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THE LAST TRANSFORMATION
OF GREGOR SAMSA
By Mercedes A. Villaman
That Thursday, the 27th, 1989, Gregorio Samsa woke up not wanting to go to work. It was the same reluctance he felt since he was in first grade - after two months of waking up at 6:30 in the morning, by the sweet voice of his always-tired mother, who needed to get him, and his little sister ready to take them to the sidewalk. A quick kiss on the cheeks, a preachy finger -"wait for the bus without moving from here. Don't talk to strangers and eat all your school breakfast." And she would run to the corner just in time to catch the bus that would take her to the factory where she was pushing pieces of metal into the slot of a machine, that would spat out coin-like buttons that other women would pick up. Buttons that would adorn leather jackets, jeans, military uniforms. Silver, copper, bronze.
After the second month with no songs, no nap mats, and no storytelling circles - like in kindergarten - Gregorio Samsa began to suspect that life was going to be constant watching of the clock on the wall, and a Forever Wait for the bell to ring. – “I hadn't yet learned to read the time, but I had learned when it was going to ring, and I watched and watched the two sticks move slowly toward the numbers of the bell ringing”.
Then they would be taken to the cafeteria, to spend more time looking at the clock, until the physical education teacher ordered them to line up to get on the bus. To Misis Holland's house, to wait for mom and finally, home. Have dinner at the kitchen table and talk to Dad on the phone. " Kids, Daddy is coming this weekend. He has a delivery around here." A father truck driver saving every sweaty and bleeding penny "to get us out of here." The schoolwork, the sermonic voice of the tired mother trying to help with reading and timetables. And then, "Sweethearts - go brush your teeth and pray."
"It's too late for stooories, go to sleeeep."
My sister always cried because of a story, because she was a little girl in pre-K, but I didn't. Gregor was a big boy, no crying. But I didn't lose hope that Mom would give in and tell us one about a dad who got a really good job, in a big factory near the house, with a super big pay, and a cool boss. And, that dad had a son, and one day when they went hunting, they found a treasure in the
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forest. A chest full of jewels and precious stones, and gold coins. The father and child returned home with that surprise, and the mother and the little sister danced with joy, called relatives and friends and shared the treasure with all of them. Because sometimes there was a map in the chest that led to a gold mine, and everyone helped to dig it out. And with that gold they bought land, houses, cars, and even the factory where they worked.
Gregory always dreamed good dreams when he fell asleep listening to those stories. Until the next day.
"Honey, it's time to wake up."
Today, he had been awake for about an hour, listening, after his wife stopped the alarm clock and went to the bathroom. Then he heard her in the kitchen, putting on the coffee maker, opening the kids' lunch boxes, the fridge door, dragging a chair and sitting down to have her cup of Chock Full O'Nuts. In a few minutes she would poke her face thru the bedroom door and say -
"Love, it's time to."
He didn't want to end up like his father. Life as a truck driver. Always on the road. Away from his family and friends. On the road. Dead on the road like an armadillo. He wasn't the one who fell asleep at the wheel. It was the other truck driver who fell asleep driving and came on top of him over there in Amarillo, Texas. The insurance company tried to trick his mother out of the little money the policy paid.
They got enough left over to buy a fairly used Suburban -but with a good engine- a Single Wide caravan, and a piece of land at "Sunny Meadows- A Modern Mobile Homes Community"
Gregor wanted to imagine that his father was making one of those long journeys without
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windows that let in good light. But that dream he had that night. That cockroach looked familiar, as if it were possible to recognize a bug. It was an old dream. He was sure. Turning under the covers, carefully because he feared that a cockroach - The Cockroach - was still around. Thank God I wasn't phobic. That was a forbidden luxury. Plus, he'd already be cured with all those cockroach adventures and encounters in his life. But sometimes, as now, he felt the weight of the burden, like an old memory of oppression that did not make it easy for him to leave the bed. His body, muscular and chubby from carrying bricks and eating hamburgers with the occasional beer, had a roughness of an armor as if a shell had been poured over him while he slept. Those were the mornings of slowness, of tripping over furniture, of moving through the rooms slippery. If he were a cockroach, he would already be in the kitchen. Breakfast was served.
In the dream the cockroach swallowed him. A tiny one but one that became gigantic, human size. Like those cockroaches on the boat.
Ohio had not yet learned that spring had arrived a week ago. With such a cold it was natural to remember that time on the island. Although with a bit of guilt because he did not regret marrying Hellen. She was the one who was there, waiting for him, when he came back from the Navy. And the one who after the wedding did not mind the long months without a stable job. When he completed his two years with the Navy on his return he was received as a hero, although he never saw a second of combat. There were never helicopters flying over the target for him to jump over, no falling into muddy trenches, no bullets whistling overhead, no bombs exploding around him. Bittersweet because he was never in danger. But his mother would squeeze his hand and tell him that his father would have been proud of him. Mom hugging me like I'd come back from the war or something. I was proud of the barracks I helped build. So to speak. At least I learned a trade.
"I have a connection for you at the factory." Mom kissed my hand again, which I hadn't let go. "You just have to take the jeans to the stores. You sell them wholesale. The pay is better."
When Victor told me to come early, I was surprised that the place was full of such active people, almost running to the right, to the left, disappearing through doors and corridors.
"There's the man." He said to me, pointing with a nod at the man who was wearing khaki pants and
"If I keep in that job, I'm going to turn into a cockroach." He teased himself, making scary faces on the mirror over the toilet. But back in bed he could not fall asleep and for a while he thought that some jobs could really turn people into cockroaches.
"Gregor, don't get into that alley," he said to himself again as if in jest. And for a second he remembered that this was not the first time that he had joked about his work and cockroaches.
"If I keep in that job, I'm going to turn into a cockroach." He teased himself, making scary faces on the mirror over the toilet. But back in bed he could not fall asleep and for a while he thought that some jobs could really turn people into cockroaches. "Gregor, don't get into that alley," he said to himself again as if in jest. And for a second he remembered that this was not the first time that he had joked about his work and cockroaches.
When he was in the Navy, the only time he ever set foot on a ship was to help with a Cockroach Infestation. Those motherfuckers were the tiny little kind that slips away faster than a shadow. They were everywhere and whenever they wanted to be. Our ship, it was said - had picked them up in Korea. And they multiplied like gnats. The crew had to put on hygienic masks and sweep them with brooms. Gregory shuddered as he looked at them, he felt his skin crawl so much that it seemed like it was going to burst at the thought of the damned ones climbing on the sailors' cots and walking on their chests and faces, and that they were found in the drawers with their underwear, and on their toothbrushes. In the end, they all end up upside down, just like the cockroaches in the apartments and mobile homes of their lives.
The aroma of the coffee was losing strength; the steam had already dissipated.
Like a beach towel stretched out on the golden sand of Puerto Rico, memories of Roosevelt Roads were worth a few minutes longer under the warmth of the blankets. The barracks humidity brought water cockroaches. Those big and fat ones that sound like bubble gum when you step on them. Pop!
He covered his head with the blanket again.
When he was a kid, his mother used to buy Cockroach Motels. The TV ad said- "They Can Check-in, But They Can't Check-Out." He and his sister learned not to be afraid or disgusted by them. Suppressed disgust until it becomes sadism. Cruelty to animals. That's what people would call that if they were butterflies. But they were not. They climbed to the table while they were still having dinner. The mother had to be always alert, watching the floor and checking under the top of the table where they hid waiting, stalking the smell of food. That's why his mother didn't want to bring any of that furniture to the
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new house. Everything they brought had to be free of the possibility of cockroaches. Still, every once in a while, a specimen would appear upside down with its belly in the air, kicking. Waving its skinny, spiny legs with no hope of salvation, and anyone who discovered one had the duty -and privilege - of cutting a piece of toilet paper, pick up the invader and flushing it in the toilet.
For Gregor, Winter was not the Winter song of the jingle bells and merrily-merrily sliding down the hill on a sledge. The apartment, the house, the caravan- or whatever they were living in - was always suffocating, and today you could smell bacon, rancid from the time it had been cooked. The air had to be sprayed with Lysol and around the stove with insecticide. Maybe he was allergic to those things, or maybe those things were toxic. In the factory they talked about toxic things, substances that could come in the materials with which they made bricks. People were getting sick in some factories from breathing or touching them. It was as if it were a poison. Maybe he felt so lethargic from the humidity and the heating drying everything out, burning balls of dust, lint that moved from side to side to end up piled up under the bed.
"Greeeg!! Love, you're already late. Have you caught any viruses or something? I'm leaving, I have to take the children. Your breakfast is on the table."
At least the cockroaches were quite tamed from the fumigations with the new insecticide. They weren't as fast as those others. But dreaming of cockroaches. That cockroach was alive. With that smell they have, that smell that came out of the cupboards and from under the vinyl tiles in the bathroom. A bottled smell in a house with the windows closed to the long Ohio winter. That is why Gregor did not like hazelnuts. Its smell reminded him of the smell of cockroaches, as if he were biting one.
"Well, I'm going to be late. I'm really late." Day in and day out, he goes back and forth making bricks and more bricks for people who would have nice houses with solid walls and fairly large
windows that let in good light. But that dream he had that night. That cockroach looked familiar, as if it were possible to recognize a bug. It was an old dream. He was sure. Turning under the covers, carefully because he feared that a cockroach - The Cockroach - was still around. Thank God I wasn't phobic. That was a forbidden luxury. Plus, he'd already be cured with all those cockroach adventures and encounters in his life. But sometimes, as now, he felt the weight of the burden, like an old memory of oppression that did not make it easy for him to leave the bed. His body, muscular and chubby from carrying bricks and eating hamburgers with the occasional beer, had a roughness of an armor as if a shell had been poured over him while he slept. Those were the mornings of slowness, of tripping over furniture, of moving through the rooms slippery. If he were a cockroach, he would already be in the kitchen. Breakfast was served.
In the dream the cockroach swallowed him. A tiny one but one that became gigantic, human size. Like those cockroaches on the boat.
Ohio had not yet learned that spring had arrived a week ago. With such a cold it was natural to remember that time on the island. Although with a bit of guilt because he did not regret marrying Hellen. She was the one who was there, waiting for him, when he came back from the Navy. And the one who after the wedding did not mind the long months without a stable job. When he completed his two years with the Navy on his return he was received as a hero, although he never saw a second of combat. There were never helicopters flying over the target for him to jump over, no falling into muddy trenches, no bullets whistling overhead, no bombs exploding around him. Bittersweet because he was never in danger. But his mother would squeeze his hand and tell him that his father would have been proud of him. Mom hugging me like I'd come back from the war or something. I was proud of the barracks I helped build. So to speak. At least I learned a trade.
"I have a connection for you at the factory." Mom kissed my hand again, which I hadn't let go. "You just have to take the jeans to the stores. You sell them wholesale. The pay is better."
When Victor told me to come early, I was surprised that the place was full of such active people, almost running to the right, to the left, disappearing through doors and corridors.
"There's the man." He said to me, pointing with a nod at the man who was wearing khaki pants and
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a brown shirt. In the dusty office, the desk was buried by piles of papers bathed by the anemic light falling from a small window. The man produced from somewhere a clip board with a form and a pen, to fill in with my name, and all the numbers of my life including my weight.
"Sign here." I already knew what I had to do. I had plenty of practice. In those last three months I have already completed about fifty of those.
I met Victor at the veterans' club.
"Bricks." He told me. "Bricks, and nothing but bricks."
I had no idea about making bricks, but he told me and I listened. I didn't remember that again until I began to feel that life was going to turn me around, that it was going to put me in a world where people had nowhere to live, no food, no family. That day I saw him leaving the supermarket with a cart full of bags of food and "of course I can hook you up. Come early tomorrow."
When I entered The Factory, I saw The Clock and the punch cards. Entry and Exit. That's what everyone was in such a hurry about. We all knew what to do. And we did it without wasting time. No stopping the line with little conversations. Take your card out of the card holder, in alphabetical order, left side, put them in the slot of the watch. Clank! Take it out and place it back in the card holder on the right side. On the way out, strike out Clank! And return it to the left side.
I had to get out of bed. The phone had already rang fifteen times. Five for each call. God, it's not even eight yet! He said to the third ring-ring, and feeling for a moment the master and master of his day, he took an arm out of the blankets and disconnected the phone from the bedside table. In vain. The one in the kitchen shook the house from its pedestal on the wall. And the one in the room with the answering machine could be heard ringing with a microsecond of Ri-ring delay. Well, being a staff manager has its responsibilities. You had to set a good example, make certain decisions. He could be late on a Thursday, a Thursday in a whole year.
"What the hell is going on now?" he stammered, muttering without daring to give up the protective warmth of the blankets.
What Gregor wanted—what he dreamed of—was to have his own construction company. Residential and Commercial Services. Solid and clean construction. Residences to live in and leave them as an inheritance to grandchildren. Beautiful and safe buildings. Ring-ring!! Five more bells. Six. On the seventh, pause.
"Greg, Greeeg!” Victor's voice from the answering machine.
"Hey Greg!"
"Greg, get your ass out of bed and bring it to the cafeteria." Alberto and his son Jim.
"Gregory, honey. Come, we are waiting for you." That was the voice of His Wife. Something big. Something big was happening.
"Get up, you bastard. Don't even shave. Hurry up, man." Butch and Nancy?
Gregorio Samsa sat down suddenly on the edge of the bed, looking in vain for his flip-flops with his feet, while picking up the receiver of the disconnected telephone, that he dropped to run, first to the bathroom out of habit and necessity, but no.
"You bastard, answer the phone."
"Are you out yet? Come straight to the cafeteria."
them as an inheritance to grandchildren. Beautiful and safe buildings. Ring-ring!! Five more bells. Six. On the seventh, pause.
"Greg, Greeeg!” Victor's voice from the answering machine.
"Hey Greg!"
"Greg, get your ass out of bed and bring it to the cafeteria." Alberto and his son Jim.
"Gregory, honey. Come, we are waiting for you." That was the voice of His Wife. Something big. Something big was happening.
"Get up, you bastard. Don't even shave. Hurry up, man." Butch and Nancy?
Gregorio Samsa sat down suddenly on the edge of the bed, looking in vain for his flip-flops with his feet, while picking up the receiver of the disconnected telephone, that he dropped to run, first to the bathroom out of habit and necessity, but no.
"You bastard, answer the phone."
"Are you out yet? Come straight to the cafeteria."
He reached the kitchen phone and snatched it off the wall with a slap – forgetting the urge to pee – praying to God that it wasn't a fire, someone injured. Dead- But they all sounded like
"What is going on? What the fuck?"
Then he heard Alberto's voice spreading throughout the house from the answering machine speaker in the living room, and through the receiver next to his ear, all over his brain, dendrites, neurons, lobes, spine, muscles, galloping heart, knotted throat, dry mouth, through his eyes clouding with tears, hand squeezing the tip of his penis to hold the fluids, Spongy bending knees, his ass finding a chair.
"Son of a bitch, our ticket1 We got All the numbers. All of them!"
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