Cicada

J. Eric Laing

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without the permission of the author. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

Copyright © 2011 by J. Eric Laing

ISBN: 9781475211788

All rights reserved

Cover design based on an image by Julie Rey Photographies, and is their copyright, 2011. http://www.juliereyc.com

Seated in his pickup truck on the side of an isolated country road with a pistol in his mouth, John Sayre considered getting out of the cab so that he wouldn’t make a mess of things. He didn’t want to blow out the rear window. He couldn’t bear the thought of troubling some stranger to clean the pulp and blood of his brain from the upholstery and floorboard.

After long wrestling with what he’d come to that lonely place to do, sad to say but it was that mundane worry which had finally conquered all other distractions, jostling and strangling more crucial concerns to finally win out. Little room remained for what the act would mean for his wife and son left behind. He had already murdered any meaningful debate and fear, cramming those dead thoughts into some small, dark space and burying them far away, deep below.

Teeth on metal, the taste of gun oil curled his tongue, and of all things it was only that slight repulsion that brought a pause to his plans.

How considerate the completely selfish can be.
Clear as catfish waters. King of the mountain.

Easing the barrel from his mouth and licking his lips, he kept focus the wrong way down its sights.
A tiny black hole for a man to crawl into
.
Never too late.

On the seat beside him, he had begun a note. At first glance it appeared to be a list, but it was not. In hurried block letters that huddled together as though afraid to be seen, it read:

I pushed Walter

wished I could take it back

don’t expect forgiveness

The words were centered in the middle of a plain sheet of ruled paper and suffered the appearance of needing to be more, something like a schoolboy’s unfinished homework.
A little deserted island of half-assed explanation.
Yes, the man knew as much, knew that it didn’t begin to make enough sense of things. Beneath the last line were two little dots of ink where the pen had been pressed and another thought or two were considered but not put down. They would have been nothing less than insults to his abandoned wife and son; a pitiful inheritance.

Leading up to that day the heat climbed steadily, mounting heights intolerable, holding down every woman, man, child, and dog of the small community of Melby with an azure weight. Summertime around those parts had always enjoyed such dominion, and over the course of the few months prior to that fateful June, it had become clear the coming swelter would be one for the record books. The old boys said so.

By around a quarter after eleven or so each morning, beginning back in the final weeks of May, things became more and more quiet as almost every one of God’s creatures was put back to bed by the blanket of heat that settled over them. Mothers, aunts, and wives were forced to prepare lunches that didn’t require the stove. That worked out just as well though, since appetites waned as mercury waxed. With each afternoon growing a little hotter than the last, most families waited out the worst part of the day under the shade of front porches, passing the time by doing as little as they could.

Dogs dug into the relatively cool earth beneath those porches, offering only pathetic whines of discomfort between heavy panting, their only proof that the harsh climate hadn’t done them in. Above the hounds, meanwhile, the womenfolk kept busy shucking corn or shelling pecans and peas or such. If there was nothing better to do, then they abused their fingers sewing quilts that would need weeks to finish and months more to be of any use. At their feet their docile children played games that took very little physical effort, such as coloring or slapping down checkers.

During those torpid hours most of the men could be found elsewhere, pretending to be at their chores, but really only having run-off to wait out the blistering sun at their usual sanctuaries. Whether their idleness found them at the Feed ‘n’ Grain, barbershop, or pool hall, measured each man’s commitment to sloth as clearly as the rings of a felled tree revealed seasons of deluge and drought. The Feed ‘n’ Grain store patrons could lay claim to being the lesser offenders, since they, at the very least, engaged in a good deal of shoptalk, comparing notes on the fertilizing merits of differing manures or bickering over the best soil pH in which to plant barley. Uncle Ned’s barbershop, on the other hand, sunk a layer deeper, as it was for the most part the refuge of the unemployed and gossipmongers. Lastly, and by far the worst, there was the pool hall; a smoky den where the loafers and ne’er-do-wells swilled sweat-dappled bottles of beer while gambling and swearing for no real good reason, wasting day and night between chasing after loose women or boasting of other sins they’d known.

Only two creatures reveled in the heat—the mockingbirds and the cicadas.

The cicada is one of creation’s uglier designs, even among the world of insects. An inch-long piece of scat smashed a little from each end and festooned with great fly-like bulbous eyes, wings, and six spindly legs; miniature green and brown monstrosities. Furthermore, their purpose in the grand scheme of things ran as perplexing as their appearance. Clinging all but immobile to the trees that they siphoned for nourishment, the females do little else but eat after molting, while the males ceaselessly make the insects’ distinctive, singular mating call through stridulating its abdomen, producing a noise that borders on surreal, sounding more mechanized than natural. As the heat of the day increases, so goes the droning of the cicada, and anyone who has heard them can testify to the hypnotic effect created by the fusion of cicada song and heat.

The mockingbird, on the other hand, is a remarkable bird with a rather mundane appearance. Charcoal to slate gray in coloration, with a dirty white underbelly and slightly whiter wing-bars, the mockingbird possesses no eye-catching plumage or similarly interesting cues to help differentiate between the sexes as is so often the case in other avian species. Other than the male having a wee more heft, the male and female are identical. Truly, the dull mockingbird couldn’t be more of a disappointment to the eye.

What the mockingbird lacks in looks, however, it more than makes up for in its namesake talent and personality. For the mockingbird is capable of mimicking not only the calls of other bird species, but the vocalizations of other animals, including insects and amphibians, as well. Even more impressive than this is the great impersonator’s ability to imitate the hullabaloo that exists outside the realm of nature, the mechanized noise that is man. From the melodies of his music to the nuisance of man’s machines, the mockingbird’s audible recreations range seemingly without limit.

In those first stifling days of June, in what was to be the penultimate summer of the 1950s, far out along the outskirts of Melby, on a stretch of limestone grade cut through intermittent stands of cypress and swamp that spoiled the surrounding lowland of the county for miles around, yet another example of the mockingbird’s bold character was taking place. As usual, there was no one present to witness it, however.

Just a little ways off the grade, a pair of mockingbirds threw themselves repeatedly at a crow nearly three times their size. Spitting and caterwauling, they fell upon the black thing relentlessly. As they rushed the crow it most often pretended to ignore them, only to then lash out with a fierce stab of its beak when one ventured too close. While the mockingbirds’ pecks were intended as mere irritants to drive the crow off, the crow’s assaults were meant to be death blows, and would have been if ever one struck true.

The battle between the three went on for nearly a quarter of an hour that way until finally the crow tired of trying to eat its fill while for the most part getting nowhere. With an angry caw it unfurled itself full and slowly flapped away over the treetops in search of an easier meal. Satisfied and worn, the mating pair alighted within a shady copse of scrub oak and puffed out their feathers to cool down and stave off the heat.

Several yards away, the meal the crow had been attempting to feast on, the heat-bloated corpse of Raymond Stout—strung up in a lone white oak by a crudely fashioned noose—continued to sway ever so gently from the passing disturbance as the cycle of the cicada drone rose once more.

“Mama, can I get my BB gun and shoot ‘em?” the boy asked, squinting up from the floorboards of the porch to his mother. His name was Timothy, but almost everyone called him Buckshot.

“For the last time, Timmy, no,” his mother said as the first handful of cleaned string beans—which she and others around those parts called snap beans—echoed with a plunk as she tossed them into the aluminum pot at her feet next to him.

“But, Mama, they keep pestering Rusty!”

His mother looked out across the front yard and saw that what the boy said was true. Along the barbwire fence that bordered the parallel dirt ruts of driveway, an old orange tabby was spitting and raising its hackles as it suffered a repeated onslaught from the air. The tabby pressed himself into the earth at the base of a fencepost and growled his disapproval at his predicament. From above the cat the sounds of barking squirrels rose over the din of cicadas amassed in the few surrounding trees. It wasn’t squirrels that tormented the cat, however, but a pair of mockingbirds. Taking turns to bark and then dive-bomb the stubborn feline, they’d been methodically pecking Rusty when and wherever the opportunity presented itself for nearly ten minutes gone by.

“If Rusty wants to be pigheaded he’ll just have to learn the hard way,” the boy’s mother answered and let another handful of beans fall into the pot.

“But they’re ganging up on him,” Buckshot protested. “Ain’t fair.”

“Well, son, that’s what they do. It’s the way God intended. They’re a mama and a daddy with a nest full-a young somewheres here about. Together they’re doing just what they can to keep away those things that would bring their family harm.”

The boy sat back and considered his mother’s wisdom as the birds pitched another sortie against Rusty. From beneath the fencepost the cat hissed and swiped ineffectually twice more at the air in retaliation. Then, having had enough, the old cat bolted across the yard and disappeared under the house so fast that only one of the pair was able to get in a last peck at his haunches.

For all of his frustration, Buckshot couldn’t help but laugh. “I ain’t seen Rusty scoot like that since the last thunderstorm!”

Frances Sayre couldn’t help but smile as well as she passed her son a fresh string bean. With a broad grin Buckshot took the finger-long bean from his mother and stuck it into the corner of his mouth leaving it to protrude like an oversized toothpick or stalk of hay—just as his father was apt to do—and returned his attention back to the coloring book in his lap.

Out on the fencepost where Rusty had sought refuge, the male of the pair alit and proceeded to go into a loud and lengthy song as if in celebration of his and his mate’s small victory. Lastly, before he flew off, the bird taunted Rusty with the long, aggravated yowl of the cat’s own voice.

...

“There’s always been evil in the world!” The perspiration-drenched minister shouted from the pulpit. “Man in all his ingenuity can lay no claim to its invention! Although there are probably a few vain enough to make the claim.”