There was a tentative knock so soft I might have missed it had I not been standing in the room. I opened the door to our basement apartment and studied the stranger. He wore a khaki-colored, button-down shirt, his name stitched in black cursive on a white patch. I wish I could remember what it said.
His pants, a faded navy blue, hung loosely; he hoisted them up under a belly that made him seem older than he was. The last of his red-blonde hair formed a tiny sweating island on the top of his head; a crescent of curls, so soft they looked like a child’s, gathered at the nape of his neck. His glasses magnified his large, bulging eyes, and the soft flesh of his cheeks was red, likely from exertion. I was certain he still lived with his mom.
“I’m here for the cockroaches,” he said, shifting his weight from one sturdy black shoe to the other, holding a heavy-looking metal canister with an attached hose. I thought of the Ghostbusters.
“Yes! Please come in.”
He asked a few questions about how many we’d seen, how often and for how long. He explained how these old buildings on campus, near restaurants, were nearly impossible to keep pest-free. Our modest apartment certainly was. I’d come to understand (accept was too strong of a word) that our first home would never be rid of mice. There’d be seasons, sweet and brief, in which I’d fall out of the habit of scanning for movement near their hiding spots or listening for activity in the morning before putting my feet on the floor, but soon after I’d relaxed my guard, I’d see one dart across the floor, flooding my body with adrenaline. There’d be droppings strewn across the utensils and I’d have to disinfect the counters and drawers all over again. When I’d first moved in, my husband had seemed almost amused by the rowdy horde of mice that had made his stove their home. Reluctantly, and for me, he set several traps, though he thought they were cruel.
I followed the exterminator to the back of the apartment. He looked inside the stained old tub surrounded by cracked white ceramic tiles. The bathroom looked dirty no matter how hard I scrubbed. He didn’t seem to judge. I don’t remember if the roach was alive or dead; I couldn’t make myself look. I’d already killed half a dozen of them. I’d get home late after working second shift and hear them scurry across the laminate floor when my key jostled in the lock. I didn’t have the heart to wake my husband, who left for work before dawn.
I’d taken to wrapping my heavy nursing textbooks in plastic bags, then dropping them onto their armored bodies, wincing at the sound of the crunching shell, steeling my mind against the image of their extruded guts.
“They come up through the plumbing,” he said.
“They can climb up through the drains?” Maybe I’d misheard him.
“Yep.”
I’d never bathe in peace again.
He scooped up the cockroach, wrapped it in a piece of paper, and stuck it in the front right pocket of his pants. I covered my mouth, willing back down the contents of my stomach.
He said something specific, important I’m sure, about the careful disposal of their eggs. I’d stopped listening, buried my face in my hands. I’d already learned they could survive headless for days. It was just too much. I was ready to douse everything in lighter fluid and torch the place.
We walked to the kitchen. I tried to keep from glancing at his pocket. Was he sure it was dead? I half-expected the thing to emerge antenna-first. He opened and closed the cabinets, perhaps assessing food sources or searching for their eggs. I cupped my hand at the side of my face, shielding my view of the dead mouse that was lying in the narrow space between the stove and wall. I could still see its thread of a tail stretching out across the black and white ceramic tile.
My husband was out of town and the rodent had just started to stink. I’d bought incense, lit candles. Nothing worked for long. I’d never touched a trap, certainly hadn’t emptied one, though my mom assured me it was no big deal. Easy for her to say, she was a thousand miles away. At least it was finally dead. For two days, I’d hear it flapping, dragging the trap around the tile with its free claw, the sound so awful I’d taken to wearing headphones. A better, braver me would’ve put it out of its misery. An assertive me would’ve asked the exterminator to dispose of it, he was in pest control after all. I said nothing.
He saw the tail.
He squatted down in front of the stove and put his hands on his knees. His glasses slid down the bridge of his nose. He pushed back the frames with his pointer finger and looked directly into my eyes — briefly, and for the first time since he arrived.
“Would you like me to get rid of this for you?”
Would I ever.
I nodded, beaming no doubt. He reached for the trap, released the latch, and, before I could look away, dumped the furry body onto the kitchen floor. It landed without a sound. I grimaced and took a step back. His fingers — thick, dirty, bare — moved swiftly to reset the spring before sliding the trap back under the stove. He produced another scrap of paper and gently wrapped it around the dead mouse like a blanket. He stood up, then slipped the mouse into his back pocket as if it were a wallet.
Nearly 20 years later, and I still remember him, though I only saw him once. Though our next home would be free of cockroaches, we’d battle mice, snakes and bats, enlisting the services of not one, but two, pest eliminators, neither of whom I found as memorable or endearing as the first. He was the one my brain archived, perhaps because he’d sensed my fear and acted immediately without having to be asked. Like a hero. That, and I still wonder sometimes if his mom remembered to check his pockets before she tossed his pants in the wash.
Jennifer Chesebro is a nurse and writer who lives on a tree farm just outside of Madison with her husband and three kids.
