Catching More Than a Buzz

Gravel crackles under a banged-up truck. They’re here. They’re going to save me.

I open the front door and reach my hand through a plume of Marlboro smoke into July’s thick, wet heat, greeting Keith and his shirtless, white-bearded sidekick from Paul B. Davis Bat, Bee and Hornet Removal.

Before I can detail (in other words, launch hysterically into) the two separate hornet issues going down at my house, Keith is zipping into his jumpsuit and hollering through a protective veil, “You've got a hot mess out here, Mrs. Petty. A hot mess! Those suckers are mean. Mean, I tell you. They sting you just ‘cause they can. They’re eating through your walls. Do you hear me? They’re coming through your walls, Mrs. Petty. And when they break through, they’re going to sting you. Sting you ‘cause they can.” 

Keith is rhapsodizing about the swarm of livid beasts driving between the slats of our home’s exterior and, apparently, feeding their way through the interior to our living room. The wall is buzzing and ticking with bees. Not the bumbling nectar gatherers and pollinators. Not the flower dancers. Not the honey makers. No, the wall is buzzing and ticking with raging, ravenous, devil bees and has been for sixteen hours. Sixteen effin hours.

“You go on back inside. We’re going to shoot a killing agent right into the walls. We've got you, Mrs. Petty. We’ve got you.”

I return to my office but can’t concentrate on the white paper I’m drafting because I’m not really sure that Keith and his partner have indeed got me. I put my head in my hands and close my eyes. The vibrations of the wall-eaters are soon layered with the drumming from a pump motor, and only now is it occurring to me that I should have asked if it was safe for me to be in here as insecticide is blasted into my home.

The pump stops, and I hear a knock. Again I swing the door open to a smoke-laced swelter and Keith’s voice, this time asking where the other hornets are. We walk around back, and I point to these wickedly huge wasps that are flying giant arcs across the yard and then disappearing through the lattice at the base of our deck.  Keith explains that these are cicada killers, and they’re hunting. They don’t hive; they burrow. The females have serious stingers, but they’re not aggressive; they’re just downright terrifying because they’re loud and marked for war. They’re big enough to take out a cicada and drag it down into a tunnel for larvae to feed on. Keith tells me the only way to kill them is to spray chemicals into each hole and then gouge it.

He and his partner send me back inside saying it might take a while since we counted at least twenty active wasps during the pop-up Entomology class. And there are probably a lot more, Mrs. Petty. I go back to my desk, try to settle into some research, and almost achieve focus when I hear a thunderous ruckus kick up outside, complete with cursing and yelling and what sounds like the bee killers running. I start toward the kitchen to see what’s going on in the backyard, when the doorbell rings. I nearly trip over the dog getting to the door, which I open to a humongous and very much still alive and angry copperhead thrashing on the end of a snake stick, and Keith is screaming, “This was under your deck! This was where your kids go up and down the stairs! This would KILL you. KILL your kids. KILL your dog. I came within a foot of being killed dead myself! This is the biggest one I’ve ever caught. Can you take a picture? Send it to my boss? My girlfriend? Do you want the snake? Can I keep the snake?”

I assure Keith that I am cool with him keeping the snake, really cool, in fact, but I’d appreciate it if he would please strangle it first. We lay it out on the brick walkway and measure it at 36.5 inches – three feet of pure evil. I snap a picture of Keith and his kill and ping it to his people and to mine. Keith’s boss calls me immediately, and says, “That’s a right big snake. Good thing Keith’s there.”

After we cool off on the porch, relive the serpent-snaring legend a few more times, and come down from the afternoon shock, Keith bags the dead copperhead and throws it in his truck. He straps a tank of repellent on his back and tells me he’s “gonna go Rambo out there” to create a protective barrier. Just before Keith unleashes his hell on my yard, he turns, stares me in the eyes, and then nods, “Like I told you, Mrs. Petty, we've got you.”

The Heartcracker

“There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen

This one is for the mamas. You all have stories about a child who did something(s) that made your chest tighten, your teeth clench, your neck stiffen, and your head spin. I have those stories, too. Lord knows, my mom has those stories. But don’t forget those moments that broke you wide open and put you back whole at the same time – you know those moments when you can’t see anything but light, can’t feel anything but love, can’t do anything but love back.

  

She came at me all grin and firecracker eyes, slap-wrapped her body around my left leg, and asked in a conjured honeysuckle voice, “Mama, will you come to a Mother’s Day Tea in my classroom?”

My heart cracked open.

“Oh, I’d love to, Bunnyhop. Thank you so much for inviting me.”

She untangled herself and flung her arms out, mad-giggling, “Well, who else would I invite? It is a Mother’s Day Tea!”

My heart cracked open.

“Will you help me pick something out to wear, Mama? I want to look extra special, but I don’t want you to see me until the tea. Just help me come up with some possibilities.”

We skittered upstairs. She turned, blocking her door so that I couldn’t enter, and said, “Oh, Mama. Ohhhhhhh, Mama, my room is a wreck. A wreck. A wreck. A wreck. You’re not going to like it. Not going to be happy one bit. It’s okay though. Let’s just work on the outfit for now.”

This was my six-year-old master-distracter giving me a focus lecture. She undersold the wreckage. I walked into some place unrecognizable as a room in our home. My chest tightened. My teeth clenched. I rubbed my neck and massaged now throbbing temples. Syddie, reading and redirecting me, just said, “Outfits, Mama.”

We sorted through option after option after option after option after option. One dress was too tight on her arms. Another, too short. She wanted to wear a sweater like her friend Maddie, but she didn't own one. She wanted to run out to Target that instant. Her white shoes with bows pinched her toes. Hand-me-down dresses weren’t special enough. Her flower girl frock, too fancy. Her lips quivered. Her eyes puddled. She crumbled. And now, next to the mound of strewn, wrinkled misfits and unfits was a pile of huffing, puffing, sighing, sobbing Little Syd. I wanted to cry, too.

I said, “Come on, Bunnyhop. This doesn't feel very Mother’s Day-ish. I’d rather see you wearing a big ole smile than anything else!”

I bear-hugged my little heap and tickled her ribs and made up a silly song about a girl who couldn't find her outfit and couldn't find her happy and almost made her poor mama cry because the girl was looking in all the wrong drawers and behind all the wrong doors, and really she just needed to open her heartcloset.  She said, “You’re SO crazy, Mama.” And I said, “For you, Syddie.” And in the softer light of a little laughter, we fashioned a few ensembles that had at least a fighting chance of living up to her brand of special, but she said she’d have to sleep on it still.  I asked if I should wear something special, too, and she said, “Oh no, Mama. You should just wear your jeans. I like you best when you are just you.”

My heart cracked open.

“I like you best when you are you, too, Syddie.”

“Just maybe not those jeans with all the holes,” she adds.

And just like that, I can’t see anything but light, feel anything but love, do anything but love back.