Pest Control by Bill Fitzhugh

Author:Bill Fitzhugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2012-01-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-nine

Mary stood in the hallway halfheartedly trying to talk herself out of it. But after all this time away from Bob and all the soul-searching she couldn’t really help herself; she had to do it. She reached up and took a hold of the dangling rope and pulled hard, testing its strength. Then, resolved to her task, she doubled her purchase on the rope and pulled it toward her head and past her neck until the staircase came down from the ceiling. She climbed into the spooky attic where the trunk of her memories sat covered with dust and anchoring cobwebs.

The combination was easy to remember because it was Bob’s birthday, March 12. She wrestled the rusted tumblers to 3-1-2 and creaked the old trunk open. The smell of memories rushed into her nose, causing her to sneeze. There were embarrassing old photographs, high school yearbooks, and knickknacks whose significance had long been forgotten. What, for example, was the meaning of the mismatched jigsaw puzzle pieces? She couldn’t remember, but she couldn’t throw them out either. She dug deep into the trunk, a curator poking through a back room, and there among the artifacts of her little museum, were the collected letters and poems of one Bob Dillon. Had they belonged to the other Bob Dylan, these missives would have been worth a small fortune. As it was, their value was incalculable.

She savored the old addresses and old stamps and Bob’s familiar handwriting on the occasional “P.S.” scrawled on the envelope after the fact. She smiled as she flipped through the funky postcards. Finally she opened one of the letters and read it:

My dear, beautiful, sweet Mary—

I was in the middle of writing a paper for my comparative entomology class (a critical look at Stanbrick’s classic, Sowbugs and Pillbugs—Is Carbazole the Answer?) But I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I had to stop and write lest my affections creep into my paper. I don’t want to come off as a passionate pro-carbazole knucklehead.

Remember last week at the bar when you asked who my favorite band was? If you recall, before I could answer, that fight broke out at the jukebox.

The answer is—big surprise—the Beatles.

And if you were to ask me to name my favorite Beatle, I would have to say—Dynastes tityus.

See, Rhinoceros Beetles are among the largest of the Coleopterans (from the Greek, meaning sheath-winged) and, for reasons I can’t explain, I think they are also the most romantic. They’re massive bugs that reach nearly seven inches in length in the tropics.

To me, they’re the V-8 engines of the insect world with 454 cubic inches of buggy power—and at the same time, I see them as big lugs, awkward and sentimental, just trying to impress their sweethearts. You just have to love them the way I love you.

Now, not that you would ever ask—but if you did, I would have to say my second favorite beetle is the Bombardier Beetle (Brachinus americanus). These guys are dark metallic blue and dangerous, just like your eyes.

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