The Reprieve

By Larry Groves

The pressures are mounting as Brad Simmons trys to complete his junior year at Magnolia State University. His grades are falling as temptation billows through the dorm on a daily basis. Too much partying can take its toll on the GPA.

His chances of ever seeing graduation day arent improved when he fi nds himself at odds with Dr. Walter Preston, his Entomology instructor.

Life takes a sudden and unexpected turn when Beth Morrison enters the picture and the two make a startling scientific discovery that could altar all known aspects of the biological world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 11, 2008
• ISBN: 9781465328809

Book preview

Chapter 1

During the courtship stage, the female praying mantis will sometimes toss the male off her back and decapitate him. In typical male fashion, not to be denied: He will usually remount the female and continue copulation. After completion of the act, the female devours whatever’s left of her headless lover. In typical female fashion: She expects no less than dinner in exchange for a roll in the hay.

With three introductory classes: Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, labs all day Tuesdays and Thursdays, there wasn’t much time for research, even with the help of graduate students. Nor was there very much time for headless lovemaking.

Dr. Preston began his final lecture of the day. Today we’ll cover the order Hymenoptera. Walter had given the Hymenoptera lecture so many times, that he could almost put his brain on automatic pilot and simply go through the motions, and that wasn’t such a bad idea. The news he’d received earlier that day preoccupied his thoughts with feelings of abandonment, betrayal and disloyalty. This group includes bees, ants, termites and wasps. Worldwide there are approximately 103,000 species in this order. We’ll cover some of the more common ones. Any questions or comments before we get started?

The lecture hall was quiet; at least as quiet as a lecture hall of 43 college students could be. That was a good sign. Dr. Walter Preston wasn’t in the mood for questions or comments on this particular day.

Good, he continued. When we think of these insects, we usually think of the social insects and many of them are: such as most ants and wasps and the domestic honeybee. But many of these species are solitary; we’ll begin with these. We’ll start with the solitary wasps.

Walter had been teaching Entomology at Magnolia State University for the past eight years. His current workload didn’t leave much time for research projects, and research paid the bills. Teaching was but a necessary sideline, an unfulfilling, mundane task of drudgery that automatically went along with the position. It also didn’t leave enough time for his extracurricular activities.

He continued: Unlike other species which make their nests of a paper-like material, solitary wasps usually use clay or sand. The social order is very different, as I’m sure you can imagine. There are no workers in most species to care for the young, so they’ve devised a somewhat interesting method for supplying food for the emerging larvae.

They call out for a pizza. Came a reply from the back of the room. There was always one in every crowd: a smart-ass pushing all the wrong buttons on the wrong day. The room burst with laughter.

Walter shook his head, staring at the ceiling and rubbing his chin. Maybe you should be teaching this class Mr. Simmons, because that’s absolutely correct.

One cheese and maggot supreme with all the toppings, Simmons replied and the laughter continued.

Walter wasn’t going to let the kid get to him, this late in the day. Very good, very good. Any more theories? he asked as the laughter subsided. I’m glad to see so many of you are taking this class so seriously. It’s good to know that the time I spend in here is worthwhile. And it’s not that I don’t have better things to be doing. My research projects are running months behind schedule. My teaching assistant suddenly decides to take another job, leaving me high and dry. Our department is drastically understaffed, under funded and the state suddenly decides to cut our budget even further, but I’m sure that’s of no concern to any of you.

Walter gazed around the room. It was all too familiar. Very little changed from year to year, only the faces and the names. There was always a Brad Simmons, majoring in binge drinking and heaven only knew what else, sitting in the back of the room, cracking jokes. The pond scum always grew thickest in that area. It reproduced at alarming rates if not kept in check.

Walter went on the attack. Before I proceed would you like to elaborate any further Mr. Simmons? he calmly asked.

No Doctor, I just thought… .

You just thought, Walter interrupted. Well that’s very good. I’m glad somebody’s thinking. It’s the people like you Mr. Simmons: the thinkers of the world that keep the rest of us so enthralled, so amazed, so mesmerized by your words of wisdom, that I can only say: Thank God for the youth of today, because they are the thinkers. Walter struggled to keep his cool while Simmons struggled not to belch.

Does anyone really care about this? Walter suddenly asked. Do any of you people even give a damn? If not we can all call an end to this class right here and now and I can send 43 F’s to the dean’s office for your grades this semester. And to be quite honest with you: Nothing would please me more.

The room was silent. Beth Morrison crossed her legs and fumbled through her notes. Beth always sat in the front row and Walter knew she was one of the few students who did give a damn. She had short strawberry blond hair; small but firm breasts, blues eyes, high cheeks and a few freckles around her nose that she usually kept concealed with a little makeup. She was cute, but she was no Janet Henderson. It was hard to believe she was really gone. The realization was just sinking in.

As I was saying, Walter continued. If anyone really wants to hear this: The solitary wasps have devised quite an interesting method for rearing their young. We’ll start with the species Pepsis formosa, commonly known as the tarantula hawk. Would someone get the lights please? Walter turned on his projector and the image appeared. In the family Pomilidae, these are the largest species of wasps in The United States, and if, you’ve ever been stung by one: as I have, you’ll probably agree: They’re also the most painful. The adults range in size from 35 to 40mm. Their bodies are a satiny black and they have orange wingspans.

Walter’s attention turned from one girl to another as he went on with the lecture. This species lives in the ground and makes tunnels. They get their name because their major food source is spiders. When the female gets ready to lay her eggs, she finds a spider, stings it, causing it to be paralyzed. She then brings it back to the nest, or in this case the den, attaches her eggs and when the larvae emerge: They feed on the spider from the inside out. They have a ready made food source. Any questions?

Is the spider still alive? Beth Morrison asked. Which came as no surprise, Beth was a born question asker.

At the onset yes, of course it’s eventually devoured.

That’s horrible, she declared.

I suppose it is for the spider, Walter conceded.

Why don’t they just kill em?

Dead meat doesn’t keep long enough to sustain the emerging larvae, but I wouldn’t waste any sympathy on the spider. Let’s move on.

As the lecture went to automatic pilot, the part of Walter’s brain controlled by his groin began to focus upon Amy Polita. She was one of the more quieter students and somewhat mysterious. She wasn’t doing very well in the class, and that only made her more appealing. She had long brown hair that was almost black. Her breasts were full and round. Her brown eyes were large and beautiful. Her slender body and long legs reminded him of Janet, but the similarities ended there. And Janet was on her way to Mexico.

Walter knew he’d driven her away, but he didn’t expect her to leave the way she did: without even saying good-bye. Janet had been the best research and teaching assistant he’d ever had, and also the most sexually stimulating student he’d ever taken to bed, and there had been several over the years. She was more than a middle-aged, quickly graying, overweight, conniving man deserved, and Walter knew that. Still the note he’d found attached to his office door that morning wasn’t the way the relationship should have ended.

Brad Simmons was beginning to doze as the lecture was winding down. Not only did too much beer make him say stupid things; it also put him to sleep, at least during class.

Wake up Brad, he heard Eric Brown say, just as Walter was coming to a close and the lights were coming on. A drop of saliva rolled out of Brad’s mouth; it dribbled down his chin and plopped on top of his notes. You’re disgusting Brad, totally disgusting, Eric shook his head and frowned.

Hey man, you still got that hooter? Brad asked, wiping the spit from his notebook.

A joint was a joint, but a hooter was what Eric rolled: joints the size of Cincinnati. Yeah, but I don’t know if I want to smoke it with a drooling idiot, he replied, still shaking his head.

What if I buy a six-pack?

Make it a case.

Brad had known Eric since freshmen orientation. That had been a little over two and a half years. Now in their junior year, graduation was actually beginning to look like a real possibility. That was no problem for Eric, but no one would have given Brad much of a chance of even making it as far as he had. Somehow he’d managed to survive the pitfalls so perilous to the unmotivated. But he still had to get through Entomology101, and Preston was turning the screws.

Don’t forget people, lab tomorrow, test Friday and your collections are due in three weeks, Walter said and 43 students quickly fled the lecture hall.

He was glad to see them leave. He’d have to call his wife and tell her he’d be working late that night. That was an excuse she’d heard many times, but this time it was actually true.

Chapter 2

Walter watched as Ernie crawled around inside his cage, the streetlights showing through the window of his office. The parking lot outside was almost empty. That side of campus always seemed so deserted at night. Ernie was almost in an animated state, scurrying within the confines of his personal prison.

Mrs Sue Preston didn’t allow cockroaches in the house, so Walter kept the specimen in his lab. When he became lonely, he’d bring him to the office. Ernie was probably the last friend Walter figured he had left in the world. But Ernie wasn’t just a specimen, nor was he just a cockroach. He was royalty in the world of cockroaches: A Blaberus cranifer, a death’s head cockroach.

Walter had picked him up in Key West the previous summer after he and Sue had separated. They’d split many times over the years, but Walter knew one day it would be for good. She’d get the house, all the furniture and a hefty alimony settlement, no doubt, but he’d still have Ernie. Walter sometimes wondered how Hemingway might have felt knowing there was a cockroach bearing his name. But that was only logical: Ernie having come from Key West, and everybody in that town was a phony anyway.

Walter kept thinking about Janet as he opened the bottle of scotch he had hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk. She was a rare find, everything he could have hoped for. Not only was she beautiful, with her fiery red hair and long slender legs. She was intelligent and loved the science of Entomology. Walter had never known many women who cared about bugs, but Janet did. She made life easier, in and out of bed. She graded papers, taught labs, did statistical analysis on his experiments and had even written a few of his research papers. All he had to do was a little editing before signing his name to the work. Of course he had given her credit for co-authoring every paper she’d ever written. It was the least he could have done.

Publish more Walter. You need to publish more. We desperately need these funds. Dr. Overhill, the department head was always on his case to publish more, publish faster.

Your research projects should be more in keeping with the agricultural concerns of this state. Grant money doesn’t grow on trees, Walter. The words kept ringing through Walter’s head.

Life would be lonely without Janet; she was a rare find. The girl was even willing to be the other woman. That was as long as she was the only other woman. Walter wasn’t capable of making that happen.

Now she’d run off to the interior of Mexico with Dr. Albert Bonds. Not that they had run off for any illicit, immoral or illegal reason, Bonds wasn’t the type. And the old man had several years on Walter. But Bonds was the type to go gallivanting off to remote locations to conduct research projects. Walter thought the man’s time could be better spent teaching a few introductory classes and taking some of the load off his back, but years of service and tenure had its privileges. Now Bonds had Janet. His latest project was a population density study of some obscure plant pest that Walter was only vaguely familiar with. For that he goes to Mexico and Janet goes along.

Walter devoured the bottle of scotch, drinking it straight from the bottle. There was no purpose for a glass. There was very little purpose for anything anymore. When your best friend in the world is a cockroach, even one of royalty with the image of a human skull displayed upon its back, drinking yourself to oblivion isn’t a bad way to spend the evening.

Chapter 3

The joint Eric Brown had saved from the night before was a little harsh on the lungs. Brad Simmons took a large toke and coughed until his sides hurt.

Hit it again man, Eric said grinning. It’s like fine wine: It gets smoother after you get a buzz. Brad repeated the process and tried to hold it in. This time he thought his lungs would collapse. Let me have that before you waste it, Eric finally said.

It didn’t get any smoother.

Neither did you Brad, neither did you. Eric took a long draw before passing the joint back. This time Brad declined.

Eric had always looked a little out of place on a college campus. His five foot, two inch frame made him look more like a junior high school kid than a university student. He had sandy blond hair, neatly trimmed just above the collar. His wire-framed glasses dangled on the bridge of his nose while he pulled a clip from his pocket and attached the joint.

Brad was a foot taller than his roomy. He’d played basketball through high school, but knew he never would in college. He was a little sensitive about that and a little sensitive about the size of his ears. He’d always thought they were just a little too large for the rest of his head. No one else seemed to notice. It was just something that had always bothered