Stinkbug
(Finalist, Saints and Sinners Short Story Contest 2014)
Sitting naked at his desk, Caleb looks around his writer’s study. The room is furnished simply, with his grandfather’s bookcases and a leather wing chair. To avoid clutter, the only tchotchkes Caleb permits himself are a silver cup filled with yellow Ticonderoga pencils and a large crystal paperweight he’d picked up on a trip to Ireland. The man who sold it to him said it had once belonged to Oscar Wilde.
He’d created the perfect place to write. Yet the words didn’t come.
This isn’t what Caleb expected after leaving Washington to fulfill his dream of becoming a writer at the shore. In the Nation’s Capital, the inspiration and ideas had flowed like Republican filibusters.
After several shots of whiskey and a couple of hours perusing literary magazines, Caleb is about to give up for the day when he hears a familiar buzzing sound. The stinkbug!
Unlike most people, Caleb doesn’t abhor the insect. He’s amused when it minces across his desk and turns somersaults when shooed away. Three days in a row he tossed the bug out the window. It always returned.
The insect careens across the room and lands awkwardly on Caleb’s computer screen.
“Good day, mon petit puanteur,” he addresses the bug and begins to peel an orange. He read once that stinkbugs were attracted to citrus. He puts a few slices on a little plate. “I bet these remind you of your native home. Perhaps that’s how your family got here, stowaways in a crate of mandarins on a slow boat from China,” he says out loud.
“I beg your pardon; my people are from Alabama.” The voice is tinny with a southern drawl. “But, I do love the song Slow Boat from China, especially Liza Minnelli’s rendition…Oh the times we had at Studio 54.”
What the hell? Caleb’s computer screen is dark. Through the open window he sees his husband Luke working in the garden. Strangely, it sounded as if the words had been spoken by the stinkbug. Impossible!
With his finger, Caleb flicks the bug off the computer screen and watches it buzz about like an angry little helicopter before landing upon the plate of orange slices.
“Just because you do not appreciate Liza Minnelli is no reason to be rude.”
By God, it definitely was coming from the stinkbug. And with a slight lisp!
“I didn’t know stinkbugs could talk,” Caleb replies, eyeing the insect warily.
“Puh-lease refrain from using that undignified word.”
Caleb gasps and leans down to take a closer look at the insect. “What should I call you?”
“My full Christian name is Truman Streckfus Capote, but you may call me Tru.”
This is getting more bizarre by the minute, Caleb thinks. He rubs his eyes and downs another shot of whiskey. “Is this a joke?”
“Sadly not,” the insect replies. “My current existence, though, feels rather burlesque: brilliant raconteur reincarnated as lowly insect sucking on fruit slices.”
Caleb gently extends out his index finger and the stinkbug hops on. He brings the creature closer to his face, looking for some explanation.
“Surely you’re but a figment of my drunken imagination.”
“I assure you I am real.”
Caleb raises an eyebrow. If Virginia Woolf heard voices and Charles Dickens claimed his characters spoke to him, what’s so crazy about Truman Capote reincarnated as a stinkbug?
“Why didn’t you reveal yourself earlier?”
“I needed to be sure. When I spied you nude today, I knew it was time.”
Caleb’s cheeks grow warm when it dawns on him that he’s buck naked in front of Truman Capote. He reaches for a lap blanket.
“No need for modesty,” says Tru. “I’ve seen everything.”
Compelled to explain, Caleb babbles about French novelist Victor Hugo writing in the buff when he was feeling blocked.
“Yes,” replies Tru, “we all have our methods to draw forth creativity. I could only think while lounging on a sofa and sipping a cocktail.”
“Now listen up, Caleb.” The insect’s tone of voice becomes serious. “I’ve been searching for someone like you, a kindred soul and a fellow writer who might be of some assistance.”
“How can I help you?”
“Take me to Paris.”
Caleb’s eyes widen.
“It’s where Princess Lee Radziwill resides. You know, Jackie O’s sister.”
“I’m aware of who she is.”
“If I can convince her to forgive me, my prayers will be answered and I shall finally ascend up and out of the insect class and into my next reincarnation.”
“I don’t understand,” says Caleb.
“It’s Karma, my dear. Souls who have sinned and have not properly repented while alive are forced to undergo a second round of life in this world. Or so the Hindus and Buddhists believe. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I was once very keen on Oriental religions.”
The crazy explanation makes some sense to Caleb. Truman Capote had turned on Lee Radziwill and all his wealthy benefactors, revealing their most intimate secrets in a series of short stories published in Esquire. He bit the hand that fed him and was paying the price.
“Princess Lee and I had such a special connection. Once I explain how it all got to me—the movie, the parties, the social pressure…”
“The booze,” Caleb chimes in.
“Look who’s talking! I shall beg her forgiveness.”
At the sound of Luke clomping toward the study, their conversation dies.
“Hey,” Luke yells, “What are you doing?”
“Playing with a stinkbug,” Caleb is not yet ready to reveal Tru.
Luke enters the study. He is shirtless, having just come in from working in the garden. He squats down to take a look at the insect sitting on the plate. “Are you certain it’s not a box elder bug?”
“I’m positive,” Caleb replies. “Note the distinctive shield shape and brown color.”
“Hmm, well, please get rid of the damn thing. I don’t want an infestation.”
“Worry not, mon jardinière, we do not have bugs. We have a very unique insect.”
Luke picks up the plate of mandarins and stares closely at the stinkbug.
“It looks like a Zantac pill to me. I see nothing special about it.” He tosses the fruit and the bug out the open window and returns the plate to the desk. “Seriously, Caleb, these invasive Chinese bugs are everywhere. Once they get inside, it’s virtually impossible to get rid of them.”
“Since when did a little bug bother the big gardener?”
Luke shrugs. “Most bugs don’t. These bugs do. Box elders I could tolerate. They sound sort of aristocratic and British. But stinkbugs? Awful! He boxes Caleb’s ear. “You need to get back to work.”
Luke exits the study and Caleb bounds over to the open window. “Tru, come back. The coast is clear.”
After a few minutes, Caleb hears buzzing as the stinkbug zips back in.
“Your friend…”
“My husband,” Caleb interrupts.
“Oh yes. I still can’t believe that is legal. What’s the fun of being homosexual? Never mind. Your husband is very handsome, but clearly a man of logic not romance. I am certain he won’t approve of our trip to Paris.”
“Who says I’m going?
“Darling, of course you are. I can smell your desperation. If you accompany me, I shall help you write the novel you so desire, a stunning masterpiece that will explode onto the literary scene like nothing since, well, since me.”
“But the critics said your best work was behind you.”
“Preposterous! Tru is clearly offended. “Failure is but a condiment that gives success its flavor. Besides, what do you have to lose?”
Caleb pours himself a shot of whiskey and gulps it down. He still can’t fully fathom all this. But at the same time, he knows Tru is right.
“What the hell,” he tells Tru. “It’s a deal!”
“Bravo!” Tru takes a celebratory flight around the study, buzzing loudly and lighting upon the Oscar Wilde paperweight.
* * *
Later that day, Luke re-enters the study. Seeing Caleb with the stinkbug, he gives a loud sigh. “Why is that damn bug back?”
Oh well, might as well spill the beans, Caleb thinks. “I, uh, didn’t want to tell you, but this bug you so despise is the reincarnation of Truman Capote, my new muse.”
Luke frowns. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but if I take him to Paris, he’ll help me overcome my writer’s block.”
“Reincarnation! You don’t even believe in God.”
“Actually, I’m feeling more agnostic these days. Lots of writers believed in reincarnation—Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman. Can’t you see the black humor in Truman Capote coming back as a stinkbug?”
“What I hear are the ramblings of a drunkard.”
“Tru says we’re kindred spirits.”
“Stop! Insects don’t speak and you’re not Doctor Doolittle.”
“Well, unlike you, Tru is offering some support.”
“You’ve got to be kidding…”
“All you do is badger me about writing.”
Luke says nothing, but Caleb sees he’s fidgeting, sighing. He starts to say something, and then stops himself. Finally, Luke speaks. “I pester you because you drink too much. That wasn’t part of the deal when we left Washington so you could try and become a writer.”
“Look, Luke, I’m not Hillary Clinton. Publishers aren’t throwing book deals at my feet.”
Luke’s face turns red. His jaw clenches. “Success,” Luke enunciates clearly and forcefully, “won’t happen at all if you keep this up. I supported our move to Rehoboth because I thought it would be good for us to slow down and enjoy more out of life. But now you won’t socialize. You don’t go to the beach. All you do is drink and complain about writer’s block. And now you’re talking to a bug!”
“But Tru says…”
In a flash, Luke snatches up the crystal paperweight, shakes off the stinkbug and squashes it. Caleb screams when he hears the thud from the impact of the heavy paperweight on the desk.
“You effin idiot. You’ve no idea what you’ve done!”
“Sure I do. I killed Truman Capote, in cold blood.” Luke sets down the paperweight and stomps out of the study.
Dizzy and needing to think, Caleb pours himself a glass of whiskey and stares for a good half hour at the smashed brown bug, a too obvious metaphor for his shattered hopes of becoming a successful author. Gently scooping up the remains of Tru with a white linen cocktail napkin, he suddenly gets the glimmer of an idea. Or, more precisely, the scent of an idea as the cilantro-like odor emanating from the little carcass wafts through his nostrils, stimulating the chemoreceptors and awakening his mind.
By God, it’s brilliant, Caleb thinks, a fresh take on the classic American buddy story. He’ll simply write the story as if it happened. Images in his head begin flashing from one scene to another, and when he thinks about how good this story could be, he can barely breathe. He opens up the laptop computer and begins to type as fast as he can.
Two hours later, Caleb finally takes a break to pour another glass of whiskey. Then he takes a long whiff from the linen cocktail napkin and resumes his writing.
Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in No Place Like Here: An Anthology of Southern Delaware Poetry and Prose. It received first prize for short stories in the 2012 Delaware Press Association Communications Contest.
Rich Barnett is the author of The Discreet Charms of a Bourgeois Beach Town.