Grasshopper Jungle

by Andrew Smith

  Hungry Jack rotated his head toward the sound of the crashing box of porno tapes. His arms spiked high and his useless wings flared out from the carapace coverings along his backside. It was an impressive and threatening pose for a large male mantis. Then Hungry Jack came scuttling straight across the alley at Johnny McKeon.

  Johnny probably said What the hey? again and fell back through the open door to From Attic to Seller Consignment Store.

  Will Wallace was just pulling up to the front of Tipsy Cricket Liquors. He was horny and drunk, and the inside of his Volvo smelled like a Stanpreme. He did not even notice Travis Pope standing in front of The Pancake House. Will Wallace just took Travis Pope for someone having a cigarette break, as opposed to someone who had been transformed by Contained MI Plague Strain 412E into a gigantic carnivorous bug that was more powerful than a wild tiger.

  By the time Will Wallace’s eye caught hold of the unnatural form of Travis Pope, he was already within striking range of Travis’s lightning-fast barbed arms. Travis Pope wasn’t exactly hungry, but prey excited him as much as Eileen Pope’s oviduct did.

  Travis fired his clawed arms at Will Wallace and crushed Will’s rib cage between them. Will Wallace did not even have time to gasp.

  Travis carried Will Wallace, who thrashed and kicked uselessly, into The Pancake House. Travis Pope smeared Will Wallace’s hair through a puddle of imitation-maple-flavored syrup. Then Travis ate him like a piece of French toast.

  Johnny McKeon managed to slam shut the thick, solid-core door that opened from his secondhand store onto the back alley at Grasshopper Jungle. Johnny had stumbled upon the scene of cannibalistic bugs as big as grizzly bears that fucked and ate at the same time, which were the two things that bugs like to do.

  Hungry Jack was a mere half second too slow to catch Johnny McKeon. As Johnny bolted shut the door, Hungry Jack punched his spiked arms into the wood. The barbs on Hungry Jack’s arms bored two-thirds of the way through the door.

  Bugs are not smart.

  Hungry Jack could have easily hammered the door into toothpicks.

  As soon as the door was shut, Hungry Jack forgot all about Johnny McKeon. Although he knew he was still hungry, Hungry Jack went back to wait on another turn with Eileen Pope.

  Eileen Pope and the two surviving Hoover Boys were gone.

  Hungry Jack sniffed and sniffed at the air, trying to smell her, but Eileen Pope was no longer emitting the powerful hormones that had attracted him and the other males in the first place.

  Johnny McKeon was smart.

  Since the break-in at Tipsy Cricket Liquors the previous Friday, Johnny had installed an alarm system that connected his businesses to the Iowa State Patrol.

  Johnny McKeon activated his alarm.

  The Iowa State Patrol, which operated from a substation in Waterloo, was alerted to an emergency at the Ealing Mall. A patrol car with a state trooper from Waterloo was on its way.

  It was not a good idea.

  At that moment, it was early morning in Germany. My brother, Eric Szerba, was lying on his back in a hospital bed. An intravenous needle pumped drugs and fluids into his arm, and other things had been taped to his body to tell whether or not Eric Szerba was still alive.

  A thin plastic tube had been inserted into the opening of Eric Szerba’s penis so he could urinate.

  The tube was manufactured in Ohio.

  It was called a catheter, as opposed to a Nightingale.

  Eric pushed numbers on the display of a cell phone. Eric Szerba was calling me, but I left my phone inside my house. Eric Szerba would not have known that cell phones do not work in Eden.

  Eric Szerba was also crying.

  Ingrid rolled herself out from her place at my desk. She went across the room and pulled a pair of my discarded blue Iowa plaid boxers out from under the bed. She sniffed the boxers and rested her damp nose in them. This is what Ingrid did sometimes when she was lonely, or when she needed to take her mind off shitting.

  It was Ingrid’s silent way of kissing me.

  Ah Wong Sing, who most people called Louis, kissed Connie Brees one last time before leaving the Del Vista Arms. Connie was in the shower. She was standing naked in the same grimy tub where I took a shower Tuesday before school. I had also vomited in that same bathroom.

  Louis pulled the yellowed curtain back and looked at Connie Brees. He wanted to have sex again, but Connie told him no because her son would probably be home any minute now.

  Connie Brees had to get ready for work.

  She took two Xanax as soon as Ah Wong Sing left the apartment.

  When the song finished playing, Shann kissed Robby and told him thank you for dancing.

  It was not the kind of kiss I hoped to see. Shann kissed the side of Robby’s cheek. I stared at Robby’s perfect neck and jaw. Shann’s breasts looked especially full and heavy beneath the shimmer of her jumpsuit. Robby was a little embarrassed. He knew what I was thinking.

  Robby always knew what I was thinking.

  Robby Brees turned red when Shann kissed him.

  I lit a cigarette.

  LUCKY, IN POLISH BOY NAMES

  GOOD BOOKS ARE about everything.

  This is my history.

  Andrzej Szczerba and Herman Weinbach became great friends.

  Andrzej Szczerba was also my great-grandfather.

  After they left the soup kitchen in Ames, Andrzej Szczerba and Herman Weinbach walked through the night. They tried to find a place where they could sleep and stay warm. They fed bread crumbs to Baby, who almost immediately began to impersonate Herman Weinbach.

  Herman habitually used expressions like Ach! And Nu?

  Baby began saying Ach and Nu, too. Andrzej thought it was funny.

  The boys believed they were headed toward California, but the following day they took a ride from a family whose pickup truck had been loaded with all their household belongings, and Herman Weinbach and Andrzej Szczerba ended up at an abandoned farm outside of a place called Midvale, which was also in Iowa.

  Nobody even knew the boys had moved themselves into the place.

  They lived there together, with Baby, a talking European starling, for nearly a year. On their third night in the abandoned farmhouse, Andrzej Szczerba and Herman Weinbach slept together.

  Herman Weinbach was homosexual.

  At first, Andrzej found the situation to be awkward and frustrating.

  What Herman Weinbach and Andrzej Szczerba did together evolved into something substantially more than an experiment. So Andrzej was confused, very much like his great-grandson, who would also be named Andrzej. But Andrzej Szczerba also enjoyed the closeness of sleeping with Herman Weinbach.

  Andrzej had never kissed any person other than his mother, Eva Nightingale, and his father, Krzys Szczerba, in his entire life. Young Andrzej enjoyed kissing Herman Weinbach very much. Herman Weinbach was experienced, and Andrzej felt tremendous pleasure and satisfaction in sharing the sex the two of them enjoyed together.

  Nobody knew anything about Andrzej and Herman.

  They fell as deeply in love with each other as anyone in the entire history of mankind.

  That is the truth.

  Andrzej loved Herman, but he told him he would never become a Communist.

  Herman Weinbach laughed about that.

  Baby imitated everything the boys said to each other.

  Baby said, Ach! Being a Communist homosexual Jew in Iowa is like being a bird that speaks Polish. And Baby also said, I believe I am in love with you, Herman Weinbach and I love you with all of my heart, Andrzej Szczerba.

  The boys hunted and scrounged, sometimes begging for food to stay alive. They were very happy together in Midvale. Nobody bothered them at all. Baby flew around the house with them, and every night Andrzej and Herman slept together in their lovers’ bed. They had found the bed in the home’s attic on the morning after their initial experiment. They had pulled the bed down to the home’s living room so they could sleep beside the fireplace, where
they burned furniture and sometimes even the doors from kitchen cupboards to stay warm.

  They loved each other.

  In January of 1934, Herman Weinbach became ill with pneumonia. He died while Andrzej held him in bed.

  Andrzej Szczerba was completely lost without Herman.

  Andrzej asked the bird, What am I going to do, Baby?

  Andrzej cried for days and days without leaving the house. Finally, Andrzej Szczerba wrapped Herman Weinbach’s gray body in their bedclothes and he carried his friend out into the frozen winter.

  Baby flitted around Andrzej Szczerba and lit on his collar or atop his head as the boy toiled at digging Herman Weinbach’s grave.

  All the while the bird sang out about how much Herman loved Andrzej, and vice versa. Baby said things that were sexual and suggestive, too—things the boys sometimes said to each other openly in the solitude of their squatter’s home.

  Andrzej Szczerba was like me in many ways. He was confused and troubled by things, and he loved his friend as much as it was possible to love anyone. But there were those things that set Andrzej Szerba apart from me, too.

  This is what happened:

  Andrzej knew he had to leave Midvale after he buried Herman Weinbach on the old farm. Maybe it was that he was crazy with grief. I believe that is the truth. Andrzej knew he could not keep Baby with him any longer. Baby said too many things that could make problems for a young man in Iowa in 1934. Andrzej Szczerba was eighteen years old in 1934.

  Andrzej Szczerba killed his bird and left the farmhouse in Midvale, Iowa, on the same evening he buried Herman Weinbach’s body in a ruined cornfield.

  That spring, Andrzej Szczerba found himself in Iowa City. He was still greatly tormented over the things he had done with Herman Weinbach, and about losing everything he had ever loved.

  Andrzej Szczerba needed to prove something to himself.

  In this way, he was very much like me.

  He found a job cleaning up at a butcher’s shop. There, Andrzej met a young woman named Phoebe Hildebrandt. Phoebe Hildebrandt was plain and uninteresting at seventeen years of age. Her father was the butcher who had hired Andrzej to clean.

  They knew my great-grandfather as Andrew Szerba.

  Phoebe Hildebrandt and her father, whose name was Edmund, both took pity on Andrew because of his age, the softness of his features, and how quiet and sad the boy was. They never knew anything about Andrew’s love for a boy named Herman Weinbach.

  Andrew Szerba, whose Polish name was my name, Andrzej, also had bags under his eyes.

  Andrzej means man in Polish boy names.

  One night in June, Andrzej Szczerba and Phoebe Hildebrandt went for a walk. Andrzej forced himself sexually onto Phoebe. Phoebe Hildebrandt did not resist his advances.

  Phoebe cried. Sexual intercourse was painful. She lay on her back in the dirt, wondering how long it would take for him to finish. But she also allowed Andrzej Szczerba to insert his erect penis into her vagina. The act hurt Phoebe Hildebrandt, who was a virgin.

  Andrzej Szczerba wanted to find something out about himself, which he did. He found out he thought only about Herman Weinbach while he engaged in sexual intercourse with Phoebe Hildebrandt.

  Afterward, Andrzej Szczerba was disgusted in himself, and he was disgusted by Phoebe and her uninteresting personality, too.

  But Andrzej Szczerba’s semen found its way deep into Phoebe Hildebrandt’s body from that unloving sexual act in June of 1934 outside a place called Iowa City, Iowa.

  Phoebe Hildebrandt was my great-grandmother.

  In 1935, a boy named Felek Szczerba was born. This happened only two months after Andrzej and Phoebe were married.

  Andrzej Szczerba never put his penis inside Phoebe Hildebrandt again after that first time beside a dirt road in Iowa City.

  And that was our day. You know what I mean.

  Andrzej loved Felek, his son, as much as he had ever loved anything, but Andrzej Szczerba was very unhappy.

  Felek means lucky in Polish boy names.

  Felek Szczerba’s American name was Felix Szerba.

  Felix Szerba was my grandfather.

  MOVIE NIGHT IN EDEN

  THE THEATER IN Eden had half as many seats as the Cinezaar in Waterloo.

  It was comfortable and clean. Like everything in Eden, the theater sat unused, brand-new, and at the same time it had been preserved like some kind of fossil.

  This was where we learned the most about the history of McKeon Industries, and about the things that started happening up above us in Ealing after the unfortunate coincidence of Tyler Jacobson dropping the globe of Contained MI Plague Strain 412E directly onto Robby Brees’s blood.

  The screen of the Edenzaar was a bit smaller than the screen in Waterloo. The projector sat on a stand, atop a raised platform behind the rows of crushed velvet seats. But all things considered, it was one of the nicer movie venues in this part of Iowa.

  Growing up, Robby Brees had always been projector monitor in our classes at Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy. He knew everything about how to operate a 16 mm film projector. It took no effort to get him to volunteer to see what had been left behind in Eden for our viewing pleasure.

  As he searched through the cabinets behind us, Shann and I took seats in the back row. I slid my hand into the warm spot between Shann’s thighs.

  I said, “Eden Five needs you.”

  Shann said, “Eden Five has to wait until Eden Five grows up.”

  Robby held up a big steel canister of film and told us the movie inside was called Five Easy Pieces.

  I thought it was a funny name, especially since I was Eden 5. I was waiting, too. I thought I was grown up. I wished Shann would ask me to go back to one of the dorm rooms with her while Robby experimented with the projector.

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  “It’s from 1970. And it’s probably the greatest movie ever made,” Robby answered.

  Robby missed being born at the right time by four decades.

  My father, Eric Andrew Szerba, was ten years old in 1970.

  Eric Andrew Szerba’s Polish name would be Arek Andrzej Szczerba.

  His father, Felek, who everyone called Felix, was thirty-five when Five Easy Pieces was made.

  “You should have been alive in the seventies, Rob,” I said.

  “Hell yes,” Robby affirmed.

  We did not watch Five Easy Pieces that night. Robby found another stack of canisters that were labeled Eden Orientation Series. It felt like we were being indoctrinated into an army or some shit like that. And I hoped it was an army for repopulating the planet, so it made me very horny to think about my mission down here in Eden with Shann and Robby.

  “Duty calls,” I said.

  Shann said, “Huh?”

  I told Robby it was our duty to get oriented.

  “We owe it to the world, and to history, to watch Eden Orientation Series, Robby,” I pointed out.

  There were three film reels in all. Robby and I noticed they were numbered One of Five, Two of Five, and Three of Five.

  Two canisters of the five films were missing.

  Robby also found reels of a film called A Clockwork Orange, but Reels Four and Five of Eden Orientation Series were nowhere in the theater.

  That was because those particular reels were up on the roof at Grasshopper Jungle. They were there when we found a plastic flamingo with a steel spike coming out of its ass, a grimacing lemur mask that makes your face stink, and two bottles of wine, one of which Robby and I drank on Monday night in his bedroom at the Del Vista Arms.

  It took me and Robby a while to figure that part out.

  Not too long, though. We were probably a little more intelligent than most cave people.

  You know what I mean.

  Robby Brees fed the leader of Reel One into the projector, and a grainy numbered countdown squiggled and danced on the screen in front of us.

  Robby hopped over the seats and sat beside me.

  I was in the
middle of Shann and Robby. I was always in the middle of them. It made me feel horny and awkward, too.

  Most boys would have sat next to Shann.

  Boys from Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy would never sit without an empty seat between them at a movie theater. That’s what Lutheran boys do. They project their fear of being thought of as homosexual, so they do uncomfortable things like sit with empty seats between them, and then end up wondering if they or their friend on the other side of their sexual buffer zone might be curious about being gay. The uptight straight-kid Lutheran Boy Code of Conduct mandates the maintenance of THE EMPTY SEAT between boys in a movie theater, so you don’t get any funny ideas about your friend, and nobody looking at you will think you’re queer, either.

  Lutheran Boys in Iowa know those rules and follow them like lemmings on a springtime jog.

  But not Robby Brees. He sat so close to me, our knees rubbed against each other.

  Shann knew Robby was in love with me.

  How could she not know it?

  She probably knew I loved Robby, too. I said it when we danced, after all. And I meant it. Shann definitely knew I was in love with her, too.

  What was I going to do?

  I felt nervous and guilty when Shann held my hand and Robby’s knee pressed so comfortably against mine.

  “I wonder if they have any popcorn in the cafeteria,” Shann said.

  “Or ice cream,” Robby added. He touched my hand with his fingers. It electrified me.

  “Call the roller of big cigars,” I said.

  That was the first line from my favorite poem, The Emperor of Ice-Cream.

  The line sounded so sexually suggestive. It was like something Herman Weinbach might have said to his lover, Andrzej Szczerba. I felt myself turning a brilliant, heated red.

  The film’s sound came on just then.

  And there was the face of Dr. Grady McKeon.

  THE GOOD DOCTOR ACCOUNTS FOR HISTORY

  DR. GRADY MCKEON looked like an old movie star.

  Well, he looked like an old movie star with a slight twitch in his right eye, which was magnified through the thick lenses of his black-framed glasses. Dr. Grady McKeon looked like an old movie star with a psychopath’s twitch in his eye. He looked calm and reassuring, how you might imagine a serial killer to look at you while he was sharpening his knives and discussing which parts of your body produce the best-tasting sausage meat.