The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(48)
Tommy starts up his truck and begins to drive away from the windy harbor and south toward Washington Heights. On an average day, Tommy makes about five or six stops, which usually take somewhere between six and ten hours. His customers include big businesses, office buildings, schools, restaurants, and residential homes. He likes to organize his day so that he starts in the city and works his way back out to the suburbs and toward his home, where he raised his two children and now lives alone with his wife, Janice.
Tommy’s wife admires his passion for small creatures. However, she admits that he can be “a bit obsessive” at times. “I’ll come downstairs to get some water at like one in the morning, and he’ll be sitting there all excited over some Nova program on the Discovery Channel about spider mating, or cockroach burrowing techniques.” She stops, smiles slightly, and fingers a wine-colored birthmark on her left cheek. “It’s not so much the bug obsession as it is all those jokes. Oh, Lord, day in and day out, and he’s his own biggest fan when it comes to humor. Cracks himself up nearly every minute.”
Tommy has a different perspective on his marriage. “The insect society is matriarchal. That is, the queen is the supreme ruler.” He chuckles. “That’s different in my house, though. My philosophy towards my wife is: ‘The daily beatings will continue until morale improves.’ ” He cracks his knuckles by pressing his hands together but then quickly holds them up on either side of his head in a gesture of surrender. “I’m joking, I’m joking,” he laughs. “Oh, man, I could tell you a million jokes, a hundred million jokes if you wanted. Hey, so what do you get when you cross a centipede and a parrot? . . . A walkie-talkie!” He throws his head back and lets out a loud wheeze.
Tommy takes a sip from a Mister Donut coffee as he flicks on the radio and starts swaying his head back and forth to a smooth jazz song. He takes a sharp left and pulls up next to a run-down concrete apartment complex of about five stories. Colorful graffiti surrounds the lower level of the building and a large white banner hangs over the entrance that reads APARTMENTS FOR RENT: CALL 773-555-0962 FOR MORE INFORMATION. Tommy takes one last sip of his coffee, and with a twist of his wrist, the car turns off and the music goes silent. “Welcome to the derelict city,” Tommy says in a mock low voice. “Gateway to downtown ghetto.”
The landlord called Tommy a few days ago, desperately begging him to come “as soon as he possibly could” to deal with a bedbug problem in one of the apartments he’s trying to rent. “Bedbugs are becoming more and more of an issue these days,” Tommy explains as he retrieves his supplies from the back of the truck. They resemble little black ticks that live in the cracks and springs of mattresses and rely on human blood for food. The key to knowing you have a problem, Tommy describes, is seeing little red spots all over the bed. “It’s their feces,” he laughs harshly. “Disgusting, huh?” He walks over piles of brown snow toward the back door of the complex and knocks.
A middle-aged man with a receding hairline opens the door and looks Tommy up and down.
“I take it you’re the exterminator,” he asserts in a thick accent.
“That’s me.” Tommy smiles and holds out his hand, “Thomas H. Hart: I kill for money.” The landlord doesn’t laugh, nor does he shake Tommy’s hand.
“Like I told you on the phone, we need a bedbug spray-down in C3 on the third floor.”
“Well, luckily, all I have to do is kill one bug and the rest will leave the bed to go to his funeral.” Tommy bends over laughing, almost losing hold of his supplies.
“Look, I have a shitload to do before I rent these things,” the landlord says coolly, adjusting his faded blue tie. “Just get the damn bugs out. If you need me, I’ll be in my office.”
Tommy stands still, his lips pressed tightly together. In silence, he pushes the door open and trudges up the musty staircase holding his heavy metal pesticide sprayer in his right hand. Once on the third floor, he starts posting warning signs all over the doors of the seemingly vacant building, still in an angry silence.
“Sorry about that,” Tommy finally says. “Sometimes I just feel so goddamn angry at people.” He forcefully takes off his sailor’s hat and tucks it into his bag. He breathes in deeply and, after a pause, relaxes into a smile. “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it. No one will want to read about all my stupid emotional stuff. No one cares.”
Out of a large black duffel bag, Tommy pulls a pair of thick gloves and a roll of duct tape. After taping the sleeves of his shirt and the legs of his pants closed, he slips on his gloves and wriggles his head inside a World War I–era gas mask. All suited up, Tommy is somewhere between frightening and comical. “Bloodsucking bedbugs,” he muses, his voice sounding weirdly mechanical and muted through the mask’s air filter. “Sounds like something out of a scary horror movie.” He pauses and gestures to his eccentric appearance. “But then again, look at me. I suppose I’d fit right in.” He half smiles.
“On to My Lai!” Tommy suddenly declares. “The enemy lies ahead!” He brings his left hand up to salute and marches into the dusty, vacated apartment. A single window provides the light for the room, and with its low ceiling, dank smell, and sheet-covered furniture, the atmosphere is reminiscent of an old attic. Alone in the left corner of the room, a queen-size mattress lies like a victim, exposed and bare except for a few mysterious stains. Tommy places the heavy B&G chemical sprayer down on the old wood floor, laughing that he has no idea what the two initials stand for. The machine resembles an oddly sized scuba tank: a one-and-a-half-foot metal cylinder with three red nozzles protruding from its top surface. In the middle of these three sprayers is a gold pump used both to increase pressure of the spray and to reload new poisons. Moving closer to the bed, Tommy loads the enzyme pesticide into the tank and pumps the machine’s gold lever down about ten times before grabbing one of the red tubes and bringing it over to the bare mattress. “I can’t believe I’m still doing this at sixty-three.” Tommy laughs. “Did I tell you I’m sixty-three? I don’t think I did. I don’t look sixty-three, I don’t feel sixty-three, I don’t act sixty-three, and I don’t care.”