Aurora Wolf

Clarence the Tick

By Steve Lowe

Gilbert stepped toward the counter and opened his mouth to order a double quarter-pounder with cheese value meal, and large size it, please, when Clarence the Tick spoke up.

“You really don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, look at you. I doubt the last thing you really need is another cheeseburger.”

“Are you saying I’m overweight?”

“No, I’m saying you’re fat.”

Clarence the Tick had appeared on Gilbert’s left shoulder three days ago. Clarence was situated behind the shoulder blade, where Gilbert could just barely reach. He thought it was another zit at first and tried to pop it, but it wouldn’t pop, no matter how hard he squeezed. Then he forgot about it for two days, until the little bugger spoke up.

“Okay, that’s not fair,” Clarence said with what could pass for reticence in his surprisingly deep, full voice. “I don’t mean fat, but you would do well to drop a few extra pounds, don’t you agree?”

“Maybe.”

“OK, so why don’t we just slowly back away from the counter and walk out the door and get back in the car. Maybe go someplace that serves items which more closely resemble actual food?”

The young girl behind the counter stood frozen at her register watching Gilbert. He’d forgotten all about her and realized how crazy and weird he must appear to her, standing there talking to himself. Then he suddenly wondered if she could hear Clarence as well. “Did you just hear that?” Gilbert asked her.

She hesitated, clearly unsure how to respond. “I… You asked me if I said you were overweight and I said no and then I asked you if you would like to try,” she paused to take a breath, “one of our flame-broiled Angus and cheddar value meals and you said maybe… And then you asked me if I heard that.”

“Oh.”

#

Clarence had begun talking that morning, while Gilbert attended to his “morning constitutional,” which was simply a quaint euphemism for his bitter bouts of self-stimulation. Clarence asked if that was really necessary right now. Gilbert screamed and looked around for the source of the voice just over his left shoulder.

After a very long time running around the apartment and yelling and a little bit of crying, Gilbert calmed down and listened to the smooth, baritone voice. He stood with his back to the bathroom mirror while holding a second, smaller mirror to view the tiny black dot on his shoulder.

“What do you want?”

“What do you think I want? Your blood. Hello, parasite here.”

“But… I didn’t know ticks could talk.”

“You learn something new every day if you keep your eyes and ears open.”

“But why me?” Gilbert said. “Why are you talking to me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Believe me, I realize it’s in my best interest to just shut up and take care of business back here, but I felt compelled to comment. Call it a character flaw, I guess. I just don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. But you really are a mess, you know that?”

“What do you mean a mess?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? How about that self-flagellation for starters? My God, son, you’re gonna hurt yourself doing that.”

Gilbert stared into the mirror, thinking. “Wait a sec, how are you talking at all? Isn’t your head buried in my skin?”

“Yeah, but I don’t talk like that.”

“So, what, do you talk out of your butt?”

“Well, yes would be the simple answer.”

“Huh.”

“Yep.”

Gilbert contemplated his situation for a moment and came to the realization that he did not have the slightest idea what to say next, being this was his first conversation with a tick. “So… you got a name?”

“Clarence.”

“Clarence?”

“Yep.”

“Clarence. The butt-talking tick.”

“At your service.”

And that was how Gilbert met Clarence.

#

Gilbert let slip a forlorn sigh as they drove away from the fast food joint.

“What’s that for, Hamlet, still fretting over Uncle Claudius?”

“That girl behind the counter was really cute.”

“Ah, so you’re actually a Romeo, eh? Why didn’t you get some digits?”

“Because I was too busy arguing with you about the state of my obesity in front of her. Did you see the look on her face? Well, no I guess you probably didn’t, did you? Well, take my word for it, she must’ve thought I was completely off my rocker. I think I scared her.”

“She probably thought you were gonna eat her,” Clarence mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“Uh, nothing, never mind. Look, dude, I apologized for that, didn’t I? My choice of words just wasn’t very well thought out. What do you expect from somebody my size?”

“Why did you even have to say anything at all? What do you care what I have for lunch?”

“Well, duh. Think about it, you big dope. I eat what you eat, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to ingest any of that God-awful dreck you dare to call food.”

Gilbert considered Clarence’s remark for a moment and realized he was being outwitted by a bug. “Explain to me why, exactly, you care about what’s going into your body,” Gilbert said. “If I’m not mistaken, won’t you become engorged until you fall off me or until I burn you off with a match or something?”

Clarence gasped with what sounded like shock. “How could you even think to do something like that? Am I not entitled to live my life to the fullest and have a say in what happens to me, no matter how long that may last? Do I not have that right?”

“Well, since you’re a parasite, I would say no, you don’t have that right. If you wanted to watch what you eat, you should have bitten a jogger.”

Clarence was quiet for a moment and they listened to Carly Simon during the pregnant pause. “OK, I see what you mean,” he finally said. “But I still don’t see how you can ingest that crap. And I literally mean crap. Don’t you know that they leave the poop in the cow when they make that stuff? I may be this tiny, brainless little arachnid and not Mr. King of the Food Chain here, but even I know that shit is nasty.”

“Whatever.”

They drove the rest of the way to Gilbert’s apartment in silence. His belly grumbled as he slouched up the stairs to his door. He wobbled a bit on the top step and his sweat-soaked shirt clung to him in spite of a brisk autumn breeze.

Clarence said, “Hey, you weren’t serious about that match burning thing, were you?”

“Maybe.”

“You realize that doesn’t actually work, right?”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to get torched.”

“No, I’m not. My cousin Silvio went out like that, but I heard the guy that burned him up almost died from lyme disease because Silvio’s head was still in him.”

“Oh my God, that’s gross.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I don’t want my charred, decapitated head stuck in you.”

“If you’re so repulsed by me, why exactly are you still here?”

“Geez, ease up on the self-loathing there Esteem-o Boy. I’m not repulsed by you. I just thought you could use a friend. You know, to talk to.”

Gilbert began to retort, but he swallowed it instead. He tried to think of the last time he had had such a conversation as this with another person. Nothing came to mind. “Oh,” he finally replied. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Gilbert entered the apartment and sat down at his computer. As he banged away at the keyboard, Clarence said, “Whatcha doing now?”

“I’m searching for proper tick removal methods.”

“Dude, I’m nearly done back here, so that’s not really necessary. In fact, I’m a little hurt by that.”

“It’s nothing personal, Clarence, but I don’t feel real comfortable having a tick burrowed in my epidermis. Lyme disease doesn’t sound all that appealing to me.”

“Relax, I don’t have lyme disease.”

“How do you know? You’re a tick.”

Clarence gasped. “I feel like I should be offended by that remark, but I’m going to let it pass because you actually do have a point.”

Gilbert scanned through images of ticks and shuddered. “Wow, you guys are some ugly little critters.”

“Well, now I’m definitely offended. What are you looking at?”

“An engorged female tick on a dog. Man, if you get as big as this one is, you don’t have any right to be calling me out on my weight.”

“I’m sure she’s a perfectly attractive woman, and you, sir, have a typically distorted male view of body image.”

“Me? You’re the one who called me fat, remember?”

“But I wasn’t commenting on your body image, I was making an accurate statement about your health and the impact your poor diet choices are having on your life, not to mention mine.”

Gilbert tried to think of a response, but a thumping pain behind his eyes made concentration difficult. He rubbed his cranky eyeballs with sweat-moistened fingers and continued perusing Wikipedia until he came across a photo of a doctor removing a tick with a pair of forceps.

“OK,” Gilbert said, “here are instructions on how to remove a tick without killing it. Hey, it says here that male ticks rarely blood feed.”

“That is true, the lazy bastards.”

“So, you’re not a male?”

“Good God, no. Yuck.”

“You’re a female, butt-talking, image conscious tick named Clarence?”

“All of this is just now striking you as odd?”

Gilbert did not answer. His mouth felt like it had suddenly filled up with marbles and he mumbled incoherently instead.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch…” Clarence’s deep voice trailed off.

Sweat dripped from Gilbert’s nose and chin. The computer screen shimmered and danced. He wobbled in his chair and the last thing he heard before he hit the floor was Clarence.

“Uh-oh. Sorry, dude.”

#

Gilbert blinked at the man in the lab coat standing over him.

“Rocky Mountain spotted fever,” the man said in a voice that Gilbert decided was much too cheery for the content of his comment.

“That’s why I’m here?”

“Yes sir.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“You were in a drug-induced coma for two weeks while we treated the fever, and so far you haven’t shown any significant signs of brain damage. Isn’t that great?” The doctor spoke with a smile on his face. Gilbert smiled back because he thought the doctor wanted him to be happy about the coma.

“And, you’ve lost about forty pounds during your little stay.” The doctor patted Gilbert on his skinnier-than-before arm then turned and plucked a jar off Gilbert’s bed tray and held it up in the muted fluorescent lights. “Brought this little fella for you as a keepsake. The cause of all your troubles.”

Clarence floated in a clear solution, a tiny, bulbous black speck in an antiseptic sea.

“Thank you,” Gilbert said.

#

Non-threatening signs advised of deer ticks in the tall grasses just off the beach. Gilbert tucked his pant legs into his socks and stepped off the weathered boards of the walkway. He tiptoed around the clumps of beach grass, careful not to step on them, then stopped and turned to face the chilly breeze blowing in off Vineyard Sound.

He pulled the jar from his pocket and held it up. Clarence wobbled on the surface of the liquid. Gilbert didn’t know what to say, but he sensed hundreds of eyes on him and figured he should at least say something. He recited the only prayer he could recall.

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Gilbert unscrewed the lid and poured out its contents on the sand. “Welcome home, Clarence.”

He replaced the lid on the jar and trudged back toward the boardwalk. Dozens of tiny voices drifted by on the sea breeze. They too said, “Welcome home, Clarence.”