Same Place, Same Things by Tim Gautreaux

Author:Tim Gautreaux
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Picador
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Bug Man

It was five o’clock and Felix Robichaux, the Bug Man, rolled up the long, paved drive that ran under the spreading live oaks of the Beauty Queen’s house. He pulled a one-gallon tank from the bed of his little white truck and gave the pump handle five patient strokes. When a regular customer was not at home and the door was unlocked, the Bug Man was trusted to spray the house and leave the bill on the counter. Her gleaming sedan was in the drive, so he paused at the kitchen door and peered through the glass. A carafe of steaming coffee was near the sink, so he knew Mrs. Malone was home from the office. When he tapped on the glass with the shiny brass tip of his spray wand, she appeared, blond and handsome in her navy suit.

“Mr. Robichaux, I guess it’s been a month? Good to see you.” He always thought it funny that she called him Mr., since he was five years younger, at thirty-one the most successful independent exterminator in Lafayette, Louisiana.

“You been doing all right?” He gave her a wide smile.

“You know me. Up’s the same as down.” She turned to place a few dishes in the sink. He remembered that a touch of sadness lingered around the edges of nearly everything she said, around the bits and pieces she had told him about herself over the years, about her dead husband. Why she told him things, the Bug Man was not sure. He noticed that most of his customers told him their life stories eventually. He began to walk through the house, spraying a fine, accurate stream along the baseboards. He treated the windowsills, the dark crack behind the piano, her scented bathroom, the closets hung with cashmere and silk. Soon he was back in the kitchen, bending behind the refrigerator and under the sink.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked. Then, as he had done off and on for five years, he sat down with her at the walnut breakfast table and surveyed her fine backyard, which was planned more carefully than some people’s lives, a yard of periwinkle beds skirting dark oaks, brick walks threading through bright, even St. Augustine, and in the center an empty cabana-covered pool. The Beauty Queen had been a widow for four years and had no children. He called her the Beauty Queen because she once had told him she had won a contest; he forgot which—Miss New Orleans, maybe. Each of his customers had a nickname he shared only with his wife, Clarisse, a short, pretty brunette who worked as a teacher’s aide. She liked to be near children, since she couldn’t have any of her own.

“Hey,” he began, “have you seen any bugs since the last time?”

She turned three spoons of sugar into his cup and poured his cream. He stirred. “Just a couple around the counter.”

“Little ones, big ones, or red ones?”

“Red ones, I think. Those are wood roaches, aren’t they?” She looked at him with her clear cornflower blue eyes.

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