Roach Soup

by Rachael Harrington

collection, dove, lick, popular, short, noise

It was a double dog dare. Why I ever accepted a double dog dare from a group of seventh graders I’ll never know. OK, actually I do know why I accepted the dare. I am desperate to please people. Even a ratty collection of lanky, stinky pre-pubescent nerd buckets.

It doesn’t help that I’m a substitute teacher. Nothing rattles your self esteem like being a substitute teacher. You show up in the morning, pressed shirt and nice shoes because you want to impress the principle into hiring you. As if the harried principle will suddenly look up from mounds of papers and exclaim, “You! You’re perfect! Take classroom 1209”. But no, you show up to school in your business attire for the 12th time and not only does the principle still look right past you, but all the “teacher” teachers sit together at lunch in their little gaggle of cool kids grown up. This leaves you two options; either sit alone with your stack of sub plans and a dry pizza, or make awkward small talk with the one other sub who has a lazy eye and forgot to brush her hair.

And then the janitor- THE JANITOR, asks, “Do I know you?” And you hang your head and breathe existentially into the empty hallway that you got lost in, “No. No, you don’t”.

But when the kids first come into the room you get this little flicker of hope, this little white dove being released into the golden sunset. They see you standing in the front of the room, carefully smoothing the collar of your best blue shirt, and their eyes widen to the size of a frisbees, and there’s little shiny glints in them like how Pokemon’s eyes look when they light up, and they turn and gasp to their friends, “We have a substitute!” The word goes down the line of them, all standing in the hallway. All of them who moments before were making up excuses about why they didn’t finish the homework. Suddenly the hallway has caught fire with the news and everything is bright and excited and they all skip and jump and hop into the room letting their excitement spill over into exclamations of “Hi Miss!”.

This moment. Make this moment last. When they are happy and smiling and kissing the very ground you walk on Oh God of all gods, Oh Saint Substitute, Patron of All Procrastinators and Children Who Would Rather School Be About Sitting in a Room Doing Nothing. Hold this feeling, because in a moment it all comes crashing down.

As they laugh across the room and run around switching seats to sit by a friend even though they know they’re not allowed, I step toward the center of the classroom and clear my throat. They don’t hear me because they are still giddy, but I clear it with a little more force and introduce myself. I take the attendance to hold off the bombshell as long as possible. But alas, I cannot hold it back forever. I take one last furtive glance at their goofy little grins, and then…

I give them their assignment, due at the end of class.

“You mean we aren’t watching a movie?!”

“No. Sorry.”

“This is is dumb.”

“Unfortunately this is what the teacher left.”

“The teacher lets us work in partners.”

“Sorry, it says you are to work independently.”

“I can’t do this. I have a rare disease in both of my writing hands.”

“Can you try writing with your mouth?”

And the noise of this goes on for about 15 minutes, my spirit plummeting every second.

“I thought you were cool, Miss.”

And there it is. “I thought you were cool.” It does me in. It has since I was an overgrown 8 year old with the awful sound of Michael Trigar’s voice bouncing around my head, telling me I look like the Jolly Green Giant.

So I give a little. I let the headphones go on. I let the talking get louder and more boisterous. And as I pace the aisles trying desperately to get them to do at least some of their work I can feel myself getting smaller and smaller and less significant and less significant. I feel like I could wither into the cement block wall and no one would notice or care, including myself.

Which is why I turn with interest when a cluster of boys in the fourth period, seventh grade history class call my name (“Miss”). I push aside the observation that the boys quickly try to stifle their giggles in the palms of their hands; there’s been a cough going around, right? I walk up to the table.

“Can I help you with something?”

“Do you know what Roach Soup is?”

“...Is that it there, behind your book?”

“Wanna try it, Miss?”

“No, thanks. And maybe could you put it away, please?”

“It’s been cooking since the first time we caught a roach in the boys room. It’ll be really good.”

“Umm, no, thanks. And maybe could you put it away, please?”

“Special recipe.”

“I’m sure it is, but please, please put it away. Before someone else walks into the room and sees it.”

“You scared? There’s nothin’ to be scared of, Miss. It’s just a little soup. We double dog dare ya’.”

I look into their eyes that are quivering with delight and mischief and all the immaturity of being 13. A silence has finally fallen over the room. The class is leaning in, hoping and praying that this fully grown woman will take a swig of the thick, brown sludge so they can have something to chatter about for the rest of the day.

The expectant quietness grows oppressive. I feel it close in on me and it churns my stomach more than the thought of chugging the soup does. I am in a place I hate to be; 17 mean pairs of eyes waiting for my demise.

For the millionth time in my life I jump off the cliff. I take the clear plastic cup in my shaking hand. It is radiating a slow warmth like a cup of hot chocolate- except this is most certainly not hot chocolate. Based in its repugnant stench it is most probably a mixture of month old goop stew from the cafeteria and who knows what else. I can give no explanation for its warmth other than it has been cooking on a school radiator, or worse one of the boy’s gym lockers. Actually, now that the cup is drawn to my face, I am fairly certain I detect the odor of crusty sock.

The class takes a sharp, collective inhale as I tip the cup backwards and the concoction slides into my open mouth. The first thing to hit my tongue is the juice of it. There is a salty sourness to it, with distinctive notes of old cabbage. Then come the soft rotten banana chunks, glopping down my throat like a snail stuck in mud.

I get to the last of it, shaking the cup to make sure I finish it off because the class is now squealing in frenetic ecstasy. I slam the cup down onto the desk like a champion, because that’s exactly what I am. I know this by the scene of glory laid before my eyes. The boys are stunned. They sit there with their mouths gaping open while the rest of the class goes bonkers behind them. They love me.

“Did you see that?!”

“That was disgusting!”

“Oh my god, look at her! She liked it!”

“OHHHH, she liked it. The substitue drank it like, YUM!”

“She was like, ‘Lunchtime!’”

“That’s soooo nasty. She’s nasty.”

My stomach gurgles.

The boys have shaken off their stunned silence and are doubled over with gales of howling laughter. Their stupid faces have red blotches because of how hard they are laughing.

“OH. MY. GOD! She actually drank it. She, HA, actually, HAHA, drank it, HAHAHAHA!”

My esophagus opens up and the back of my tongue gets heavy and tingly.

“Aw, man! That was amazing! Did you see her face?”

One of the boys screws his face up into an exact replica of my stomach. He is rewarded for this with slaps on the back and copious applause.

“You guys should have your own show; ‘Top Shit Chef’. Get it? Cause it looks like poop.”

I burp. The trash can is on the other side of the classroom and if I’m gonna make it I gotta get there now.

“And all the guests could be gross weirdos who like to eat stuff that looks like shit.”

I dead end my path to the trash can because I look at the acne-ridden, pit-stained boy who just said this.

I decide to not make it to the trash can.

I spew all over the boys. It covers the fronts of their crisp white uniform shirts, and one of them who was slumped over laughing has it in his hair. A shocked, piercing silence falls over the room, and just for good measure I vomit onto the desk once more.

The classroom now erupts into horror struck screams, with papers flying and kids mangling each other to get as far away from me as possible. It’s like a scene from Godzilla.

At that moment The Principal makes a sharp entrance into the classroom.

“What is going on-”

He sees me for the first time, a long string of post-puke saliva hanging from my jowls. Before anyone else can speak up above the madness, I turn to him and straighten myself up as best I can.

“Sir. These rufian students of yours have no idea how to respect an adult.”

Amidst a scene of continued chaos I walk out the classroom door and upchuck once in the hallway before leaving the school forever.