2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

10:05 P.M

Madeleine is dreaming. Her apartment is a funeral parlor/nightclub/coffee shop, and also the waiting room at her doctor’s office. Her mother lies in a casket filled with apples. Onstage, Billie Holiday sings into a microphone. Her head is a caramel apple.

After announcing her intention to do so, Madeleine walks from the dream kitchen to the dream bedroom to find a roach the size of a fist smoking one of her menthols at a café table on her bureau.

She runs for a can of bug spray, but the cabinet is empty.

“I’ve already taken it,” the roach says. “Along with your paper towels, napkins, and shoes.” A yawn scrabbles his multiple sets of legs. “It appears we are on equal footing.”

The hair on Madeleine’s arms rises. “Are you the roach I killed today?”

“I’m the roach you thought you killed today. I’m Clarence and I’d like to have a chat.” His legs reflect in the mirror behind him, making it seem like there are two of him, one carrying on a conversation with her, and one carrying on a conversation with her reflection. “You are one friendless Susie Q.”

Madeleine says she has plenty of friends and Clarence pshaws. “Like who?”

“Like Pedro.”

“Pedro!” Puffs of angry smoke. “Who you put on a leash!” A shiver runs through his antennae. “Toots, it’s sadsville around here. You’ve been crying all night with that thing on your nose. What is there to be so miserable about?”

Madeleine’s hand covers her clothespin. “I got yelled at by everyone today,” she says. “I want to sing and no one will let me.”

A sound like a clarinet reverberates from what she assumes to be his head, a jeering, mocking sound. “Where do you think I would be if I listened to every ‘Get out of here’ or ‘Call the Realtor, we’re moving.’ You’re just a human being. Pathetic, stiff. Not one of you is worth even the tiniest grain of rice. It’s time to grow a set of balls. Learn how to say, ‘fuck it.’ Otherwise, you’re never going to leave the house, like Old Mr. So and So …” He hitches a foot toward her father’s room. “You don’t want that, do you?”

Madeleine says no.

He glowers. “It used to be fun here. Music all the time and singing.”

“My mother died.”

Clarence sighs. “Just because your mother is dead doesn’t give you the right to suck.”

“How do you know Pedro?” she says.

He shrugs several shoulders. Madeleine shrugs, too.

“Everyone knows Pedro.” He extinguishes his cigarette on the top of Madeleine’s bureau and, with a sound like a paper tearing, dives into a crack in the wall.