Grasshopper Jungle

by Andrew Smith

  There was no significance to the 412E part of the name. The marketing division of McKeon Industries believed the name sounded good for a sales pitch to the Defense Department, as though it came about after hundreds of trials and tests. In reality, 412E was just an accident of nature that occurred when scientists attempted to splice together the genetic material from grasshopper semen with plant sperm and fertilize corn with it.

  Scientists at McKeon Industries took the mold into their labs, where they grew great heaps of the stuff inside long glass boxes that looked like massive aquariums. They didn’t know what to do with the mold, but they were fascinated by the sponge-like form of the mold, and how it moved and pulsated, and gave off light.

  Despite seeing it in the black-and-white film, Robby and I recognized the familiar glow of the 412E mold when the camera captured its luminescence after the scientists in the film turned off the laboratory’s lights.

  Dr. Grady McKeon, the film’s narrator, said this:

  Behold the wondrous glow of a new being!

  I said, “Uh.”

  Shann said, “He’s a little overly impressed by something that looks like rotten cauliflower.”

  “That’s the same shit Johnny had in his office,” Robby said.

  “What is?” Shann asked.

  “That shit,” I said.

  Robby added, “Um. Yeah.”

  Robby Brees and I had some explaining to do.

  “Your stepfather,” I said. “He had some of that stuff inside his office at From Attic to Seller Consignment Store. Robby and I saw it.”

  “When were you inside Johnny’s office?” Shann asked.

  “Shh—” Robby said, playing the part of the irritated moviegoer who is distracted by talkers in the theater. “Be quiet and listen to the film.”

  Here was where Eden Orientation Series turned into a horror show.

  It turned into a horror show for two reasons.

  First, the scientists who were working on the Unstoppable Corn/Unstoppable Soldier project decided to try mixing the genetic material from the mold with a fresh sample of human blood.

  They decided to use Dr. Grady McKeon’s own blood.

  Dr. Grady McKeon thought of himself as a kind of God. So he drew his own blood to mix with the genetic material from the photoluminescent mold.

  It was not a good idea.

  The idea to mix human blood material with the 412E mold was even less reasonable than laboratory scientists deciding it was a good idea to smoke on the job and screw around with grasshopper semen by grafting it into plant sperm and injecting it into corn seeds.

  Dr. Grady McKeon’s blood made the 412E mold very happy.

  Here was the beginning of the end of the world, and it took place in the 1960s.

  “This is the shit that was drawn on the blackboard in the lecture hall,” I said.

  “Huh?” Shann said.

  Robby said, “Uh-oh.”

  It was all starting to come together.

  The roads were intersecting.

  But it got worse, too.

  I said, “Robby, hop back there and freeze the film on that part.”

  Robby, who was our projector monitor, said, “What?”

  I said, “Back up to that part where the scientist is adding blood to the petri dish and stop it on that frame.”

  Robby did what I asked him to do.

  And here was the second reason Eden Orientation Series truly turned into a horror show right before my eyes: The scientist who was feeding the human blood host to 412E, who also happened to be starting an initial infestation event, looked exactly like my father, Eric Andrew Szerba.

  Of course, the scientist in the film could not be my father because Eric Andrew Szerba would have been a kindergartner at exactly the same time that portion of the film was shot.

  “Hey, Porcupine,” Robby said, “that guy looks exactly like your dad.”

  I said, “Uh.”

  Shann agreed, “He does look exactly like your dad, Austin.”

  The film was grainy, but we all could see how the scientist’s lab coat had been monogrammed with a name: FELIX SZERBA

  It was my grandfather, Felek Szczerba, whose father, like me, had been born with the name Andrzej.

  Felek Szczerba, whose American name was Felix Szerba, was the first victim of McKeon Industries Plague Strain 412E.

  Nobody knew anything about it.

  They sure found out fast, though.

  As we let the film play through, Dr. Grady McKeon’s voice spoke over a series of frozen pictures. The pictures showed the faces of the scientists and secretaries who worked with Felix Szerba at McKeon Industries. Dr. Grady McKeon explained how these brave patriots lost their lives while developing an Unstoppable Soldier to fight against Communism.

  Unfortunately, the Unstoppable Soldiers McKeon Industries created were nothing more than accidents of nature resembling six-foot-tall praying mantises with lightning-fast arms that were studded with rows and rows of needle-sharp, barbed teeth.

  Unstoppable Soldiers liked doing only two things: fucking and eating.

  They were also nearly impossible to stop.

  Dr. Grady McKeon said that, through research, scientists at McKeon Industries did find one way to stop his Unstoppable Soldiers.

  And that was exactly when Reel Three of Five ended.

  “We need to go back,” I said.

  Robby said, “Uh.”

  Shann said, “Back where?”

  “We need to go back to Grasshopper Jungle. Robby and I need to go back up on the roof. We left something there,” I said.

  “What did you two leave up there?” Shann said.

  I could have said a lot of things about what Robby Brees and I left behind up on the roof of Grasshopper Jungle.

  I said, “The rest of this film is up there. Shann, we need to see the rest of this film.”

  Shann said, “Oh.”

  And Robby said, “And I think we need to hurry.”

  THE ORPHAN FELEK

  FELEK SZCZERBA WAS nine years old when his father was killed.

  It happened at a place called Cisterna.

  Cisterna is in Italy.

  Andrzej Szerba had joined the United States Army in 1942. He enlisted in the Army because he wanted to fight against Hitler, and because he was so unhappy living in Iowa with Phoebe Hildebrandt.

  Andrzej Szczerba was homosexual, but nobody knew anything about that.

  The only person who ever knew about Andrzej Szczerba’s homosexuality was Herman Weinbach.

  Herman Weinbach died from pneumonia in Midvale, Iowa, in 1934.

  Andrzej Szczerba never got to meet Herman Weinbach’s uncle, a man named Bruno Wojner, who performed with Bruno’s Amazing and Incredible Dogs with a circus in California.

  In the summer of 1944, Andrzej Szczerba was shot through the back of his head while he was crouching down to take a shit in a little place called Cisterna, Italy. He received a medal for getting killed while shitting.

  Andrzej Szczerba’s great-grandson, Eric Christopher Szerba, also received a medal for having his balls torn off by an unstoppable homemade bomb.

  Dulce Et Decorum Est.

  Felix Szerba was very intelligent. He graduated from high school in Iowa City at the age of fourteen. His mother, Phoebe Hildebrandt, remarried when Felek was ten years old.

  Phoebe Hildebrandt began having sexual intercourse after the long lonely spell that followed the time Andrzej Szczerba stole her virginity and gave her his son, Felek.

  Phoebe Hildebrandt hated Felek’s name.

  Against Felek’s will, Phoebe Hildebrandt had her new husband, whose name was Daniel Barton, adopt the boy and change his name to Felix Barton. It is a little-known fact of history that I was nearly named Austin Barton, a name that has the kind of ringing sound Iowans appreciate.

  Daniel Barton owned a radio station in Iowa City. He was fifty-two years old when he married Phoebe Hildebrandt in 1945.

  Daniel Barton also had def
ective semen. He had a low sperm count, but Daniel Barton never knew anything about it. He never knew because his wife, Phoebe, became pregnant three times from three different men before Felix graduated from high school.

  Daniel Barton was convinced he had very powerful sperm.

  Phoebe Barton was a real dynamo at having sexual intercourse with numerous men in Iowa City.

  Phoebe Barton was unstoppable. She liked doing exactly the same two things that bugs like to do.

  Phoebe Barton never knew how much she would enjoy sexual intercourse until Andrzej Szczerba was shot in the head while taking a shit. Before that, Phoebe only believed that sexual intercourse was painful, interminably long, and sad—and that it would make you bleed. Phoebe Barton’s three new children—a boy named Eldon Wayne and two girls, Chastity and Linda—were presumed by everyone to be full-blooded Bartons. Daniel Barton believed it, too.

  Phoebe Barton’s youngest daughter, whose name was Linda, was a product of semen that was produced in the testicles of Felix’s high school physics teacher.

  After Felix Barton, whose real name was Felek Szczerba but was called Felix Szerba by American people, graduated high school at the very young age of fourteen, Daniel Barton and his wife, Phoebe, enrolled the boy into Stanford University.

  Stanford University is in a place called Palo Alto, California.

  Palo Alto means tall stick in Spanish.

  There are big trees near Stanford University.

  Spanish missionaries were real good at naming shit.

  Felix Barton was very lonely and unhappy in California. At Stanford, Felix tried to kill himself once by mixing chemicals that created a poisonous cloud of gas.

  It was not a good idea.

  Felix Barton only ended up burning the lining of his airways. As a result, Felix Barton, who had been born Felek Szczerba, had a chronic cough for the rest of his life.

  After he graduated the university, Felix had his name legally changed back to Felek Andrzej Szczerba. He sometimes went by Felix Szerba, because Americans get so uptight about all those bunched-up consonants and shit like that.

  Felek married a Catholic Polish girl he met in California. His wife was named Ksenia. She was very beautiful. Ksenia Szczerba was my grandmother.

  Unlike his adoptive father, Daniel Barton, Felek Szczerba did not have any problems at all with his sperm.

  In 1960, when Felek was twenty-five years old, his first son, Arek Andrzej Szczerba, was born. Arek Andrzej Szczerba was my father, Eric Szerba.

  Felek and Ksenia Szczerba had four more strong Polish sons together. Their names were Krzys, Mieszko, Gabrysz, and Jacek.

  In 1965, Felek Szczerba and his family moved back to Iowa, to Ealing, where Felek accepted a position in the research laboratories at McKeon Industries.

  In 1968, Felek Szczerba was killed in a motorcycle accident. The history recorded in the Waterloo paper described how Felek Szczerba apparently lost control of his motorcycle and ran himself beneath the wheels of a freight car that was carrying liquid fertilizer.

  The fertilizer was made in Ealing, Iowa.

  What actually happened to Felek Andrzej Szczerba that day was this: Felek Andrzej Szczerba hatched out.

  Felek means lucky.

  Felek Szczerba was the first Unstoppable Soldier.

  PART 4:

  THE END OF THE WORLD

  SAINT KAZIMIERZ WAS not an Unstoppable Soldier.

  When he was a teenager, his father ordered Kazimierz to lead the army of Poland to conquer Hungary. Some Catholic scholars claim Kazimierz refused to do it. They say Kazimierz did not refuse because he was afraid. Kazimierz refused because he thought it was unjust to go to war against Hungary. Some historians claim Kazimierz, who was only thirteen at the time, went to war, but was defeated.

  Hungarians may have masturbated less often than Polish boys. This is probably true.

  Kazimierz’s father punished him for not going to war. It is difficult to imagine how you could punish a boy for not going to war. It is kind of like punishing a boy for skipping dinner by giving him cake.

  In order to resist sexual temptation, Kazimierz wore a hair shirt, which was something coarse and irritating that was made from goats’ hair. Devout people like Kazimierz would wear this garment as underwear so it would rub against their skin. The only purpose of a hair shirt is to cause injury and pain. Some historians claim that Saint Kazimierz may have worn his hair shirt in direct contact with his penis.

  Hair shirts work like dynamos.

  Nobody makes hair shirts nowadays.

  WE, THE NEW HUMANS

  I TOLD SHANN Collins everything that night.

  I told her about what happened at Grasshopper Jungle. I said Grant Wallace and the Hoover Boys had broken into the place looking for alcohol, and that Robby Brees and I should not have been there, but we were. I told Shann Collins what we found inside Johnny McKeon’s office, and how Tyler Jacobson dropped the glass universe and splattered what we knew was 412E all over the alley behind From Attic to Seller Consignment Store.

  This is what I said to Shann Collins: Robby Brees drove me out to Waterloo, so we could look into the future. We went to the Tally-Ho!, where a homeless man we called Hungry Jack stepped in front of the path of a speeding Dodge truck, and then this horrible creature hatched out of his body and ate him.

  Shann had to go home. It was late.

  Shann changed out of her Eden Project jumpsuit. She could not go home dressed in a strange uniform. Wendy McKeon, Shann Collins’s mother, was one of those types of mothers who paid attention to things like what their children were wearing when they left the house. Wendy McKeon would ask questions, and we did not want anyone to know about Shann’s silo.

  Nobody knew anything at all about Eden.

  Robby Brees and I kept our Eden Project jumpsuits on. We left all our clothes, except for our shoes, down inside the silo. Wearing the jumpsuits made us feel like we were an Army or something. It made us feel like we belonged together.

  Anyway, Robby Brees and I had some shit to do.

  Nobody would ever know if Robby and I didn’t go home that night.

  It was 8:30. Shann had missed dinner with her family. Her cell phone hadn’t worked when we were down inside Eden. She was going to be in trouble. Good Lutheran kids in Iowa do not forget to come home for dinner with their families.

  Coming up out of Eden under a big, black, star-filled Iowa sky made us feel like we were climbing from a spaceship and onto the surface of some alien world. Everything was different.

  We were the New Humans.

  That was exactly what Dr. Grady McKeon told us we were.

  Robby waited for me in his old Ford Explorer, so I could walk Shann to the front door of the McKeon House. I asked her if she wanted me to say something to her mom or to Johnny McKeon, but Shann said no, that she was going to be in trouble and I couldn’t possibly make things better.

  So I hugged Shann. It felt really good squeezing my body against hers in my jumpsuit, like I wasn’t wearing anything but my boxers. I kissed her for a long time and ran my hands up and down from her butt to her shoulders. I was trying to get her to accept Dr. Grady McKeon’s advice about our mission. I had forgotten all about Robby waiting in his car and about big monstrous bugs. I pressed my hips into Shann’s.

  That was exactly when Shann whispered, “I think Robby is in love with you, Austin.”

  I felt a lump in my throat, and I asked Saint Kazimierz to make things okay.

  “Uh,” I said.

  “I can tell he is,” Shann said.

  I said, “Is there something wrong with that?”

  Shann backed away from me a half step. Her eyes tracked up and down, up and down, all over my body. Jumpsuits are no good for hiding erections. I tried to adjust myself.

  Shann said, “Is there something wrong with that? Don’t you think there’s something wrong with that, Austin?”

  “Uh,” I said.

  I honestly did not think there was anything wr
ong with Robby Brees being in love with me.

  I was probably wrong about that.

  Shann said, “Have you guys ever done anything?”

  I felt all the blood draining out from every part of my body. It felt cold and wiggly.

  “What do you mean? Like skate? We do lots of things,” I said.

  I do not lie. It is my job not to ever lie.

  I wanted a cigarette.

  “Have you ever kissed Robby?” Shann said.

  I had to tell her. I loved Shann, and I do not lie.

  “Um. Yes,” I said.

  “Oh,” Shann said. “Like, I mean, a real kiss?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said.

  I looked away. I was suddenly aware that Robby was waiting. I could hear the clunk-clunk-clunk of the old Ford’s engine.

  Shann backed up against the front door.

  Then Shann said, “Have you and Robby ever had sex with each other?”

  “Uh. Um,” I said, “no.”

  I did not lie to her.

  “Come on, Shann. Please.” I said, “You know I am totally in love with you.”

  Shann looked as though I’d just kicked her in the stomach. She did not say another word. She went inside and closed the door behind her. I heard the sound of the deadbolt turning within the door’s locking mechanism.

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

  What was I going to do?

  The end of the world was nearly one week old.

  The end of the world was nearly one week old and only three people in Ealing knew about it: Me, Robby Brees, and Shann Collins.

  LAST LEGS

  ROBBY SLID A PACK of cigarettes across the top of the dashboard toward me when I climbed into his car.

  He did not say anything.

  I did not say anything.

  Robby could tell something else had gone wrong. Another something else. Robby always knew everything about me.

  I lit a cigarette.

  The engine clunked and clunked.

  “This car’s on its last legs,” I said.

  DAVY CROCKETT AND DANIEL BOONE NEVER WORE COONSKIN CAPS

  ROBBY TOOK ME home. I needed to get my history books, and Ingrid, too.