Before We Were Anybody
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 10:00AM 
Here's a story that I always wanted to tell.
So I did.
Before We Were Anybody
In the early days, in Cal's basement, the place we called the grotto, we smoked cigarettes, stared at the painting of the velvet matador and tried to figure it all out.
By all, we meant how were we going to sell our paintings and be able to move into something better. Cal found the grotto through a bar conversation -- the address cost him half a pack of smokes and five beers.
The rent was dirt-cheap. Cal had been there six months before I moved in.
One afternoon, Cal was stretched out on the stained futon, his overalls splattered with every hue Winsor Newton offered.
"I think I got the last one," he said, taking a deep drag on a Players. "Brutal. A pregnant one, spraying little ones all over the hotel -- I just about puked when I looked in." His hair sprouted out of his paisley bandana like a spider plant gone wrong.
Cal had been battling the grotto's roach problem ever since he got there. Roaches in the bed, in the toaster, and the best: the hair dryer. He grabbed it after a sleepy morning shower and a big fat one fired out under a blast of hot air -- nailed him in the head, bounced to the floor and ran like a bastard.
"How do you figure it was the last one?" I asked.
"Gotta be -- I've sealed up everything."
I believed him. He was a farm kid from Alberta. He had learned about vigilance and systematic killing by hunting rats with his father.
"I'll get a couple more hotels -- but I think I got them all." He dropped his butt into his empty beer.
On Cal's easel was a canvas of a girl in front of a fruit stand.
"Great light in that one," I said.
"Mmm." Cal said, not really listening. "You want some soup?"
"Sure."
He put down the beer bottle and went to the tiny kitchen.
"All I got is chicken noodle, that dehydrated crap."
"Fine," I yelled from twenty feet away.
Cal rustled in the cupboard.
"What the fuck? These noodles are moving."
I pulled my head away from the painting. Cal stared into the soup box.
"DAMN."
The box flew out of Cal's hands and hit the floor with a snap. Dry noodles were airborne with too many baby roaches to count. Like a couple of keystone cops, we both ran at the box, knocked into each other and watched every single bug disappear into the baseboards like candle smoke.
We stared at each other. Cal pulled out another Players, lit it and took a deep drag.
"Looks like soup is out."
There was a pregnant second and then we laughed like hell, knowing that one day we'd be telling this story.
Reader Comments (2)
nice .... and creepy at the same time. i like story time though.
Yikes. Now keep the ball rolling, or the roach running. This is a great start to a short story. About what, I've no idea (though you can guess it probably has a zombie cockroach in it). But it's good flowing writing. As your stuff always is.