Witpunk

by Claude Lalumiere; Marty Halpern

  A little after eleven that night, Marvin was sitting in the living room, trying to read Rush Limbaugh's latest book, when Pamela called him from the head of the stairs.

  He had the radio on, tuned to a New Jersey station that played country and western – which he hated, but he was trying to use one irritation against another; a bunch of Gomers singing through their noses might cancel out that God-damned Indian racket that wouldn't get out of his mind. Pamela had to call several times before he got up and came to the foot of the stairs. "What?"

  "You'd better go out and have a look, Marvin," she said calmly. "There are people down on our beach."

  "Oh, fuck." He'd always known it would happen sooner or later, but why did it have to happen now? "Get me my shotgun," he said, "and phone the cops."

  Pamela didn't move. "Don't overreact, Marvin. I don't think there are more than two of them, and they don't seem to be doing anything. They're not even close to the house. Probably just walking along the beach in the moonlight."

  "Sure." Marvin threw up his hands. "Right, I'll just go see if they'd like a complimentary bottle of champagne. Maybe a little violin music."

  He went down the hallway and through the kitchen, muttering. Probably some gang of crack-head punks from the city, looking for white people to rob and rape and murder. Pamela wouldn't be so God-damned serene when they tied her up and took turns screwing her in the ass before they killed her. He hoped they'd let him watch.

  The glass door slid silently open and Marvin stepped sockfooted out onto the deck. The tide was out and the sea was calm, and in the quiet he could definitely hear voices down on the beach.

  He reached back through the door and flipped a switch. Suddenly the area beneath him was flooded with light, bright as day. One of the voices made a sound of surprise and Marvin grinned to himself. It hadn't cost much to have those big lights installed underneath the deck, and he'd known they'd come in handy some night like this.

  He walked quickly across the deck and peered over the railing. It was almost painful to look down; the white sand reflected the light with dazzling intensity. He had no trouble, though, in seeing the two men standing on the beach, halfway between the house and the water. Or in recognizing the two brown faces that looked up at him.

  "Hi, Mr. Bradshaw," the Indian kid called. "Hope we didn't disturb you."

  The old man said something in Indian talk. The kid said, "My grandfather wants to apologize for coming around so late. But it was a busy night at the restaurant and Mr. Coelho wouldn't let me off any sooner."

  "What the fuck," Marvin said, finally able to speak.

  "You ought to come down here," the kid added. "You'll want to see this."

  The logical thing to do at this point, of course, was to go back in the house and call the police and have these two arrested for trespassing. But then it would come out, how Marvin had gotten involved with the red bastards in the first place. The local cops didn't like Marvin, for various reasons, and would probably spread the story all over the area, how he had hired an Indian medicine man to get the cockroaches out of his home.

  And if he simply shot the sons of bitches, he'd go to jail. There was no justice for a white man any more.

  Marvin went back through the house. Pamela was still standing on the stairs. "It's those damn Indians," he told her as he passed. "If they scalp me you can call nine-one-one. No, you'll probably bring them in for tea and cookies."

  He went out the front door and around the house and down the wooden stairway to the beach. The two Indians were still there. The old man was down in a funny crouch, while the kid was bent over with his hands on his knees. They seemed to be looking at something on the ground.

  "Here, Mr. Bradshaw," the kid said without looking up. "Look at this."

  Marvin walked toward them, feeling the sand crunch softly beneath his feet, realizing he had forgotten to put on any shoes. Socks full of sand, great. He came up between the old man and the kid and said, "All right, what's the – " and then in a totally different voice, "Jesus God Almighty!"

  He had never seen so many cockroaches in all his life.

  The sand at his feet was almost hidden by a dark carpet of flat scuttling bodies. The light from the floodlamps glinted off their shiny brown backs and picked out a forest of waving antennae.

  Marvin leaped back and bumped into Pamela, who had followed him. "Look out, Marvin," she said crossly, and then she screamed and clutched at him.

  The cockroaches, Marvin saw now, were not spreading out over the beach, or running in all directions in their usual way. They covered a narrow strip, maybe three feet wide, no more; and they were all moving together, a cockroach river that started somewhere in the shadow of the house and ran straight as Fifth Avenue across the sandy beach, to vanish into the darkness in the direction of the ocean. Marvin could hear a faint steady rustling, like wind through dry leaves.

  "You wanted them out of your house," the kid said. "Well, there they go."

  "How . . . " Pamela's voice trailed off weakly.

  "They're going home," the kid said. "Or trying to."

  Marvin barely heard the words; he was watching the cockroaches, unable to pull his eyes away from the scurrying horde. He walked toward the house, studying the roaches, until he came up against the base of the bluff. Sure enough, the roaches were pouring straight down the rock face in a brown cataract that seemed to be coming from up under the foundation of the house.

  "See," the kid was saying, "the kind of roaches you got, the little brown cockroaches like you see in houses in this part of the country – they're not native. Book says they're German cockroaches, some say they came over with those Hessian mercenaries the King hired to fight Washington's guys. I don't know about that, but anyway the white people brought them over from Europe."

  Marvin turned and stared at the kid for a moment. Then he looked down at the cockroaches again. "Fucking foreigners," he muttered. "I should have known."

  "Now down in Florida and around the Gulf," the kid added, "you get these really big tropical roaches, they came over from Africa on slave ships. Then there's a kind that comes from Asia, very hard to kill."

  Pamela said, "And your grandfather's, ah, medicine – ?"

  "Makes them want to go back where they came from. Well, where their ancestors came from. Makes them have to. Look."

  Marvin was tracking the cockroach stampede in the other direction now, out across the beach. The moon was up and full, and even beyond floodlight range it was easy to see the dark strip against the shiny damp low-tide sand.

  At the water's edge the cockroaches did not hesitate. Steadily, without a single break in the flow, they scurried headlong into the sea. The calm water of the shallows was dotted with dark specks and clumps that had to be the bodies of hundreds, maybe thousands of roaches. Marvin found himself remembering something he'd heard, how you could line all the Chinamen up and march them into the ocean and they'd never stop coming because they bred so fast.

  The old man spoke as Marvin came walking back across the sand. The kid said, "He says he'll leave it on the rest of the night, in case you got rats or mice."

  "It works on them too?" Pamela asked.

  "Sure." The kid nodded. "No extra charge."

  "The hell," Marvin said, "you're going to claim you people didn't have rats or mice either, before Columbus?"

  "Some kinds. Woods and field mice, water rats, sure. But your common house mouse, or your gray Norway rat, or those black rats you see in the city, they all came over on ships."

  "I don't see any," Pamela observed.

  "Oh, you wouldn't, not yet. The bigger the animal, the longer the medicine takes to work. Matter of body weight. You take a real big gray rat, he might not feel it for the rest of the night. Along about daybreak, though, he'll come down here and start trying to swim back to Norway or wherever."

  The old man spoke again. "My grandfather says we'll come back tomorrow, so he can turn the medicine off. Can't leave it on too long. Things .
. . happen."

  At their feet the cockroaches streamed onward toward oblivion.

  Marvin slept badly that night, tormented by a persistent dream in which he ran in terror across an endless empty plain beneath a dark sky. A band of Indians pursued him, whooping and waving tomahawks and beating drums, while ranks of man-sized cockroaches stood on their hind legs on either side, shouting at him in Spanish. Pamela appeared in front of him, naked. "It is your karma, Marvin!" she cried. He saw that she had long antennae growing from her head, and an extra set of arms where her breasts had been.

  He sat up in bed, sweating and shaking. The smoke smell in the room was so strong he could hardly breathe. "Gah," he said aloud, and fought the tangled covers off him and got up, to stand on wobbly legs for a moment in the darkness.

  On her side of the bed Pamela mumbled, "Marvin?" But she didn't turn over, and he knew she wasn't really awake.

  He went downstairs, holding tight to the banister, and got a bottle of Johnny Walker from the liquor cabinet. In the darkened hall way he took a big drink, and then another, straight from the bottle. The first one almost came back up but the second felt a lot better.

  He carried the bottle back upstairs, to the guest bedroom, where he cranked the windows wide open and turned on the big ceiling fan and stretched out on the bed. He could still smell the smoke, but another belt of Scotch helped that.

  He lay there drinking for a long time, until finally the whiskey eased him off into a sodden sleep. He dreamed again, but this time there were no Indians or cockroaches; in fact it was a pleasant, restful dream, in which he found himself strolling across gently rolling pasture land. Big oak trees grew along the footpath where he walked, their branches heavy with spring-green leaves. Sheep grazed on a nearby hillside.

  In the distance, at the crest of a high hill, rose the gray walls and battlements of an ancient-looking castle. A winding dirt road led up to the castle gate, and he saw now that a troop of soldiers in red coats were marching along it, headed in his direction. The poong poong poong poong of their drum carried across the fields to Marvin, and he could hear their voices raised in song:

  hey ya hey yo hey ya

  yo hey ya hey na wey

  ah ho ha na yo

  ho ho ho ho

  He awoke again with the sun shining through the windows. He lay for a long time with a pillow over his face, knowing he wasn't going to enjoy getting up.

  When he finally emerged from the guest bedroom, sweaty and unshaven, it was almost midday. Passing the main bathroom, he heard the shower running. Pamela would have been up for hours; she always got up ridiculously early, so she could do her silly meditation and yoga exercises on the deck as the sun came up.

  Marvin was sitting in the living room drinking coffee when the doorbell rang. He lurched to his feet, said, "Shit!" and headed for the front door. Sunlight stabbed viciously at his eyes when he opened the door and he blinked against the pain. He opened his eyes again and saw the two Indians standing on his porch.

  "Sorry if we're a little early," the kid said. "I have to be at work soon."

  Marvin regarded them without warmth. "The fuck you want now?"

  "Well, you know, Mr. Bradshaw. My grandfather did a job for you."

  Marvin nodded. That was a mistake. When the agony in his head receded he said, "And now you want to get paid. Wait here a minute."

  There was no way these two clowns could make a claim stick, but he didn't feel up to a nasty scene. His wallet was upstairs in the bedroom, but he knew Pamela kept a little cash in a vase on the mantlepiece, for paying delivery boys and the like. He dug out the roll and peeled off a twenty and went back to the front door. "There you are, Chief. Buy yourself a new feather."

  The old man didn't touch the twenty. "One hundred dollars," he said. In English.

  Marvin laughed sourly. "Dream on, Sitting Bull. I'm being a nice guy giving you anything, after you stank up my house. Take the twenty or forget it."

  The old man jabbered at the kid. He didn't take his eyes off Marvin. The kid said, "You don't pay, he won't turn the medicine off."

  "That's supposed to worry me? If I believed in this crap at all, I wouldn't want it 'turned off.' Leave it on, keep the roaches away forever."

  "That's not how it works," the kid said. "It won't affect anything that wasn't in the house when the medicine was made."

  Marvin thought of something. "Look, I tell you what I'll do. You give me some of that stuff you were burning yesterday, okay? And I'll write you out a check for a hundred bucks, right now."

  After all, when you cut past the superstitious bullshit, there had to be something in that smoke that got rid of roaches better than anything on the market. Screwed up their brains, maybe, who knew? Take a sample to a lab, have it analyzed, there could be a multimillion-dollar product in there. It was worth gambling a hundred. Hell, he might not even stop payment on the check. Maybe.

  But the old man shook his head and the kid said, "Sorry, Mr. Bradshaw. That's all secret. Anyway, it wouldn't work without the song."

  Marvin's vision went even redder than it already was. "All right," he shouted, "get off my porch, get that rusty piece of shit out of my driveway, haul your red asses out of here." The kid opened his mouth. "You want trouble, Tonto? You got a license to run a pest-control business in this county? Go on, move!"

  When the rattling blat of the old pickup's exhaust had died away, Marvin returned to the living room. Pamela was standing on the stairs in a white terry robe. Her hair was wet. She looked horribly cheerful.

  "I thought I heard voices," she said. "Was it those Native Americans? I hope you paid them generously."

  Marvin sank onto the couch. "I gave them what they had coming."

  "I'm just disappointed I didn't get to see them again. Such an honor, having a real shaman in my house. Such an inspiring ceremony, too. Remember that lovely song he sang? I can still hear it in my mind, over and over, like a mantra. Isn't that wonderful?"

  Singing happily to herself, hey ya hey yo hey ya, she trotted back up the stairs. And poong poong poong poong went the drum in Marvin's head.

  He spent the rest of the day lying on the living room couch, mostly with his eyes closed, wishing he could sleep. He made no move toward the liquor supply. He would have loved a drink, but his stomach wouldn't have stood for it.

  The hangover didn't get any better; at times it seemed the top of his skull must surely crack open like an overcooked egg. His whole body ached as if he'd fallen down a flight of stairs. Even the skin of his face felt too tight.

  Worst of all, he was still hearing Indian music, louder and clearer and more insistent than ever. Up to now it had been no more than a nuisance, one of those maddening tricks the brain occasionally plays, like having the Gilligan's Island theme stuck in your mind all day. Now, it had become a relentless clamor that filled the inside of his head with the savage boom of the drum and the endless ululation of the old man's voice; and from time to time Marvin put his hands over his ears, though he knew it would do no good. He might even have screamed, but that would have hurt too much.

  Pamela had vanished around noon; off to visit her crazy friends, Marvin thought dully, never mind her poor damn husband. But around four he tottered into the kitchen – not that he had any appetite, but maybe some food would settle his stomach – and happened to glance out through the glass doors, and there she was, down on the beach. She wore a long white dress and she appeared to be dancing, back and forth along the sand, just above the line of the incoming tide. Her hands were raised above her head, clapping. He couldn't hear the sound, but his eyes registered the rhythm: clap clap clap clap, in perfect synch with the drumming in his head and the boom of blood in his throbbing temples.

  The sun went down at last. Marvin left the lights off, finding the darkness soothing. He wondered if Pamela was still down on the beach. "Pamela!" he called, and again; but there was no answer, and he decided he didn't give enough of a damn to go look for her.

  But
time went by and still no sign of her, and finally Marvin got to his feet and shuffled to the door. It wasn't safe, a white woman out alone on a beach at night. Besides, he needed some fresh air. The stink of smoke was so bad it seemed to stick to his skin; he itched all over.

  He went slowly down the wooden steps to the little beach. The moon was up and full and the white sand fairly gleamed. He could see the whole beach, clear out to the silver line that marked the retreating edge of the sea.

  He couldn't see Pamela anywhere.

  He walked out across the sand, with no real idea what he expected to find. His feet seemed to move on their own, without consulting him, and he let them. His body no longer hurt; even his headache was gone. The drumming in his head was very loud now, a deafening POONG POONG POONG POONG, yet somehow it didn't bother him any more.

  The damp sand below the high-tide mark held a line of small shoeless footprints, headed out toward the water. Marvin followed without haste or serious interest. He saw something ahead, whiter than the sand. When he got there he was not greatly surprised to recognize Pamela's dress.