"Vamanos," Chris said, carrying a blue laundry hamper, as I unlocked the front of my building and he, Ryan and I headed up the stairway to the second floor to lucky apartment number 7. Apartment number 7: my residence. Apartment number 7: the location of Terror Bat.
Earlier that evening, I had finally arrived home, ready for bed. It had been a hard week. I finally got my art samples and application in to secure a spot for a covered booth at the Arts Picnic this summer. I set up a display at Chase Bank for Rozene's Festival of Art Festival samples, arguing with one if the tellers over whether or not you could put thumb tacks into stone pillars. I was "against." I think there were other things like my head almost exploding with stress concerning various things like jam bands being played at high volume at work and getting pissy responses when I asked my coworker to turn the radio down or to quit being loud because i couldn't hear the people on the phone or the customers asking me for synthetic urine. These were just the little things. And just Friday. So the rest of the week, which I won't eve go into, was just this vice grip on my patience and by Friday you could put a fork in me because I was done.
Back to me finally going home after a nice dinner of pan seared Tilapia soft tacos on corn tortillas and a cup of delicious coffee and ice cold water. Man, I like having coffee again. Even if it's just in small amounts. After that, I stopped at the corner of historical downtown and had my cards read by this amazing lady and end up talking to her for awhile and am beginning to relax. She has these dogs and they aren't annoying and always has popcorn around, which she puts fresh herbed butter on it. Possibly lavender? I'm not sure. Either way, it's always comforting to chat with her. It's about a block from home and when I finally left, I walked to my car amongst drunken booze hounds fondling each other and drooling margaritas on the sidewalk and I am glad I am not them. I remember when I was younger how much more cool it seemed. Now they just seem like runny, gross paintings of hustlers and whores, really. They don't seem to care about anything except holding each other up and getting a paw full of flesh while they're at it, mistaking it for affection.
Once I get home I'm too tired to do anything but fall into bed. I have my shawl around me and I'm about to reach over and turn out the light when: what I first think what was a bird came nonchalantly flap flap flapping into my bedroom, circling once and then landing on my curtain rod, right above the end of my bed.
I believe, "WHAT THE FUCK?" came out of my mouth as I jumped up into a huddled squatting position, looking at my cats who seemed mildly interested, almost as though a blob of potato salad had been thrown at the wall. Nothing too exciting to them. They stared for a moment and then apparently decided there was a better time to be had curled up in the clawfoot bathtub; that, in fact, this bat was nowhere, man. I yelled at them, "Come kill it!" This was, however, before I had determined it was a bat. I still thought it was a fat bird. It is spring, you know. So, I was on the phone with my Mom telling her there was a bird in my room because I thought she would think it was funny when I noticed the bird was hanging upside down.
I screeched, "It's a bat! It's a fucking bat! I have to call...I don't know, like someone. It can't be here! I gotta go!"
Next, I dial Ryan. He answers a mild-mannered hello and I continue in screech mode, "There is a BAT in my bedroom!"
Ryan, I can see his face sort of go blank as he says, "No there isn't."
I say, "There sure as FUCK is."
So now Ryan is getting a little bit more weirded out, which is ironic because he loves Spiderman and Spiderman got his powers from a radioactive spider. Ryan, is, however, practical and he started rattling off crap he was going to gather and told me to come pick him up. He asked if I had a net. I said, no, but I would make some calls.
On the way over to pick Ryan up, I called Chris who well, has this great focus. He's also very dependable if you can break him away from his hardcore blinder induced routine. Which a Terror Bat will do. It turns out Chris does not have a net. He asks if I have a hamper. I do not. I also do not have time to explain to Chris about how sometimes my house and I go to battle and currently the house is winning. He tells me to call him if we don't get the bat because "he thinks he could take the bat."
Will do.
When I pick Ryan up, he has added a fire extinguisher to the mix. This excites me as I wonder what this will do to the bat. However, I do not want the bat flying around. I do not want bat hell to break loose. I also do not want the bat to fly up into the top of my closet where it could possibly just make a home and be a Terror Bat guano sprinkler and we could not get at it. There's this tiny attic-like spot with a tiny entrance in the top of my closet where I store a bean bag chair. I do not want Terror Bat discovering that potential Bat Cave and taking a clever gadget-building butler up there and building a crime fighting division and stinking things up. I will burn that closet down.
Ryan also informs me that his plan is to hit the bat, knock it out and then throw it outside.
I look at him and say, "That's it? That's not going to work. You're just going to piss it off or you're going to stain my wall with bat stain."
Finally, I realize, I am going to be no good, as much as I like to think I am a badass. I can be but not with bats or snakes. Or large oversized goldfish. Or super large insects, especially Junebugs (oh so gross). Thus, I realize it's time to call Chris in.
I tell Ryan this and I think his manhood is a little insulted. But I inform him he's just going to yell at me and we'll be here all night. Which, it turns out later, is kind of what he wanted. He was so bored he was kind of excited about the bat and was hoping for a good two hour Scooby-Doo adventure.
When Chris gets there with his hamper, there is this slow motion moment where I am imagining the Bionic Man theme as he leaps up onto my bed in his soccer shoes and, without a flinch traps Terror Bat. I hear a little squeak, Chris tells me to throw the painter's cloth over the hamper, he tells Ryan to secure the edges and hold onto the sides because there are those little holes in hampers and then we all, in slow motion, Reservoir Dog style, it seems, take the hamper outside.
Chris said, "He's weirded out, man"
I chimed in, "Ditto."
When we got outside, I saw a side of Chris I have never seen. He had turned off the uber blinder focus guy and he was carefully turning the hamper onto the dewy grass and he shook out the painter's cloth. He looked into the grass and then up into the trees.
"There he goes. He's gone," he said, softly.
Ryan received a high five and I, a hug. Then off into the night with his light blue hamper, same as he ever was. Layers, like an onion.
You never know certain things about yourself or the people you know until you meet the Terror Bat.
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