The Place Where

by Rodion Pretis

  Marvin groaned.

  “For God's sake,” he said, “just not now, okay?”

  Marvin has not had a very fun life in the last two weeks. He did not like Miami at all, where undersized brown people were teeming and where there was absolutely nothing to do but swim (which, from his point of view, was worth doing just to not drown) or lie on the sand and sunbathe if you were such a jerk that you wanted to be like a color. The return plane was put off again and again. In a word, now was not the moment to listen to Pamela with these newfangled nonsense.

  “Well then,” he said, “now we will go somewhere and eat.” On Monday, I will call a pest control specialist. Do you mind Antonio? I would not refuse seafood.

  Taxiing on the highway, he thought that in this situation the network was at least one good side: lunch in a restaurant meant the opportunity to eat real food instead of the organic gruel that Pamela used to put on the table. Marvin suspected that caring for health was just a cover for her absolute inability to cook something. Cut a large amount of raw vegetables - this is the maximum that she could do in the kitchen.

  “Marvin,” Pamela said suddenly, “you said,“ pest control specialist. ” Do you mean that someone will come and kill these cockroaches?

  He glanced at her, not understanding what the hell she still needed.

  “But do you care about chemicals, poisons, and all that?”

  “And that too.” - Pamela was silent for a moment, her eyebrows moving. Marvin realized that he provided her with another reason to eat him baldness.

  “But what I want to say,” she continued, “is there really no other way?” Also, to kill them?

  - Oh my God! - Marvin gritted his teeth. - That is, you want to get rid of cockroaches, but so that these poor little babies are not hurt? Is that some kind of oriental rubbish again? What cockroaches can also be someone else's rebirths?

  “I would like you not to be so negative on the issue of rebirth,” she said dryly. - Of course, I understand that the religion in which you were raised does not share such views ...

  In fact, Marvin Bradshaw's parents never showed any interest whatsoever in any religion, and he only followed their example. The church was for him a place where people come to funerals and weddings - and only then when they cannot avoid it. Against the question of rebirths, he had only what people from India believed in them - such as the guy who cut good money for sitting there wrapped in a sheet and pouring a stream of this shit on Pamela and a bunch of other brainless ones idiot. And the Hindus themselves were ultimately just another species of undersized brown bastards who should have gone back to where they came from.Marvin suspected that in the case of the aforementioned Baba Lal Mahavishnu, it was supposed to be somewhere in the state of New Jersey - but this is already a special conversation.

  “In any case,” added Pamela, “one should not assume that human beings can be reborn as insects.” This is a western view.

  - Well, like this ...

  “But all the same, Marvin,” Pamela did not give her husband a break, falling upon him with the irrepressibility of a mountain avalanche. “Babaji says it's always best to avoid doing harm to any living thing.” This makes karma worse. Think about how many of these cockroaches are there - hundreds, maybe even thousands! The sight is disgusting, I do not argue, but you think - so many lives! I can't imagine the karmic consequences if we kill them all!

  “Then what do you want me to do with these fucking creatures?” Politely asked them to leave? Allocated to them their own premises? Maybe you yourself will talk to them? He continued, losing his temper with rage. “That could make any self-respecting insect fall down as quickly as possible!”

  She didn't answer. Based on the tone of her silence, Marvin concluded that one of them was destined to sleep in the guest room that night. Well, that was another bonus.

  Pamela continued to apply a policy of silence to him for almost the entire dinner. Marvin knew it was too good to last long. And rightly so: before he had time to deal with his lobster, she began all over again.

  “My God,” he said, “maybe you can at least wait until we leave here?” Talk about cockroaches at the table! Do you want me to vomit?

  He leaned back in his chair and looked at the remains of his meal. It's not really that he loved terribly lobsters; he ordered a lobster only to pull Pamela's chain again. Antonio's restaurant was one of those places where the lobsters were kept alive in a large glass aquarium, so you could choose something to your taste, so that his ass would be cooked alive. “They burned his ass alive,” Marvin said with pleasure, watching Pamela shuffle. However, as he noted, she was not so shocked that this would prevent her from cleaning her own plate. She must have thought that her mollusks and shells died a natural death - they were moved by a submarine or something like that.

  He got up, throwing a napkin on the table, and headed for the toilet. When he returned, the owner of the institution approached him, almost stepping in his path.

  “Mr. Bradshaw, ”said Antonio. “I hope you enjoyed the lunch?”

  Marvin nodded, squeezing a smile. Antonio was short and swarthy, and his black hair was a little too shiny; but he came from a Portuguese family who had lived in these parts for at least a couple of centuries, and in addition he kept a damn great restaurant. Marvin thought that Antonio was quite tolerable for - well, for Antonio.

  “I would not want to touch on an unpleasant topic,” Antonio went on, looking around and lowering his voice, “but against my will I heard your conversation a few minutes ago.”

  “And you and everyone else in the room,” answered Marvin. “I'm sorry if she scares your visitors away with her talk about cockroaches.” She's been a little crazy recently, for a year or so. He thinks that he is changing his lifestyle.

  - Oh, it's nothing! - Antonio waved his hand to show that everything is in order. - No, I just wanted to say that you are not the only one who got cockroaches. Over the past two weeks, I have heard a lot of people complain about them. Apparently, they recently moved to our area. - He grimaced. - In our case, we have to worry about such things.

  Marvin thought. This means that this happened not only in their house. Some new settlers must have arrived and brought this abomination with them. Indeed, since that lawsuit on discrimination in housing matters, all standards have gone to hell.

  “I just want to say,” Antonio went on, “that in the near future it will not be so easy to find a specialist in the destruction of pests.” Well, if you manage to invite him at least by the end of next week.

  - Damn it! Marvin said louder than he intended. - Listen, Antonio, I can't live in the same house with these creatures for a week! You probably should know someone with your profession. You do not know, maybe someone would agree to come privately? I will make sure that it is worth the work.

  Antonio shook his head.

  - Believe me, everyone I know has already received a lot of invitations "privately", and also requested a lot of money for this. - He rubbed his chin. - Although, perhaps, the network is one option ...

  - Go on. Come on, Antonio! Help me out of this situation.

  “Well ... one of my assistants - the one serving this table by the door, see? ... He has a grandfather, and they say that he is very good at getting rid of cockroaches, rats and all that. ”

  Marvin looked that way and saw a short, stocky, very dark guy in a white apron. Shaggy, roughly cut black hair. Large cheekbones, heavy superciliary arches, large nose.

  “Is he a Mexican?” - asked Marvin, thinking to himself: "There are no options."

  Antonio laughed.

  “No, he's actually an Indian.”

  - That is, from India? (Damn it, there are absolutely no options!) But in appearance it seems to be not like ...

  - No, no, he is an American Indian - from some small tribe whose name I can not even pronounce. They have a reservation in the north of the state.

  - Hmm. - Marvin, amazed, once again looked at the guy. Until now, he has never
seen an Indian in these parts. In favor of the Indians, one thing could be said, in comparison with all the other colored ones: they kept on their own, lived in the wilderness of their reservations and did not meddle where they did not want to see them.

  “Actually, I don't know much about this,” admitted Antonio. - I have friends in Amityville; this old man was doing work for them, and they were very pleased. But they did not tell me the details.

  “Hmmm,” Marvin said again. “A red skinned pest killer?” I have not heard that before.

  “Strictly speaking, he is not involved in the destruction of pests,” Antonio smiled oddly at Marvin. - It's rather for the part that should please your wife. He is not killing anyone. He just makes them leave.

  Marvin gazed at the restaurant owner.

  - What is this, a joke? You want to tell me that he just blows the pipe, and they follow him, like some kind of fucking rat-catcher? Listen, Antonio, am I like a person who is inclined to laugh now?

  - No, believe me, this is so. - Antonio's face was serious. “I don't know exactly how he does this;” judging by what I heard, he somehow smokes them. Native American secret, one must think.

  - Damn me! - Marvin pondered this offer for a minute. Actually, the Indians really know a bunch of different things, everyone knows that ... “No, thanks,” he finally said. “I'd rather wait on Monday and go over the ads.” Damn it, may I tolerate a few more days!

  However, that evening, about to go to bed - as you might guess, in the guest bedroom - he suddenly felt that he was thirsty. Marvin went into the kitchen to get a beer, and when he turned on the light, he saw them ...

  Pamela did not exaggerate. Cockroaches really were everywhere. They swarmed in the sink, on the sideboard, in the dishwasher, on the refrigerator, on the walls and on the floor. When the light came on, their flat brown oblong bodies in a crowd rushed to the heels, so for a moment it seemed that the whole room was boiling with a nauseating motion. Almost instantly, most of the cockroaches disappeared from sight, but a few pieces remained to sit high on the walls and in other inaccessible places. Through the glass doors of the cupboard Marvin saw a couple sitting on top of a pile of antique Chinese porcelain plates.

  Then he looked up and saw a large fat cockroach sitting on the ceiling directly above his head. His long antennae swayed softly, as if in greeting. The cockroach seemed to be examining it, wondering whether to jump down.

  - Lord Jesus! - Marvin shouted and rushed away from the kitchen, not even stopping to turn off the light.

  His hands were shaking as he picked up the telephone. The restaurant was closed at night, and when he dialed Antonio's home number, he had to listen to a long series of beeps before Antonio answered the phone.

  “Listen,” said Marvin, breaking off the sleepy protests of the restaurant owner. “Remember, you told me about this old Indian man?” How fast do you think you can reach him?

  The next morning, when Marvin cautiously entered the kitchen to make himself coffee, cockroaches were nowhere to be seen. He knew that they had not gone anywhere, but simply hid, hiding from daylight; however, it was not so bad - until he saw them.

  He poured himself a cup of black coffee and went out onto the terrace through a sliding glass door. The sun was already high above the eastern horizon, and the light blinded his eyes; Marvin regretted not taking his sunglasses with him. He sat down at a small table at the north end of the terrace, exposing his back to the sun.

  Bradshaw's house stood on the edge of a sheer cliff, sixty or seventy feet above the ocean. If Marvin wanted to look straight down, through the cracks in the planks of the terrace he could see the white sand on the strip of the coast, which Pamela called "our beach." It was even almost no beach, just a narrow ribbon of sand steeply descending to the ocean; at high tide, it almost completely went under water.

  Marvin carefully tasted his coffee. As he expected, the taste was disgusting. It is necessary to begin a survey of candidates for filling Ines' position - putting up with Pamela's kitchen advantages became no less difficult than with cockroaches.

  Cockroaches. He grimaced, and the reason was not only bitter coffee. He really went too far last night. Now, sitting in the bright rays of the morning sun, fanned by a cool fresh breeze from the sea, he could not believe that he fell into such a panic because of some few cockroaches. It is necessary to call Antonio in the middle of the night! My God, only to ask him to bring some crazy old Indian to his house! Yes, after that he will burn with shame the next time he comes to the restaurant in Antonio!

  Marvin brought the cup to his lips and took another sip. God, what an abomination! It's even worse than Pamela's usual feats of brewing coffee. Moreover, there was clearly something less liquid in the cup ...

  He sharply recoiled from the table and dropped the cup, spilling coffee on himself and not even noticing it. Putting his hand to his mouth, he spat out the soaked corpse of a cockroach drowned in coffee in his palm.

  Jumping to his feet, Marvin darted to the railing and vigorously emptied his stomach in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. When the vomiting and involuntary contractions of the diaphragm finally subsided, he hung for several minutes, clutching the railing so as not to collapse on the terrace floor, and breathing noisily through his mouth.

  At this very moment, Pamela appeared at the door of the kitchen.

  “Marvin,” she said, “two people arrived in a pickup truck, they are waiting at the entrance.” They say that you sent for them.

  On the porch, with his hands in the back pockets of his trousers, stood a guy from Antonio's restaurant. He had a short old man with him - no more than five feet tall and no more than a hundred pounds in weight, with a face like a sun-dried apple. Both wore faded jeans and cheap plaid work blouses. The old man wore a cap with a mesh neck, adorned with the Dolphins emblem in front, and a kind of feather dangled from its top. Behind them on the driveway was a battered pickup truck, the paint on which was so faded and showered that it was impossible to say what its original color was.

  - Mr. Bradshaw? - said the guy. “Mr. Coelho told us that you have problems with cockroaches. ”

  The old man said something in a language similar to which Marvin had never heard. The guy continued again:

  “My grandfather needs to look around here before he can tell you anything.”

  Marvin answered with a weak nod. He still felt dizzy and nauseous.

  “Of course,” he said, turning and leading them into the kitchen.

  Pamela came in and stood in the kitchen door next to Marvin. Together they watched as the old Indian slowly walks around the kitchen, bends down and carefully studies the skirting boards, runs his fingers under the edge of the sideboard, and then sniffs them, looks out over the refrigerator. Suddenly the old man squatted down, opened the door and put his hand up in the dark space under the sink. A moment later, he was again standing on his feet, holding something small and wriggling between his thumb and forefinger. It is unlikely that the expression on his wrinkled, swarthy face had changed at least a little - there was no identifiable expression on him from the very beginning - but something similar to satisfaction flashed in the Indian's eyes.

  The old man spoke again in his strange language for hearing. The guy said:

  “He needed to know which cockroaches you got.” He says that there are no problems and this view is easy to handle.

  The old man went out onto the terrace and flipped a cockroach through the railing with a click. Returning to the kitchen, he said something briefly.

  “He says it will cost one hundred dollars,” the guy translated.

  At that time, Marvin was in no mood to bargain. He still had the taste of a cockroach soaked in coffee in his mouth.

  “When can he start?”

  “Right now,” the guy answered. “If it suits you.”

  The guy went into the hallway - Marvin thought that he should send Pamela to make sure that the Indian did not steal anything, but it was already too late. Meanwhile,
the old man continued to inspect the kitchen. A few minutes later, the young Indian returned, carrying a pair of nylon sports bags, which he put on the sideboard next to the sink. The old man nodded, grunted, unzipped one of the bags and began to rummage through its contents.

  While the old man was digging in his bag, the guy asked:

  - Do you have any animals in the house? Dogs, cats?

  Pamela shook her head. Marvin shrugged.

  - No, damn it!

  This was a thing that he could not understand: how people keep dirty and hairy animals in their home. It only makes sense to get a good guard dog - but only if it remains outside, in the yard or even outside the fence.

  “It would be better,” said the guy, “if you went out somewhere.” Would walk somewhere outside until it ends.