me, and I felt such strength in him, in the flex and retraction of the muscles under his liquid hot skin.
I looked up at him, stayed with him, although I felt sleepy and slow, as if I were half a beat behind as he was surging. There was pleasure in the heat of him against me and then in me, pleasure in his pleasure, and over it all, this blanketed feeling of safety, as if he were storming all around me but I was lying quietly in the eye, moving with him, painlessly alive and present.
After, we lay looking at each other in the light from the bedside lamp, solemnly, for quite some time. Then he reached over me and clicked it off. I closed my eyes and was almost instantly asleep.
CHAPTER 6
I SPENT THE last week of summer before my sophomore year at Fruiton High sitting in front of the television. When school started up again, I knew I would have to see Jim Beverly.
He would be sauntering through the halls, passing out his easy grins like party favors. I’d smell his spoor in every room of the building. Even now, miles away from him, I couldn’t bear to think that he was somewhere alive in the world, breathing in and out, probably having a wonderful time torturing mice or beating up a baby.
A world with Jim Beverly in it was a constant wash of gray tones that shifted around me as the morning talk shows faded into a four-hour block of soap operas. The heated conversations about love and betrayal were white noise, mercifully blanketing my thoughts. One morning as I lay mutely on the rug, I happened to shift my dull gaze heavenward and gasped, my TV
trance broken. There, in glorious Technicolor, glossy and thick, clinging to the ceiling by his six hairy feet, was the grandfather of all Alabama roaches.
In Chicago, when someone says, “Eeek, a roach!” they mean a prim little buglet is mincing its way up the wainscoting. In Alabama those same words mean something completely different.
I had never seen an Alabama roach when my mother and I moved back down to live with Aunt Florence, Uncle Bruster, and Clarice. I was just a kid. My second night in their house, I went into the hall bathroom to brush my teeth. Before, I remembered it had had kid wallpaper with fat baby dinosaurs scrubbing themselves in bubbly bathtubs. I guessed Aunt Florence had put the wallpaper up after she had Wayne. It had been primary colors, very boyish. But like his bedroom, the whole bathroom had been purged of anything remotely Wayne-like. The walls were now a soothing mental-institution pink, and the dinosaur shower cur-tain had been replaced by a pink plastic liner. On the floor was a loopy throw rug. It was striped in bright pink and blue and yellow and shaped like a tropical fish. The floor was made of tiny white tiles, like rows and rows of square teeth, scrubbed so aggressively that the grout between was almost as white as the tiles.
I opened the drawer by the sink and saw that Clarice had Angel Gel toothpaste. This was a kid toothpaste, new on the market. My mother, back in the days when she bought toothpaste, always bought regular old Crest. Angel Gel was pale pink and opalescent, and I squirted a generous measure onto my brush.
Something caught my eye, a large black spot on the Pepto-Bismol hand towel. Just as I looked towards it, the spot launched itself, spreading, shooting towards me with a buzzing, mechani-cal hiss. It landed on my toothbrush. Its mouth unfolded, separating into four parts, and it clipped a neat slice out of my pink toothpaste.
I threw the toothbrush away from me, hard, and then the whole world went into slo-mo. I watched the toothbrush spinning through the air, and as it fell, the creature clinging to its tip launched itself off the bristles, spreading its wings again and zooming in agonizing detail towards my head.
I fled shrieking down the hall, and that was my introduction to the Alabama roach, also known as a palmetto bug. Ever since that moment I have hated them with a black passion. The thought that
I looked up at him, stayed with him, although I felt sleepy and slow, as if I were half a beat behind as he was surging. There was pleasure in the heat of him against me and then in me, pleasure in his pleasure, and over it all, this blanketed feeling of safety, as if he were storming all around me but I was lying quietly in the eye, moving with him, painlessly alive and present.
After, we lay looking at each other in the light from the bedside lamp, solemnly, for quite some time. Then he reached over me and clicked it off. I closed my eyes and was almost instantly asleep.
CHAPTER 6
I SPENT THE last week of summer before my sophomore year at Fruiton High sitting in front of the television. When school started up again, I knew I would have to see Jim Beverly.
He would be sauntering through the halls, passing out his easy grins like party favors. I’d smell his spoor in every room of the building. Even now, miles away from him, I couldn’t bear to think that he was somewhere alive in the world, breathing in and out, probably having a wonderful time torturing mice or beating up a baby.
A world with Jim Beverly in it was a constant wash of gray tones that shifted around me as the morning talk shows faded into a four-hour block of soap operas. The heated conversations about love and betrayal were white noise, mercifully blanketing my thoughts. One morning as I lay mutely on the rug, I happened to shift my dull gaze heavenward and gasped, my TV
trance broken. There, in glorious Technicolor, glossy and thick, clinging to the ceiling by his six hairy feet, was the grandfather of all Alabama roaches.
In Chicago, when someone says, “Eeek, a roach!” they mean a prim little buglet is mincing its way up the wainscoting. In Alabama those same words mean something completely different.
I had never seen an Alabama roach when my mother and I moved back down to live with Aunt Florence, Uncle Bruster, and Clarice. I was just a kid. My second night in their house, I went into the hall bathroom to brush my teeth. Before, I remembered it had had kid wallpaper with fat baby dinosaurs scrubbing themselves in bubbly bathtubs. I guessed Aunt Florence had put the wallpaper up after she had Wayne. It had been primary colors, very boyish. But like his bedroom, the whole bathroom had been purged of anything remotely Wayne-like. The walls were now a soothing mental-institution pink, and the dinosaur shower cur-tain had been replaced by a pink plastic liner. On the floor was a loopy throw rug. It was striped in bright pink and blue and yellow and shaped like a tropical fish. The floor was made of tiny white tiles, like rows and rows of square teeth, scrubbed so aggressively that the grout between was almost as white as the tiles.
I opened the drawer by the sink and saw that Clarice had Angel Gel toothpaste. This was a kid toothpaste, new on the market. My mother, back in the days when she bought toothpaste, always bought regular old Crest. Angel Gel was pale pink and opalescent, and I squirted a generous measure onto my brush.
Something caught my eye, a large black spot on the Pepto-Bismol hand towel. Just as I looked towards it, the spot launched itself, spreading, shooting towards me with a buzzing, mechani-cal hiss. It landed on my toothbrush. Its mouth unfolded, separating into four parts, and it clipped a neat slice out of my pink toothpaste.
I threw the toothbrush away from me, hard, and then the whole world went into slo-mo. I watched the toothbrush spinning through the air, and as it fell, the creature clinging to its tip launched itself off the bristles, spreading its wings again and zooming in agonizing detail towards my head.
I fled shrieking down the hall, and that was my introduction to the Alabama roach, also known as a palmetto bug. Ever since that moment I have hated them with a black passion. The thought that
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