The box of D-con poison had a picture of a mouse on its back, with electric swirls moving away from its body, presumably indicating death. The product’s slogan was, “Kills Mice Dead.” I placed small cartons of the pellets it in the corners of the kitchen.
In the morning, pellets were missing, but I did not see a dead mouse to match the one on the cover.
The poison pellets stopped depleting, but I never found the body. Like Frankenstein’s monster or Michael Myers, it could return at any time. I started to feel bad about dooming my one-time cohabitant to a poisonous death, even as I realized that if that mouse ever did return, I would escalate the situation to cartoon-levels of violence, until the house was filled with spring-loaded axes or the entire house was one giant mousetrap.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
cockroaches, mice
One night I woke up hot. I was a little drunk when I went to bed, and still was. I didn’t have a bed yet and was sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. I heard a scratching sound that sounded as though something was trying to dig into the house from the other side. At first I just thought it was the alley cat I’d seen on the dumpsters, but the noise was too deliberate for a cat.
Earlier in the day someone had told me a story about their house being taken over by cockroaches. This nightmarish kind of narrative seemed to be more common than I would have expected, and I'd now heard a version of it a few times. Where I've lived in New York City and Utah, there are cockroaches, but they are very adept at hiding when the light comes on. Sometimes you don't even know they exist until you look for them. Always something sinister about that, but brazen cockroaches that take over an entire house are worse.
After a while it occurred to me that the sound I was hearing was too close to be outside. I thought immediately of cockroaches, and this jolted me to my feet, but I was afraid to turn on the light because of what I might see.
The sound had stopped while I contemplated my move. That gave me the courage to turn on the light. I did not see my carpet swarming with cockroaches, as I had feared. I went for a closer look. As I veered in, something dark skittered toward the kitchen. It was fast and I didn’t get a good look at it. It was heavy enough to make an audible sound as it moved and I assumed it was a giant, queen cockroach, about to call for a million reinforcements. When it turned the corner, though, I saw that it had a tail, and was not a cockroach but a small mouse.
I have lived in apartment buildings all of my adult life and never dealt with mice. They were around my parents’ house when I was a kid, but I rarely saw them directly. Once, though, when I was helping some neighbors load firewood from their garage into their trailer and I saw a mouse in the open sunlight. It was stuck on one of those traps that make their feet stick so they can’t get away, until someone sees it and kills it, or they eventually just die. This mouse was still alive, and it was all nerves and instinct as it tried to jerk itself free, but it couldn’t. After a while Mr. Childs saw it and smashed it with a shovel. That had always made me sympathetic for mice, but that sympathy was easier when I didn’t have to encounter them.
I couldn’t find where the mouse went and eventually tried to go back to sleep in the bedroom with the door closed. I kept seeing this image of the mouse sneaking into my room and biting me on my toe or my earlobe. If I heard a click, I assumed it was the mouse; but I never caught it in the act when I went out there, even though I tried to surprise it. I eventually had to open up the window and listen to the crickets to get back to sleep.
Earlier in the day someone had told me a story about their house being taken over by cockroaches. This nightmarish kind of narrative seemed to be more common than I would have expected, and I'd now heard a version of it a few times. Where I've lived in New York City and Utah, there are cockroaches, but they are very adept at hiding when the light comes on. Sometimes you don't even know they exist until you look for them. Always something sinister about that, but brazen cockroaches that take over an entire house are worse.
After a while it occurred to me that the sound I was hearing was too close to be outside. I thought immediately of cockroaches, and this jolted me to my feet, but I was afraid to turn on the light because of what I might see.
The sound had stopped while I contemplated my move. That gave me the courage to turn on the light. I did not see my carpet swarming with cockroaches, as I had feared. I went for a closer look. As I veered in, something dark skittered toward the kitchen. It was fast and I didn’t get a good look at it. It was heavy enough to make an audible sound as it moved and I assumed it was a giant, queen cockroach, about to call for a million reinforcements. When it turned the corner, though, I saw that it had a tail, and was not a cockroach but a small mouse.
I have lived in apartment buildings all of my adult life and never dealt with mice. They were around my parents’ house when I was a kid, but I rarely saw them directly. Once, though, when I was helping some neighbors load firewood from their garage into their trailer and I saw a mouse in the open sunlight. It was stuck on one of those traps that make their feet stick so they can’t get away, until someone sees it and kills it, or they eventually just die. This mouse was still alive, and it was all nerves and instinct as it tried to jerk itself free, but it couldn’t. After a while Mr. Childs saw it and smashed it with a shovel. That had always made me sympathetic for mice, but that sympathy was easier when I didn’t have to encounter them.
I couldn’t find where the mouse went and eventually tried to go back to sleep in the bedroom with the door closed. I kept seeing this image of the mouse sneaking into my room and biting me on my toe or my earlobe. If I heard a click, I assumed it was the mouse; but I never caught it in the act when I went out there, even though I tried to surprise it. I eventually had to open up the window and listen to the crickets to get back to sleep.
stadium motel
I initially thought this wait would be a couple days, but after those couple days had past it was revealed to me that it would be longer. For financial reasons I checked out of the Days Inn and downgraded to the Stadium Motel next door, which had weekly rates.
You don’t usually have time to look at every feather, so try to focus on patterns. If you know what you’re looking for, even a glimpse can give you a lot to go on. Once you see a bird, take in the overall pattern of light and dark. If it is light enough outside, you can see some of the color as well. If you have that, you have plenty to work with in your quest for identification.
My new room at the Stadium Motel had wood paneling and two frames containing the same photo of white spectral trees leading down a road. Pasted on top of one of these photos was a large sticker of Jesus Christ leading a sheep up a mountain.
The advertised kitchenette was a miniature refrigerator with a microwave on top. There were dark stains on the bathroom wall. The overhead fluorescent lights were too dim to read by, and the light bulb that was supposed to be hanging in the kitchenette area was missing. I asked the front desk attendant about this, and he came with me and took a look. I had to go because I had an appointment, and assumed he would take care of it. When I got back, the light bulb was still missing, and the overhead light was as dim as before. I didn’t ask about it again. When there are suicide stains on your walls, there is no reason act as though you are staying at the Days Inn.
I didn’t really have much to do until I could move into my house, so I bought a newspaper and “groceries” every day from the 7/11 next door. The front-page headlines from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal the first day: “Potts wins Tech QB starting job,” “Space is no issue for city graveyards,” “An Inspiration: English teacher at Frenship Middle School begins her 40th year today,” “Football team of 1976 succeeded without boasting.”
I wondered if I would have to re-develop an interest in sports to fit in here. Or religion, for that matter. I understand both, to some extent. The deal I made with God when I was 14 to go back to church if the Jazz won a championship is still good, and even though the religious chamber of my heart has been quiet and inactive many years, it used to function with flourish and passion. Maybe I could revive it. But it seemed hard to imagine doing that, starting as an adult.
After reading the paper I walked up University Avenue, a busy street that smelled like car exhaust and Chili’s. I wanted to explore more but my car was still full of my stuff which made me anxious. There really wasn’t that much in there of value, but thieves might not know that, and my relationship with my car was the deepest one I had in Lubbock, so I couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for getting its window smashed.
My time at the Stadium Motel lasted about ten days. On the last day, a man in the parking lot tried to sell me cologne from his car. Hey! You like cologne, right? Well, not really… Oh, not really huh? Well come on over here, let me show you what I’ve got. I politely declined and shook his sun-chafed hand. Later that evening I got the call that I was good to move in later that night.
You don’t usually have time to look at every feather, so try to focus on patterns. If you know what you’re looking for, even a glimpse can give you a lot to go on. Once you see a bird, take in the overall pattern of light and dark. If it is light enough outside, you can see some of the color as well. If you have that, you have plenty to work with in your quest for identification.
My new room at the Stadium Motel had wood paneling and two frames containing the same photo of white spectral trees leading down a road. Pasted on top of one of these photos was a large sticker of Jesus Christ leading a sheep up a mountain.
The advertised kitchenette was a miniature refrigerator with a microwave on top. There were dark stains on the bathroom wall. The overhead fluorescent lights were too dim to read by, and the light bulb that was supposed to be hanging in the kitchenette area was missing. I asked the front desk attendant about this, and he came with me and took a look. I had to go because I had an appointment, and assumed he would take care of it. When I got back, the light bulb was still missing, and the overhead light was as dim as before. I didn’t ask about it again. When there are suicide stains on your walls, there is no reason act as though you are staying at the Days Inn.
I didn’t really have much to do until I could move into my house, so I bought a newspaper and “groceries” every day from the 7/11 next door. The front-page headlines from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal the first day: “Potts wins Tech QB starting job,” “Space is no issue for city graveyards,” “An Inspiration: English teacher at Frenship Middle School begins her 40th year today,” “Football team of 1976 succeeded without boasting.”
I wondered if I would have to re-develop an interest in sports to fit in here. Or religion, for that matter. I understand both, to some extent. The deal I made with God when I was 14 to go back to church if the Jazz won a championship is still good, and even though the religious chamber of my heart has been quiet and inactive many years, it used to function with flourish and passion. Maybe I could revive it. But it seemed hard to imagine doing that, starting as an adult.
After reading the paper I walked up University Avenue, a busy street that smelled like car exhaust and Chili’s. I wanted to explore more but my car was still full of my stuff which made me anxious. There really wasn’t that much in there of value, but thieves might not know that, and my relationship with my car was the deepest one I had in Lubbock, so I couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for getting its window smashed.
My time at the Stadium Motel lasted about ten days. On the last day, a man in the parking lot tried to sell me cologne from his car. Hey! You like cologne, right? Well, not really… Oh, not really huh? Well come on over here, let me show you what I’ve got. I politely declined and shook his sun-chafed hand. Later that evening I got the call that I was good to move in later that night.
arrival
The drive to Lubbock was beautiful and windy and full of cliffs and trains. I didn't stop much, but everywhere I did stop was strange and interesting enough that I wanted to explore. I did pause for more than gasoline and junk food to see Billy the Kid's grave, just because a sign in a town I happened to pull off in said it was close. It's actually almost right next to a Mormon church in some town in New Mexico.
I had done no planning and didn’t have a place set up when I arrived. I checked into the Days Inn by the football stadium and started to search. I wanted a place close enough to walk to campus and I didn’t want a roommate. Those were my only requirements. When I found a place I could afford a few streets above campus, a one bedroom back house in a neighborhood called Tech Terrace, I went to check it out. As I walked around the neighborhood, I saw two people holding hands while riding their bikes. There were fire ants and brown pieces of glass on the sidewalk. Most people had their address number painted on the curb, with either the double-T Texas Tech symbol or a cross next to it.
Tech Terrace was divided into a block grid, like many neighborhoods, except it was unique as far as I knew in that dirt roads ran through the middle of each block. Dumpsters and water meters were placed along the dirt roads; so was the house I wanted. It had a red door. It was a strange dynamic to be located there; if I looked in one direction, it was in the woods. If I looked in the other, it was as though I was in a yuppie neighborhood. My perspective of the place changed depending on the direction I was facing.
On the phone the landlord said he was looking for someone “studious” and “quiet;” “not a major partier.” So when I went to meet him I wore my glasses, and that seemed to convince him. By the end he said I was “just the kind of tenant” he was looking for. He checked my references and said he’d be glad to rent to me, but it was going to take a little bit to repair the roof first. It had rained more than usual in the summer, and wet debris from large trees nearby had fallen on the roof. No one noticed right away, and the tree limbs and leaves just stayed there and slowly eroded the roof and ceiling.
I had done no planning and didn’t have a place set up when I arrived. I checked into the Days Inn by the football stadium and started to search. I wanted a place close enough to walk to campus and I didn’t want a roommate. Those were my only requirements. When I found a place I could afford a few streets above campus, a one bedroom back house in a neighborhood called Tech Terrace, I went to check it out. As I walked around the neighborhood, I saw two people holding hands while riding their bikes. There were fire ants and brown pieces of glass on the sidewalk. Most people had their address number painted on the curb, with either the double-T Texas Tech symbol or a cross next to it.
Tech Terrace was divided into a block grid, like many neighborhoods, except it was unique as far as I knew in that dirt roads ran through the middle of each block. Dumpsters and water meters were placed along the dirt roads; so was the house I wanted. It had a red door. It was a strange dynamic to be located there; if I looked in one direction, it was in the woods. If I looked in the other, it was as though I was in a yuppie neighborhood. My perspective of the place changed depending on the direction I was facing.
On the phone the landlord said he was looking for someone “studious” and “quiet;” “not a major partier.” So when I went to meet him I wore my glasses, and that seemed to convince him. By the end he said I was “just the kind of tenant” he was looking for. He checked my references and said he’d be glad to rent to me, but it was going to take a little bit to repair the roof first. It had rained more than usual in the summer, and wet debris from large trees nearby had fallen on the roof. No one noticed right away, and the tree limbs and leaves just stayed there and slowly eroded the roof and ceiling.
Frankenstein quotes
From M. Shelly's introduction:
“Before, I looked upon the concepts of vice and injustice that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient days of imaginary evils…but now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other’s blood…” (xv)
“I shall thus give a general answer to the question so very frequently asked me—how I, then a young girl, came to think of and to dilate upon so very hideous an idea”
From the editor's introduction: "They eloped which, according to the principles of free love they all except Harriet believed in, was sanctified by a higher law"
From the book:
August 5th, 17—
About two o’clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveler with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice” (9).
“when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel?” (29).
“the sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true” (38)
“if the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind” (41)
“for this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart” (43)
“I saw the grave worms crawling in the folds of the flannel” (44)
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