The Roaches Have No King

by Daniel Evan Weiss

We turned her over and folded her legs across her body, securing them by interlocking the spikes and bristles. Breaking this hold, while not impossible, was painful and noisy enough to forewarn us.

  Warily, one at a time, we let go of her. She howled and strained, but the lock held. For the first time since we arrived, citizens began to appear from the far reaches of the baseboard.

  "What are you going to do with her?" said Navel Lint.

  "What are you going to do, honey? I'll tell you," cackled Julia. The newcomers backed away. "You'll chop, and then you'll whip, and you'll mix, and you'll grate.”

  The matter was decided; I would not allow another discussion. I indicated to the other three to help me pick her up. Freed from responsibility, they were happy to comply. We turned her upright and carried her through the opening. I brushed debris off her back.

  As soon as we left the baseboard Julia stopped struggling. Divested of the hostage food that had given her power, she knew her reign was over. "Agitate slowly," she said softly.

  "What's your plan?" said Bismarck.

  They were shocked when I told them. "Hypocrites," I said. "This is just what you've been suggesting. Here. She's yours."

  In a minute she was my charge. Julia listened without struggle or protest, which I interpreted as proof of the divine justice of my plan. In retrospect I think she simply went into shock.

  We carried her up to the stove top. This was the single most lethal area of the apartment because of the slick enamel that highlighted us and then deprived us of the footing to escape. We slid Julia on her back across the surface; for once Ira's fastidiousness aided us. We lowered her under the front burner. I felt a little safer here, beneath the cover of the black steel arms. The pilot light, the eternal flame of the wrought earth altar, warmed us.

  Julia had gone limp. I began to unlock her.

  Bismarck seized me. "What are you doing?"

  I said, from deep within, "Fear not, for God is come to prove to you that ye sin not."

  Sufur said to Bismarck, "My feet don't like the sound of that."

  I freed her legs, certain she would not try to escape. I motioned to the others to take hold of them, but now they seemed as apprehensive of me as of her.

  Bismarck said, "Why are you doing this?"

  I wanted to convince him that this was what he would do if he were thinking clearly. But my serenity bade me say only, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

  There was a long silence. For the first time I was frightened—that they would leave, and I would be unable to finish. I didn't care about their approval.

  Bismarck, my true friend, said, "I don't understand you, Numbers. But I'm getting old and I have little to lose. This is my first act of faith. Don't make me regret it."

  He took the forelegs and I the rear, and we carried her back under the stovetop. Then the word was done, justice was served, the common good was protected. We had held her over the pilot light for only a few seconds when the flame split and grew up both sides, turning from cold blue to a strangely warm and reassuring orange. Her chitin hissed and spit. Soon we were covered with the stench of burning protein—which should have frightened me but didn't, because I associated it not with death but with the Gypsy's cooking.

  Julia accepted it fatalistically. Her body jerked from the heat, but it was reflex, not resistance. Her last words were a calm instruction: "Flame broil two minutes on each side."

  After two minutes we turned her. Her back was charred. The spitting and popping resumed, and the stench intensified, but it was needless. She was already dead.

  "I hope we can live with this," Bismarck said. "I really do."

  As we lowered her beside the flame, one of Julia's brittle legs broke off in his grasp. He stared at it. The other two flinched and backed away.

  "Go," I said.

  After they left the kitchen, I picked up the body. My moment of queasiness had passed; this was charcoal now, much blacker and much lighter than Julia had been. It smelled like carbon, not pheromones. She had been polished, but this thing was greasy to the touch.

  I climbed up the back of the stove and squeezed her between the angled slats of the ventilator. I laid her down inside the duct. There was a resigned look on her black, disfigured face. That was fine; I didn't expect to be thanked in this lifetime.

  I knew I hadn't chosen the most dignified resting place; I never did get to the verse about that. It was enough to know that here, Ira would not be able to sweep her up or vacuum her away as just so much garbage. If he turned his technology on her again, he would only make her fly, and ride with the angels.

  American Legions

  "SHE WOULD HAVE doomed us by sunset," I said.

  "I know," said Bismarck.

  "I had no choice."

  "I know."

  Still, today I felt sticky with her blood. "What's the use? By the time I get Ira and the blonde together we'll all be either mad or dead."

  Bismarck said, "That's part of the challenge. You have to keep everyone alive long enough to save them."

  The signs looked a lot worse than they had a day ago. Julia's disintegration had provoked thorough regressions in me and many book carriers. Why hadn't it inspired heroic acts of self-defense? If hunger had eroded us more than we suspected, what would be the effect of last night's disposal of our stocks through the baseboard hole?

  Bismarck was probably right: the only possible moral and physical restorative for the colony, and the one way for me to regain their faith, was immediate food.

  I could think of just one place I might find some— down the hall. Though I wasn't sure I could succeed alone, after the stove episode I knew no one would come with me.

  EVEN IF JULIA had lanced every eye in my head, I could have found the Tambellinis' apartment with ease. The aroma of olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, onions, cheese, and pepperoni billowing from under their door made our pickled herring and horseradish seem as appetizing as rubber gloves. This, the prized apartment in the building, was for generations the site of a huge Blattella germanica colony. Ten years ago Periplaneta americanae, mutant roaches many times our size, took it in a bloody four-month war. We knew little about what had happened here since. I walked under the door, wondering if I would find a fat happy colony, or nasty giants who still bore my species a grudge.

  I was surprised that the door was not guarded. I walked into the apartment. From the bedroom doorway I could see ghoulish television light dancing over garish wallpaper—hell in the modern Catholic household.

  Hector Tambellini, somewhere on the bed, said, "Look at Johnny. His ex-wife taking him up the wazoo. Never worked a day in her life. You leave me, you know what you get, Vi? This..." Smack!

  There was laughter from the TV. I walked past the doorway.

  "How could any woman leave a gentleman like you?"

  I stepped over the kitchen threshold, tensed for confrontation. The room was empty. I was relieved, but at the same time annoyed that Periplanetae could be so blasé about their riches while my colony languished.

  I suddenly felt chastising eyes on my back, as if I had been heard thinking aloud. But I couldn't see them. I took a few slow steps forward, then back, and the eyes followed me. I jumped into a crack in the old linoleum.

  Nothing moved. It could only be a Periplaneta americana somewhere in the shadows, engaging in high-minded entertainment. There was no sense pretending to be hidden.

  Soon after I left the crack, I realized I was wrong. These eyes didn't have Periplaneta motion; they were stationary. Fixed, in feet, on a redwood plaque. They were not compound eyes, not simple human ones—they were quattrocento human eyes, belonging to none other than my childhood chum the Madonna. She hung flattened on the wall two feet above the sugar bowl. Her son, laminated in her arms, did not look at all well. Never had I imagined this scene illustrated so gruesomely. And though I had acted by biblical fiat the previous night, I didn't believe I would be capable of making much of a plea for mercy from someone who did this to m
e.

  Mercy was not to be the theme of the evening. I descended from the chair leg to face a Periplaneta americana nymph. Nymph? This second instar was already twice my size. As she started to scream I stuffed dust into her mouth. But we were soon surrounded by her Watusi brethren.

  I was amazed by the size of these animals. Ira bowed and scraped before basketball players, people a hundred pounds heavier and a foot taller than he. These Periplaneta monsters stood about four times my height and displaced thirty times my weight; I was not only an unworthy adversary, I was an inadequate footstool. I wondered how Ira would plead to a black mugger the size of a bus.

  A playful tap from the nymph dropped me to the floor. Someone very strong hoisted me above his head, so I could see all the surface he might smear with me. "We don't like Huns," he said.

  He launched me across the room. My flight ended when my abdomen scraped along the dirty floor. I burned to a stop in front of a toothpick sticking up from the exposed floorboards. A decaying Blattella head sat pierced on its point.¶A human totem. Why, in this prosperity, had the americanae become so cruel and let their culture fall so low.

  "Let's get that other toothpick," said one of the monsters.

  "We can shove this one's head down over the other one. Make them into an hors d'oeuvre."

  I was quickly running out of time. I said, "I came here depending on your honor as roaches."

  "Honor? You Hun bastards fought us like lice," said a grizzled americana who looked old enough to have participated in the war. He was probably right.

  "That was years before I was born," I said.

  "Listen to that voice. Is it really male? Vi'd call him a countertenor." They laughed, and I hated them.

  "It's prudent to have allies in another apartment," I said in my deepest tones.

  The grizzled one tore the toothpick out of the floor and menaced me; it was as awesome as if Ira had extirpated an oak. The Blattella head nodded at me. Not yet, I thought. The grizzled one said, "We don't need you for anything, and never will. What do you want from us? Ask me. No, beg me."

  The crowd around us thickened. One female showered us with pheromones which, to me, were sickly and coarse. Sexual allure does not cross species lines; and even if it did, hers was eclipsed by toxic levels of garlic.

  The other males didn't seem to feel that way; their albatross wings began to beat. Their wind suddenly swept me across the floor. Trying to plant my legs I took a splinter that felt like a javelin. When I tried to tend it I smacked into the wall.

  Each time I stepped away from the wall I was blown right back against it. I balanced on my rear end, legs free. "All right, Goliath, listen good. The way you're living, the dagos could take you out with one jar of boric acid. I'm literate; that means I can read. I can tell you things, warn you. In return I want one of your used skins. That's all."

  The beasts laughed, filling the air with Italian halitosis. The grizzled one said, "What's the kicker? You want it stuffed with ricotta cheese or sweet sausage?

  "Just the shell."

  There was a buzz of disappointment; my request was a penny, too modest to refuse. Molted shells are important components of many insect diets. But because they were not quite al dente, here they just littered the room.

  One ugly Periplaneta with a deep scar across its head pushed between the others. "It don't mean nothing to us, but he could plant it. Set us up. Look in his eyes; he hates our guts."

  He was right. But the others turned away. When the breeze dropped so did I.

  I looked up to see the perfect Periplaneta specimen, huge and sleek, with thighs like polished obsidian. Her expression was alluring but malevolent. I was in trouble.

  "I understand you've come for a piece of our lives," she said. She led me to a pile of carcasses.

  "Just a discarded one, that is, of course, if you don't mind."

  "I am American Woman, queen of the bodies. Our culture is based on the exchange of goods and services." She rocked a carapace with her midleg. "We are not a charity."

  The others were gathering around again. "My colony is so poor that I cannot offer you anything you don't already have," I said.

  She reached down and patted me, which felt like blows from a sledge. "There, there. If you want the shell badly enough I'm sure you'll think of something." I looked for the fire door. "We are not heartless. I'll give you the goods, if you service me good."

  The crowd cheered.

  "I'm flattered," I said. "But what good could I do a gorgeous hunk like you, surrounded by these virile bulls?"

  Males applauded. Females hooted. She said, "They bore me, the awkward puppies. All the same moves, one, two, three. They don't understand my needs."

  She stepped toward me. I tried to back away, but I was blocked by the crowd.

  "Don't you desire me?" She sprayed me wantonly, like a cosmetics salesgirl.

  My pulse sped and my wings quivered. This was not possible. "I'm just a little Hun who doesn't want to disappoint you."

  Her second blast of pheromones cramped my legs and blinded me. Her antennae honed on mine, knives on a steel. I knew who was to be the turkey.

  My insides were oiled and moving. When my wings spread, common sense flew from me; I thought not of my pain, the deviance of my captor, or even the perversion of this scene. I thought only that sex was possible. Stranger things had happened—Ira and the Gypsy, Sodom and Gomorrah.

  Then I delivered one of my life's most regrettable lines: "OK, American Woman, go for it."

  I awaited the touch of her mouth on my gland. As my eyes cleared I saw a lowering crane. I crouched against the floor. But she was tender. The power of my chemicals would equalize us; if anything, she'd soon be in my thrall. I'd bring her back to Ira's, and she'd tear Ben Franklin out of my cabinet like a little scab. We could bag this human romance plan altogether. And then, who knew? A family?

  American Woman suddenly ripped me into the air. I thought my gland would tear off in her mouth. I couldn't help churning my legs as I swung high above the hardwoods, and this brought the monsters' laughter to a new pitch. The searing pain in my gland pulsed—American Woman was laughing, too.

  "You've got a hot one this time," said the grizzled one.

  She spit me out. When I hit the floor my wings could not completely close over the swollen gland.

  "You know the puddle in the soap dish?" she said, laughing and spitting. "That's what he tastes like."

  While they carried on, I slipped between some legs. Even if I didn't reach the door, I might find a crack in the woodwork where I could wait them out. They had had their fun; they would soon tire of me.

  I didn't get far before I heard American Woman. "Where are you going, my prince? You told me to go for it, and your word is my law."

  She stepped in front of me and stood imperiously still. I backed under her; it might as well have been into a barn. I didn't know how I was going to reach.

  "American Woman," I said. "Where I grew up they say, 'She stoops to conquer.'"

  "But when in Rome, amore, do as the Tambellinis do."

  The Tambellinis would have lowered a boot on the lot of them.

  I used American Woman's shadow to line up my genitals with where I assumed hers would be. My phallomere, my hook, had never been fully extended; it had never been necessary. But this seemed an awfully long way.

  "Come down here a bit, or let's just forget it," I said.

  She looked down; the play in her face was gone. I took aim. My phallomere soon elevated a record distance. I could feel muscles flexing for the first time. When I began to ache, I felt for her opening, but I couldn't find it. The Periplaneta savages taunted me. I looked back: I was no more than halfway to American Woman's body. My proud phallomere wavered, a piece of lint beside her gleaming limbs.

  "Careful, he'll tear you up with that monster," said the scarred one.

  The bitch would not move. I shunted blood to my rearquarters. But I was just not constructed to prevent this humiliation. />
  "Timber!"

  The natives whistled the sound of a dropping bomb. Now American Woman lowered herself onto me. As soon as I felt her weight, I gave my phallomere a flex and drove it up into her. Her mocking laughter stopped. But her hole was so huge and its lining so thick that I couldn't hook on. My phallomere circled the crater twice but then, exhausted and cramping, flopped out.

  "She stoops to conquer," American Woman whispered. "You were right, it's a wonderful idea." She dropped her entire weight on my back.

  My legs sprang straight out, like a crab's. I was pinned to the floor, the pressure beyond anything I had ever felt. American Woman adjusted her position to seal more of my spiracles. Soon I could barely breathe. What was she after? There were simpler ways to kill me.

  "Easy on her, stud," the scarred one said. "No rough stuff."

  It took all my strength just to support her weight. The noise was swelling. Soon there was a wild cheer. The Periplanetae leaped around the floor like simians. I had never seen such a display from a higher life form.

  "A bull! A pile driver! She'll be deformed for life."

  I hadn't any idea what they were on about, and I saw no need for them to be so rude as to collect behind me. Everything in my hindquarters seemed as it should be. I tensed the muscles to be sure.

  And then I knew. The unthinkable had happened. The combined pressure of American Woman and my effort to support her had squeezed out my phallus like a line of toothpaste on the floor, where I was quite sure it lay, flaccid and useless.

  I was powerless to prevent the ultimate degradation.

  "Mayday! Mayday! German nukes at six o'clock!"

  And so my precious spermatophore, my genetic guarantor of the future of my species, a commodity bid for many a sexy Blattella female, now ignominiously plopped onto the Tambellinis' dirty floor. The crowd climaxed.

  American Woman got up. The relief from her weight was greater than any sexual release I'd ever known. She rolled onto her back and pedaled her legs, moaning. "Oh, baby, it's never been like that before."

  At that moment I would have been glad if Hec and Vi had taken us all out with the spray. As the crowd clustered like brutish children around my spermatophore, I picked up a shell of an earlier version of American Woman and carried it off. I had earned it.