June 6th- Of Crickets and Men by Daisy Morgan

“Hey, you hear that?” Starsky asked.

“Hear what?”

“That chirping sound. You don’t hear it?”

“That’s a cricket. What about it?” asked Hutch.

“Well, it sounds like it’s in the house.”

“I don’t think so. It’s clearly coming from outside.”

“No, it’s not. It’s too loud to be coming from outside. It’s inside, I’m tellin’ ya!”

“Starsk, crickets make loud noises. It’s probably right outside the greenhouse on the steps or something.”

Starsky got up from the sofa and marched towards the greenhouse to investigate. “The door is closed, how can it sound that loud if the door is closed?”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t hear it at all now. Do you?”

Starsky tilted his head slightly and listened. “No. Maybe you were right. It probably flew away.”

“Crickets don’t fly, they jump.”

“Oh, well then, it probably jumped away.” Starsky went into the kitchen to grab a beer, jumping every few seconds as he went. “You want a beer? Hey, Hutch?”

But Hutch had gone into the bathroom. Starsky shrugged, grabbed two beers, pried the tops off, and sauntered over towards the sofa. As he approached, he saw something move on the rug. “What the…?“ He went over to have a closer look just as Hutch came out of the bathroom.

As Starsky bent down to examine the curious specimen, the cricket chirped aggressively and jumped towards him. “Aaahh!” Starsky wailed and recoiled as liquid flung out of the open bottles in his hands and splashed onto the rug. “There it is!” He pointed triumphantly with one hand, further spilling more liquid.

“There what is? And look what you did, dummy, you spilled beer all over the living room!”

“The cricket! I told you it was inside!”

“Where is it?” asked Hutch.

“I don’t know, it jumped at me!”

“Maybe it landed in that thick mop of curls on your head,” Hutch teased.

Panicked, Starsky hastily put the bottles down on the coffee table, spilling more beer, and ran his hands through his hair, frantically feeling for the insect as his partner laughed. “Very funny,” he said drolly. “How do you suppose it got in the living room? Did it hop up an entire flight of stairs and open the door?”

“It probably came in on one of the plants.”

“You mean, like a stowaway?”

“Yeah, I guess. A stowaway. Anyway, forget about the cricket, Starsk, we’re never gonna find it. And even if we do, we’re never gonna catch it. Why don’t we just sit down and watch the game?”

“Okay, fine, but it better not jump in my beer!” Starsky whined.

“Which beer would that be, pal? The beer in the bottles or the stuff you managed to spill all over the house?”

Neither of them noticed the cricket had already beaten them to the sofa and was happily anticipating watching the game by itself. As they approached, the cricket became annoyed at the rude interruption and jumped off the sofa onto the orange shag rug. This time, Hutch was the first to see it. As the cricket jumped, so did Hutch, falling backwards into Starsky, who caught him with both arms.

“Why’d you do that?” Starsky yelled.

“The cricket, what do you think?” Hutch yelled back.

“We gotta find this thing; I won’t be able to sleep knowing it might jump on me in the middle of the night!”

“I’m sure it has no interest in doing that, Starsk, although I might wanna jump on you in the middle of the night,” Hutch said with a wink.

“Hmm,” Starsky considered, “Do I hafta wait ‘til the middle of the night?”

“First one to the bed gets to top! And go!” Hutch shouted as they both ran towards the bed and leapt onto it, landing together with a hard bounce.

The cricket, peacefully slumbering there, was getting most irritated by their constant interruptions. It made its distaste known by chirping loudly, scuttling across the quilt, and leaping into the plant on the nightstand.

The guys, startled by the cricket’s mad dash across the bed, both jumped off of it as well, landing on top of each other on the floor.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, Blondie!”

“We need to catch this fucking insect!”

“And soon; it’s ruining my love life!” Starsky grumbled.

Hutch stood up, carefully lifted the plant, and brought it into the greenhouse, shutting the door as he walked back into the bedroom. “There, it’s gone. See? Problem solved.”

“Finally! I’m calling top!” Starsky proclaimed. “Hey, hand me the lube, will ya?”

Hutch opened the nightstand drawer, grabbed the tube and, startled when the cricket hopped out of the drawer, fell backwards onto the bed. The tube fell out of his hand and landed softly on the quilt. The cricket was getting increasingly irritated at this point and scurried off unseen as the invaders quarreled with each other.

“Fuck!” Hutch yelled while Starsky laughed and proceeded to mock him.

“Fuck, huh? That’s what I was hopin’ we’d do! You said ‘It’s gone, see? I carried it out to the greenhouse. Problem solved!’ You’re a regular boy scout, aren’t ya!”

“They didn’t teach us how to catch crickets indoors in the Boy Scouts!” Hutch protested.

“Maybe you oughta record a song, then.”

“Huh?”

“You know, like your idol, Buddy Holly did.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Real funny. But don’t you worry, I’ll catch that sucker!”

“Well you better make it fast, partner. Because I don’t know how much longer I can last, under the circumstances!”

They proceeded to look for the insect under every piece of furniture in the bedroom and in every nook and cranny, but found nothing.

“Do you think…?”

“Shhhh,” Hutch whispered, putting his hand over Starsky’s mouth. “Let’s see if it makes a sound.” They waited for what seemed an eternity but there was no stridulation forthcoming from musical insect wings.

“I’ll bet it knows we’re lookin’ for it, so it’s purposely bein’ quiet. Let’s go into the kitchen; maybe it’ll come out of hidin’.”

“Maybe,” Hutch said doubtfully, as they both walked out of the bedroom.

Hutch grabbed the half-empty beer bottles from the coffee table as he walked towards the kitchen, while Starsky sat down in a kitchen chair and put his feet up on the other chair. The cricket, spying a menacing pair of blue Adidas quickly approaching, leapt up off the chair, causing Starsky to tip over backwards, which knocked Hutch off balance, catapulting the beer bottles out of his hands and across the room once again.

They both breathed a sigh of relief as the glass bottles landed safely on the thick shag rug, spilling their remaining contents across the floor as they went.

“Sonofabitch!” Starsky and Hutch yelled simultaneously as Starsky grabbed his partner’s hands and pulled him up to a standing position.

“So, what now?”

“We find that fucker and we stomp it, that’s what!”

Starsky recoiled in horror at Hutch’s words.

“Oh, come on, you know I would never do that, Starsk. I was just letting off some steam.”

“Hey, I have an idea! How about we slam a Tupperware over it? Then we can slide a plate under it and carry it outside?”

“That’s actually not a bad idea. Here, how about this one?” Hutch asked as he rummaged through the kitchen cupboard and pulled out an avocado green plastic bowl.

With Hutch holding the Tupperware and Starsky leading the way, they inched their way around the apartment in search of the elusive Brachytrupe, but to no avail.

“This is ridiculous!” Starsky whined. “We’re never gonna catch it, and now I’m startin’ to get hungry. Why don’t we just go to my place, babe? We can deal with the cricket tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan, buddy. I’ll just grab the lube….”

“No need, I bought a new tube yesterday.”

As the echoes of the slammed door and the footfalls on the stairs began to recede, the cricket came out of its hiding place under the tube of lube, hopped off the bed onto the floor, and settled comfortably on the sofa.

With refreshing puddles of beer splattered across the floor, and the TV tuned to the game, the cricket settled in for a long, relaxing evening.

When the game was over, he realized he was lonely and remembered the female cricket he’d seen outside earlier, which he’d started to woo before being rudely interrupted by the large mammals that infested the place. He hopped up on the bed, climbed onto the tube of lube, and began to chirp. Maybe he’d get lucky tonight if he played his cards right.