onto his lap, fork and all, as he contem
plated the question. I guess.

  He had thought it through for like an hour, then, he spoke. “I dunno.”

  I rolled my eyes making a complete circle with them that landed in my plate. “You just happened to pick my street and move into the house directly across from my house. Is that it?” I stabbed another piece of meat.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Gahhh.” My mouth was already open from saying ‘gah’ so I put the piece of roast beef on my fork into it.

  It tasted like delectable tight strings of buttery meaty goodness. It was hard to stay mad when she cooked so well.

  Then, I poked at my potatoes and bit at them. I shot daggers out of my eyes at him when he looked at me while I was eating. “What?” I said it with a half-open, half-closed mouth to protect Mathew "the Pe-ewww" from seeing the train wreck of food masticated inside.

  “Nothing.” He shoveled more potatoes onto his fork and then poked at another piece of meat. He placed it slowly into his mouth and chewed methodically, as if testing it for consistency and texture, temperature and moistness. And, before I could tell him how much I hated the fact that his father was in there with my mother and that he, a one, Matthew Yo-Yo Ryder was sitting in here with me, he spoke.

  “What were you doing yesterday?”

  “What?” The question sounded sharp and angry. I felt my nose wrinkle when I gunned the word at him.

  “Yesterday? In the morning? In the yard?” He had this way. This way of asking or answering a question so matter-of-factly that you never had to wonder when the period or question mark was placed on the sentence. He turned back to his plate.

  I felt my face ease up when I realized he’d seen me and mom out catching the spider. It was like, I don’t know, weird in a way.

  “You were watching me?” Creepy weird.

  He must’ve sensed the creepiness factor.

  “I was up. Brushing my teeth.” He took another bite. “It was kind of hard not to notice.” He paused, then added, “The screaming.” He said all of it with a full mouth, potatoes peeking out the corners of his moist lips. I wanted to puke.