Torn (2 page)

“About?” the young man asked.

“The ‘huh’. When I said the word Chernobyl, you said ‘huh’.”

“Yeah.”

“You…
you don’t know what Chernobyl was?”

The boy of nineteen shook his head.

Just as Darius was about to explain, he saw hands rising. “I’m gonna assume none of you know about Chernobyl.”

Silence and awkward nods.

“Figures. Ok.” Darius walked around his podium. “Listen, go home and blast your parent or parents for me
,
please. This is a
big
part of world history here. Especially ecologically, and that’s why most of you are in my class.” He paced as he spoke. “Chernobyl plays a big role as an example. Therefore, when I said to you, technological and modernized impacts on our ecology such as Chernobyl, I was hoping that all of you would understand. Yes, Melinda.” He
poin
ted to a young woman.

“Wasn’t that like a place where a nuclear bomb went off by accident,” she said.

“Yeah,” another male student said brightly. “China or something.”

“What?” Darius laughed. “You have got to be kidding me. All of you got to
gether and planned this joke. Okay
. Stop. How many of you know about Chernobyl? Show me hands.”

Darius scanned the room. Eleven of the thirty raised their hands, including the young man and young woman who believed Chernobyl was an accidental nuclear bomb that exploded in China.

In defeat, Darius set down his pen, walked to the white board, picked up a marker and wrote the word, ‘Chernobyl.’

“Now,” he continued. “Chernobyl is in Russia.”

A group of ‘ahs’ emanated from the class.

“See, we’re learning.” He smiled. “In 1986, a nuclear reactor meltdown caused an exp
losion in a nuclear power plant,
Chernobyl,” Darius said. “This happened without warning, and the plant spewed
radiat
ion
into.
…” he paused and looked up when the whap of paper, followed by a mumbled ‘shit’, caught his attention. Shrugging it off, Darius continued his lecture. “Spewed into the air. The radiation levels were estimated to be about 400 times stronger than the radiation released
by
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
bombs. But.
…” with excitement he lifted his finger. “Compared to bomb testing, Chernobyl’s ecological effect pales in comparison to bombs tested in say 1970. When this
.
…” Another pause at an
other ‘whap
’ sound. A shift of his eyes and Darius caught
a
glimpse of one his students. Paying no mind, he went on. “The casualties primarily consisted of firefighters on the scene, then people began to fall ill from the rad
iation. The cloud itself spread
and reached as fa
r
around the world
as Europe. Contaminated areas.…” Again he stopped;
this time not only was the student sw
inging a paper but also jumping around
. “Scott, problem?”

“Uh, yeah. Roaches,” Scott said.

“What?” Darius asked.

“Cockroaches. First there was one, now shit!” he jumped up.

Darius moved up the few steps to Scott’s seating level. “How do you like that?” Darius grabbed a notebook, and scooped up one of the seven roaches.

A female student winced and scooted away.

“Ironic.” Darius held up the notebook. “We’re talkin
g about radiation and this here, t
he cockroach, is supposed to
outlive man
when it comes to radiation. Its body is like a suit of armor.” He stared at the roach.

“Sir,” Scott said. “Why is my desk infested?

“Your desk is not infested. Probably the room
is
,” Darius said nonchalantly
as
he turned
and walked down the steps. He snickered at the cringes of disgust that rang out in the room. “I’ll report it to environmental services. As far as this little fellow.” After examining the roach, he let it dropped to his desk. “He
may be immune to radiation. But.
…” With a slam he smashed the bug with the book. “Not to me.” He
sta
red up
at
his students who audibly groaned. “Now.” He grinned. “Back to class.”

The
so-called ‘
ide
a
l
’
housewife supposedly disappeared right after the
women’s
liberation movement. However, in the Long home, Bret was stuck in a rut of modern working
woman meets Donna Reed.

She didn’t complain, especially when it came to her chil
dren. She was very grateful for the closeness, e
xcept when it came to dinner. Whether all of her children were present at the t
able or only half, it was a mad
house. It could easily be said
that
Bret hadn’t eaten a hot meal, uninterrupted, since she became a very young mother.

It was a given
that her oldest son, Perry, wasn't going to show for dinner.
He rarely did
since he
proclaimed his independence
on his eighteenth birthday, three months
earlier
. Of course, he was a free man until he needed food, laundry done, or a couple bucks to get him through. Bret wished he’d come home more often.

The other three made for a noisy supper. Luke, the second son, was upbeat, bubbly, and sixteen going on twelve. Blessed with twin daughters, Casper
and Andi,
Bret swore they hated each other. How many times did she hear from them, ‘We shared a womb for eight months
, that’s enough for a lifetime.’
They were only twelve. All
the
while Jesse, her husban
d, pretty much ate and listened, o
nly
speaking up
when he had something funny or sarcastic to say.

That evening in particular didn’t start out much differently. Like some
one
from a
1950s
sitcom, Bret was walking around the dining room table putting food on everyone’s plate.

“Thanks. Looks good.” Jesse peered up. “Perry not coming?”

“When does Perry come anymore,” she said.

“Who knows. Thought for sure he’d be asking for money. It’s been weeks. Where’s Luke?” he asked.

Just as he inquired, the fr
ont door slammed and the
sound of Luke
rushing in
could be heard.

“Sorry I’m late!” he hollered as he raced up the stairs. “I have to wash my hands. Wait until you hear this.”

The bathroom door slammed.

“Must be big,” Bret commented and took her seat. “How was your day, Jesse?”

“Fine.” He shrugged. “Hot. Too hot for May. Did I ever tell you how much I hate Wal-Mart
?
”

Curiously, Bret looked at him. It was a well-known fact that Jesse wasn’t always
the brightest bulb in the bunch;
it wasn’t uncommon for him to say things that didn’t make sense, and it was evident by the look on
Bret’s face
that Jesse just
uttered one of those things. “Wal-Mart?” Bret asked. “Why were you at Wal-Mart today?”

“I wasn’t.”

“But you said it was too hot and it made you hate Wal-Mart.”

“
My
crew is by the brand new Wal-Mart. Where do you think the traffic was going? Made it impossible. Wal-Mart.”

“Anyhow
.
…” Bret folded her hands and perked
up
with excitement. “Wait until you
hear.
…”

“Check this out.” Luke barreled into the dining room. “Oh, sorry, were you talking, Mom?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But go on, tell yours first. Something really weird happened to me and Casper today.”

“No, mine’s cooler,” Luke said. “Go on.”

“No
way,” Bret argued.

Andi, the other daughter, spoke up. “I had a weird thing happen. Can I tell?”

Everyone looked at her.

So sweet,
so
fragile, she consumed her food as she spoke nonchalantly. “Mrs. Rogers was showing me Buster’s poop diaper and it had a roach in it.”

Everybody grunted with disgust.

Casper dropped her fork. “Thank you for that.”

Andi shrugged. “Sorry.”

Luke was bursting and couldn’t wait. “Ok, here is mine. Check this out. We see flies, right. Tons and tons of them
,
me and Ray. So, being the inquiring boys that we are, we went
to this garbage can. Thinking, okay
, maggots.”

Casper groaned.

Luke continued, “So
we
look insi
de, and there’s this giant rat.
It’s like eating this bird that’s still alive.”

“What did you do?” Bret asked.

“Well, Ray went and go
t h
is BB gun. He sa
id to me, d
ude, you’re the better shot, you do it.
S
o I aim, right. Pow. I shoot. I miss.”

“Then what?” Bret inquired.

Lu
ke shrugged. “The BB ricocheted, flew
up and nailed Ray in the head.
We had to take him home. When we went back the rat was gone. Bird was there. Dead though. It was the coolest thing. It was my first real rat outside a pet store.”

Bret paused,
smiled politely, and then gained enthusiasm to tell her story. She told of how she and Casper, within the course of two hours, fought three t
imes against a phenomenal number
of ants.

“It’s true,” Casper said. “You should have seen how many.”

“I called the police.” Bret said.

Jesse laughed. “You what? You called the police.”

“Oh, yeah. It was freaky. It was scary, Jesse. We have like, this infestation of gigantic proportions right outside our house.”

“And what did the police say?” he asked.

“They told me to call an exterminator. I did. Exterminator said it was borough property so it’s the borough’s responsibility. I called the borough but they blew me off.”

“So would I.” Jesse shook his head “You called because of ants.”

“Jesse, I’m serious. You sh
ould have seen how many
there were
. I swear to God there has to be the world’s biggest colony living under our sidewalk.”

“Bret, you know how ridiculous that sounds. It’s May.
And you tend to exaggerate.
…”

Casper gasped. “My mother is not lying. I saw it. We took pictures. Quit
being rude to
her.”

“Oh!” Bret snapped my finger. “We did. We took pictures.” She nodded in a ‘so there’ manner. “Jesse, we have to do something. We ha
ve to. There’s a gazillion ants.
…”

“A gazillion?” Jesse snickered.

For sarcastic clarification, Casper said, “Yes, that’s a big word, I know. But it means more than a million.”

Jesse looked at her. “Where is that attitude coming from?
God. I know what it means. But
I think that’s a bit much. Bret, there weren’t that many.”

“Bet me.” Bret was adamant. “I bet they are breeding under the sidewalk. Borough or not, I’m calling an exterminator first thing
.
…”

“No. Bret.
You will not. For ants?” Jesse shook his head. “Let me eat. I’ll handle it.”

“Jesse, there’s a ton.”

“They’re ants, Bret.” Jesse continued eating. “How many can there be? We deal with this a lot at work. I’ll show you there’s not a gazillion. We don’t need an exterminator.”

“We need something.”

Jesse smiled. “You have me.”

“What are you going to do?” Bret didn’t receive a verbal response; she only received a glance that told her more than she probably wanted to know.

The country music played at
an almost inaudible level in Darius Cobb’s
large classroom. S
tacks of papers were in front of him;
he tapped the pencil to the beat of the music as he read through them.
His head bobbed slightly, shaking
, all while he smiled.

“You’re kidding me. No.” He snickered and lifted the paper. “Scott, where were you when I talked about this?” He gru
nted, shrugged, then wrote down,
“Man, I must be boring.”

“And a bit insane. However.
…” The male voice entered the room. “Your sensuality, boyish figure, and boy toy appeal make up for that.” A briefcase was set
on Darius’ desk. The fiftyish
bald man
with a healthy build
smiled at Darius. “I’m
happy to see that no
exchange
of sexual favors
for grades was occurring. How are you, Dare-Dare?”

Darius set down his pencil with a laugh, “Only you and my mother call me that.”

“Well of course, that was a wonderful time in my life. Really, she should have married me instead of that rodeo star.”

Darius only glanced up.

“Who was it next, the.
…”

“Colin,” Darius silenced him with a smile.

Dr. Colin Reye sat down on the edge of the desk. He did indeed date D
arius’ mother at one time, for
five years. In addition, she referred to him as the youngster. Only eight years her junior, Colin genuinely was crazy about her, even if
the package
included a rambunctious, t
oo intelligent for his own good
teenager named Darius. But even
the eccentric and wild Colin couldn’t tame
Darius
’ mother
. Despite the break up, Colin remained close to him vowing to be the father figure he never had, and
their
friendship spanned over twenty years.

“I thought we were having lunch,” Colin said.

Darius looked at his watch. “We can.”

“It’s six o’clock.”

“Dinner?” Darius suggested.

“Can’t. Have to try to make it up to Pittsburgh by eight.”

“You should. We’re only in Morgantown. I thought you were here all week as a guest lecturer.”

“I am,” Colin said. “But tonight, I want to try to catch the Matthews lecture at Carnegie Mellon on biological warfare. Wanna join me; we’ll get a late dinner at the ‘O’. Maybe
.
…” he winked. “Hit Crickets and watch some aging strippers.”

Darius laughed. “Can’t. I want to finish grading these, and there’s an open mike night at the café. I have a
couple new songs I wrote. It uh…
it starts at ten….” Darius raised an eyebrow.

“Lecture is two hours.” Colin looked at his watch. “Sign up late, I can make it.”

“Excellent.”

“Can I do harmonies?” Colin asked.

Darius laughed.

“Helps in picking up the girls.” Colin lifted his briefcase. “OK, I’m out of here. If I do
n’t make it tonight to hear you.
…” He turned. “I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

“And so does a meal in the middle of the day.”

“Lunch tomorrow.” Darius held up a hand. “I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“Be careful.”

“You, too.” Colin began to ascend the stairs.

Darius, with a look of enjoyment over his visit with Colin
,
lowered his head to his papers. It immediately lifted when he heard the slam of Colin’s foot.

“Roach.” Colin scraped off his shoe. “Better call maintenance.” He continued
on up the stairs.

Shaking his head, Darius
looked thoughtful
and put down his pencil. Opening his desk drawer
,
he pulled out a guitar pick then extended a long
arm
to his guitar that perched on a stand. He lifted it to his lap, hummed a few bars, and then began to strum. Mid
-
song,
he pulled back his hand and
shook it. “Fuck.” He looked at the back of his ha
n
d. Directly behind his thumb was a spot of blo
od. “What the.
…” He sprang up and dusted five roaches from his lap. “Holy shit.” Quickly, his head jerked to the hand that held the guitar neck. Three roaches raced up his hand. Hurriedly setting down the guitar, Darius flung the insects from him and stomped at the same time. “What the hell is going on?” He turned to where his guitar had been perched all day. As he neared the stand, he could see
more cockroaches
scurrying
around
. Like an investigator, he crept over. The stand was next to a bookcase and as Darius arrived, the roaches flew behind the case. “So this is where you’re coming from.”