Two nights in a row, a cockroach has appeared, happy-go-lucky, just dangling his antennae out on top of my mirror above the sink. The first time I saw him, I swatted at him with my lime green fly swatter. I could tell I just knocked him off his perch and didn’t kill him. But when I saw him in exactly the same place the next day – at the right-hand edge, facing north, just like before - I couldn’t believe it. Twiddling his little scrawny hands as if coating himself with sun tan lotion on a glorious day at the beach. I swatted him again, but I know I just knocked him over.
For a second, I got really mad at this obnoxious cockroach, who wouldn’t go away, dodging my swats time and again. Then, as I was walking back to the living room, I realized that that little critter out there is my new roommate. Suddenly my feelings changed. I found myself looking for him in his regular spot when I brushed my teeth to go to bed. If I don’t see him tomorrow when I get home from work, I might even be disappointed.
But if I do see him, I’ll be sure to name him. As long as he doesn’t breed – which I suppose is out of the question, and “he” might be a “she”, anyway – but...if we could make that deal, I think we could live together side-by-side without any problems at all. He’d be the happiest cockroach this side of the Williamsburg Bridge, sharing an apartment with me, not paying rent, living off my delicious take-out leftovers – the cream of Brooklyn cuisine - and having my personal guarantee of his life. And I’d have someone to look out for when I got home. Actually, I’ve already decided, his name is Sid. Whether I see him again or not. It’s Sid.
Feb 23
I didn’t see Sid yesterday. Thought maybe I’d scared him off for good with all that swatting. But today, I thought I saw him behind the dishwashing liquid, then scuttle off and hide in the corner when my shadow loomed over the sink. He was about the same size, but really I can’t tell that it’s Sid unless he’s sitting in his regular spot. It’s not like he has a blond crewcut and one missing tooth, so that I can recognize him. But a couple of hours later, there his is. In exactly the same spot – at the right edge of the mirror, facing north. He looked like he was asleep – no dancing antennae – so I didn’t want to disturb him. Just smiled and said, “Hi Sid.” But then I came to wondering if Sid was the right name for him. Seems like it could be, but the only problem is my last Japanese fighting fish, after a few weeks in my custody, had earned the name Sid Vicious... (originally known as Terriaki Finger Lickin’ Good, followed by three lip-smacking sounds) ....because that fish was so mean and tried to attack your fingers when you fed him with an ungrateful anger that was very unbecoming of a dependent fish. I guess I’ll have to differentiate this one by calling him Sid the Roach, because he’s not vicious at all. I’m the vicious one in our relationship. I also have to come to terms with the facts that “Sid” may be “Sidetta” and may be making babies behind the mirror somewhere. I have visions of waking up one morning to hundreds of tiny, mini-Sids fanning out from behind the mirror. Hopefully, Sid/Sidetta is barren. Maybe she’s trying to have babies, but it’s not working out. Kinda like me.
Feb 24, 2am
My relationship with Sid is souring. I’m becoming suspicious – wondering what he’s up to behind the mirror, wondering where he’s walking his dirty feet when the lights go out and I’m asleep. For the first time since the beginning, I saw him today and wanted to swat him. Maybe because he wasn’t in his usual spot. He was closer to the left side of the mirror ledge, his bottom towards me, his head dipping down behind the mirror. Looking like he’s up to no good. But I couldn’t swat him. Because I’ve already named him. That’s Sid the Roach. That's my roommate.
Feb 27
It’s the second night that I haven’t seen Sid. I guess I miss him. But more than that, I feel let down. I thought we had a living experiment going on. The trailblazing case of man and insect being master and pet. I wonder if he thinks I’m the pet. But I doubt it – the hierarchy is clear. I feed him, I house him. The only way he could feed me is if there was an apocalypse and I was so starving, I’d sacrifice him and eat him for a short-lived, meager protein boost. Just kidding, Sid. That’s not the way either of us would want this relationship to turn out.
Feb 28
Hung out with Sid tonight as I brushed my teeth. He was pacing a little along the top of the mirror, like he's on guard. Maybe, from his perch there, Sid witnessed the bitter argument between me and Luciano two weeks ago - maybe even saw Luciano pack his bags and leave me. Maybe he’s here to keep me company, observing the gaping hole that has opened in my life and he's doing his best to fill it.
Unlike all the other cockroaches, Sid interpreted the thick layer of boric acid on the floor around the sink as a manifestation of the psychological defenses I have put up: barriers to deter humans and cockroaches alike from becoming close. He bravely tiptoed over that boric acid minefield – perhaps even held his tiny breath.
Nor was he swayed by the poison-laced peanut butter in the black plastic cockroach traps that have been strategically placed to murder his breathren in a slow, cruel manner. He’s stoically aware that if he’s savvy enough to overcome the obstacle course that I’ve set up, he stands a chance of enjoying gourmet meals on a daily basis – a dirty plate, smeared with dried pad thai juices; a licked spoon with remnants of dulce de leche icecream: perfect portions of pure decadence to keep a little roach like him fat and content. He’s a pioneer of roaches – the first cockroach to realize that, if only he can become friends with the human, be endearing to the human, he stands to live a life far superior to that of the scavenging scum of his ilk - those that he would rather not be seen or associated with.
I never thought I'd develop a bond with a cockroach. Previously, they were nothing but pests to me. But Sid is different. He's definitely a pleasant, undemanding, un-creepy-crawly-like roommate and he's welcome to any tasty morsels left in my sink. Tonight I presented him with some chocolate brownie crumbs. I'm excited to see if they are gone in the morning.
Feb 29
Tonight was a massacre. I have blood on my hands. Yellow, gooey blood. It was a mercy killing. I couldn’t let Sid carry on this way. It was exactly as I had feared.
It all started when I saw Sid on the opposite site of the mirror from where he usually sits. But when I approached, he scuttled behind the mirror. This was unusual behavior. Sid rarely reacts to my approach or takes any notice of my presence. Why is he so jumpy tonight? Is it a guilty conscience? What is he up to behind there? The very thing that enamored me to Sid in the first place was that he is not like other cockroaches. He doesn’t scuttle and disappear, leaving me with a creepy-crawly feeling, wondering when and where he’ll appear next. Sid just hangs out and goes with the flow, kind of like a stoner, surfer roach. You can imagine him giving a slight nod of the head and greeting me with a sleepy “Duuuude!” when I approach the sink, then forgetting I was ever there; oblivious to the tumultuous history between man and roach. Something is definitely wrong.
This current disappearing act caused me to frown so severely that my eyebrows met in the middle (as witnessed in the mirror). Note that all Sid’s interactions with me so far have been accompanied by a second version of myself reflected in the mirror. There are always two of me, but so far, just one of Sid. Maybe Sid felt overpowered by my duality and that’s why he did what he did. But I can’t make excuses for his behavior now – it’s too late for that.
The next thing I noticed was two long antennae wiggling out from behind the right hand side of the mirror. That’s when I discovered what was really going on. Out of the opposite of the mirror, out scuttled the first cockroach I saw, who now I know was not Sid at all. The behaviors were all wrong. I know Sid well enough now that he might as well have a crew cut and a missing tooth.
I look back at the twiddling antennae on the right. Still there, twiddling away.
That’s when my heart sank and slowly, began to rise again, filling up with vengeful fury along the way. Sid was keeping a woman behind there. That’s probably why he was hiding. He probably thought I couldn’t see his antennae – just like the child who thinks that, if he clasps his chubby hands over his eyes, you'll never find him in a game of ‘hide and seek’. I guess Sid was counting on the fact that I think all cockroaches look alike and that, if his little floozy scuttles around while he’s hiding behind the mirror, I'll mistake her for him. He underestimates the extent of our relationship.
My reasoning goes like this. Today, he brings in this woman. Tomorrow, he brings in his cousin – a nice guy, he assures me. Then before you know it, they begin having incestuous rumpy pumpy behind my mirror and I’ve got a wide-scale infestation on my hands. I refuse to let that happen. The contract said that it was just going to be just me and Sid. No amendments.
Meanwhile, my fingers had already clasped the fly swatter before I’d thought any of this through. A hateful, murderous fever was now fueling all my actions, swamping any pre-existing compassion. The lime green plastic swooped through the air and, as it splatted flat against the wall, the whole mirror shook. Of course, I completely missed Sid’s little companion – as usual.
(To my defense, I’m actually much more of an accurate cockroach killer when armed with a big wad of kitchen paper - but that’s just too hands-on for my liking. I've been trying to hone my swatting skills. It's kind of like the knife-versus-gun-as-a-murder-weapon scenario. A gun is a far more impersonal homocide, making it far easier to commit - as long as you target practice - just like the fly swatter vs. squooshing tissue.)
Needless to say, the crawly bitch disappeared behind the mirror in sheer self-preservation. Even Sid himself retracted his antennae in surprise at this sudden violent quake. I wait. But if I know anything about cockroaches, it’s that they have little to do in their lives but scavenge and out-wait any lime-green-fly-swat-wielding human. My patience is much shorter.
Then it occured to me, like cream curdling into butter in my brain. Carefully and deliberately, I hung the fly swatter back on its hook beside the sink. My tense eyebrows separated like the Red Sea and a quiet determination set in. I posed my two palms against the mirror, which hangs loosely on the wall by a nail. I sighed. I didn’t want to do it. Really, I didn’t. But I had no choice.
It took a few moments of reflection to build up the brute courage. I bolstered my resolve with thoughts of stranger cockroaches, scuttling around in my kitchen, disappearing and reappearing - maybe one day I’ll find one in my shoe, but only after I’ve put it on...barefoot. Or maybe one will crawl onto my pillow while I’m sound asleep and lay eggs next to my face...Or one might get inside my clothes...my underwear…UNthinkable.
With a nose wrinkled up in disgust, I apply a short sharp pressure to the mirror and hold it there. I press all my weight against it. It's a heavy steel-framed mirror. I don’t feel any crunches or squeals, thank god. Then I release. “I’m sorry, Sid,” I mutter at my reflection in the mirror.
I considered removing the mirror from the wall and scraping off their remains, but decided against it. It would be too painful for me to see Sid that way, not to mention, disgusting - I've seen the thick goo that squelches out of a crushed cockroach shell too many times. Besides, the mirror is big and heavy and if I disturb the nail holding it up, it might never go back up again without a complete re-installation, which I don't have the time or energy for.
I will let them disintegrate naturally. It’s not like it will stink out my kitchen like an animal carcass would.
I stand at the mirror for a few moments. I can’t look at myself in the reflection. I look down at the sink. I will miss Sid. He really was a good cockroach. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe he was a deterrent, a lone vigilante, protecting the sink area. Maybe all the left-over scraps were simply protection contributions to him.
Maybe she wasn’t even a friend of his, maybe she was a gatecrasher and he was plotting to get rid of her. He was hatching a plan right there as he twiddled his antennae out of the side of the mirror. Maybe now Sid’s gone, all the other little cockroaches will come out of the woodwork and cause my worst nightmare – the dreaded infestation. Maybe I just should have trusted him, let him have his little friend, if that is what she was, and not been so rash and downright insecticidal. But she was just so…scuttle-y...[shiver]
I really can’t blame Sid for needing a little female company of his own kind. Just like I wouldn’t be at all happy if a cockroach was my only companion. (No offense to Sid. As cockroaches go, you wouldn’t find a better one.) But a cockroach family just isn't part of my live-and-let-live plan. I pay the rent around here. New York rent, no less. So I get to control who takes up residence here. Even if I’d have allowed Sid and his bitch to have children and allowed us all to live in harmony, there’d be a whole new democracy existing behind the mirror before I knew it. And the cockroach crowd mentality would be rife: they wouldn’t all be like Sid and, even if they were, one Sid is all I can handle. That's the whole point to this story, the moral, if you will. One cockroach is more than enough. Two is already too many.
At this point, I shuffled back to the living room in my pink fluffy socks and soon my mind became re-absorbed into some saga on the boob tube and I forgot about Sid’s rotting guts behind the mirror. But I’ll never forget Sid, the anomaly to cockroaches everywhere. Maybe, by killing him, I freed him to be re-incarnated as a Hog-nosed bat – which by the way is the smallest mammal in the world and lives in Thailand. You’ve got to start somewhere. And, personally, I’d love to live in Thailand. Though I’m pretty sure that bats eat cockroaches – I wonder whether Sid the Bat will abstain, again proving himself an anomaly to his species. By the time he is reincarnated as a human, he’ll be someone really special, I know it – maybe the Dali Lama or the Second Coming. I wonder if he’ll hold it against me, that I killed him just as we were getting to know each other. Probably not. I’ll probably be reincarnated as a cockroach by then and he’ll keep me as a pet. I’ll just have to resolve to stay single if that happens. I think it is human nature to hate multiples of cockroaches. There's no way around that.
Epilogue - 6 months later
After Sid, there were no more cockroaches. I guess he was the last. I am happy and proud to have a cockroach-free apartment in Brooklyn. In the five years prior to Sid’s arrival, it had been an ongoing battle between the man and the roach. And finally, I won. The glory was bitter-sweet, seeing as it came with the sacrifice of my friend Sid the Roach. But nonetheless, I won. RIP Sid.
Copyrighted by Sophie Evans
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