Cockroach County

The footpath across the stone plates made Jenna's step more hesitant as she faced the little one-story house with the red clay roof and the worn fake wood façade. She pressed the ding dong button. The swift steps of a young girl on bare feet splattered across a wooden floor. Cautiously, the door opened a slit. A curvy girl face with a shock of blond hair, Sandra, peeked out. Jenna stood back on her heels holding the swaying Randalf with both hands up.

"I found this address on Randalf. Is he your boyfriend?" asked Jenna.

"What happened to him?" asked Sandra opening the door with her arms dropped down in confusion.

"I think he had a little too much weed. He'll be fine once he sleeps it off," suggested Jenna. "I'm his classmate. Nothing happened between us."

"Well, I'd be glad if something happened for him. He's my little brother. Can you help me get him in?" asked Sandra.

"'suppose. I guess I have a minute," said Jenna. "It was only pot, very pure stuff. There was nothing mixed in."

The two walked into the house holding Randalf on opposite sides. Sandra paused to get the wet sweater off first. Jenna propped Randalf up. With ease, the arms came over head as the sweater rolled in with the undershirt past his ears and elbows, revealing nicely trimmed abs with two adorable pec bulge. The white skin was smooth and soft to the touch. He was smallish and mousy, yet had a good investment in muscle tucked away under his clothes. The seat of his pants were dark with water, lines of dark running down the length of the pants where the water had found a path down.

"Those are wet as well," said Sandra.

She unbuttoned the jeans in the way that a mom adjusts the clothes of a toddler who impatiently wants to run off and play - awkward, fumbling, and blissful when they finally opened. Her hands jerked to get the tight, wet-sticky fabric to move down the hips. The down pull made Jenna hold on harder because his knees were like Jell-O. Sandra had a lock of hair fall into her face from the struggle. Jenna stepped closer to bear hug Randalf from behind. She really wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her chest into his back to get a tight hold. Thus steadied, Sandra dropped her whole body weight down. The jeans let loose and slit down to the knees. His junk jumped into her face. The knees had ample of loose fabric to finish the job.

"Nice one," said Jenna looking down his front.

His circumcised penis was a well hung and thick, a pretty pink thing. The area had been trimmed neatly. The penis head was unusually large in comparison to the shaft.

"He's a good deal. I wish girls would notice that about him because he seems to quiet and shy on the outside. But, I can't exactly go around telling girls how good he looks naked. He really deserves a good girl and would make her very happy," said Sandra.

"Very happy, indeed," repeated Jenna with a smirk.

They walked the naked Randalf still only quietly shaking from the cold to his bedroom. Sandra pulled the comforter off. They dropped him on the bed. The propped his limbs into what seemed like a proper resting position and covered him up.

"This is a very strange city," said Sandra. "I went for a walk downtown today. There was a boutique with jewelry. They had really interesting pieces. They had insects suspended in amber. There was a bizarre and very artistic look. I never realized all the details to insects until I slowly turned a necklace with a wasp ember crystal around in my eyes. I could see the big eyes, the antennas, and what I think was its mouth. The wasp looked so alive like it would crawl of at any moment. I've never seen anything like it. They had unusual insects. I'd have expected dragon flies and butterflies, the pretty insects. They actually had a cockroach inside of a glass vial. That's a bit of dark humor, isn't it? So, I figured why not. Seattle has Nirvana and shotgun suicide. West Liberty has cockroaches. I picked out a wasp and a cockroach earring. You know like have it both at the same time," narrated Sandra.

"You wouldn't believe how bat shit crazy the storekeeper went on me," continued Sandra. "She said that I wouldn't understand. She said that I was out of my mind. She told me to leave the store. What's the deal with people?"

Jenna explained with the politeness of a teenage boy picking up a date, "They are a bit like gang signs, like Bloods and Crips have different colors. If I were you, I'd stay away from wasp and cockroach symbols in this town. People will assume a lot about you. I have to get going. It was nice to meet you. And Randalf is going to have a huge appetite when he wakes up tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, huh! He must have gotten a huge hit!" said Sandra waving good bye.

With the sign of horns hand gesture, Jenna walked off.

The next morning, Randalf rolled over slowly in his bed sheets, the stomach grumbling loudly and another bleak, cloudy day outside. His hands searched his hips under the blanket until he stopped with the eyes squinting in consternation. He got up and pulled a pair of sweatpants on before he walked out of his room. Sandra, curled into a blanket on the floor in the corner of the sparsely furnished room, flipped a page on her iPad.

"Hey, you are back!" called Sandra out happily.

"I don't remember how I got home last night, where my clothes went, or why I'm so hungry. But I do know that I can barely breathe through this stuffed up nose, my throat is sore, and my forehead is hot. Do we still have those frozen hot dogs? I'm gonna nuke the whole carton in the microwave!" said Randalf.

"A girl carried you home yesterday. West Liberty is working out great for you! You are making friends! I'm so proud of you. She's a little chubby and physically neglected. But hey, everyone gotta start somewhere on the dating totem, right? Let me give you a big hug, my little brother! Do we need to have a talk about condoms?" Sandra was very energetic. Randalf simply dug down to take cover behind the kitchen counter and dig in the bottom freezer drawer.

"I could teach you how to roll on a condom, you know! I'm pretty relaxed and cool," heaped Sandra on top, feeling a button to push with Randalf.

"No, I got that covered! Oh, great, we have two bags of frozen French fries left!" exclaimed Randalf and sneezed very hard spreading mucous projectiles all over the kitchen counter. With raised shoulders in embarrassment, he wiped the counter down with a Bounty paper towel. Concerned, Sandra snuck up on him from behind with an infrared thermometer and zapped his forehead before he could protest. She jogged out of his range into the open living room to read the display.

"Oh sweetie, you are not going to college today. I'll give the office a call for you. You are grounded on home rest!" she told him.

"Just because you are my big sis doesn't mean you are my mom!" complained Randalf watching the giant pile of hotdogs and French fries spin in the microwave.

The hours dragged on slowly. The walls of the small unfurnished living room crawled tighter together as time passed. Randalf half dozed and half flipped through YouTube videos. Sandra looked at hospitality job ads. The air seemed to be standing still in the room turning into a stale suffocating, forcible mass entering their lungs and making the head hurt. Impatiently, Sandra tapped her feet while clicking through to yet another wanted ad to copy and paste her resume into.

"I can't stand being cooped up here. Why don't we get that tattoo that we've been talking about?" blurted Sandra out.

"Uh, okay. You mean the two koala bears on the tree for our parents and the open bird cage with two little birds flying out to symbolize us?" asked Randalf slowly.

"Yeah, remember that National Geographic issue about Aboriginal myths. When koala bears moved from living on the ground to living on the tree, they became bearers of memories. Symbolism might help us gather everything that happened in one spot and move on, kind of like a rite of passage," suggested Sandra.

"I don't know. Each time, I think about dad, I see the damn tire and brake pad width indicator. I get mad. I get sad. I just don't know. When I was thirteen, he was my hero. He ran a half marathon. He got a patent as a chemical engineer at his petrochemical company, which got him a mad promotion to management. And then the last year, we had a bad argument about cleaning leafs out of the rain gutter. I told him that the new tool was on the way from Amazon. He kept saying that Amazon is crap. I kept telling him that the tool had a five star rating. I tried reading some of the reviews to him. He just spat on the floor and insisted that I wouldn't understand. I don't know if I want to think about that every time I look at my chest," replied Randalf.

"He gave life to you. Remember, when he took you to Disney Land and you fell asleep in his lap on the way home in the car? Remember, when you broke your collar bone, and he came running from work to carefully carry you to the ER? His face was so worried like he didn't care about anything else in the world. That's all your dad as well," said Sandra in nostalgia.

"I know. Don't make me feel guilty," exclaimed Randalf. "People! Sometimes, I don't get people. Mom should have talked with him. But all she said was 'don't.' She didn't want to rock the boat and get him upset. She never wanted to rock the boat or do difficult things - just always go with the flow. See where that got her! She's dead. So many times, she made me feel bad for confronting uncomfortable topics at the dinner table. And when she got me beat into submission to be quiet, that's what happens. I don't feel like I should take advice from other people. I could have lived with her being mad at me again. I can't rest with them having died in a completely preventable accident. Every time, I do something quiet, thoughts about them pop into my head. They don't leave me alone. I don't know about a tattoo, being even more reminded of that all."

"I want to get the tattoo. Do you want to come along and give me company?" asked Sandra pensively.

"Okay, sure, big sis. We are all that we've got," said Randalf and got up.

Sandra got dressed in a cute blue skirt that ruffled open a third down to her knees, vaguely like a tennis skirt. The white top had the neck collar torn off to leave a frayed jagged opening that was so wide that the top slipped over both shoulders to get stuck on the top half of her boobs to leave a wonderful, playful, summery display of skin of her shoulders and décolleté. Big bold letters wrote a flirty "C'est la vie" across her front.

Randalf donned a pair of dark blue pants and a leather jacket, still not able to shake the mousy look that the curled hair taking prominence over his face gave him.

They walked to downtown, the street with the picturesque street lamps, head-in parking at meters, and shop entrances to tiny stores. At a corner store, Sandra got a bottle of Wet Virgin Party, a local no-name vodka in a plastic bottle on sale for $6.99. Holding it by the neck, she walked down the street with her hand in Randalfs - pure sibling happiness. They turned into Monkey Needle, the front of the business had a reception desk that went from one wall to the other, creating a block to the back half of the store. The reception desk was laden three layers deep with see-through plastic sheet binders of tattoo motives. The wall was papered with tattoo motif posters covering each other.

Beyond the reception counter was darkness and a jumble of things: A leather recliner, a little stool on wheels, a medically-looking contraption like a stirrup table, two rolling cabinets, a Japanese inspired paper privacy wall, a beanbag, a rocking horse with fake fur, a taxidermy raccoon with a red rapper baseball cap and fake gold teeth, a Fender electric guitar on a stand, and a twenty something year old dude with gray suspenders, puffy, white shirt revealing plenty of curly chest hair, leather balloon hat, and sharpie cap in between the teeth. The dude had a hard time navigating through the miscellaneous crap on the floor to the front desk.

After Sandra explained her tattoo concept, the dude scratched his chin, "That's not gonna big quick. It'll cost you real money. It's not a $20 tattoo. In fact, I'm here by myself. I'd have to watch the store while working. Don't you want to start off with a little heart or a butterfly? I got some really nice stencils here. $15 special for you!"

"Yeah, no, I want the tattoo as I told you," insisted Sandra.

"I hate to do this. But, I'll have to ask you to come back tomorrow, so that I can call someone to watch the front desk while I work. Fuck, that is a sweat concept and all. The meaning of your parent's death is so deep, like I'd be rotten honored to do that. I can like picture it in my head already," he took another glimpse at her upper right chest. "That's where you want it, right? It'll look phat!"

"Why don't we draft the design today?" asked Sandra to move the sale ahead.

"Yeah, it's a slow afternoon anyway. Why don't you come back?" the dude lifted a board in the reception desk to let the siblings back.

The dude got a fresh piece of artist paper out of a drawer and placed a piece of graphite in his hand, a hand that had a brown leather wrap with a little glass vial and wasp inside suspended in plastic in midflight sting. Sandra's eyes were drawn to it. She took his wrist carefully into her left hand while avoiding to disturb the beginning draft, so that she could lift the vial up with her right hand.

"I've seen one of these in a store yesterday. They are beautiful. Does it have any meaning to you?" asked Sandra.

"Well, yeah, I like the strong black and yellow color combination. It makes you scared, doesn't it? Even inside of that vial and dead, you still feel the fear that it might sting you. I like that don't tread on me feel. My dad used to beat me up regularly. On the weekend when he was around, he'd take his shoes and beat the frustration of dull life in a coal mining town out on me. When I'd break down sobbing, he'd give me one more slap - 'That one's for the road son!' When I was fifteen, a mentor took me in. He taught me how to 'sting' in life. The first time, I raised my fist against my dad to block a blow of his shoe, my dad got even more enraged. He slipped off his belt and hit me with the buckle side. My skin broke. I ran bleeding to my mentor. He told me to stay with the path to learn to sting in defense. I did. The next time, I got a good punch in - sent my pops reeling into the TV and broke it. That day, he stopped. To remind myself to stay on the path of my mentor, I carry this reminder with me every day," explained the dude.

Randalf grabbed the Fender and started plugging a few cords to pass the time. Sandra looked over the shoulder of the dude. Growing tired from the hunched over stance, she put her left hand on his shoulder. The dude seemed to like it. He relaxed and drew strokes with more gusto. The koala bears took shape: Rough circles at first, then the fuzzy-furry feel appeared, until the warm smile and big eyes melted the onlooker's heart. The two song birds flying to freedom were made of two strokes each only, two perfectly curved strokes. The artistic simplicity gave the song birds and eye-dropping beauty. Naturally, the eye was drawn the most to those dark black lines - just kind of how the siblings taking flight into their own life was the most important thing.

The tattoo dude took a sideway glance at Sandra across the gentle and swift hand with the graphite stick, a little smile pulling into a smirk, eyes glint with appetite for life, the lungs drawing in more oxygen. He saw a medium tall girl with ample breasts, the top low enough to see the skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks of happiness. What really drew him in was a fluidity and suppleness to her tissue and joints. He couldn't quite put a finger on it. She seemed very feminine, so opposite and foreign from himself. Her breasts had a liquid aspect. Ripples would run across them. They'd change shapes as she leaned back or counter balanced the gesticulations of her arms. There was warmth and caring in her voice like he wanted to roll out on a picnic blanket with her, resting his head on her belly, watch the sky, dream of life, and listen to the birds.

"Yeah, this is the rough draft. I'll fill in more details when I do the actual tattooing," said the dude holding up the stencil sheet.

"I like it, Atticus," replied Sandra. "Let's do it."

"The important part is to get comfortable. You'll be sitting for a few hours for something of that size. Why don't you go to the restroom while I scan the stencil and print it on stencil paper?" offered Atticus. "The restroom is right in the back."

Atticus pulled a drawer open to get a set of a syringe and little, brown plastic bottle without any label. Explaining that it was his blood sugar medication, he pulled a drop of liquid out of the bottle into a dropper. Then, he sucked the carefully measured into the syringe and injected it. "Gnarly," exclaimed Randalf.

Sandra walked to the very back of the long, thin shop. She noticed the sleeping bag and camping pad in the back corner. She had to step over a duffle bag to get into the restroom. The restroom was a cramped room with a little standing shower in the corner. There was a personal showering towel on a hook and a small counter ledge next to the sink with a shaver, shampoo bottle, and deodorant. A pair of men's underwear was lying in the corner. A poster of the first non-nude Playboy cover with Sarah McDaniel, a young Instagram famed girl in an ad hoc photo snap with grainy quality like one of those American Apparel ads.

Outside, Atticus clicked on a laptop while talking through the side of his mouth. "Randalf, so that's your sister. She is amazing! I don't know if I'd love being her brother or hate it. I'd get to see her every day, but I couldn't touch."

"Yeah, I'm kind of invisible to her in that way. She comes out of the shower with the towel barely covering her. She'll walk around the place in her underwear looking if the laundry hopper has a better outfit that's still passably smelly. The cool thing is when she has girlfriends over. She'll upsell me to them sometimes. I like hearing all the excited whispers of 'have you seen his butt?' But they never make a move. It's almost like they feel that my sister is the father with the shotgun, and they'd have to show honest intentions and take me out to a nice dinner. But which girl does that for a guy?"

"Tough life!" Atticus teased Randalf. "Does she have a boyfriend?"

"No, we just moved to town. We don't know anybody here. If you are going to make a move, she is vulnerable at this point. She does like sex. And I'm going to tell you this as her brother because she goes out and gets it, very sex positive as a healthy, natural thing."

"Wow, you guys from up North are different. You are from up North, aren't you? You sound like it." Asked Atticus.

"Yeah, we are from New York."

Sandra returned from the restroom while the printer was buzzing. Atticus had a whole new level of business about him. He sprayed cleaning detergent on the leather chair that was completely adjustable with a headrest and full arm-length arm rest. After it was wiped dry, Sandra slipped into it, immediately relaxing into the partially reclined seat with the legs high and the arms comfortable propped wide. She crossed her legs to prevent exposure under her skirt. She pulled down her top towards the edge of the nipple to make space for the stencil. Atticus held a sticky sheet of white with a black inverted version of the tattoo and two inches of clear sticking tape around it. He maneuvered it closer to seize up where it should go.

"I'm going to have to ask you to take your top lower. See the clear tape around it is really holding it in place. That has to go flat to make sure the printed part is really smooth and crisp," explained Atticus.