Cockroach County

The display space was a three by three yard square. There were four jewelry display cases made from glass with a big visible lock. The amulets were delicately laid out on a little velvet pillow each. Like Sandra had mentioned, all the adornments featured either a taxidermy cockroach or wasp, sparkly insects with intriguing details - hairs on the limbs, tiny antennas, precariously thin narrow points on the chitin bodies. The leather, silver, and gold looked expensive. The glass parts were delicately styled.

A curly haired woman in her fifties watched Randalf's gaze with her arms stretched out on the cashier's counter and her face in the shadow of the light beam from the lightbulb. Her constant silent gaze was unsettling. The stillness of her body was disturbing. The shotgun on the rack behind her suggested that management didn't fuck around.

"You buying? This isn't a museum," the woman barked.

"Uh, I'm actually here for a school project. We are documenting the local heritage. Your symbolism of cockroaches and wasps is supposed to go back to Native American roots, a really authentic thing. I was wondering if I could take some photos for school," asked Randalf.

"You've got that right. We've run this business for five generation. The treatment of the leather, silver crafting, everything is passed down and authentic. My husband is working on a new piece in the back right now. Which teacher sent you?" asked the woman.

"Mr. Grumbersky is running the photojournalism program, ma'am," answered Randalf.

"You better not associate with him. He's got it coming for him for sticking his nose in the wrong places. Take a few pictures and be gone!" barked the woman.

"Could I take some photos of your husband crafting in the back," asked Randalf with a shaky voice.

The woman seized up Randalf in silence. She waited. Randalf shrugged his shoulders. "Never mind! I'll take some photos and be out of your hair. I'm sorry to bother you."

"Jake! There is a gnat who wants to bother you!" yelled the woman.

"Hillary, I told you to be nicer to the customers! You can be like a cold robot! Send him right back and bring us some tea!" yelled a muffled voice through the wall.

"Well, Mr. nice-customer-who-isn't-buying-anything, walk around the building and in the back door!" pointed the woman to the door.

Randalf followed the finger into the cold night. The alley behind the building had knee high grass and wildflowers poking through the cracked asphalt. A cat rustled and ran off softly pawing and bouncing through the night with a flicking tail raised high - a little ring colored gray tiger. The backdoor was strengthened by black iron on heavy wood. Randalf knocked and pulled the complaining door open. A small, almost dwarf sized man with a bald hat and a worn apron welcomed him. He had glasses with microscope lenses and was holding something delicate in a pincer while, he worked on it with a sauntering iron.

"Take all the photos you like, my friend. What's your name?" asked the old man.

"I'm Randalf. I'm taking photos for my photojournalism class project. Can I ask you some questions?" asked Randalf.

"Sure, child," replied the old man. "I'm Jake. It's always lovely when someone takes an interest in our craft. See those design?" Jake pointed at blueprints on the wall that were made on deer hide. "Those were passed down my family for generations. I've improved the designs with computer modelling." Jake pointed at CAD generated 3D printouts. "We are experimenting with 3D printers. But you can still tell that something was composed by many layers of a machine. Doing things the old fashioned way provides a much smoother look. Our customers typically only buy one piece for their whole lifetime. It's a thing of commitment."

"If you noticed, my wife is a cockroach person. I'm a wasp person." With that, Jake jiggled the silver chain around his wrist with a wasp vial. "We are the first interracial couple if you want to call it that. It's an unusual merger of modern times. We figured by combining, we could bring better jewelry to market. The tools are all the same. The difference is if a cockroach or a wasp goes in. People were really upset at first. However, we showed them that we could keep our allegiances without conflict."

"I wouldn't think that people would make such a big deal about jewelry," blurted Randalf.

"Your teacher, Mr. Grumbersky should have taught you more tact with your interviews. Jewelry is everything to my wife and me," said Jake with a smile.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that," said Randalf.

"You seem to know nothing about West Liberty. Did Mr. Grumbersky send you here to explain you how things work here?" asked Jake.

"No, he sent me to ask about the Bridge Ridge," replied Randalf.

"Ah, he was too chicken to ask himself. You can see for yourself," Jake pointed at photos on the wall. "The whole city put money together for an expedition to the North Pole. Hillary and I went there. We were the only people the city trusted to go. Because we represented a union between both sides, we seemed like a neutral party. You've heard about the rumors of a Native American tribe in the North Pole, haven't you? Well, we went there, spent two million dollars on an expensive survey, and found nothing. Bridge Ridge was the name of the alleged place where North Pole explorers had found charred snow, like a camp fire had been there. Look at the photos. There is nothing."

The wall had five photos of ice. Randalf snapped a photo of the wall. Jake and Hillary had a close up shot in furry parkas. There was a shot of wide expanse of ice. A polar bear got a blurry shot with the distortion of an extreme zoom. There was a photo of an ice arc that looked like a giant bridge. There was a photo of a near naked woman in a loin clothes. She was tall, slender, and had a hundred yard stare. The cold didn't seem to affect her. The mental image that Randalf had about Wilkur sprung to his mind.

"Who is she?" asked Randalf.

"Oh," said Jake and quickly ripped the photo off the wall. The photo got balled up and ended up in the trash. "That's just a silly thing. I photoshopped the January 2002 Playboy centerfold into a landscape photo. I'm sorry for being so filthy. I don't usually meet customers in the shop."

"I'm sorry," said Randalf. "This is your working space. You should feel comfortable."

Hillary arrived with a tray and two tea cups. She left without saying a word. Randalf lifted the cup and held back the pain of burning his lips to be a cordial guest who appreciated the tea.

"The silver actually comes from a local mine. In the mountains is a little silver vein. It's much too small for commercial exploitation. Though, whenever I need a little silver, I go there, stick a few dynamites, and melt the rock down. I get 999 silver out of it. The industry standard is 925 sterling, which means 92.5% silver and the rest other metals. 999 silver is extremely soft. People like the extreme purity in marketing material. However, I have to blend it down with copper to make it hard. People think of copper as a cheap metal. So, I blend in a little Germanium. It sounds really exotic. People go crazy about that. If I make something for wasps, I'll blend in boron because that's a toxin for cockroaches. If I make something for cockroaches, I'll blend in silicon because wasps are allergic to it. It's those little secrets that make us one of a kind," lectured Jake.

After Randalf finished his tea, he thanked the man and left with a bounty of photos.

The next day, Randalf found himself sitting at a circular fountain with one yard high geyser in the center. He was looking at the sparrows in the beech tree, particularly a pair who seemed to set earnest yet playful chase to each other. The high pitched chirping was a distraction to the noisy parley of the recess crowd.

A couple, a tall punkish guy with skinny pants and t-shirt and a homey gal in a loose sweater and t-shirt, grabbed hands with an earnest focus on the fountain, trepidation and frozen body gesture in an ocean of easily moving and animated college kids. Randalf got up and backed away from the fountain, eyes focused on the couple. The couple did a hop. Their eyes lit up. They sprinted towards the fountain, the outside arms waving wildly to gain speed and the center arms still, holding onto each other. With a big leap, they flew high into the air, straight like a spear, cleared the concrete rim of the fountain pool, and splashed like a plank into the water. Spray of white water flew into the air. Big waves flooded the pool and leapt over the rim. They were soaked head to toe. The head appeared smiling. A popular rite of passage at West Liberty College was to take the plunge in that fountain. Randalf sat back down, avoiding the dark patches of spilled water on the rim.

Tricia and her cheerleader clique appeared at the periphery of the square, short white dresses that barely covered their groin, big lettered print of "Go, squirrels!", hair in high pigtails, smooth, long legs, and an ever energetic way of moving around, almost bouncing. The number two gave Randalf a glance. The number three seemed to point at Randalf. They walked to another spot, yet always left an impression of veiled focus on Randalf. There was a group giggle that send the blood into Randalf's cheeks, who still pretended to watch the sparrows. Tricia got a friendly push by her two besties in the direction of Randalf. She started walking straight into his direction. He looked around for people she could walk to.

Strutting with wide steps directly into his directions, the shoulders energetically counter swinging to the direction of her hips, an amused, almost devilish grin on her face, yellow-green eyes of such vibrant radiance, boobs bouncing up and down inside the elastic sports bra. Twenty feet away, she's gonna be turning to someone right now. Ten feet away, whom did he miss that she is going to stop for. Five feet away, still coming, could it be for him?

She hopped onto his lap with the ease of someone, who's professionally trained to volley ten feet through the air doing a flip. Her body across his quads had no weight to them, an unbelievable feeling of weightlessness where one would expect weight. She was about a hundred pounds, yet felt like a school backpack on his lap. He felt the outline of her thigh and butt, smaller, so much smaller than his own bones, cute and girlish - deeply arousing. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder in cozy familiarity and placed the other hand on his chest with the index finger extended as to poke his chest and make a point. Her eyes came in close to his face. That haze of bedroom intimacy ensued when a face is so close that it almost blurs in the lens of the eyes. He could smell her: Fresh shampoo from the hair, fresh soapy clean skin scent from her body, underneath that was a smell of wildflowers, of honey, of sweetness, of peaches in their most fragrant state just when they ripen.

Randalf relaxed into all the physical comfort of the touch. He wrapped both his arms around her torso to hold her close. He let his chest lean against the side of her torso. His mouth slightly drooped open. His nose reached forward to dive deeper into the wonderful cloud delicately, soothing, vivid, and imagination-inspiring scents. His eye lids closed a little more as he dreamt and surrendered to the visceral sensation.

"Randalf, I want you to pay really close attention to the sensation of how this feels. Close your eyes," seduced Tricia.

"Yes, Tricia," said Randalf eagerly closing his eyes and softening his lips to beckon hers to his.

"Focus, on my butt on your thigh," guided Tricia.

"Oh, yes," exhaled Randalf.

Her butt was so small - just two grapefruits - yet trim and firm. With the uniform dress being so short, her bare skin was on his lap, silky smooth from youth and body lotion. Only a thin outline of a skinny G-string ran in the middle. Tricia squeezed her butt cheeks. The firming flesh lifted her up a half inch. Then, there was a very sharp stinging sensation in the middle towards the back of her butt. Randalf's neurology felt a sensation that told him that he'd pass out any moment. Because he loved the sensation so much, he went deeper into that cloudy haze of pain.

He opened his eyes. There was a white ceiling. Tricia's body was gone. He was lying on his back, feeling the softness of a mattress. The crisp feel of clean, rough cotton sheets was on his hands. He felt warm and dreamy. His throat felt groggy and swollen. Breathing was hard. He tried to say something that he himself didn't even know what it was because he was so sleep drunk. Yet whatever he had tried to say came out as croaking anyway. His heart was beating rapidly like a laundry machine gone mad, all out of shape and banging around like a polterghost inside an abandoned castle.

The bright and caring face of the school nurse appeared, pasty weight face and colorfully pink bubblegum lipstick. She put her hand on his shoulder for him to settle down.

"You are going to feel very agitated. I gave you an epinephrine ejection that was dosed for a horse. You were blue from asphyxiation when Jenna carried you in. I had to act fast to get you back. You had a reaction to wasp venom," explained the nurse talking slowly, calmly, yet forcefully making each word a statement with downward tonality to make him submit to her directions.

"What?" croaked Randalf. "The hottest girl in my life was about to kiss me. Out of pure and improbably bad luck, she sat down on a wasp. The wasp stung me. And I have a terrible allergy to wasp venom! I'm gonna cry!"

"No, no, no..." interjected the nurse.

Jenna put her hand on the nurse's shoulder, "It's better if he believes that. I don't think anyone has told him."

Jenna's hair still looked perky, yet the neglect from a lack of combing and willful matting was already working to overpower the charm out of her look. With that she left the room. The wide dress with jeans underneath wafted in the air on the way out. The door shut a little loud.

"I think Jenna saved me again," stated Randalf. The throat was already making clearer noises, and the breathing was easier.

"She fucking saved your life," said the nurse.

When Randalf arrived home, he unlocked the door. He heard the sound glass hitting something, an unusual sound as he was intimately familiar with the way that Sandra moved around the house. He could recognize how she opened doors and placed down plates. Atticus was sitting at the kitchen table with his shirt off. A medieval dragon with long serpentine like trunk with the wings raised high in a threatening gesture was on his chest. Sandra's yellow summer skirt was at the entrance next to the shoes, a pair of black combat boots that must have been Atticus' and the siblings' shoes, a high heel with spaghetti straps and worn insole was the messiest and probably recently worn one.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," called out Atticus. He pushed Sandra away to zip up his jeans and search for his shirt.

"Oh, he's my brother. Don't worry!" calmed Sandra and pulled Atticus' head closer to her body. Now that she was standing, Randalf could see that her top was still on, yet she was in baby blue lingerie slips.

"You could have told me that you'd have company over!" complained Randalf.

"Oh, this is something spontaneous. I was over at his studio for aftercare. We talked about Ikea. He thought about getting a bookshelf for his studio. I told him to come and take a look at the one that I put together yesterday," justified Sandra.

"Apparently, I have a life threatening allergy to wasp venom. Jenna saved my life by bringing me to the nurse. I was totally passed out. I've got a huge shot of adrenalin," stammered Randalf.

"Oh wow! How do you feel," asked Sandra her face wide open and now very sorry.

"I should be terrified. Yet, all I can think about is how pissed I am that it happened right when I had Tricia in my arms. Whatever you did, it totally worked! We were about to make out!" said Randalf with excitement coming into his voice and a dreamy look to the ceiling with his eyes.

"Oh, shit, I forgot. I didn't do anything about the Tricia getting you laid mission yet," said Sandra.

"C'mon, could you be a bit more discreet. He doesn't need to know!" complained Randalf.

"Sandra, get dressed. I want to meet your brother properly over dinner conversation. I can tell that you are a really good person. And he's important in your life," Atticus patted Sandra on the butt in underwear - flup, flup, flup. Sandra gathered her skirt from the door and disappeared into her room.

"Sandra told me that you had the first interview session for your photojournalism project. I'd love to see what you snapped," said Atticus friendly.

"Alright," said Randalf and picked up the iPad from the table to connect to his photo storage account on iCloud. "I haven't retouched or sorted anything yet. These are from Mad Caps. Their jewelry artwork is quite exquisite. I got some good angles on close-up. I wish the lighting were better."

Atticus flipped through the photos with a facial expression that portrayed him as an art critique, not giving away to quick emotional reactions, yet a slow and thinking face of subtle facial shifts. "Haha," he burst out, "you've got a nudie!" There was the snapshot of the wall with photos from the North Pole and the naked svelte, feminine figure.

"Ah, that, the store guy photoshopped the January 2002 Playboy centerfold into the photo. He was really embarrassed about it. I guess old geezers get the hots as well," diminished Randalf.

"For a matter of fact, I'm a Playboy collector. The January 2002 centerfold was Nicole Narrain. She is black. This naked girl is as white as they come," boasted Atticus.

"Hey, maybe, I remembered the months wrong. It doesn't matter," complained Randalf.

Atticus wouldn't let go of the iPad and looked closer. "This isn't photoshopped at all. Look how she throws a perfect shadow. The shadow contours to every uneven surface in the snow. There are reflections of the snowmobile brake light on her body. This is way too perfect for some old dude to have hacked together." Atticus zoomed in all the way to show the individual pixels. "Someone ran around naked at the North Pole. I'll bet my tattoo gun on that!"

Sandra returned from her room wearing a soft velvet workout pant and hoodie. Her bare feet had a new pedicure of pink with artistic black dots on them. She cleared the dining table and setup for dinner. She got chicken out of the fridge and started fabricating it. Aroma entered the air, when she chopped the scallion, garlic, chilies, and peanuts. "It's Kung Pao Chicken tonight!"

"What's going on that you are making Sichuan food from scratch?" asked Randalf doubtfully.

"Oh, Atticus gave me another drop. I've been cooking and baking all afternoon. There are some macarons for desert!" said Sandra cheerfully. "You should invite Jenna over for lunch. Forget about Tricia! She is hot and all. But Jenna has done so much for you. Tell her, I'll make Beef Wellington. A traditional girl from around her should love such a classical dish."

"I don't think girls come over just like that. She has to like me first, get to know me, and trust me," explained Randalf. Atticus and Sandra exchanged looks.

"Yeah, just be like 'What's up? My sis is going to make Beef Wellington tonight. Come over.' Girls love that. They dream of casual dinner date like that, no pressure, good company, and tasty food," encouraged Atticus.

"You guys live in a parallel universe to me. That's not how the world works for me," complained Randalf.

"You just have to belief in yourself, and the world will belief in you," inspired Sandra while she reached into her top to adjust her boobs. Turning to Atticus, she asked, "Does that look better?" Her boobs were more pressed together now to create a nice cleavage crack in the middle.