I decide I should spray around Kaylee's window, but do a half assed job. That way, they can smell that I've been working so they wouldn't question it. The reason they called me here was for termites, found in wooden basements or attics. Normally, those are my last stops before I trace the exterior.
I walked down to the basement, imaging my next kill. With termites, I have to imagine their death. As soon as I head down to the damp, unfinished basement, I can see the bites on the studs that hold the insulation. The basement was empty aside from one uncovered mattress on the floor. Weird. Did I just enter a sex dungeon? There is no frame, no blankets, and no pillows. There was only one mattress with some huge tears and stains. Why would anyone have that? I wander over to the boxes to see what else this place was hiding. Old clothes, toys, baby stuff; pretty disappointing. There was a box up against the side of the wall next to the leaky water heater which was lopsided.
"What's in the box?" I imagined Brad Pitt screaming. Man I should watch that movie again, it's been awhile.
Hesitating, I walked over to that box and chills ran down my spine. That wasn't a fucking box. That was a mound of termites. How do you neglect a house so much, that you don't even realize a fucking mound of termites? I've seen general laziness and in some cases hoarders, but this was a first. Unbelievable. We're in Colorado. This whole god damn state is in a drought, but your leaky water heater in the basement has enough moisture in the room for a mound to develop? As I looked closer, I realized there was a fist-sized hole between the crack in the cement panels that lead to dirt. That's an impressive amount of neglect.
Getting closer to the floor, I saw all the workers in a row leading to the stairs, stripping them for nourishment. You can tell that they're workers because the only other ones that venture outside of the mound are the soldiers. I'm looking at a micro-scale commute. We aren't that different from these bugs. They have workers, soldiers who sacrifice everything, the queen, and the bugs trying to fuck the queen. Humanity has soldiers, workers, lovers and leaders too; we just think we are less vulgar than insects.
Like our frontline equipped with semi-automatics, the soldiers on this concrete slab next to me have huge red pincers for attacking. Normally, they are incognito, and wouldn't appear in the middle of the day in a conspicuous place waiting to attack. Their inflamed and engorged head is an easy tell. They look like an aggravated retro video game boss after you attack them. Weirdly, these warriors can't even feed themselves. Workers have to break down the food for them. That's how strong their sense of community is. In addition to giving a homeless person your food, you'd be cutting it up into little tiny squares while counting the number of times they chew each morsel to make sure they don't choke. What a bizarre world that would be.
What was I doing? Oh, right.
I took out some boric acid from my utility belt, and doused the mound. I walked back upstairs, looked in the drawer underneath the liquor cabinet and found a matchbook. I went back downstairs and the mound had sprawled out horizontally on the floor. This was reminiscent of that devastating crane shot in Gone with the Wind, with all of the dead and wounded soldiers. I put on my gloves and walked up to the collapsed mound. I made sure to spray directly in the center of it. Most were already dead, but to be sure, I took a match in my left hand lit it and threw it in. I sprayed one last time to catch the flame, then I watched the fuckers burn. This was a very gratifying kill; a quick and heartless mass genocide. I imagined thousands of barely audible screams. I smiled with relief and pride. Flames can be very soothing and cleansing.
I was proud of this beautiful purging of innocent termites. Mission accomplished. Uncle Steve would kill me if he knew how much time I wasted with this massive overkill. I swept up the mess and thought about throwing it away. I looked down at the ash and realized they wouldn't notice if I cleaned it or not. They didn't notice the mound after all. I figured; eh, why bother?
While driving back home, I realized that I passed all of my former schools along the way. Every drive I had, I realized how little progress I made with my dreams. I pulled over and looked at the school for a second. My high school sat on the top of a hill. At the base of that hill was my middle school. A couple blocks down from that, still in my eyesight bit furthest away was my elementary. These buildings looked more along the lines of prisons or community centers as opposed to the idealism and hope the should represent.Weren't schools at one point and time supposed look like they commanded respect? These schools did not fall under that category.
I was a hyper kid desperately seeking attention that shied away from it when it was received. In retrospect, I was the kid that would always ask questions about everything, even if I didn't care to hear what the answer was. Everything was a puzzle that I almost deciphered, but never comprehended. I hated thinking about how annoying I used to be.
Equidistant between the two properties was my middle school. This was the place where I was ostracized and alienated the most. I was an out casted minority, specifically because I was a half-heartedly practicing Jewish kid surrounded by a bunch of Mormon people. By no means was I a zealot. I practiced because that was what my parents wanted. Hell, I still don't even know the fundamentals of Judaism. What happens when we die if we don't believe in heaven or hell?
I can't concretely say if it was my choice to be ostracized or not. Was I angry at the situation itself, or only my perceived injustice of it? This place helped me become the miserly fuck that I am today.
At the top of the hill was my high school. Here, I outgrew giving a shit, and gave in to sweet, sweet apathy. My freshman year was full of optimism and all that new start bull that we tell ourselves. I made a small amount of friends, only to realize they were using me.
I worked two jobs to save for school trips and to start a college fund. There was multiple times where my parents would let my friends over to my place before I got home. After coming home tired as hell at 11:45, mom out of town, dad out with his friends, I would walk in and see that my place was trashed. In addition to property damage that I would have to pay, couples would come over -some people I never met before- have sex in my bed and leave. It turned into everyone's private fuck palace. This was infuriating considering I was a virgin with zero prospects. Mom was a woman that liked distractions. If people came to the door asking to come in, she would routinely let them in, pour them a drink and assumed that I wanted to see them...that was never the case.
It's funny how I always thought that I would be at my happiest when I was free of high school. Now I've grown to be even more isolated and the few friends I had got out of this fuckhole of a city long ago. I grimaced, and then got back in the car.
I pulled in my driveway and saw an ad posted on a telephone pole by my neighbor's lawn. Normally, it was a lost cat that I'd inadvertently killed while I was spraying. The cat would be hiding underneath the deck, or deep in the kitchen cabinets. 4 out of 5 times these cats would turn up dead within a week of my spraying. This ad was different.
Do you feel alone? Are you tired of being left out? Are you experiencing high anxiety and use drugs recreationally? Well head on down to the basement of Olin Hall at the University of Colorado, and sign up for a medical experiment!! After this study has commenced; not only will you finally feel comfortable with yourself, but we will pay you six hundred dollars! Call Dr. Thompson on Thursday, the 5th, and take control of your life!
This is the same kind of universal appeal that is repeated ad nauseum on all of late night infomercials -are you having trouble getting to sleep at night? This one struck a chord with me. I could use a change of mindset, maybe it would help get me out of here.That's two days from now. I don't have any appointments; I can do that! I can get $600!
I grabbed the tear-away phone number and felt a stabbing pain. I had a splinter. I tried pulling it out with my fingernails. That didn't work. I took out my house keys and dug in to my hand to fish it out. I ended up deeply cutting my palm. Blood started to fill into the newly opened wound. I wiped it on my uniform and put the ad in my pocket.
There are some people in life that think about what's next. I'm always in the moment. The problem is, I get completely overwhelmed with what I can and should be doing. I'm sick of not accomplishing anything. Maybe if I did one of those daily checklist things, I could see what I did each day and feel better. Then again, jacking off 5 times and huffing three times each day are not exactly checklist worthy. I'm overdue for a change and that experiment might be the answer. I opened the door. My mom was directly behind it. I jumped back.
"Jesus Mom, you scared the hell out of me!"
She stared at me, dead eyed.
"Clean your room or I'm going to make you do your own damn laundry."
She scowled at me again. I smiled exceedingly hard, and sarcastically.
" Love you too mom, going to my room now!"
I didn't even entertain her shit anymore. I ran downstairs and dove into my bed. I don't know what trigged it, but my mind drifted off to when I was watching a documentary at my friend Dan's house about The Beatles. It finally got to their experimental phase with the White Album, and in the background played George Harrison's first citar experiment, "Within You Without You." I paused it.
"So Dan, if you ended up a grungy addict after doing drugs, but you would create something amazing, would you still do it?"
He concentrated and scratched his chin.
"You know Phil, being a famous artist would probably be as cool depicted, if not better, but you have to think about if it would be all worth it in the end. Are you going to be remembered as the amazing artist like George Harrison, or are you gonna be remembered as the dude who forced a girl to have sex with a shark? There is always going to be unforeseen consequences. Could I be the next Hemingway, or would I be remembered as a bitter, out of touch old man? Or even worse... if I got into meth, would I be remembered as methhead Dan?"
I remember laughing for a good ten minutes after that. Unfortunately for him that nickname stuck. When was that? Three, four years ago now?
I tried to shake the memory off and looked around the walls in my room. This was place where I could relax and ignore everything. When Mom brought laundry to my room, she attempted to make me decorate it. She left notes saying, "Can you make it look like someone lives here? That would be a welcome change." I put all of my equipment away, and sat on my bed and went online, I wanted to see if there was anyone on that would talk. I checked my Second Life account, Tumblr, Facebook, and there were no notifications or messages. Nothing. I then decided to head on the message boards and movie blogs. Oh shit.
George Fucking Lucas, the last stand out for major independently owned frachises --not good ones in his most recent work--just sold Lucasfilm to Disney? That's a shame.
What the hell happened to integrity? Something needs to be done about this megastudio system. There are unique visions of movies out there, and unfortunately, they all get churned out and amalgamated for broad audience that devours garbage with the same tropes and scenarios that Joseph Campbell painstakingly documented.
I heard Methhead Dan honk outside; I smiled knowing that wherever the night took us, we'd have a good time. I jumped out of my bed, ran upstairs and shut the door to the basement. My mom was on the couch watching TV as usual.
"See ya mom."
"Okay, tell Dan I said hello."
"Will do. Later!" I ran out the door. As I was illuminated by his headlights, Dan honked again. I knew he saw me; he was just fucking with me. I jumped at how loud it was. I flipped him off as I walked over to his passenger side.
"Sup bitch? Did you poop yourself a little when I honked at you? He laughed.
"Very mature as usual Dan. One day, that won't be funny."
"Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet."
I rolled my eyes and smirked. He was right and I knew it. Methhead Dan got annoyingly cocky sometimes, but generally, he was a good dude.
"Come on Phil, you know I'm kidding."
He turned up the radio to a deafening level. I think its Notorious B.I.G. He started nodding and rapping along. He's still fucking with me. As soon as he pulls out of the driveway, he turns it down, adjusts himself in the seat, and looks at me with a very serious face.