Grasshopper Jungle (30 page)

It was not a good idea.

Denny Drayton thought it must have been some kind of prank. Maybe somebody was making a movie or something. Denny Drayton wished he could be in a movie.

“What the heck is that shit?” Denny Drayton said.

Denny Drayton drew his pistol. His gun was a 9mm Sig Sauer model P250.

Denny Drayton's pistol was made in New Hampshire.

Compared to Johnny McKeon's Smith & Wesson .500 magnum, Denny Drayton's weapon was a rubber band gun.

Travis Pope's attention was riveted to all the lights blazing from the patrol car. He was not hungry, but he decided to kill the man making all the noise and light, anyway. Unstoppable Soldiers do that kind of shit.

Johnny McKeon came outside just then. Johnny pointed his powerful pistol in the direction of Travis Pope. Johnny McKeon was not a good shot. He knew he would miss hitting the creature unless he got very, very close.

Pastor Roland Duff had never had sex with another person in his entire life. He believed he was ready to have sex with his new friend, Shaun Doherty. Roland Duff imagined the thrill of
experimenting
with another man after all his lonely years. He was very excited about it. Roland Duff adjusted his uncomfortable erection and sat watching the police lights from across the street. He was curious. Pastor Roland Duff could not tell what was going on.

Sometimes, Pastor Roland Duff counseled himself over his own doubts and weaknesses. He could not decide whether he was a virgin or not. Pastor Roland Duff did believe that masturbation was immoral and compromising. Roland Duff was frequently wracked by guilt. He was uncertain if he could still be a virgin
and
masturbate as often as he did. Pastor Roland Duff thought he would masturbate when he got back home that night.

Pastor Roland Duff did not really get the chance.

At exactly that moment, ash flakes fell like snow in Guatemala on the home of Robert Brees Sr. For some strange reason, Robert Brees Sr. thought about the son he'd left behind in Iowa. Robby would be sixteen now, he thought. Robert Brees Sr. watched the ashes falling and falling. He had not thought about his son in years.

Eric Christopher Szerba was lying awake in a hospital bed. Eric was looking at the tubes and medications near the head of his bed, and wondering if anything there could be useful to him in committing suicide.

Robby Brees and I were driving out from Ealing toward the McKeon House. We were going back to Eden to watch the last reels from
Eden Orientation Series
. Robby played
Let It Bleed
in the tape deck.

And Robby sang along with Love In
Vain.

Robby Brees reached across the center console and put his hand on top of mine.

The wife of the vice president of the United States of America was performing oral sex on the vice president. It was the vice president's birthday, and the vice president of the United States of America was getting a blow job. Franklin and Theodore were very happy.

I had not named my balls.

Robby Brees had not named his balls, either. I asked him about it.

And Robby said to me, “Who would ever name his balls?”

I said, “I would like to, but once you give your balls names, there is no going back.”

“Well, if you do think up names for your balls, let me know what they are. I would hate for us to have balls with the same names in such a small town as Ealing,” Robby decided.

Robby was always so smart about small town social blunders and shit like that.

“Having balls with the same name as your best friend's is a serious social blunder,” I said.

That is the truth.

“Get down on the ground!” Trooper Denny Drayton said to Travis Pope.

Johnny McKeon was very scared. He crept across the parking lot. The Smith & Wesson .500 magnum was so heavy, it hurt Johnny McKeon's wrist just to hold it.

Travis Pope got closer and closer to Denny Drayton.

The last thing Denny Drayton said was his motto. He said, “Fuck this shit. I have a gun, motherfucker.”

Then Denny Drayton began shooting at Travis Pope.

Johnny McKeon ducked.

Across the street, Pastor Roland Duff ducked.

Denny Drayton fired and fired and fired.

Unstoppable Soldiers do not like being shot at. They also have exoskeletons that are as bulletproof as the hull of an aircraft carrier.

They are unstoppable.

Denny Drayton emptied his gun. He was in the process of reloading when Travis Pope unhinged his barbed arms and picked Denny Drayton up by his head. Travis Pope bit most of the trooper's head off and let Denny Drayton's hairless and tattooed body fall down onto the blacktop.

Johnny McKeon whispered, “Well, I'll be danged.”

Johnny was smart. He did not fire his pistol at the monster. Johnny McKeon quietly went around to the driver's side of his truck, got behind the wheel, and drove off.

Stan, the owner of
Satan's Pizza
, and Pastor Roland Duff, the headmaster from Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy, were not so smart.

But they were curious. Pastor Roland Duff was curious about a lot of things. He was still fantasizing about Shaun Doherty.

Nothing exciting ever happened in Ealing. Pastor Roland Duff and Stan, the owner of
Satan's Pizza
, who had come from behind the counter when he heard what sounded like gunfire, stepped out onto the street to see what was causing all the commotion across Kimber Drive at Grasshopper Jungle.

It was not a good idea.

ROBBY DROVE THE
Ford Explorer through the fields of weeds and brambles behind Shann's house.

He parked beside the dilapidated chicken coops where the hatch into Eden sat nearly unnoticeable in the center of an old concrete pad.

Ingrid was excited. She had found a new place to shit.

Robby opened the hatch. The welcome recording began again and the room below us lit up.

I took my phone out of the pocket of my Eden 5 jumpsuit. I did not need to explain to Robby that I was calling Shann Collins. Robby knew what I was doing. I wanted to try to get Shann to listen to me.

We all needed to be safe now, and the Unstoppable Soldiers had come out in Ealing.

Shann would not answer my call. I knew she was not asleep. It was 11:00. No teenager in the world goes to sleep before 11:00. I left a voice message as Robby stood near and listened. There was no need to hide anything from Robby Brees.

I had no secrets with him.

I had no secrets with Shann Collins, either.

This is what I said:

“Shann, I am sorry. I told you I do stupid shit without thinking about who I might hurt. But the truth is, I think you need to come to Eden. Me and Robby are going back inside now, so my phone won't work, just in case you want to tell me I am disgusting again. We have the rest of the film. I think something terrible is happening in Ealing, and maybe we are the only ones who can stop it. Well. Uh. I love you, Shann. I really do love you. You have to know that, Shann. Please come to Eden with me and Robby. Hurry.”

I put the phone back inside my jumpsuit. I rubbed the silver medallion of Saint Kazimierz between my thumb and finger.

I said, “Saint Kazimierz, I am Polish. I am a kid. I'm not sure if I'm technically a virgin or not. But a solid two out of three gives me hope you might look out for me and Robby and Ingrid.”

Robby stood, watching me.

And I said, “I really do love you, Robby. How can I be in love with two people at the same time?”

Robby said, “I don't know how you can do that, Austin.”

It was very difficult carrying Ingrid down the ladder.

Not only did I fail to think about bringing clean underwear and shit like that, I never even thought about how I would get a sixty-pound golden retriever down a very tall ladder.

Robby had to help. We sandwiched Ingrid between us and climbed down. We must have looked like a reject hybridization of two boys and a barkless dog. That was probably some kind of shit they pulled at McKeon Industries back in the sixties, too.

By the time we finally got down into the mudroom, we were both damp with sweat, we smelled like dog fur, and the repeated welcoming tape was driving us crazy.

“I have B.O.,” I said.

“I know,” Robby agreed.

Robby and I went back up one final time to get my history books and the things Robby had brought from the Del Vista Arms. Then we sealed the three of us—me, Ingrid, and Robby—inside the Eden Project.

Robby and I put on clean pairs of white Eden scientist socks in the locker room. I thought about changing into a clean jumpsuit, but I did not want to give up the number 5. I wanted to take a shower, but we had too much shit to do.

Robby Brees left his bundle of things on the bench we'd been sitting on. I carried the two final reels of film, and Robby followed me into the theater room.

MY FATHER'S NAME
is Eric Andrew Szerba.

His Polish name was Arek Andrzej Szczerba.

His father, Felek, was a scientist at McKeon Industries.

Felek Andrzej Szczerba was the world's first Unstoppable Soldier.

All roads cross here on my desk. As a historian, I realize, too, that we are all on the same road, all the time.

Sometimes we drive in circles or the wrong way, because we are stupid like that.

And that was my day. You know what I mean.

Eric Szerba, my father, was only a little boy when Felek was killed.

Raising five fatherless Polish boys in Ealing, Iowa, was a tremendous challenge for my grandmother, Ksenia Szczerba. Dr. Grady McKeon saw to it that the family was provided for, so Ksenia never had to go to work, and McKeon Industries subsidized the five brothers' education.

All the Szczerbas moved far away from Iowa after my grandmother died. Ksenia Szczerba died of exhaustion in 1992, several years before I was born. Only my father, Eric, stayed in Ealing, where he became a teacher after graduating college.

Eric Szerba's first teaching assignment was at Herbert Hoover High School, Ealing's public school. He began teaching when he was twenty-two years old.

In his first year of teaching World History, Eric Szerba met a fifteen-year-old boy named Kelly Kenney.

Kelly Kenney is a true Iowa kind of name for a boy. It is a name that almost tastes like buttermilk biscuits and honey.

Kelly Kenney was not such a good student. But Kelly Kenney was persistent. At least once per week, Kelly Kenney would say this to Eric Szerba:

“Hey, Mister Szerba. You should meet my sister, Connie. She is twenty years old and a real dynamo. You are single, right, Mister Szerba? You should go out with Connie. Here is our phone number. Connie likes going to the movies, and you would make a nice couple. Connie is not a slut, either. Ha-ha. You should call on her, Mister Szerba. That would be neat!”

Eric Szerba was not the kind of young man who would ever call a girl based on urgent pleading from a fifteen-year-old boy. Eric and Connie would never have met solely as a result of Kelly Kenney's persistent prodding.

It was Connie Kenney who came in to Eric Szerba's classroom on behalf of her parents, at Herbert Hoover High School's Open House in the fall semester of 1982.

In 1982, every classroom at Herbert Hoover High School had a portrait of Ronald Reagan hanging above the blackboard. Ronald Reagan was president of the United States of America in 1982. I can find no historical records anywhere that detail whether Ronald Reagan ever took a shit, or if he named his balls.

I believe Ronald Reagan most likely did name his balls.

I believe that Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States of America, named both of his balls the same thing:
Calvin Coolidge
. Ronald Reagan would have named both of his balls
Calvin Coolidge
just to avoid any confusion on his part.

It may have been a social blunder, but it made remembering your balls much easier. No one wants to be caught in the embarrassing situation of forgetting the name of only one of your balls.

Connie Kenney, who was Lutheran, met my father, Arek Andrzej Szczerba, a Catholic who smoked cigarettes, beneath a portrait of Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan was Presbyterian.

Kelly Kenney claims to have been responsible for Eric and Connie's eventual marriage, but history shows that it was the result of a meeting of the two in a classroom at a public school, beneath a portrait of a Presbyterian who never took a shit and named his balls Calvin Coolidge.

I once saw a photograph of Calvin Coolidge in an exhibit at the Library of Congress. Calvin Coolidge was riding in a canoe.

The canoe was named
Beaver Dick
.

I could not make that up if I tried.

That is the truth.

Eric Andrew Szerba changed his life for Connie Kenney. He quit smoking cigarettes and he converted to Lutheranism. In exchange for Eric Szerba's devotion to her, Connie Kenney allowed Eric Andrew Szerba to put his penis inside her vagina. This happened several times before the two were actually married, although it was an act that good Lutherans in Iowa look askance at.

After they were married, Eric Andrew Szerba, a non-smoking Lutheran teacher of history, took a position at Ealing's private school, Curtis Crane Lutheran Academy. Eric Andrew Szerba's non-smoking Lutheran Polish semen created a son named Eric Christopher, who was born in 1989, and a second son named Austin Andrzej, who was born in 1995.

This is my history.

“
YOU ARE A GOOD
dog, Ingrid,” I said.

Ingrid curled up beneath my feet. I sat in the back row of Eden's theater.

Behind us, Robby Brees fed the leader strip for Reel Four of
Eden Orientation Series
into the toothy cogs of the theater's projector. Then Robby jumped over the seat back and sat down right next to me, like he always did when we went to the movies together.