The Call of Distant Shores Page 6

  As his head hammered to the wild, incomprehensible banging of the piano, Dave heard the doors crash shut behind him. There was another figure behind the altar, taller, darker, blending into the shadows themselves. As the light began to course through him, eating its way to his eyes, he felt the first pangs of hunger, and he moved forward, moved to the combined beat of piano and stereo – the car had somehow been parked to the left, behind the pews, and Manson had resumed his seat.

  As he reached for a rotting hand, he began to wonder. He wondered what instrument he would play.

  Cockroach Suckers

  Near The Great Dismal Swamp, everything grows. Bugs thrive. Plants barely hesitate between frost and full, pollen-bearing bloom. A warm winter week can produce things that should sleep until summer. It's in the earth. Birth, rebirth – death.

  Whatever grows must decompose. That is truth. As the sun set in a splash of deep violet and dark purple above the tree line, Jasper Winslow was contemplating that truth. He was rocking slowly in an ancient pressed back chair, watching the road crumble and brushing flies from his sweat-slicked brow.

  Jasper wasn't an old man, but he was no pup. He'd been running his father's farm pretty much on his own since he turned twenty, and he'd been selling the excess produce at this out-of-the-way, run-down stand for just as long. The boards were gray, warped and without a sign of peeling paint left to indicate they'd ever been white. The swamp was a ways down the road and across a field, but its creeping, encroaching presence worked its way closer every year. The road had nearly washed out in the last flood, and only a dump truck or two of gravel and half a dozen lazy state highway workers had prevented it.

  Down the road in the opposite direction, spitting up a shower of dust and stone in its wake, a pickup truck turned off the freeway, bouncing and weaving down the two-lane gravel road. The back of the truck was covered with a blue tarp, flapping in the breeze. Something poked out from beneath that tarp, but it was still too far away for Jasper to see. The truck was Bobby Lee's, a grimy, green-colored Ford as old as Methuselah and twice as cantankerous. Whitish smoke billowed from the tailpipe, and the truck listed heavily to the left, obviously struggling under an unfamiliar load.

  Jasper reached down to his left, flipped up the lid on a rusted, old metal cooler, fished in the ice and water until he found a beer, and pulled it free. He twisted off the top, slammed the cooler closed with a practiced motion, and leaned back again. He drained a third of the bottle in one quick drag, then sat, resting it on the bulky expanse of his belly, and watched Bobby Lee park.

  The truck wheezed, gasped, and died with the rumble of an engine that doesn't want to quit running, despite its inability to do so. The belch of smoke that erupted from Bobby Lee's pipes was so reminiscent of a giant fart that Jasper broke into a grin.

  "You runnin' that thing on beans?" he hollered, not getting up, but raising a hand in greeting. Bobby Lee was Jasper's best friend in the world, but it was hot, and Jasper Winslow rose for no man, once he'd started rocking.

  Bobby Lee clambered down from the driver's seat, slammed the door without looking back and grinned. "Got one a' them nitro bottles up front," he said, nodding. "Filled it with Hall-a PENYAS just yesterday. You ought to see her run when I punch that chili button."

  Jasper laughed. With an uncharacteristic flash of energy, he opened the cooler again, grabbed a second cold beer, and flipped it through the air. Bobby Lee caught it neatly, bringing the cap to the brim of his faded Catfish Hunter Baseball cap with a flourish that resembled a salute, and twisted off the top.

  "I just bet," Jasper commented. "Day you waste a Halla Pennyee on that truck is the day I quit drinking."

  Both of them laughed at that.

  "What you got in the truck, Bobby Lee?" Jasper asked, eyeing the oddly draped tarp and the still-listing rear end of the truck. "Some sorta tractor?"

  Bobby Lee grinned. He took another pull off his beer, and then shook his head. "Nope. I got me a gold mine, is what. I got the answer to all our problems." He sipped his beer and his grin widened.

  Jasper frowned. When he frowned, his brow furrowed, and the expression never ceased to widen Bobby Lee's grin.

  "Don't think too hard," Bobby Lee advised. "I know you've been conservin' that gray matter all these years – be a shame to waste it now."

  Jasper considered getting up. Bobby Lee needed his ass kicked, and there wasn't anyone else around to take up his slack, but for the moment, he held his peace. He was rocking, and that was important. So was the beer, and it was only half done.

  "What's in the truck?" he asked again. This time, his eyes narrowed, and his voice had taken on a cold, empty tone.

  Bobby Lee watched him a moment longer, still chuckling, then he spoke.

  "You still got that old tin shed you had stored behind your mom's place?" he asked, ignoring Jasper's question. "You know, the one you never put together?"

  "I got it," Jasper answered. "So what? What's in the fucking truck asshole?"

  Bobby Lee hesitated a little less this time, but his own smile had darkened. "Hold your horses," he said finally, "and I'll show you. You don't have to be an asshole about it – I'm lettin' you in on a good thing."

  Jasper just rocked. He was one step closer to rising from the chair and doing what had to be done, but he let it ride a last time.

  Bobby drained his beer, tossed the bottle aside and turned back to his truck with a curse. "Ought to just leave you here and keep it for myself," he growled. When he got no response, his shoulders sagged, just enough to be perceptible, and he stepped to the truck. There were three ties holding the tarp in place on the near side. Bobby undid them quickly. Then he stepped to the back of the truck, gripped the blue plastic tightly, and with a flourish, he yanked it free.

  Jasper stopped rocking. He drained his beer, reached around to set it on the cooler, let go of it and missed by six inches. He gripped the arms of his chair tightly, half-rising. "What the f..."

  What rose from the bed of the truck was beyond description. Jasper fell back with a thump, setting the rocker in motion again and nearly tipped over backward. He gasped, tried to speak, fell silent and gasped again. Without thinking, he reached down and retrieved another beer. It was half gone when Bobby Lee, grinning once again, stepped closer, leaned down, and asked, "What do you think of her? She's somethin', ain't she?"

  Jasper gulped more beer, rocked forward and gained his feet. He staggered forward, reached out a hand to steady himself against the truck, and then reached up to run his hand over polished wood that literally swam with tiny intricate detail and what appeared to be words, or letters, or symbols. Who knew? Who the fuck knew and who cared?

  "It's a ... double-D goddam COCKROACH," he pronounced in amazement.

  "The world's largest," Bobby Lee agreed, cackling. "Ain't she a beaut? I picked her up down at the flea market. They tried three weeks to sell her, but nobody knew what they was lookin' at."

  "They didn't know it was a cockroach?" Jasper turned, his face a wrinkled map of confusion. "How they hell could they not know that? The fucking thing's seven foot tall, Bobby."

  It was all of that. Rising up so that its antennae floated above the cab of the truck, the gigantic wooden vermin leaned to its left, apparently off-balance, setting the truck off-balance. The detail was amazing, like some sort of ART or something. Jasper scratched his head, tilting his hat back to facilitate the motion, who in HELL would go to that kind of trouble for a goddam cockroach?

  "She's a antique," Bobby continued. "Feller said he didn't know how old it was. Picked it up at an Indian camp about ten years ago. Had her in his barn ever since, but his wife said it had ta go. They don't make a Raid can big enough, so here she is."

  Bobby was still grinning. Jasper was still frowning.

  "But," Jasper formed both thoughts and words carefully, and this one was a corker. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for it, and so he had to figure it out, one word at a time. "Why?"

  "Why w
hat?" Bobby asked. "Why did his wife want him to get rid of her, or why aren't there giant Raid cans?"

  Bobby had sense enough to back up at this, raising his hands and laughing.

  "Easy, hoss," he said. "Hear me out. You ever been out west? I have. I traveled out to Kansas once with my Pa. There's some mountains over there where ... well, anyway, I went there. You know what we saw along that highway?"

  "Fields?" Jasper guessed, trying to follow.

  "We say fields, for sure," Bobby grinned, "but there was something else. We saw the world's largest Prairie Dog. We saw the biggest ball of string ever, and we saw the footprints of dinosaurs, pree-served in the mud. Every time we saw one of them things, you know what we had to do? We had to pay. You know what Pa said every time, just as we left? He said was suckers. Didn't stop him from wanting to see the world's largest sausage link, or from payin', but he knew. I know too. That ain't a cockroach, ol' buddy. That's a goldmine."

  Jasper was still staring up at the wooden monstrosity. It's eyes glittered in the sunlight, polished and seeming to glare down at him from their cocked, off-kilter angle.

  "What the fuck are you talkin' about, Bobby. It's a damned roach. A BIG roach, no mistakin' that, but a roach. A goddam filthy infest-yer-house and eat your chicken roach. Where's the money in that? Hell, anyone sees it now, they won't buy my fruit."

  That's your problem, Jasper," Bobby said with true sorrow in his voice. "You ain't got the VISION. That's why I'm here – why I'm gonna share this good fortune with you. I'll tell you what we're gonna do."

  Jasper listened, staring up at the roach, a tickling, creeping sensation transiting his spine as he did. He didn't like it. The damned wood was slimy to the touch, and no wood that weren't growing mold should feel that way.

  "We're gonna get that damn shed of yours," Bobby went on, "and we're gonna set it up right out yonder." He pointed to the back of the produce stand. "We're gonna put ol' Papa Roach here inside, and then we're gonna make some signs. All up and down 17 we'll have advertisements. Ten miles to the World's Largest Cockroach. Don't MISS THIS - 5 Miles to the Vermin from HELL. 1 Mile to Go - Exit 16A - Produce and souvenirs. You get it?"

  Jasper didn't. He was still staring at the roach.

  Bobby leaned in close, whispering conspiratorially in his friend's ear. "It's simple, Jasper. We sell tickets. Folks stop to see, buy a ticket, maybe buy some tomatoes and some corn, and they drive on. They won't be able to help themselves."

  "You have got to be fucking kidding," Jasper said, turning to meet Bobby's earnest gaze. "I mean, who would PAY to see ... THAT?"

  "They won't see it," Bobby said. "Not right off. It will be in the shed. That's the key. And the answer is simple. We make our money," Bobby looked around, as if there were someone to see him, or to overhear a great secret, "off suckers. Cockroach suckers."

  There weren't no words for how Jasper felt at that moment, so he turned away, sort of tripped back to his chair, and reached for another beer. "Cockroach suckers," he muttered. "Jesus fucking Christ on a Popsicle stick."

  Bobby Lee trailed after him, reaching in to get his own beer this time, and Jasper didn't stop him. There was plenty of beer, and it took too much effort to think and yell at the same time.

  "You really believe," Jasper said at last, "that folks'll pay good, hard-earned money to see the world's largest cockroach?"

  Bobby Lee's grin was full wattage again. "I know they will, partner. I know they will. Hell, if I didn't OWN it, I'd rather see the thing myself than the world's largest link sausage, and I paid for that."

  "How long you think it'll take us to get that tin shed up?" Jasper asked.

  "Not more'n a day," Bobby Lee speculated, getting serious. "I helped my Pap put one up in his yard last spring. Not much to it, once you get started."

  Jasper nodded, and the nod worked itself naturally into a slow rock. He stared up at the truck, meeting the multi-faceted gaze of Martha Stewart's worst nightmare steadily. He wanted to tell Bobby Lee to take the damned thing and hit the trail. It was a damn-fool idea. He knew it, and Bobby Lee should know it, but – damned if it didn't sound as if it might actually work.

  "Shit," Jasper muttered.

  Bobby Lee let out a whoop, knowing he'd won.

  "You be here first thing in the morning," Jasper growled. "Be ready to work, no hangover. If we're a' goin' to do this, we're a' goin' to do it quick. I still got fields to plow, and produce to get in. If I let it go, we won't have a thing to sell except tickets, and I doubt that's gonna work out too well."

  "I'll be here," Bobby Lee promised. Then he turned back to the truck and grabbed the ties on the tarpaulin, pulling them tight and cinching them to the truck bed.

  Once the huge bug was covered over, Jasper felt a little better. There was something in the smooth, wooden surface of the things eyes that was unnerving. He knew it was silly, but that didn't change a thing.

  "Damn thing gives me the willies," he said, reaching for another beer and staring at the blue-draped figure.

  "Hope it gives everyone the willies," Bobby Lee commented. He reached into the cooler and fished out another beer for himself. "I'll have this one more, then I'm gonna hit the road. Smackdown is on tonight, and directly after that I'll be gettin' me some shuteye. I feel destiny callin'."

  "That ain't destiny," Jasper chuckled, "it's indigestion from all them Hally Penyas you ain't feedin' to your truck."

  The two laughed and drank their bears in silence. Both of them kept giving the truck sidelong glances, but neither of them mentioned the thing in the back of the truck again. Not much later, Bobby Lee mounted up into the cab of his pickup and, honking like an idiot, backed up in a cloud of dust and trundled his huge cargo off down the dirt road toward the highway. Jasper cleared his produce, locked what he could in his makeshift office and stacked the rest in the back of his own truck. He didn't have far to go. Two back-roads turns and he'd be on his own road, tucked back up in close to the swamp.

  Just before he left, he hefted his cooler onto the tailgate of the truck and slid it in, closing up behind it. He glanced at the road, thought about it for about ten seconds, then grabbed a last beer "for the road" and hopped in behind the wheel. He wasn't likely to meet one of North Carolina's finest between the stand and his home, but by his way of thinking, he was drunk enough already to get the ticket, no reason to deny himself a pleasant drive by leaving all the beer in back.

  Leaving a white tail of dust and gravel spitting out behind him, Jasper gunned the truck into the growing twilight.

  When Jasper pulled up in front of his stand the next morning, he saw Bobby Lee's truck already parked over to one side. There was no sign of his buddy, but around back of the shack dust was rising, like there was a herd of something rushing past. Jasper parked, hopped down from his truck, and started around the side of the building to see what was what.

  He stopped at the corner and stared. Bobby Lee was going to town on the ground behind the stand with a rake, clearing away brambles and bushes like there was no tomorrow. He'd already cleared a space about twice as big as the metal building in the back of Jasper's truck would need, and that ground was bare, scraped even and squared off with perfect edges like Jasper had never seen.

  "Bobby!" he called out. "Bobby Lee what in HELL are you doin'?"

  At first, Bobby didn't seem to hear him, just kept right on raking' and shuffling around that rectangular patch of cleared ground. Jasper leaned down, picked up a rock and whipped it through the air to collide with the seat of Bobby Lee's pants. That got his attention.

  "Wha..." Bobby Lee whirled, his rake held high in a comical parody of a martial arts stance. Then he saw Jasper.

  "I said," Jasper repeated, "what in HELL are you doin'?"

  "Just wanted to get me an early start, that's all," Bobby Lee said, grinning sheepishly. "I stayed up kinda late last night. Guess I talked a bit too much about her," he cocked his head in the direction of the wooden behemoth still tarp-covered in the back of his pi
ckup truck. "Irma got tired of it and chased me out. I slept in the truck until the sun came up, then I came here and got started."

  Jasper blinked, glanced down at the ground, and at the rake in his friend's hand, then back up to Bobby Lee's eyes. "Just how much coffee you had, Bobby?" he asked at last. "I ain't seen that much work out of you in the last year, and you don't even look like you broke a sweat yet."

  Bobby Lee glanced down at the ground as if noticing the cleared patch for the first time. He leaned on the rake, reached to his back pocket for the bandanna tucked into his hip pocket and brushed it across his face. It was more out of habit than necessity. Jasper could see the man was as cool and fresh as if he'd just gotten up after a long night's sleep.

  "Hell of a job," Jasper commented. "Gonna make settin' up a durn site easier."

  Bobby Lee nodded. Now that he'd stopped working and started seeing what he'd been doing, he'd taken on a sort of glazed expression. He heard Jasper fine, but didn't seem to really be paying any attention to him. He was looking at the earth he'd cleared, and glancing up now and then at the truck, as if there was something he couldn't quite make sense of.

  "We have to put her here first," Bobby Lee said at last, tossing his rake aside. "I ain't seen the door of that shed, but I'm betting it's not big enough to take her in through. I brought us some pallets I had out back 'a my place to keep her out of the dirt."

  Jasper blinked. He hadn't thought about it, but damned if Bobby Lee wasn't right. They'd have to build the shed around that thing, and even then it was going to come close. The peaked roof of the shed would top out at around eight feet in height, and the roach ran over seven. Jasper shook his head.

  "We're damn fools, is what we are," he commented, turning away. "Damn fools."

  Bobby Lee didn't answer. He was already headed toward his truck, the tarp, and the giant wooden body beneath. While Jasper unpacked his own truck, setting up the tomatoes and beans in neat rows on the bench out in front of his stand, Bobby unfurled the tarp, rolled it and tossed it to one side. Then he got in behind the wheel of his truck and very slowly backed it toward the space he'd cleared, being careful not to catch the edge of his tailgate on the corner of the produce stand.