Grasshopper Jungle

by Andrew Smith

  And Robby sang along with Love In Vain.

  Robby Brees reached across the center console and put his hand on top of mine.

  The wife of the vice president of the United States of America was performing oral sex on the vice president. It was the vice president’s birthday, and the vice president of the United States of America was getting a blow job. Franklin and Theodore were very happy.

  I had not named my balls.

  Robby Brees had not named his balls, either. I asked him about it.

  And Robby said to me, “Who would ever name his balls?”

  I said, “I would like to, but once you give your balls names, there is no going back.”

  “Well, if you do think up names for your balls, let me know what they are. I would hate for us to have balls with the same names in such a small town as Ealing,” Robby decided.

  Robby was always so smart about small town social blunders and shit like that.

  “Having balls with the same name as your best friend’s is a serious social blunder,” I said.

  That is the truth.

  “Get down on the ground!” Trooper Denny Drayton said to Travis Pope.

  Johnny McKeon was very scared. He crept across the parking lot. The Smith & Wesson .500 magnum was so heavy, it hurt Johnny McKeon’s wrist just to hold it.

  Travis Pope got closer and closer to Denny Drayton.

  The last thing Denny Drayton said was his motto. He said, “Fuck this shit. I have a gun, motherfucker.”

  Then Denny Drayton began shooting at Travis Pope.

  Johnny McKeon ducked.

  Across the street, Pastor Roland Duff ducked.

  Denny Drayton fired and fired and fired.

  Unstoppable Soldiers do not like being shot at. They also have exoskeletons that are as bulletproof as the hull of an aircraft carrier.

  They are unstoppable.

  Denny Drayton emptied his gun. He was in the process of reloading when Travis Pope unhinged his barbed arms and picked Denny Drayton up by his head. Travis Pope bit most of the trooper’s head off and let Denny Drayton’s hairless and tattooed body fall down onto the blacktop.

  Johnny McKeon whispered, “Well, I’ll be danged.”

  Johnny was smart. He did not fire his pistol at the monster. Johnny McKeon quietly went around to the driver’s side of his truck, got behind the wheel, and drove off.

  Stan, the owner of Satan’s Pizza, and Pastor Roland Duff, the headmaster from Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy, were not so smart.

  But they were curious. Pastor Roland Duff was curious about a lot of things. He was still fantasizing about Shaun Doherty.

  Nothing exciting ever happened in Ealing. Pastor Roland Duff and Stan, the owner of Satan’s Pizza, who had come from behind the counter when he heard what sounded like gunfire, stepped out onto the street to see what was causing all the commotion across Kimber Drive at Grasshopper Jungle.

  It was not a good idea.

  EXILE IN EDEN

  ROBBY DROVE THE Ford Explorer through the fields of weeds and brambles behind Shann’s house.

  He parked beside the dilapidated chicken coops where the hatch into Eden sat nearly unnoticeable in the center of an old concrete pad.

  Ingrid was excited. She had found a new place to shit.

  Robby opened the hatch. The welcome recording began again and the room below us lit up.

  I took my phone out of the pocket of my Eden 5 jumpsuit. I did not need to explain to Robby that I was calling Shann Collins. Robby knew what I was doing. I wanted to try to get Shann to listen to me.

  We all needed to be safe now, and the Unstoppable Soldiers had come out in Ealing.

  Shann would not answer my call. I knew she was not asleep. It was 11:00. No teenager in the world goes to sleep before 11:00. I left a voice message as Robby stood near and listened. There was no need to hide anything from Robby Brees.

  I had no secrets with him.

  I had no secrets with Shann Collins, either.

  This is what I said:

  “Shann, I am sorry. I told you I do stupid shit without thinking about who I might hurt. But the truth is, I think you need to come to Eden. Me and Robby are going back inside now, so my phone won’t work, just in case you want to tell me I am disgusting again. We have the rest of the film. I think something terrible is happening in Ealing, and maybe we are the only ones who can stop it. Well. Uh. I love you, Shann. I really do love you. You have to know that, Shann. Please come to Eden with me and Robby. Hurry.”

  I put the phone back inside my jumpsuit. I rubbed the silver medallion of Saint Kazimierz between my thumb and finger.

  I said, “Saint Kazimierz, I am Polish. I am a kid. I’m not sure if I’m technically a virgin or not. But a solid two out of three gives me hope you might look out for me and Robby and Ingrid.”

  Robby stood, watching me.

  And I said, “I really do love you, Robby. How can I be in love with two people at the same time?”

  Robby said, “I don’t know how you can do that, Austin.”

  It was very difficult carrying Ingrid down the ladder.

  Not only did I fail to think about bringing clean underwear and shit like that, I never even thought about how I would get a sixty-pound golden retriever down a very tall ladder.

  Robby had to help. We sandwiched Ingrid between us and climbed down. We must have looked like a reject hybridization of two boys and a barkless dog. That was probably some kind of shit they pulled at McKeon Industries back in the sixties, too.

  By the time we finally got down into the mudroom, we were both damp with sweat, we smelled like dog fur, and the repeated welcoming tape was driving us crazy.

  “I have B.O.,” I said.

  “I know,” Robby agreed.

  Robby and I went back up one final time to get my history books and the things Robby had brought from the Del Vista Arms. Then we sealed the three of us—me, Ingrid, and Robby—inside the Eden Project.

  Robby and I put on clean pairs of white Eden scientist socks in the locker room. I thought about changing into a clean jumpsuit, but I did not want to give up the number 5. I wanted to take a shower, but we had too much shit to do.

  Robby Brees left his bundle of things on the bench we’d been sitting on. I carried the two final reels of film, and Robby followed me into the theater room.

  A CHANCE MEETING UNDER A PORTRAIT OF A PRESBYTERIAN, OR, CALVIN COOLIDGE’S CANOE

  MY FATHER’S NAME is Eric Andrew Szerba.

  His Polish name was Arek Andrzej Szczerba.

  His father, Felek, was a scientist at McKeon Industries.

  Felek Andrzej Szczerba was the world’s first Unstoppable Soldier.

  All roads cross here on my desk. As a historian, I realize, too, that we are all on the same road, all the time.

  Sometimes we drive in circles or the wrong way, because we are stupid like that.

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

  Eric Szerba, my father, was only a little boy when Felek was killed.

  Raising five fatherless Polish boys in Ealing, Iowa, was a tremendous challenge for my grandmother, Ksenia Szczerba. Dr. Grady McKeon saw to it that the family was provided for, so Ksenia never had to go to work, and McKeon Industries subsidized the five brothers’ education.

  All the Szczerbas moved far away from Iowa after my grandmother died. Ksenia Szczerba died of exhaustion in 1992, several years before I was born. Only my father, Eric, stayed in Ealing, where he became a teacher after graduating college.

  Eric Szerba’s first teaching assignment was at Herbert Hoover High School, Ealing’s public school. He began teaching when he was twenty-two years old.

  In his first year of teaching World History, Eric Szerba met a fifteen-year-old boy named Kelly Kenney.

  Kelly Kenney is a true Iowa kind of name for a boy. It is a name that almost tastes like buttermilk biscuits and honey.

  Kelly Kenney was not such a good student. But Kelly Kenney was persistent. At least
once per week, Kelly Kenney would say this to Eric Szerba:

  “Hey, Mister Szerba. You should meet my sister, Connie. She is twenty years old and a real dynamo. You are single, right, Mister Szerba? You should go out with Connie. Here is our phone number. Connie likes going to the movies, and you would make a nice couple. Connie is not a slut, either. Ha-ha. You should call on her, Mister Szerba. That would be neat!”

  Eric Szerba was not the kind of young man who would ever call a girl based on urgent pleading from a fifteen-year-old boy. Eric and Connie would never have met solely as a result of Kelly Kenney’s persistent prodding.

  It was Connie Kenney who came in to Eric Szerba’s classroom on behalf of her parents, at Herbert Hoover High School’s Open House in the fall semester of 1982.

  In 1982, every classroom at Herbert Hoover High School had a portrait of Ronald Reagan hanging above the blackboard. Ronald Reagan was president of the United States of America in 1982. I can find no historical records anywhere that detail whether Ronald Reagan ever took a shit, or if he named his balls.

  I believe Ronald Reagan most likely did name his balls.

  I believe that Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States of America, named both of his balls the same thing: Calvin Coolidge. Ronald Reagan would have named both of his balls Calvin Coolidge just to avoid any confusion on his part.

  It may have been a social blunder, but it made remembering your balls much easier. No one wants to be caught in the embarrassing situation of forgetting the name of only one of your balls.

  Connie Kenney, who was Lutheran, met my father, Arek Andrzej Szczerba, a Catholic who smoked cigarettes, beneath a portrait of Ronald Reagan.

  Ronald Reagan was Presbyterian.

  Kelly Kenney claims to have been responsible for Eric and Connie’s eventual marriage, but history shows that it was the result of a meeting of the two in a classroom at a public school, beneath a portrait of a Presbyterian who never took a shit and named his balls Calvin Coolidge.

  I once saw a photograph of Calvin Coolidge in an exhibit at the Library of Congress. Calvin Coolidge was riding in a canoe.

  The canoe was named Beaver Dick.

  I could not make that up if I tried.

  That is the truth.

  Eric Andrew Szerba changed his life for Connie Kenney. He quit smoking cigarettes and he converted to Lutheranism. In exchange for Eric Szerba’s devotion to her, Connie Kenney allowed Eric Andrew Szerba to put his penis inside her vagina. This happened several times before the two were actually married, although it was an act that good Lutherans in Iowa look askance at.

  After they were married, Eric Andrew Szerba, a non-smoking Lutheran teacher of history, took a position at Ealing’s private school, Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy. Eric Andrew Szerba’s non-smoking Lutheran Polish semen created a son named Eric Christopher, who was born in 1989, and a second son named Austin Andrzej, who was born in 1995.

  This is my history.

  A MOST SOOTHING SHOWERHEAD

  “YOU ARE A GOOD dog, Ingrid,” I said.

  Ingrid curled up beneath my feet. I sat in the back row of Eden’s theater.

  Behind us, Robby Brees fed the leader strip for Reel Four of Eden Orientation Series into the toothy cogs of the theater’s projector. Then Robby jumped over the seat back and sat down right next to me, like he always did when we went to the movies together.

  Robby Brees put his hand on the armrest, so he was touching me.

  The final two reels of film in Eden Orientation Series contained some of the most horrible things either one of us had ever seen.

  We lit cigarettes and watched.

  This is what we found out:

  McKeon Industries worked frantically toward the development of Unstoppable Weapons and Unstoppable Soldiers during the second half of the 1960s.

  McKeon Industries wanted to make Unstoppable Anything. They would have made Unstoppable Cup-O-Noodles if they could. The scientists who worked for Dr. Grady McKeon didn’t seem to be overly concerned about consequences, like how to stop shit once they made it unstoppable, and shit like that.

  Reel Four of Eden Orientation Series opened with a headshot of the insane Dr. Grady McKeon himself. Dr. Grady McKeon sat behind his mahogany desk in what was called Eden’s Brain Room, wearing a thin white, V-neck T-shirt.

  “I’ll bet you anything he wasn’t wearing any pants when they filmed that,” Robby said.

  I had been thinking exactly the same thing.

  Dr. Grady McKeon rambled on about his projects, and bragged about corn and the dissolved balls of Maoist thugs, while he smoked a cigarette and his eye twitched like a strand of Christmas tree tinsel during a springtime Iowa thunderstorm.

  Robby Brees and I found the Brain Room later that night.

  Dr. Grady McKeon licked his lips and began:

  Ah. My friends. Tell me, are you breeding?

  Are you? Hmmm?

  Breed, my friends. Breed and love. You are the New Humans.

  It’s a lovely place, our Eden, don’t you agree?

  Robby said, “Thinking about that guy kind of has a damping effect on the drive to conjugate.”

  I said, “Uh.”

  McKeon Industries experimented with several methods for creating an Unstoppable Soldier.

  Dr. Grady McKeon’s Human Replication Unit actually grew human body parts that floated in polymer suspensions. The polymer suspensions created their own electrical charges, like jellied batteries. This was where the praying hands, the penis, and the little two-headed boy came from. They were all created from Dr. Grady McKeon’s own tissue samples.

  So each jar actually was Dr. Grady McKeon, more or less.

  Apparently, all of the things inside the jars filled with electrical polymers were more or less alive, too, according to Dr. Grady McKeon.

  More or less.

  Johnny McKeon didn’t know anything about the somewhat-living penis, hands, and baby boy he’d been keeping inside his office at From Attic to Seller Consignment Store.

  Dr. Grady McKeon had been a sick monster.

  “Well, he did develop a most soothing showerhead,” Robby pointed out.

  “I will give him that. There is nothing quite like showering beneath a Pulse-O-Matic® showerhead,” I agreed.

  I could not help but feel sad about the poor little boy with two heads. I really did see his hand move that day when I was alone inside Johnny McKeon’s office. The two-headed boy had been imprisoned within that glass container, more or less alive, for over forty years.

  But the man’s head in the jar came from something else entirely.

  We found out about that in Reel Five.

  The Human Replication Unit at McKeon Industries also collected and experimented with sperm. Dr. Grady McKeon had no apparent difficulty obtaining sperm samples from very powerful and important American men. Dr. Grady McKeon’s power sperm had been frozen and stored in a cryogenic vault inside Eden’s Brain Room.

  It was exactly like Eden Five.

  On the door of the freezer vault were framed photographs of men, including President Richard Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose real name was Richard Helms, and, of course, Dr. Grady McKeon.

  Each of them had donated multiple samples of their Unstoppable Sperm.

  The Unstoppable Sperm was intended as the beginning of a New Universe.

  Robby said, “Um.”

  I said, “This place really is full of sperm, Robby.”

  Dr. Grady McKeon explained that the vault full of Unstoppable Sperm was a precaution. What if, he postulated, only women managed to escape to the Eden Project, or if there was a depletion of desirability among male breeders? Dr. Grady McKeon confidently answered his hypothetical question: Unstoppable Sperm would become the genetic seed bank for the New Universe.

  It was most likely something that Dr. Grady McKeon had intended all along.

  Much later, in conducting further analysis inside the Brain Room, and
through reading Dr. Grady McKeon’s barely legible and ranting diaries, I did discover that in 1975, McKeon thawed out the sperm from CIA Director Richard Helms, President Richard Nixon, and Vice President Spiro Agnew.

  Dr. Grady McKeon discarded that sperm unceremoniously into his prized Nightingale Urinal.

  Dr. Grady McKeon replaced the Unstoppable Sperm with his own.

  The Brain Room was pretty much full of Dr. Grady McKeon’s sperm.

  From the Unstoppable Sperm experiments, Reel Four jumped across the McKeon Industries Complex to the Unstoppable Corn Unit, where a series of catastrophic accidents of nature sprang up like milkweed in well-watered fields of Iowa corn.

  INFINITA MILITES! INFINITA MILITES!

  HERE WAS REEL FIVE:

  Felek Szczerba was the first Unstoppable Soldier.

  The end of the world began in Ealing, Iowa, in 1968. Nobody knew anything about it. The scientists at McKeon Industries were crazy and drunk on money. Dr. Grady McKeon would have done anything to be the man responsible for creating an unstoppable force in the universe.

  He nearly got away with it, too.

  Initially, there were five people infected by Dr. Grady McKeon’s 412E: three scientists and two secretaries. The five victims made a mess of McKeon Industries in 1968.

  They were Unstoppable Soldiers. All they wanted to do was fuck and eat.

  Because McKeon Industries maintained such extreme levels of security during the Cold War, the Unstoppable Soldiers that had been accidentally created there never got a chance to step outside into the Iowa daylight. If they had ever gotten outside, the world would have certainly come to an end, and there would have been a new apex species in charge of Planet Earth—one that wanted only to fuck and eat.

  Besides fucking and eating, a few of us human beings are driven to paint on the walls of caves. Other than that, and the fact that we die relatively easily when you shoot at us, I think human beings are very much like Dr. Grady McKeon’s Unstoppable Soldiers.

  INFINITA MILITES! INFINITA MILITES!

  Despite images of all the dead people inside the lab building, the destruction of an entire research wing of the facility, and shit like that, Dr. Grady McKeon’s voice had a gleeful chime to it as he narrated over grainy black-and-white surveillance footage of the beasts, while cameras caught them unreservedly engaged in the two things that Unstoppable Soldiers like to do.