Spraying For Bugs
Chapter Ten of The Troika
The side yard was paved with red bricks. A barrel cactus stood in a little well. A swing set with no swings stood rusting. I turned east at the corner of the house, found the front step, and knocked at the door. Just then I was attacked by a vicious carnivore. Well, it was only a small poodle, but it bit my leg.
Slowly I bent at the waist and leaned down toward the dog. “Good dog,” I said soothingly, while it growled and worried my ankle. “Nice doggy.” I drew a cylinder of pressurized methyl cyanase from my pouch and lifted it over my head. Then I clubbed the fucker until it let go of me. I kicked it against the door, and it landed in a broken heap.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” said a voice from the house. “Don’t kick the door down!” Security chains rattled. I kicked the poodle into a space between the aluminum siding and a potted yucca.
“It’s the exterminator,” I called out. “The exterminator is here.”
“Keep your shirt on,” said Mrs. Everson.
The door swung open. An old woman squinted at me, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. Her arms were like plucked chicken wings, and her neck was like a powdered eclair. She wore orthopedic shoes, nylons rolled to the ankles, bifocals on a cord, and a hearing aid. Hanging by a thread.
“Are you the exterminator?” she asked me. “Well, come in out of the sun. I’ll talk to you in the den. I’m watching one of my programs.” Then she vanished and left me in the entryway. I would have to locate the den by the sound from the television. Not as simple as it sounds.
I was standing, according to my floor plan, in the entryway. But entryway is a deceptively innocuous term for that sense-numbing welter of porcelain mementos, stacked magazines, ceramic lamps, Christmas cards, et cetera. The ceiling was low, and there was hardly room to move.
I took my bearings from the walls and door frames and set forth. I knocked over an end table. I let it lie. I could understand a table wanting to lie down. I wished that someone would let me lie down.
I found Mrs. Everson sitting in an armchair. She was watching her TV set and eating crackers and cheese. Square orange cheese slices on round orange crackers filled a plate that rested on a tray with legs. Two boxes stood beside the plate, a box of cheese and a box of crackers. Every minute or two, Mrs. Everson would eat a cracker, and there’d be one less cracker on the plate.
Wet laundry was dripping on the rug. Yes, there were clotheslines strung across the den, with dripping clothes on them. It made sense. It saved her going outdoors.
CLIENT: They’re troublesome. Hundreds of them. They come from the window frames and spit on the glass. I can’t tell if they’re on the inside or the outside. Would you like a cracker?
MOBILE UNIT: No thank you.
CLIENT: Have you seen this show? It’s my favorite.
MOBILE UNIT: What is it?
CLIENT: It’s my favorite. I try to kill them with a broom, but they get in under the screens.
MOBILE UNIT: The bugs?
CLIENT: Awful! Do you live around here?
MOBILE UNIT: I don’t live anywhere.
CLIENT: Would you like a cracker? Are you married?
MOBILE UNIT: No, I’m an exterminator.
CLIENT: I beg your pardon?
MOBILE UNIT: I like to be indoors. Walls, floors. Nothing outdoors has any edges. And there’s all that weather. If everything just stayed in the box it came in, none of the boxes would get lost.
CLIENT: When are you going to spray? Because I have to move my pets. I can’t let my pets be exposed to chemicals.
MOBILE UNIT: Your dog is already taken care of.
CLIENT: Would you like some juice?
MOBILE UNIT: I will require that you vacate the premises for a minimum period of twenty-four hours. Your compulsory compliance with this procedure will allow the safe deployment of lethal fumigants necessary for the complete eradication of your pest problem.
CLIENT: Say what?
MOBILE UNIT: I will require that you vacate the premises for a minimum period of twenty-four hours.
