7-Eleven Rich | Victoria Rocha

//
16 mins read

Grasshoppers in the Virginia Foothills of Nevada are not your cute green cartoony hopper. They’re Hollywood monsters – true competitors of Mothra. Other animals wither in the hot baking summer sun while these behemoths are nourished by the suffocating dry air. As the world browns under oppressive heat, their hoards pillage what remaining greens feebly attempt to sprout in yards.

At the age of eight, I was unafraid of these violin-legged leviathans, so when a friend of the family offered to pay me a dime for every grasshopper caught in her yard, this seemed a reasonable exchange.

I was desperate for money. There was no allowance. Chores were to be done “because we’re a family.” The occasional penny was scrounged from sidewalks, but savings took months to amass for anything of value – even Bazooka Joe’s bubble gum at 25 cents. This wasn’t going to be just bubble gum money. A dime a grasshopper was an absolute fortune to be had.

Raised by a teacher, single mom, money for extra luxuries for me and my brother were rarely available, at least not the kid-driven ones. Mom wanted me to play soccer which definitely cost extra money. Uniforms and cleats were paid by either amassing credit card debt or generous grandparents.

Kid desires were more of the local 7-Eleven variety. I envied other children whose parents loaded them with green gold as we all walked to 7-Eleven to pass the slow summer days away. Slurpees to slake thirst, maybe even an ice cream bar. I stared longingly upon their mouths covered in chocolate lipstick, unable to eat as fast as the sun melted their icy pops. Sometimes a friend would offer me a lick of a ring pop or a slug of Coca-Cola, but rarely was I able to buy anything for myself.

Grasshoppers were going to make me 7-Eleven rich.

Mothra meet Viczilla.

***

“Thisssssp.”

My thumb caused their skin to whisper off in flecked pieces. I grinned. I didn’t mind the snake-like texture of their outsides. I gently pinched their bodies and placed them in the bucket left by the neighbor friend, slamming the lid down as fast as possible to prevent escape from their plastic confine. Her plan was to drown my prisoners upon the day’s completion.

Occasionally, I would snatch one by the leg and as it attempted to hop and would be left with a kicking appendage, a phantom action in search of its body. I was even okay with their wings aggressively bursting into my face as I leaned close for my next victim, and they attempted to flee and blind at the same time.

It was a promising start.

The last time I had walked to 7-Eleven was with Katherine, a classmate, fellow Girl Scout, and frenemy since 1st grade.

Both of us precocious girls, teachers would dote on us, parents would engage us in mini adult conversations, and our peers would look to us when leadership roles would arise. Instead of seeing one another as allies and leveraging our roles to support one another, we slowly devolved into rivals, vying for attention, one upping each other’s efforts.

One time in front of her father, I corrected Katherine for pronouncing the silent ‘h’ in herb to which she insisted I was the illiterate dummy. When her father affirmed my correctness, one would have thought he had just proclaimed me his new smarter daughter and Katherine was to be cast to the streets. I struggled to suppress the pride of my momentary victory.

A big difference between us – Katherine’s parents gave her money. Her parents were married, she was an only child. Katherine did not want for ring pops or Slurpees.

Earlier in the summer, I had called Katherine to ask if she wanted to pick a badge from the Girl Scout handbook we could work toward earning – something to do to pass the long day.

Katherine’s mom sewed all her badges on her sash. I hot glue gunned my own – my mother not knowing how to sew, and not having the time or, frankly, the desire, to make neat rows of my accomplishments. Hot glue gun be damned, I still had more badges, though.

We worked quietly in Katherine’s room for an hour before boredom settled in. The perfect panacea for boredom? A walk to 7-Eleven.

“You’ll need money,” Katherine reminded me.

“I don’t have anything on me,” I answered. Although my voice was steady, my eyes averted suspiciously to the floor as I continued, “I’ll have to ask my mom. Can I use your phone?”

Katherine bounded off with a puppy’s enthusiasm to fetch the wireless receiver. “Don’t take too long,” she handed the phone over with a breezy tone.

She was loving this. I knew it. There had been many rejected mommy-requests prior to this.

I asked my mom for a few dollars with a light, casual tone that said, “this request is totally normal, no big deal,” but with each rejection from my mother, I became whinier, more pleading, my voice rising into a nasally unhinged pitch.

Katherine and I made eye contact. She looked amused. I could see it in her face – an adult spurning me was a win for her and all the hhhherbs in the world couldn’t change that.

Katherine babbled on about all the good things in her life on the walk to 7-Eleven. I trudged next to her in near silence, struggling at the moment to remember all my good things.

At the store, she bought a variety of candies – chocolate, red vines, packs upon packs, bars upon bars, and also a bag of chips. Her arms were full of more good things to add to her life list.

“I’m sorry your mom didn’t have any money to give you. I’ll share my chips,” she said as we walked out the door. “But just the chips. I want to save the rest for later.” Despite a sweet smile to denote her generosity, her eyes belied triumph. I blazed on the inside; I wanted to slap the whole lot of it out of her hands, stomp on it, paint the asphalt with heel-ground candies and smeared red vines, sprinkled with a dash of crushed chips.

I was not ready for the grasshoppers’ defensive regurgitation. That’s what it’s called, I looked it up in adulthood as it had left such an impression upon me as a child.

The first defensive regurgitation took me by surprise as brown spittle leaked from my latest captive’s mouth. This one I had caught by the head versus the body, and as I pinched, not to kill but to make eye contact, a caramel-y substance oozed toward my fingers.

I quickly hurled the body far into the yard.

Blech. My fingers had streaks of its dirty gift as I wondered, “Was it spit? Brain? Do grasshoppers poop out of their mouths??”

I caught another, thinking maybe my first ward hada belly ache and the others would be much more polite. No. More brown ooze, a true horror.

The spittle did not easily come off as I vigorously rubbed my hands along my shorts. Actually, the rubbing seemed to make it worse, my skin staining like wood.

“How do I wash my hands?”

Glancing at the back door, I wondered if I should ask the family friend for a glass of water, but shame held me back. Shame that a little brown drool was preventing me from earning my millions that would make me whole, make me a kid worth knowing.

Glaring at my hands, I closed my eyes and quickly ran my wet tongue from wrist to fingertip over my right hand.

Eyes bursting open in surprise, my lips wrinkled up over my teeth in immediate rejection. The taste of bitter, stomach soured earth filled every taste bud like a clogged pore.

“YUCK!” I cried out to the yard.

No one answered but the flutter and hum of the grasshoppers as I wiped my tongue over and over with the collar of my shirt. No clean hands, no clean tongue, no clean shirt. I was losing faith that the job was worth it…

But there it was, the memory of Katherine’s Cheshire cat smile as flecks of chips swam about her chomping maw. It lit a fire in my body. My face reddened with anger’s sunburn. I gagged down the sour taste in my mouth, ready to work.

 I caught nearly $20 worth of grasshoppers that day, more than the family friend had anticipated. She smiled awkwardly in her surprise that I had earned such a large bill. Soiled fingertips delicately pinched the corner of my hard-fought treasure.

“Katherine, HI!” I willed my giddy voice to calm. I was rarely the one to suggest a 7-Eleven run.

“Do you have time to hang out tomorrow? Maybe even walk to 7-Eleven.” My eyes spied the tobacco spit stains covering my hands, a mix of shameful tiger stripes and leopard spots.

“Hmm, maybe. We have church in the morning. I’ll call you.”

I told her okay. Feelings of disappointment crept in as I hung up the phone.

No. I stuffed the feelings down.

This will happen. Whether tomorrow or next weekend, you’re going to treat Katherine to 7-Eleven.

 It was my turn to be Queen and to have it all.

Tomorrow, we’ll raise our Slurpees to ‘cheers’ my sugary wealth, Katherine still unknowing that I have bestowed this gift upon her. I’ll guzzle and slurp my hard begotten beverage while slapping down a beautifully brown stained twenty-dollar bill. Katherine’s eyes will grow wide, and she’ll splutter, “I know you might need that money…” but I’ll cut her off with a wave of my hand before we lock eyes.

With a grin, my head will slowly rip apart, revealing a long, greenish brown grasshopper face. Horror will blossom over Katherine’s face as she stares into my bulbous glinting eyes. In response, I will offer a very satisfied wiggle of my pinschers. And in my glee, I’ll open my round mouth hole to vomit Cola Slurpee upon Katherine’s aghast face. Returning from the bowels of my warm body, the Cola will have melted into a dark sticky syrup – half digested and smelling of saccharine bile. Upon offering an amused grasshopper grin, Katherine will flee the store, abandoning her Slurpee on the counter.

More for me.


Victoria Rocha’s previous publications include a work of creative nonfiction for the online journal Untenured, and several articles for The Imprint, a nonprofit news outlet focused on issues of the foster care system and juvenile justice. One of her pieces for The Imprint was a source document for a profile on United States District Court judge Dolly Gee in The New York Times in 2018. Victoria also performs in live storytelling shows. You can listen to her personal tales on several podcast episodes of Mortified and RISK! She has a Bachelor of Arts in German, Theatre, and International Affairs from the University of Nevada, Reno and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California. Victoria live in Los Angeles, where she works in local government. Writing keeps her sane.