Pest
Content warning: self-harm and suicidal ideation
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ad says they’re in the walls, but Mom keeps pointing the steamer at the mattress. Meanwhile Grandma’s walkin' around with a yellow plastic bag filled with loose garlic powder, sprinkling it on the ground. “I heard bedbugs won’t cross garlic powder!” she insists.
Aunty explodes with laughter, but none of the rest of us have the sense of humour to laugh at how ridiculous we look. The steamer’s run out of water, so Mom plugs it back in for the fifth time tonight so maybe she can get another two minutes of steaming out of it. She sits down with her phone to take a breather, but Dad disappears behind the door and reappears with a metal spatula and a meat tenderizer.
“Don’t you fuckin dare rip apart my wall!” Mom says.
But Dad ignores her and shoves the spatula into the drywall. TWANG and the five of us momentarily regroup to share a silent stare at the taupe baseboard now nesting in a pile of rubble. There’s nothing there.
“Well, maybe not here,” Dad says, “but I swear they’re in the walls somewhere. We’ve looked EVERYWHERE! Where else can they be?”
“I … don’t know,” Mom replies. “I don’t know anymore … I don’t know.”
I go to our shared room and throw myself on the bed to rest, but as soon as my damp, bare skin hits the mattress cover (there to protect from bedbugs), Grandma’s garlic powder mixes with my sweat and forms a paste along every fold of my flesh. My mind is running a mile a minute. I could be sleeping next to Ash, in our shared bed. I could be caressing his slender neck with my chin. I could be away from all this mess. But I had to ruin it all.
I feel like I should get angry, but I don’t. I embrace it, roll myself in the garlic powder and ignore the rash. I lie on my back, listen to the shouting outside and dare myself not to scratch any part of my body. I close my eyes and listen. Dad keeps hammering away, tearing our baseboards apart. My heart starts beating out of my chest. I get up and pop an Ativan, tighten my fist and curl up my toes. “Its 1 a.m., Dad. They’ll kick us out!” I press my nails into the base of my palm.
“Kick us out for what?” Dad yells back. “Are they the miserable ones or us? I haven’t slept in three months. They can go fuck themselves.” Dad's just getting started.
“Dad, PLEASE! They’ll send another complaint to the rental office.”
“Let them send as many as they want.”
I press my body into the mattress to imitate the warmth of Ash next to me. I see myself beside him in the bed, trying to snatch his phone when his new lover texts. I see myself walk over to the balcony and chain-smoke until he follows me outside. I tell him I love him and when he doesn’t say it back, I turn the cigarette's ember toward my own arm.
I hear the balcony door slam and follow the sound outside. Aunty is there, watering the plants and smiling. She’s really enjoying the absurdity of our situation. I don’t blame her. We close the balcony door and sit down on the flimsy wooden chairs, listening to the hyperanimated, if now-muted conversation still going between Mom, Dad and Grandma. Me and Aunty share a glance and burst into laughter. We laugh until tears come to our eyes and I’m sure neither of us knows if these are tears of joy or misery.
When I go back inside, Mom and Dad have given up and are each sprawled wide-eyed and hopeless on either side of the room. Grandma’s still walking around the house sprinkling her garlic powder; looks like she won’t sleep again tonight.
Mom drags her limp body to her bed and buries her head under the pillow. Dad begs me to keep an eye on Grandma, so I grab my bed bug-stained pillow and blanket to the living room, drag two chairs close to each other and make an attempt to sleep, my body half-suspended in the air. I doze off for a while and wake to find Grandma with a spray bottle. The whole room reeks of garlic and rubbing alcohol. “I read online they hate alcohol,” she says.
I try to go back to sleep, but sunlight’s already grazing the corners of our living room and Grandma’s having a full conversation with me. “Look! When you spray them with alcohol, they swell up and die. Look at these! And this one? Do you see this? This is going to work!”
I give up. My entire body aches and I have to be at work in a couple hours. I dive my hands into the giant pile of dirty dishes in the sink and find the coffee pot covered in bacon grease. I wash it with lukewarm water and make a bacon-fatty coffee to jump-start my morning. I grab my purple rucksack and walk outside two hours before my shift starts. I grab a French vanilla iced coffee from 7-Eleven, take a cigarette out of the packet, and sit on the dark stairs of the restaurant, waiting for Fee to open up shop. I forgot my pink plastic lighter at home. Dad must have grabbed it out of my bag. He’s been chain-smoking the last few months too.
I spot a couple with dreads passing by. The guy’s got a cigarette in his hand. “Hey sir!” They ignore me and walk ahead. They look scared. “You got a light?” I look at my clothes. I don’t look too good.
Fee arrives and walks past me, up the stairs. She does a double take and stops. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I didn’t.”
“Why are you here so early? Were you out partying with Matt? Are you just coming from his house?”
“Nah man, the bedbugs.”
“Still? How long has it been?”
“I don’t even remember … like four months?”
“That sucks man … I’m sorry. At your parents’ place right? Anyway, today’s Saturday, we’re gonna fill up in an hour. Let’s go in.”
I always hated peeling potatoes in the morning, but today the repetitive act has a touch of escapism to it. My life has officially deteriorated to a point where peeling potatoes is a welcome escape. I keep busy in the back for the morning, but at lunchtime, Fee starts acting weird. No one has a minute to spare during the lunch rush, but she comes back to the dish pit and washes her face twice and then just walks out for a smoke. I sub in for her and help Sanjay bag the shawarma. I go out back looking for Fee and I find her on her knees, palms flat on the concrete with a lit cigarette wedged between her fingers.
“You know this place used to be a bar before it was this?” she says. “My ex-husband used to come here all the time before he died.” Her eyes are bloodshot.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about? It's the lunch rush, you gotta get back on line.”
“Whatever,” she mutters.
I’m frozen, standing behind her body, hunched over next to the bins. Her love handles are sticking out, and so are her bright red panties.
Sanjay walks out back and shouts at her, “I can cover your fucking shift, just go home.” He runs back in, but a second later, pokes his head back out the door to yell, “It’s the third time this week, man. THIRD FUCKIN' TIME.”
“No no, I can work,” Fee says. She stands slowly, dusts the pebbles off her palms, and tosses the cigarette butt into the back alley.
“I don’t want you to work like this,” Sanjay says.
“I need the cash.”
“Fucking christ.”
Sanjay disappears back inside and me and Fee look at each other. “What did you take?” I ask her.
“ ... ”
“Tell me if you got anything.”
“ ... ”
“You got a benzo for me?”
She doesn’t say anything, just goes back inside. I search her duffel bag but there’s nothing there. The rest of the afternoon passes in a daze, and then it is time to go home.
Before the elevator even gets to our floor, I hear shouting. Our neighbour’s having a screaming match with Dad. I ride the elevator one floor up and walk down through the fire escape. I sit on the stairs, waiting until it gets dark, until all the voices disappear. I close my eyes and when I open them, it’s 3 a.m. I go inside the apartment, but everyone’s still awake. Grandma’s neurotically walking around, sprinkling and spraying, Mom is charging and recharging her $40 steamer she got from AliBaba. Dad’s hacking at the walls, looking for a nest of some sort. And Aunty’s on the balcony watering the plants.
“Any luck today?” I ask her.
“What, hun?”
“Any luck finding jobs, Khaale?”
“No, love,” she sighs. “No one wants to hire a 50-year-old woman. I think I got close to getting hired a few times, but as soon as they hear my accent, they tell me they’ll call me back.”
“I’m sorry, Khaale.”
She doesn’t reply, so I leave her to her plants and go into our shared room, turn on the fan and try to sleep on my mattress on the floor. I wake up every ten minutes or so. The bugs are crawling all over me. I get bitten to bits until I turn on the light and hunt the bugs one by one, smearing them on the walls like a Pollock painting. I’m on the very edge of my sanity. I can’t sleep. Can’t think. Can’t even be mad in the conventional sense. I have a primal drive to kill each and every bug I see until my body gives up. They are too many and I am only one.
I go through Aunty’s meds, pop an Alprazolam and walk outside as the sun is coming up. I don’t have to work today, so I think about calling Ash, but I'm unsure I can handle a lack of response from him right now. I can’t stand being alone with my thoughts any longer so I call Dominique instead.
“What’s up, beautiful man?” His terms of endearment always warm my heart. “Why you calling me so early? You alive or what?”
“I’m alright, I just can’t stand being alone right now. Can I drop by?”
“Come through my man! Me and Nikki just popped some M, slide through.”
I take the subway to Dom’s place and me, him, and Nikki stand around the kitchen, smoking.
"Y'know ... shit either doesn’t happen, or happens all at once," Dom says.
“I wouldn’t mind dying next to a waterfall,” Nikki says. I let her ramble on, planning her death, while Dom passes out on the second-hand couch, held up on one side by a stack of books.
I find a couple of steaks in the freezer and toss them in the microwave to thaw. “What’ll you do with all those books if you’re dead?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
I pick a few limp stalks of celery and a semi-squished tomato out of the fridge and try to wash them in the middle of the twenty or so mugs polluting the sink.
“Will you be mad at me if I kill myself?” Nikki asks.
“Why do you have so many dirty mugs?”
“I’m serious this time though,” she says. “I’m gonna do it.”
“I know. But seriously, how do you use so many mugs?”
I pull a rusty knife from a drawer and start sharpening its edge with the back of a dinner plate but it’s pointless. The knife is way too cheap to be sharpened in any way. The gentle thud of the dull knife against the cutting board is oddly soothing. The knife slides past tomato skin and right into my flesh, hardly leaving a scratch. I bang the blade against my palm, wishing for a wound. There is nothing there. I pull out my phone, shoot Ash a text.
I tried to cut myself lol
Sent.
I wait a few minutes. I know I am ruining everything. I need to rein it in.
I'm just makin a salad, jk jk
Still nothing. I can't stand how desperately I need him to respond.
How’s your boytoy doing? He up yet?
No reply. I try one more.
I’m sorry for the cigarette burns. It was the last time I promise.
He replies almost immediately. I’m not here to babysit you. Do whatever the fuck you want.
His response is a relief and a shock. My heart is about to jump out of my chest so I rummage through my bag, but I’m out of Ativan.
PING. A text from Ash: how much do i owe you?
I know you’re in a tough place financially, you can pay me back whenever.
NO. I WANNA SETTLE THIS WEEK. don’t wanna owe u any money.
I put the phone down and put a frying pan straight on the stove. I throw the limp celery and bruised tomato into the garbage and slap the steaks onto the cold pan.
“You’re supposed to wait until the oil is hot,” Nikki says.
“What oil?”
“You didn’t even put oil?”
“I’ll pour it on later.”
“What happened to the veg?”
“Threw ‘em out.”
Nikki squints at me. “You alright?”
“Never been better. You got any benzos?”
“We never take pills, you know that.”
She reaches across me for a bottle of olive oil on the counter. I grab it from her and pour it on top of the smoking, semi-frozen steaks. Oil starts to spatter all across the kitchen so I open a tallcan of stout, pour some on the pan, and go out on the balcony to smoke. I stare at the ground 12 floors below, leaning further and further out. I turn the lit cigarette in one hand, hold my phone in the other. I read Ash’s text again. Do whatever the fuck you want. I want to lay the ember on my skin. Then the phone rings. It’s Ash.
“Hey ... ” I say.
“How are you?” His voice is much warmer than I had anticipated
“I’m good, I’m good ... “
“Are you coming over tonight?” I don't understand the question. I thought we were done, but even after everything that’s happened, he still wants me to come over as if nothing has changed? We stay silent for a long time, breathing into our phones. Then he says, “I miss you.”
I feel nauseous. I press mute and let out a wail that sucks out my breath and leaves me empty. How are we back here, back at square one, again? I unmute the phone.
“I miss you so much too.” Tears are glazing my eyes.
“Don’t do anything stupid, you hear me?” His voice shakes as he says it.
“I swear on our empty wine bottles I’ll behave, is that good enough for ya?”
He laughs. We are both silent for a moment, then he asks, “What did you mean when you told me you loved me?”
“What?”
“You told me you loved me. What did you mean by that?”
“Of course I love you, Ash.”
“No, you said it differently. Like you were saying goodbye. Were you gonna … do something?”
“ ... ”
“Will I see you tonight?”
“Yeah sure. See ya, Ash.”
I go back into the kitchen and watch Nikki struggling to flip the steaks onto their raw sides. I wish I had no weight. I wish I had no face. I wish I was locked away in a corner with no light or sound. I slide past her, stick a knife into a half-burnt, half-frozen steak and slap it on a plastic plate.
“Let it cook a bit longer,” she says.
“I like it bloody.” I cut a corner and shove the cold, grey meat in my mouth. It slithers down, wafting cadaverous fumes throughout my respiratory system. “I always imagined dying in a crash,” I say.
“Like a car crash?” Nikki asks.
“I imagine a motorbike. Front wheel blows up and yours truly gets buttered onto the asphalt.”
“You’ve never even ridden a motorbike.”
“Exactly.” I masochistically shove the remainder of the steak into my mouth, chewing the burnt/raw meat.
“How you feeling right now? Are you gonna be okay by yourself or should I be worried?” She looks worried.
“I should be fine,” I say. “But thanks for asking.”
Dom is still sleeping and Nikki has to go to work. She walks me to the door, but as I am about to leave, she claws at my bicep. “Lemme know if any stupid thoughts come to your head tonight,” she says.
“You too,” I reply, and head back to the TTC station.
I’m waiting for the train when I get the shakes. I close my eyes to avoid the piercing fluorescent light. I take a knee and try to focus. I start to write a long text to Ash. I write about how much I want to die and how I never dared tell him, and about how hard it is to hang out with Nikki and Dom since they constantly think about offing themselves too, about how the dream of death follows me around from bus to bus to subway to bed to sleep, about how maybe we all think about death all the time and we’re just misguided about how we think about thinking about death. My thoughts are racing, my face is wet; maybe with tears, maybe with sweat. I don’t know anymore. All I know is that a train is coming. A train roaring into view, and I am overwhelmed with a lack of direction. Afraid and afloat. I blink, and there is a flashing image of Ash, of exchanged I love you’s, of cigarette burns, of goodbyes. I blink again, and there is nothing there. Just light.
