Cockroach County

"Hey little brother, this is a good thing. We are starting a new life in West Liberty. Don't feel bad about the broken cup in the kitchen. The doctor said it would take time... months or a year... for both of us."

Sandra, the blond around twenty years old, put her arms around Randalf, the slightly younger looking, black hair man. She snuggled her chest around the side of his body to cover as much surface on him as she could. Randalf sat with his hands around his knees on the stoop, a thin line of red running down his right hand and his gaze focused on the distance.

The Nimbus clouds hang low, blocking the sunlight. The drab light made the red brick houses spread in between green bushes and trees look demure. A few smokestacks of dead coal factories stuck out like tall fingers among the trees. The city pretty quickly ran out and was taken over by tree covered rolling hills. There was a sense of finality like this was one end of the world with not much more happening. The siblings gazed in silence with Sandra breathing on Randalf's cheek.

"Why wouldn't dad listen? I told him numerous times that the squeak from his break wasn't dust. The brake pads were worn. His old buddy mechanic scammed him. I told him how to check the wear indicator. He kept saying that I don't understand. Why would he not listen when all he had to do was bend over to look at the wear indicator? It was so clear."

Randalf hissed angrily. He pressed his teeth together. The anger made his eyes look ugly. His breathing was short, hard, and shallow. His body was shaking. Sandra eased up her embrace with worried eyes cautiously shifting away from leaning on him.

"He's gotten old. He wasn't always like that. You remember that. During the last half year, he quickly grew old. 65 is an old man. I remember it like one day, I was his little girl that he spun by my hands through the air. He was a respective executive. Another day I woke up and found him arguing with the mail carrier. It's hard for me to understand either."

Sandra pulled a lock of Randalf from his forehead back to the rest of his hair in a cozy gesture. She was 5' 5" and had a round body type, not fat at all. Yet, her hips were round and feminine. Her boobs were full. Her cheeks were warm and friendly. The estrogen was visible in her feminine face, the fluidity of her motions, and the sparkle in her voice even when she talked calmly and seriously. She wore a True Religion jeans that accentuated the fill of her butt and a sexy Guess jacket.

"I was so angry at him. I yelled at him because he kept interrupting me. He drove me mad when he said that he understood and got into the car anyway. I wanted to yank him by both arms but I kept my rage back. Never lay a finger on anyway. If I had, he were still alive. If I had, it would have broken our relationship. How can doing the wrong thing be the right thing and still be wrong?"

Tears welled up in Randalf's eyes. His cheeks rouged. His face was rather small, especially because the black shock of unkempt hair was so big in contrast. His stature was small with 5' 2". One may easily mistake him for unimportant. The jeans was worn with holes. The sweatshirt had faded from a hundred wash cycles. The Doc Marten's twisted on the grass that was growing in the gap between the stone plates of the foot path to the stoop.

"I love you. I'm here for you. Say, you'll stay with me and try. Just stay. One day, we'll find peace. We've only got each other. I need you to get through our parent's death. I can't do it alone."

Sandra kissed Randalf on the cheek in wet effluence of warmth and moisture. Her hands pulled him in tight like she was holding onto his core. She pressed her belly and chest onto his side. Her chin was on his shoulder. He sat stiff like a rock letting her be the sea crashing onto him.

"Okay. I'll pull myself together. I might screw my life badly if I don't show up on my first day at the new college."

Randalf roused to his feet and unwrapped Sandra's embrace. He walked back inside of the house, the little two bedroom furnished only by a dining table with two chairs. The red porcelain coffee cup had a cutesy slogan: "How do I like my coffee? Handed to me!" Now, it was pulverized into little white pieces with a mostly intact handle. Next to it was a brownbag with a message in feminine writing that had big loops in the letters: "For my best brother - XOXO"

He reached out to grab the bag. The bag lifted for a moment into the air to slip out of his limp fingers and roll on the floor. With slumped shoulders, Randalf looked at it dejected for a good ten seconds. Then he walked out of the door.

The footpath of moss covered stone plates led across a lawn of unkempt clothes and a clothing line spider with dirty gray drying lines that were partially torn or at least very saggy. The low density street had sparse cars parked. As he walked, he started gaining more momentum and pep. A mailman with a savannah hat pushed the mail stroller past him. A few fat crows were watching him from a yellow birch tree. He muttered to himself: "A birch tree forest is so magical that evil cannot prevail in man's heart."

After a twenty minute walk, he walked down the stairs for a tunnel under the road. On the other side he emerged on a grassy square with benches and trees. The college buildings, two stories high with outside walkways running around them, lined the central square. The blue classroom doors opened directly to the outside. The buildings had big signs with a letter from the beginning of the alphabet. He looked at the dog-eared slip in his hand: A205. He looked to the building to his left with the letter A on it and scanned with his eyes left to right along the balcony walkway until his eyes rested on the blue door with the room number 205.

On the way up the stairs, he passed students in wheat-colored Timberland boots and big working-man type jackets. Checkered flannel timber shirts were in fashion. Girls wore jeans. Guys had short hair. There were a few ROTC camouflage pants, including a few girl pants. There was one guy who had a little pink in an urban design t-shirt.

He carefully opened the door to his new classroom. Everyone was already seated. The teacher, a tall skinny, white haired man in a suit with bright, casual colors, prepared the blackboard with white chalk marks. Randalf inhaled the soft, powdery, velvety smell of fresh chalk and stood in the doorframe. Five pairs of eyes out of the twenty something turned to seize him up. Randalf remained standing and looked at the teacher. He cleared his throat in a quiet nervous way, not so much to get attention. The teacher turned to face Randalf

"Ah, you must be Randalf, the young man who is going to join us mid semester. The principal has told me about your special circumstances. Have a seat next to Tricia!"

In the right front row were four chair-desk combinations. Three were occupied by skinny girls in cheerleader uniform - white sneakers, short black skirt, and a blue & white top with a deep V in the front. They had long hair and their hair neatly put together and smoothed with product. The hair looked moist, vibrant, and strong. The lips were bright red and pink as each had her own color. The cheeks were rouged to create a cheery expression even though, underneath the real look a stern appraising look could be seen at close distance.

The most marvelous thing about them was their waste, which was bizarrely narrow. Randalf took a second look, a stare actually. The waste was beyond that of a skinny woman, beyond the illusion that clothing could create, something definitely wrong and bizarre. Their stern looks disinvited all questions about it. Randalf put himself out of trance and sat down next to Tricia.

Tricia was a black cheerleader. In the corner of his eyes, Randalf good see her smooth, slender legs, the skin shinning in a matte color, freshly shaved and lotion applied. Randalf looked sternly ahead. Each time, his gaze wondered from the blackboard down to his notebook in front of him, his pupils did a quick flick to the left.

Flick #1: A sliver of brown, youthful, taut skin between the skirt and the top. A glint flashed from her belly button, a neat innie: The ball end of a barbell piercing. Her abs had a clear definition line. The belly line was skinnier than her hip bones. If she wear to wear a bikini bottom, there'd be a gap as the hip bones would tent the fabric.

Flick #2: The V-cut in the top and his side position let him see down her décolleté. The boobs were like two apples: small in diameter to leave two fingers space between them, yet near perfectly round spheres. The spandex fabric of the cheerleader uniform was a microfiber version that had a wet, fluid draping to reveal the boob shape as if she were naked. Randalf could peer into the plunging center to peek a sliver of the bra, a black one.

Flick #3: The lips, big, juicy, moist-glistening, were hot-pink-Paris. High on her cheekbones was a red that was uncharacteristic for natural black skin, yet created a Red Robbin Riding hot cheeriness. The eye brows were picked and groomed and the eyelashes were extended for a bold and strong look. A smartness displayed in her steady gaze. A sense of intellectual was suggested by the delicate nature of her features. Her ears were small and tender like those of a teenage girls at the end of her range.

Flick #4: Green, intense, almost unnatural, contact lenses were looking straight at him. She was checking if he was looking at her.

He quickly looked down at his notepad and jotted down: "Ten practical principles for photojournalists." His nostrils filled with the scent of the room, more precisely the girl sitting next to him. There was the subtle smell of any bathed body mixed with the recent smell of shampoo. Yet, there was more. There was a small of wildflowers, a smell of honey, a smell of trees - a smell so vivid that they conjured memories of frolicking in a meadow of wildflowers out of the recesses in the mind until one is left day dreaming about yellow lupines, white-yellow daisies, excitingly red flowers, bright yellow dandelions. They all create a sense of freedom and ease, running with the arms wide open and rolling in the grass.

"Jenna, you can't eat in class. What are you eating anyway?" admonished the teacher with a forward tilt of his head to seize her up.

Jenna was a girl all the way in the back. Her teeth were still crunching cheerios. A trail of nuclear orange crumbs went from her belly up to her throat. Her chubby, short, and fat fingers were coated in orange. The nearly empty yellow-red aluminum bag crackled. She was twice as wide as her slender version would have been. Her body shape was like an oval. Kind of like a beetle, the extra fat pushed out into every which direction. Her face was dick and well padded. She was wearing baggy tracking pants and a big black sweater that looked like a pile of fabric on her. Her black hair was matted like that of a sixth degree Rastafarian.

"While you are at it, can you open the window? The backrow stinks again?" complained Tricia.

Indeed, there was a smell that could be best described as dumpster aroma, day-old discard coffee grounds, fuzzy-moldy fruit trimmings, indescribable yellow sludge, and baby diapers, and that had been slowly making its way to the front row. Focusing on it induced feelings of puking, nausea, and suffocation. The girl in front of Jenna ruffled her nose in disgust and moaned.

"Jenna, open the window while you throw that noisy bag out!" ordered the teacher.

"Mr. Gumbersky, I have diabetes. I have to maintain my blood sugar, and my skin is sensitive to detergents. The state requires that appropriate accommodations will be made for my disabilities," lectured Jenna with a wide open mouth and a laidback, yet loud attitude that suggested that she was used to entering these arguments and prevailing.

"Fine! But open the window for Christ's sake!" snapped the teacher in concession before he turned back to the whiteboard.

At the first recess, Randalf got up. He took a lingering look of Tricia, who was sitting up straight. Her shoulders were pulled back in perfect posture. Her breasts were proudly thrust forward. Her body leaned confidently forward. Her feet were wide in a strong stance. Randalf's gaze fell to the ground and an inch of sadness added to the dark bags underneath his eyes that made them look caved in and him appear tired. He walked out of the classroom, the chilly Appalachian air welcoming him.

He meandered away from the center square, the noisy cacophony of a hundreds of voices that had been told: "Be noisy! Ready, set, go!" In the opposite side of the street was quieter. Generously rain-watered bushes and trees hid a labyrinth of walking path. Each intersection leveled off the busyness until he found himself at a quaint, little fountain that was slick green with moss and rock withered black. A masonry fish was suspended midair jump eternally. A serious looking bust with baroque man-curls watched Randalf. "1776 - Armistice between wasps and cockroaches" was carved beneath the bust. There was a scene of flying wasps and cockroaches who were locked in a wrestling hold midair while peasants were running in crying despair underneath the battle in the sky.

Randalf sat down and pulled a little bag out of his jeans back pocket: A clear Ziploc bag with a weed bud and a couple papers. He crumbled the bud between his fingers inhaling the aroma of Cheese Quake. The small specks fell down on the paper. For the first time today, he had a hungry look on his face. His wet tongue licked the paper to roll the joint. He lit up.

Jenna and her two chubby friends rolled into the little space that had felt so private with the thick bushes. Unapologetic, the trio stepped right in and sat down on the fountain side. Randalf noticed just how filthy the girls were. The dreadlocks had dried up leafs inside. There was even something crawling around in it. The pants were so baggy that they wrapped over the shoes. The end of the pants had been stepped on so much that it had frayed. There was a heaviness and slowness to how they walked due to their weight.

"You know this is our spot. So, scoot!" said Jenna breaking rapport.

"Do you want a smoke?" offered Randalf.

"Sure," said Jenna.

She leaned forward to reach Randalf's hand with an exhale. Randalf's lungs seized breathing. The breath had a horrible rotten smell of baby diapers squared. She took the near fresh blunt out of his pinched index finger and thumb. He sadly looked on how the joint disappeared in between her chapped lips. The tip of the joint lit up bright orange-red, very bright, extremely bright. The air was sucked through the joint like only a Dyson Dirt Devil could have, should have! The Orange-red glow ball marched along the joint consuming millimeter by millimeter until half the joint was gone!

Jenna relaxed the air out of her nostrils in a thirty second exhale. The air around her slowly filled up with white smoke until she seemed like a mountain top shrouded in fog. Her face looked relaxed. Randalf smelled the fountain place filled with weed smell. Anyone wandering by would catch them red handed. There was no waving the hands through the air to clear that.

"It has a nice fancy-prancy, urban taste signature to it. Try some of this Appalachian dab that we made last night. Only have a drop! If you aren't born here, you can't handle more! I'm not emergency-room-kidding you!" said Jenna sternly.

She held out a glass mason jar with an amber colored paste. He broke a little piece off. She handed him an oil rig, special pipe. Then, she got a blowtorch out of her backpack and a dagger. With a powerful hiss, the blowtorch sparked its fast blue flame. She superheated the dagger to a glow. Then, he dropped the dab drop onto the red glowing blade. The amber colored paste bubbled and vaporized into white smoke. He quickly lowered the oil rig to suck in all the smoke. He hurriedly aimed the end onto the reacting dab. His face grew red from the activity. This was the most activity that he displayed all day. Then his eyes rolled back and he fell backwards into the fountain.

"Northerners are weak ass," said Jenna matter of fact.

The girls pulled on his arms to get his face above the surface. He was vaguely conscious. Water was running down his sweatshirt. The girls pulled him to his feet. His eyes were dimly closed. They pulled him to standing and then forward. Unsure and surprised about every induced step, he stumbled forward exhaling through the lips making them open and close in a flutter - bh, bh, bh. They merged into the traffic of students streaming back to the classroom. The teacher raised his eye brows, when the girls positioned Randalf in his chair. Tricia raised her eyebrows to say, "No way!"

Randalf's head kept wanting to fall backward. Then, Jenna found a way to perch his chin on his collarbone that looked like he was simply very pensive and a little narcissistically full of himself. The wet sweater was dropping onto the chair and down to the floor. His arms hung straight down on his side. His eyes were nearly closed. He still breathed through his mouth - bh, bh, bh.

"What is going on?" demanded the teacher.

"Well, he has reverse ADD, which is a federally protected condition," challenged Jenna the teacher.

"What the heck is that? I've had it with that nonsense," shot the teacher.

"Just keep that attitude up all the way to the multi-million dollar career ending settlement! ADD is when your mind is all over the place. ADD is when your mind is in no place at all," explained Jenna.

"Reverse ADD, my ass," mumbled the teacher, waving his hand in front of Randalf's non-reacting eyes. "I think he's sleeping!"

"That's a very rude thing to do to someone who suffers a very difficult disease," chastised Jenna the teacher.

Mr. Gumbersky looked at his pale brown loafer toes and counted the stitching. He looked up to the worn ceiling tiles and the tube lighting. The class was riveted to watch the displayed emotion and his efforts to stuff them away. He knocked his knuckles on the teacher's desk and snapped them back quickly. He faced out of the window.

"Our next photojournalism project," he commenced with a loud voice, "takes us into the history of our region. You'll get to decide how you want to document the remnants of what is a very unique history and completely unknown outside of our county."

"Many Americans decry the impact the European settlers had on Native Americans. Few people are aware that the Native Americans aren't native at all and did to their predecessors much viler things. Yes, indeed before the Native Americans arrived from Asia across a frozen Bering Strait, the Arborist People thinly populated the country."

"Native Americans are considered as peace loving and in balance with nature. It's the Arborist People who encapsulated those principles truly. They had not yet moved down from trees. They were living in the trees. Beautiful rope passageways connected vast networks with Ternobyl, the capital, in the center."

"Lacking a means to write knowledge, palace held knowledge keepers, special tribesman who were entrusted to remember the knowledge and history of the tribe. Each tree held knowledge keepers for a certain subject, like the farming tree, the lovemaking tree, the peacemaking tree. The highest rank was the walker, a role equivalent to a librarian. A knowledge seeker would kiss the feet of the walker. Then, the walker would like the palms of the knowledge seeker. The knowledge seeker would ask a question. The walker would know which tree and which knowledge keeper held the answer. They'd hurl from tree to tree until the walker introduced the seeker to the keeper."

"Every generation only had one walker. Only one person had the mental capacity to remember the vast information or so the prophecy said. Every walker groomed a prodigy from the first day of their service to succeed them should they die a sudden death. The bond between the walker and the prodigy was crucial. The lifelong loyalty to the tribe is crucial. All the hopefuls gather at the governor's palace upon the death of a walker.