Joe Fletcher

Archer Exterminators

Here now arrives the termite inspector. Freshly showered, well groomed, but for his one rotten front tooth. Which looks chewed through by something with smaller teeth. Wearing a red jumpsuit with the company logo (an arrow piercing the thorax of a screaming termite) emblazoned on the back. Green stripes down the side of each leg. Elastic translucent hospital booties stretched over his boots, which are caked with a greenish clay. You look in your driveway, up and down the street for his van. There is no van. Bright morning, but his flashlight is on. I’ll need it where I’m going, he says, pushing past you into your home. His hair smells like pine tar. He strolls from room to room, whistling some slender motif from one of Debussy’s Images, crouching suddenly and nearly placing his ear to the floor as he shines his light into the crevice beneath a baseboard, under the refrigerator, behind your harpsichord. Do you follow him? He doesn’t need your help. He doesn’t need anyone’s help. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything, you shout, pretending to wash dishes. You hear him sliding your bedframe away from the wall. I’m going under, he announces several minutes later, stepping out to your front stoop and pulling his booties off. You watch from the porch as he opens a little door in your house’s brick foundation and slithers into the crawlspace. You go back inside and sort some mail, thinking about the man on his belly beneath you, the beam of his light restlessly sweeping across the underside of your floor. Through the floor you hear him whistling. Then you don’t. Then you sit down and extend the recliner, returning to your volume of Scipion Dupleix. You begin to think about lunch. That’s when he walks back through the front door. You notice with dismay that his booties are not back on and he’s tracking green clay through your foyer. But he’s clutching a bundle of something to his chest, proceeding with a caution you would not have guessed him capable of. As if testing the floor for solidity before placing his weight on each step. Look what I found, he whispers. You lean over his bundle and peel back some blankets. There, cratered in a warm cloud of sleep, is your son. That’s Sylvan, you whisper. A bit of dried green clay dusts the baby’s head. No termites in this wood, the inspector whispers and, overpleased with his joke, giggles, too loudly. You cringe as Sylvan startles awake with a fussy squawk, which is never what you want to happen. But the inspector deftly and gently bounces the baby bundle, making shooshing noises and continuing his exaggerated softstepping through your home. You watch as Sylvan quiets, smiles sheepishly up at the inspector. His eyelids flutter. Close again. The inspector disappears down the hallway, carrying your sleeping son. Through the floor you hear the chewing.