A Cockroach in Brooklyn - A Darkly Amusing Short Story

1. A Cockroach in Brooklyn - A True Short Story

Tues Feb 21

As soon as I saw him, I whacked him.  The distance he dropped would be the equivalent of me free-falling from the Empire State Building. 

But, of course, he survived. He's an arthropod: he wears his skeleton on the outside. Divinely-designed body armor.  Out of all nature's weird and wonderful creations, this is the guy rumored to be capable of surviving an apocalypse. If that's true, it's an argument for evolution over divine design. Because why would God choose the dirt-sucking, disease-encrusted cockroach to outlive us all?

I live in a century-old building in Brooklyn, NY, where these critters run their own crumb-smuggling labyrinth between apartments.  I had to become a Samurai warrior in the art of cockroach warfare to extinguish them from the place (they and) I call 'home'. 

First, I consulted Google about how to commit insecticide against the entire brotherhood. 

Then, I emerged, decked with a supersized caulk gun, particle mask and every cockroach poison stocked at Walgreens. Soon, I had cut off all escape routes and entry points, caulking every hole from the gaping cracks to the minute pinpricks. Next, I bombed the glorious little bastards using no-holds-barred chemical weaponry. Finally: a mountain range of boric acid powder around the plumbing. As future deterrents, I set landmines in dark places in the form of black plastic roach baits. Three weeks later, satisfied that all egg sacs were deemed prematurely aborted (fuck 'Life')  I declare my hundred year-old home cockroach-free. All was clear on the Apt#2 front. I was free. Now, three filth-free months later. I'm happy in my cosy apartment for one. Tonight all that has changed. This single adult-sized cockroach casually strolls on top of my mirror above the sink.  How dare it show it's ugly head, thorax and abdomen? My heart jumped.  Without forethought, aim or training, I swiped at him with the closest weapon at hand - an old rag. I could tell I just knocked him off the ledge and didn't kill him. Not even a scratch, and gone.

Wednesday, Feb 22 (one day later)

Tonight, I spied him in exactly the same place, same position (an inch from the top edge of the mirror, facing north - weird but true.) I grab my lime green fly swatter. Yeah, I'm prepared this time. I know there's only one way to kill a cockroach instantly. Splat. The insides must come outside. Game on.

I focus the unwelcome intruder in my swatter's cross hairs. I swing my arm to full-tilt. 

Something stops me mid-slaughter.  I lean in close.

He doesn't even twitch a feeler when I bump against the mirror. Completely unaware of his enemy. Rare behavior for a cockroach. (Consider me an expert.) My murderous impulse melts for a moment. He doesn't hurtle into a dark crack as my shadow looms like every other cockroach I've ever encountered. He doesn't have an army of buddies who scatter like shrapnel from a grenade when I turn on the light.  And two nights in a row, he's returned to the same position, I mean exactly the same position. And, just like last night, he's twisting and twiddling his scrawny antennae as if coating himself with lotion on a glorious day at the beach. Like a cat licking its paws to clean up body parts unreachable by tongue, this guy's front legs and antennae are like an expertly synchronized swimmer's (if swimmers had antennae). But cats are clean animals....cockroaches are filthy vermin. And even if this guy is defying the nature of his species with some obsessive compulsive cleanliness disorder, he's doing it with cockroach slobber...yuk!

I swing my swatter down on his puny body with full-force. The mirror shudders against its screws. I scan for signs of a corpse, but my biggest fears are confirmed: I have a really inadequate wrist flip. The little bugger got away. Again.

Vote if you like part 1!