Shoebag Returns Read Free Page A

reason.
    Shoebag munched on the stale bread crumb his father had tossed his way and thought about it.
    Down the hall, Josephine Jiminez was calling out, “Curtain Up!”
    Shoebag had always enjoyed hanging out in Josephine Jiminez’s little room with all the dolls. He liked to sleep there in the ear of a masked Kewpie doll named Monroe. The room was always nicely dark, too, for it was a theater. There were bits of food everywhere, as well, for Josephine Jiminez had a big appetite like Under The Toaster. She was always eating.
    The catch (and there is always a catch when a roach finds a safe and agreeable place to dally) was the plays she put on in there.
    “Curtain up!” she would call out, just as she had done a moment ago, and then the play would get underway.
    The same old thing, time after time.
    She made the Cast of Characters speak in various voices.
    Monroe was the featured player, so Shoebag would have to hop out of the Kewpie doll’s ear, and run off to the pencil sharpener on the wall.
    The same old dialogue, time after time.
    “You say you want to be a member of the club?” Monroe would ask in a deep and very stern voice.
    Then Alexandria, the wooden doll with the rouged cheeks would answer, “Yes, please, can I get in?”
    “You think you’re good enough?” Monroe again.
    “Yes, please, can I get in?” were the only lines Alexandria had, the only lines any of the bit players had.
    Then Monroe would bark, “Well, you’re not good enough!”
    Next came the terrible moment when Josephine Jiminez reached out for the wooden doll.
    And next came the vengeful voice which Josephine Jiminez gave to Monroe, shouting the lines:
    “IF YOU’RE NOT IN, YOU’RE OUT!”
    While Shoebag shivered inside the pencil sharpener, Josephine Jiminez would smash Alexandria against the wall.
    WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
    “YOU ARE JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH, ALEXANDRIA!”
    They never were, were they?
    The doll named Sam Houston wasn’t. The doll named Arlington wasn’t. The doll named Heidelberg wasn’t. Nor was the doll named Seoul, the one named Washington, or the googly-eyed doll named Huntsville.
    Just like Josephine Jiminez herself, not one doll in her collection was good enough to get into the club.
    Not even Monroe was, really, for the play would always end with Monroe bellowing, “NONE OF US ARE GOOD ENOUGH! IF YOU’RE NOT IN, YOU’RE OUT!”
    Even at that moment, the wall-whacking was in progress.
    “What is that noise?” Drainboard asked.
    “It’s the Doll Smasher, that’s all,” Under The Toaster replied, his mouth full of half a pea.
    “No, I mean that other noise,” Drainboard said.
    “What is it?” Under The Toaster said. “It’s too low to be sobbing.”
    But it was not too low to be sobbing, when it was a small boy sobbing. Shoebag remembered that sound from his school days in Brooklyn when some little boys broke down and cried … and tried to hide it from big people and girls.
    Shoebag had even made that sound once himself, when he was human, muffling it with a pillow.
    Poor Stanley Sweetsong.
    Shoebag’s small roach heart went out to him, for Shoebag suddenly had a clear memory of his first night as a tiny person, naked, under bright lights in strange surroundings. … It was not always easy to be a little boy.
    “Never mind. Eat up!” said Under The Toaster, and he pushed a wilted sprig of parsley at his wife, for he was full, finally, and ready to crawl behind the light socket for a nap.
    Shoebag would wait until his family was asleep.
    Then he would crawl down to Stanley Sweetsong’s room. Even if he could not make him feel better, he would be there for him. He would try to send him some cosmic cockroach message that would help him get through his misery.

Six
    Y OU COULD NOT MISS a Better.
    For one thing, a Better wore a white button with red letters which said WE’RE BETTER!
    For another, a Better wore one red sock on the right foot, the regulation white one on the left.
    Stanley Sweetsong