Like a Roach
Every time the wood flooring creaked, Raymond winced. Sorry, sorry, he whispered to himself, half hoping the woman in the other room was still awake. At least then she wouldn’t come alive with fright, which seemed to be the only way she was wound. It was always “Oh! you scared me,” every time he came home, or “Oh! I didn’t know you were here.”
Raymond never thought of himself as a very frightening figure. He was, by most accounts, rather timid. He wasn’t a small man, but his tucked shoulders and slippery eye contact had become habits that kept him from relationships and gainful employment. He was the sort who felt out of place even in bed. And when the floor squeaked, Raymond had a hard time convincing himself he wasn’t an intruder in his own apartment. His bare feet didn’t help the racket, as he’d hoped, but instead slowed him in the dark, as he was afraid of stubbing a toe on a piece of living room furniture. The languid steps he took, then, only seemed to prolong the creaks. If it were up to him, he’d stay in his room.
But his gut, that bottomless pit!
Finally he got to the kitchen. With his right hand he fingered an electrical socket, then climbed the wall until he found the switch.
The first things he noticed were two shiny black beads resting on the tiny throw rug just in front of the refrigerator. They were each about an inch and more in length, and situated at perpendicular angles.
One ran at him, antennae waving boldly, and stopped three feet from him in the center of a white square of the chess-checkered linoleum.
Raymond stepped back. He’d gotten used to the ants in the apartment, but only because they were so small you could squint and they wouldn’t be there anymore. A sandwich tasted just as good squinting. But a cockroach? Two?
The other one hadn’t moved from its guard position in front of the refridgerator. It seemed obvious to Raymond that he’d discovered some kind of plot, interrupted a mission. That one was the brains, and this one - this one that had run at him was the muscle.
“You tell him to back off, all right?” he whispered. “You tell him I’m not going for the fridge anymore. I’m just going back to bed. I’ll forget I saw you.”
Neither of them moved, and Raymond was struck by a flash of anger. He was bigger, wasn’t he? They should be more afraid of him!
He took two loud but shortened steps toward the warrior bug, expecting the thing to dart off in the direction of the other one, but it didn’t move. Of course it hadn’t. Now Raymond was standing mere inches from its body, with bare feet. A wave of grotesque fear drove him back again just as the cockroach lunged.
Once again he found himself in a Mexican standoff with the already much larger-seeming creature. The other one watched, calm. Raymond found himself wondering what harm could come to him, realistically. Did the things bite? He thought of his own current set of bug bites. One on his left bicep, on his back just above his right buttock, on his left wrist, and just behind his right calf. All of them had been especially bulbous and had oozed bloody pus when he’d itched them. He’d supposed they were spider bites, but that was what he always supposed when he woke up with itchy stab wounds. Now, with Bonnie and Clyde staring him in the face, he wasn’t so sure. If it was them, then they knew where he slept.
No more sleeping naked, no matter how comfortable. He’d be dressing in long-johns from now on. It felt good to make a decision, but then he imagined Clyde crawling up the inside of his pantleg and going on a rampage down there, waking Raymond with his explorations. What would he do, then? There would be no brushing the roach off, no. He would find himself beating at the cotton, trying to smash the crunchy bug against his own skin. Just thinking about the potential panic of it made him nauseous.
And still the roaches hadn’t moved. There was a phonebook on top of the fridge, but even if he could get past the warrior roach, he’d only be able to drop it on one of them. And the noise it would make! No, he wasn’t going to try and kill them. The other thing he didn’t want to do was turn and creak back to his room. Not in the dark. Not if he could imagine them following. He tried again to get in Bonnie’s good graces.
“Listen. Maybe you like me, maybe I taste good. I don’t know. Thing is, there’s someone who tastes even better, and she lives just across the hall from me. Always leaves her door open. Sleeps on the floor. With her mouth open.” Raymond didn’t know if this was true, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to artificially sweeten the deal. “If you’ll just…get your friend to back up, I’ll take you over there.”
Bonnie by the refridgerator started for him, and Raymond thought for a second he’d done it wrong. That he’d said something out of place. Maybe it wasn’t proper etiquette among cockroaches to try and sell your freedom for another.
But then she’d stopped, and she was waving her antennae. Clyde took note, and started backing up. One step at a time, never taking his wary bug eyes off Raymond.
They had a deal. He turned the kitchen light off.
When they came to the bathroom, he crouched and pointed into MaryAnne’s room. Like he’d promised, the door was open a sliver.
“In there.”
Raymond ducked into his own room and shut his door, but not before catching a glimpse of the two racing each other into his fearful housemate’s room. He could no longer tell which one was Bonnie and which Clyde, because they’d ceased to look like anything but black beads again in the dark.
He pushed a towel under his door and hoped they’d forgive him his paranoia. In bed, he wore just a t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs. A happy medium. The air conditioner thrummed, and outside he could hear rain beating a rhythm through the trees.
