- Here is how? - grinned Marvin. “You would love that, wouldn't you?”
Pamela kicked him in the ankle.
“Will you use any toxic chemicals?” She asked the Native American guy.
“No, no, nothing like that.” - The young Indian pointed to a pile of junk that the old man took out of his bag. - See, we don’t even use respirators. No, it’s just ... well, it’ll just be better if you aren’t here.
- Ha ha! - said Marvin. “Forget it, Jeronimo [45].” It was thought up well, but nothing will come of it.
The guy shrugged.
- As you wish. - He turned and began to unfasten the second bag.
By this time, the old man had already laid out on the sideboard several bundles of something that looked like dried plants. He selected four bundles and twisted together, so that one long bundle was obtained. Then he took out a bundle of ordinary white twine from his bag and began to wrap the bundle tightly from one end to the other, tying it into a tight cylinder that resembled a folded newspaper in size and shape. Putting the remaining things back into the bag, the old Indian spoke again with his partner.
The guy pulled out a drum that looked like a big tambourine without metal rattles, and after it a long thin cane, one end of which was wrapped with something like a rawhide strap. He knocked on the drum, which answered him with a short ringing "poo-un", filling the kitchen and flying out the door to the corridor.
The old man took out a disposable gas lighter, lit it and brought it to one end of the grass bundle. Marvin expected a flash to follow, but the grass was reluctant to light up. The old man turned a bunch of grass, carefully blowing at it, until finally one end of the bundle turned into a large smoldering red coal.
By this time, smoke was already rising above the bundle in thick white clubs, spreading over the ceiling and covering the whole room. Marvin began to protest, but then decided that the smell was not so bad. He recognized in him the fragrance of the cedar - for a moment he remembered how he was allowed to burn the tree after Christmas because his father was too drunk - and something else like sage and some other herbs, the names of which he could not even recall.
“Damn it,” he thought, “after all, this rubbish can be sold for serious money!” Some old ladies will be especially crazy about the new fragrance for their home. ”
The old Native American turned from side to side, waving a smoldering bundle and driving smoke into all corners of the room. The guy began to beat in his drum - "poo-un, poo-un, poo-un, poo-un" - and the old man began to sing. In any case, he clearly believed that he was doing just that - although, of course, he was far from Tony Bennett [46]. It was a strange monotonous melody in which there were only half a dozen notes repeating again and again, and the words didn't sound like words at all - just meaningless combinations like those that people mutter when they forgot the lyrics.
Be that as it may, Marvin Bradshaw in no way liked it. He had already opened his mouth, wanting to tell the old man that he would continue to fumigate and not care about the musical accompaniment. But two Indians had already passed him, heading into the corridor, dragging smoky clouds behind them and not missing a single blow or exclamation.
- Oh, to all of you! Said Marvin, and set off after them, intending to put an end to this nonsense before he went too far.
However, Pamela stepped across and blocked the door for him.
- Marvin! She said, very quietly, but in a voice like a handful of razor blades.
He recognized that tone and her look. There are times when Pamela can be twisted as she pleases - but there are times when simple laws of survival require you to step back. Marvin had no doubt about exactly what moment had come now.
“Alright, alright,” he said irritably. - Let me go anyway; you need to look after them! One god knows what these red-skinned bitch children would dream of stealing ... by the way, is our bar locked?
Singing, drumming and fumigation continued all morning. The old man insisted on going around all the rooms in the house, above and below, as well as a cellar, an attic and a garage.
At one point, Marvin lingered on the stairs, hearing his wife's voice. She spoke on the phone in the hallway:
“No, really, Teresa, I swear to you, a real shaman, a native American, and he is holding a fumigation ceremony right here in our house!” This is so exciting ...
There was a long pause - at least a long one for Pamela's standards.
“Oh, yes,” she said finally, “I used to feel guilty too because of them, because of all the horrors that were done to them.” But you know, Babaji explained to us that in fact, these Native Americans, who now have such a hard time - all this poverty, alcoholism, and everything else - that they are all just the degenerated souls of white soldiers who exterminated the indigenous population in former times, and now they are fulfilling their karma.
On the top floor, the guy was already drumming, and the old man was singing his chants, and the smoke was rolling down the stairs, but Marvin lingered for a short while to listen.
“How I wish you were here!” - said Pamela. “Jessica said that she gave some little things to one poor homeless black woman whom she met in the city, and Babaji said that giving is always good for your own karma, but in the end, after all, in a previous life this person was most likely the captain of a slave ship ... ”
Joyful laugh.
“There you go, Teresa, Babaji is saying the same thing!” One has only to understand how karma works, and you realize that literally everything that happens is really for the better!
Marvin snorted loudly and went up the stairs.
“Space,” he muttered, “the last fucking limit!” [47]
Shortly before noon, having fumigated the garage to such an extent that it was hardly possible to find cars in it without feeling for them with his hands, the old man finally stopped his singing and lifted a smoke bundle over his head. The guy stopped beating the drum and said:
- It's all.
- All? - Marvin folded his arms over his chest and looked at him. “And for that you want me to put out a hundred bucks?”
The old man stood, bending down and screwing the smoldering end of the package into the garage floor to extinguish it. Without raising his head, he spoke something in his Algonkin language, or the devil still knows what dialect.
The guy said:
“You don't have to pay now.” We can come back tomorrow. If by that time you are not satisfied with the results, you may not pay at all.
Marvin wanted to advise him not to waste his time. But then the old man turned and looked at Marvin with his dark tortoise eyes, and Marvin heard his own voice saying:
- Okay. Sure. See you tomorrow.
When they left, Marvin returned to the house and took out the keys to the bar. He did not often start drinking so early, but now his nerves were in such a state that it would not hurt to miss a glass.
The smoke inside the house had already thinned significantly, but the smell was still strong; it was even felt on the terrace, where Marvin went out to drink his glass. Leaning on the railing, he looked at the ocean, enjoying the salty breeze and the hissing murmur of small waves splashing down on the sand. Saturday morning flew to hell with the dog - but at least, everything is already behind. Maybe in the evening on TV there will be a good game or boxing match. Even the movie will come off, damn it, if only there are no Indians in it!
And then he realized that his fingers kept drumming on the railing, tapping on them a moderately fast rhythm of four quarters. The next moment, Marvin realized that this is the same rhythm that the Indian guy knocked on his drum.
- God merciful! He said aloud. And drained his glass with one long shudder to a shudder.
Pamela hung on the phone until the evening, taking turns telling her amazing story to all her cuckoo girlfriends. Since thanks to this, she at least did not get Marvin, he decided that it was worth it.
He went into the kitchen and put the frozen lunch in the microwave. The smell of smok
e was still very distinct, although the air had already completely cleared. Marvin took a cardboard plate, went out onto the terrace with it, and began to eat - listening to the sounds of the ocean drowning in himself the Indian music that still continued to sound in his head.
Later, he unsuccessfully tried to find some worthwhile game on TV. But all sports programs were filled with a variety of idiotic shit like tennis. Indeed, it's a wonderful idea to spend the whole evening looking at two pederasts who beat the idiotic ball through each other! In the end, Marvin found some movie with Bronson [48], which he had not yet seen, and then on PBS [49] Louis Ruckizer told some really interesting things about the stock exchange. In this way he managed to pass this evening, and most of the time Marvin almost did not notice the smell of smoke. Only sometimes - maybe only once or twice per hour - did he find himself beating with his foot or finger the rhythm of a drum played by an Indian guy.
When they later went to dinner, Marvin was not too lazy to get to the next city, which lay farther along the coast, where there was a not-so-good steak house with shamelessly high prices - if only Antonio did not have it. He was terribly angry with Antonio, because he suspected that he had rigged this whole story, wanting to play a trick on him. “He had to drown this grinning latinos with his reminded hair in his own shitty lobster tank,” thought Marvin.
That evening, shortly after eleven, when Marvin was sitting in the living room, trying to concentrate on the last book of Rush Limbaugh [50], Pamela called him from the top of the stairs.
He had a radio on for a station from New Jersey broadcasting country and western music. He hated both, but tried to use one source of irritation to extinguish another. A bunch of Homers, with their nasal singing, could at least expel this damned Native American chatter that did not want to crawl out of his brain. Pamela had to call Marvin several times before he heard her, got to his feet and went to the foot of the stairs.
- What do you want?
“You better go out and see, Marvin,” she said calmly. - There are some people on our beach.
- Damn it! - He always knew that sooner or later this would happen; but why was this supposed to happen now? “Get my shotgun,” he told her, “and call the police.”
Pamela did not move.
“Don't jerk like that, Marvin.” In my opinion, there are only two of them, and they do nothing special. They do not even come to the house. Probably just decided to walk along the coast with the moon.
- Oh, of course! - Marvin threw up his hands. - Well, now I will ask them if they would like to drink a bottle of champagne for the meeting! Maybe they still put violin music?
He walked down the corridor and went out into the kitchen, muttering under his breath. Surely some gang of cut-up punks from the city who rummage through the homes of white people, looking for someone to rob, rape or kill. It is unlikely that Pamela, damn her, will behave so calmly when they tie her hands and feet and take turns to fuck her ass before finishing it off. He hoped they would let him see it ...
The glass door slid silently to the side, and Marvin, in his socks, stepped onto the terrace. The ebb had already begun, the sea was calm and in silence he could distinctly hear the voices heard below, on the beach.
He held out his hand back in the doorway, and flicked the switch. The space under the house suddenly flooded with light, bright as day. One of the voices screamed in fright, and Marvin grinned to himself. Installing these spotlights under the terrace did not cost him so much, and he always knew that someday they would be handy - on such a night as now.
He quickly crossed the terrace and looked out over the railing. Looking down was almost painful: the white sand blinded my eyes, reflecting bright light. However, it was not difficult for him to look at the two men standing on the beach halfway between the house and the water - and also to recognize these two swarthy faces, looking down at him.
“Hello, Mr. Bradshaw, ”the Indian guy shouted. “I hope we didn't bother you?”
The old man said something in an Indian dialect. The guy said:
“My grandfather apologizes for coming so late.” But the restaurant had a lot of work tonight, and Mr. Coelho did not agree to let me go early.
- What the heck? Said Marvin, finally finding the gift of speech.
“It would be better if you came down here,” the guy added. “You should look at that.”
The most logical in this case would, of course, be to return to the house and call the police so that these two would be arrested for violating the boundaries of someone else's property. But then it will inevitably come out that Marvin had already dealt with these red-skinned bastards. For various reasons, the local cops did not like Marvin, and they probably would spread this story throughout the district - that he had hired an Indian healer to expel cockroaches from his home.
And if he simply shoots these bitch children, he will go to jail. There is no longer justice for the white man these days.
Marvin walked back to the house. Pamela was still standing on the stairs.
“These are those goddamn Indians,” he told her as he passed. “If they scalp me, call nine-one-one.” Although not, you will most likely invite them to a cup of tea with cookies.
He went through the front door, went around the house and went down the wooden stairs to the beach. Two Indians have not gone anywhere. The old man squatted down, grinning ridiculously, and the guy stood, bending over him and resting his palms on his knees. Apparently, they were looking at something on earth.
“Here, Mr. Bradshaw, ”said the guy, without raising his head. “Take a look at that.”
Marvin went to them, feeling the sand crunching under his feet, and at the same time remembering that he had forgotten to put on at least some shoes. Full socks of sand, great! Approaching, he stood between the old man and the guy, beginning was:
- Well, what ...
And then, in a completely different voice:
- God Almighty!
He had never seen so many cockroaches in his entire life.
The sand under his feet was almost invisible - a dark carpet of flat, teeming little bodies covered him. The light of the spotlights reflected off their shiny brown backs and highlighted a whole forest of swaying antennae.
Marvin jumped back and crashed into Pamela, who came after him.
“Watch out, Marvin!” She said insultedly, but then she screamed and clung to his hand.
Cockroaches, as Marvin now noted, did not scatter all over the beach and did not dart back and forth in all directions, as they usually do. They covered only a narrow strip, maybe three feet wide, no more; and everyone moved in one direction - a whole cockroach river, straight, like Fifth Avenue, starting somewhere in the shadow of their house and crossing a sandy beach to disappear in the darkness somewhere in the direction of the ocean. Marvin heard a quiet, continuous rustle coming from her, like the rustling of wind in dry leaves.
“You wanted them to leave your home,” the guy said. “Please, they are leaving.”
“But how ...” Pamela's voice weakened and stopped.
“They're going home,” the guy said. “At least they are trying.”
Marvin could hardly hear what they were saying: he looked at the cockroaches, unable to tear his eyes away from their rapidly moving crowd. He moved toward the house, continuing to examine the river of insects, until he came across the base of the cliff. Well, yes, of course - cockroaches poured right on the surface of the rock with a solid brown waterfall, originating, apparently, somewhere under the foundation.
“You see,” the guy went on, “such cockroaches that you have got, small and brown, which are often found in houses in this part of the country - they are not from here. The book says that these are German cockroaches; some people think that they appeared with us along with the Hessian mercenaries whom the king sent to fight with the guys in Washington. I am not very good at this, but in any case it was white people who brought them here from Europe.
Marvin turned and silently l
ooked at the guy for a minute. Then he again looked down at the cockroaches.
“Fucking aliens,” he muttered. “I should have guessed.”
“But south, in Florida and on the other side of the Gulf [51],” the guy added, “there are really big cockroaches, tropical; they were taken out of Africa by slave ships. Then there are those who came from Asia - they are very difficult to kill ...
Pamela interrupted him.
“And this, um ... your grandfather's spell, is it? ..
“It arouses a desire in them to return to where they came from - or rather, where their ancestors came from.” It just makes them. See for yourself.
Marvin walked along the cockroach river the other way, to the edge of the ocean. The full moon had already risen and shone brightly, so that even beyond the illumination of the spotlights one could easily see the dark strip crossing the space of sparkling sand that was still wet after the tide.
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