My Mother Was a Science Teacher, My Father Was a Chemist
My Mother Was a Science Teacher,
My Father Was a Chemist
When I was a preschooler, nothing more than a runt of a girl, I developed a keen interest in anything insect-related. A variety of the little critters were mine to inspect in our back garden, even on the sidewalk in front of the cozy brownstone in which I led my mundane life, before such extravagances as color TVs and Barbie dolls. Yes, everything from ants to zebra moths was available for me to scrutinize with my underdeveloped scientific eye. From beetles to botflies, praying mantids to purple carabids, I perused them all and fancied myself a budding entomologist before I even knew of the word.
My mother, a former science teacher at PS 140, ever a watchful parent for the emerging cleverness of her child, purchased for me a professional magnifying glass to be used in my newfound academic pursuit. It was a heavy thing with a thick, polished lens and a lacquered wooden handle. I adored my gift and would carefully employ it when spying on my tiny friends. I soon learned that the best way to observe the scurrying creatures was if they were no longer in a constant state of movement.
Did you know ants have tiny hairs on their legs and body and make a sticky, yellowish mess when they’re squished? I observed a cricket’s heart was still beating when I dissected the poor thing. I learned green frogs loved eating tiger moths (they were difficult to catch without Mother’s hairspray), and I saved the wings to inspect them later with my glass.
My neighbor, Charlie, a loathsome mass of flesh known as a boy, lived two doors down and had an annoying habit of interrupting my research whenever I was on the front sidewalk. If he didn’t have remnants of food in his teeth, there were sure to be stains from his last meal decorating his shirt or trousers. His unique gait was something to behold: shoulders back, arms swinging, and a pigeon-toed amble. He’d call out my name with a grating voice that could rival a secretary bird. This signaled me to take my studies elsewhere.
At times, Charlie would appear unannounced, and I would be subjected to his poking and prodding and other bodily breaches of civility with his ghastly fingers. More than once, I wanted to club the miscreant with my magnifier but was hesitant to do so for fear of damaging the delicate instrument.
Years later, Charlie and I attended the same schools, his torturous antics kept at bay by the presence of teachers and other students. I befriended a boy who was much more rotund than Charlie and a couple more inches in height to boot. I brought this new watchdog of mine a hard candy every day and enjoyed the security of a queen bee. Of course, I was fair game for Charlie on weekends if I became too focused on my little organisms.
By high school, my interest in insects waned, and I soon had a passion for more important things in life, like boys with crew cuts, riding in their fast cars, and the smell of their aftershave even though they barely had a whisker to shear. My girlfriends and I would giggle with cruel amusement at their mating attempts, which were always clumsily proffered, often crude or disgusting, sometimes sweetly romantic, and occasionally successful.
Charlie, in his junior year, had transformed his former beastly physique into one of an athlete. It seemed he’d taken kindly to the sporting life, and the running and basketball endeavors he pursued did him a wealth of good in framing his teenage body. His manners improved as well, but as I was to find out later, debauchery was still the core of his inner nature.
After senior prom, I was walking home and Charlie ambushed me. As we scuffled, I managed to bestow on him a blackened eye, but I fared much worse by landing that defensive enterprise. He took me in the end.
I met him several years later on the street outside my apartment. I believed it to be a coincidence and not an unsettling belief that he knew where I lived. He looked like a well-behaved, responsible adult, and he even walked correctly. I seethed inside but displayed a misleading air of casual nostalgia. He didn’t seem to remember the violence and savagery of our last meeting: my dislocated shoulder, the scrapes and bruises from his relentless aggression, the torn dress, the ripped panties he absconded with.
I invited Charlie, now Charles, up to my apartment for a drink. He draped his overcoat on my sofa as if he lived there. He sipped his whiskey sour while gazing at my framed butterfly collection. We talked of his college days and subsequent job in industrial refrigeration—I tried my best not to yawn. When his jaw tightened, I sat on the sofa and waited. His arms spasmed, and he dropped his drink, which would later be cleaned from the carpet with minimal effort. He looked wobbly, so I steered him away from the living room to the tiled kitchen and watched his knees buckle, and he collapsed.
I fetched my old magnifier and studied his face for the effects of the strychnine poisoning. It was difficult because of the spasms and the way he arched his back uncontrollably. His face was sweating, and his breathing became irregular, but I wanted to examine his eyes. I could tell he was attempting to strike me, but he was too far gone.
I removed my outer clothes and lay down beside him, not in some Shakespearean romantic gesture, but as a means to steady him for examination. When his convulsions did not abate, I implemented a more reliable procedure. Charlie’s blood was warm and plentiful—it got all over me and the linoleum floor. You see, a sharpened carving knife inserted between the ribs can cause quite a gush of the stuff.
I observed how Charlie’s pupils dilated and felt his heart stop. The little bugger.
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