Some find learning how to rid a home of unwanted pests a
touchy chore. For others the art of extraction and elimination of unwanted
creatures is a career that if done well can be passed down generation to
generation. Proper planning can also provide a positive cash flow retirement
with an exemplary exit strategy. Some things take time to think through and
execute. It is not simple not easy
to rid one’s castle of disruptive creatures. But it is not such a complete irresolvable
puzzle to realize that proper planning can avoid the unfortunate mind screwing
maize of fixing something that was avoidable in the first place.
But most jobs are about eliminating or avoiding disruptive
nuisances aren’t they? There always seems to be some thing, some one, some
creature or some perverted act by a jealous deity that disrupts one’s path to a
victorious finish. Humans wage wars over nuissantable disagreements - over
philosophies, theologies, and land or oil rights ownership. History records the
origin of couples divorcing when things are not harmonious due to some immature
discordance concerning a weak ego. Jake wasn’t sure if the stories were true that
Yoko really was at the core of the Beatles breaking up. Sundance always
suspected there was something deeper eating away at the essence of the Holy
Trinity of Liverpool plus one.
Sitting sipping dish watered coffee in the pancake house on
Comm. Ave. Jake’s head floated downstream meandering about the last day he had
seen Isabella and how being a titan of removing pests can strain a
relationship.
Just months ago Jake thought he had a resolution for
ridding the squirrels from the Niebo’s cape cod home attic. His dad called down
to Jake from the fiber glassed- asbestosed mustied attic above their second floor ceiling.
“Jake go next door and get Mr. K’s 22. Will ya?”
Startled , Jake’s mom shouted back immediately.
“There’ll be no killing in my house!”
Jake froze and drifted to that summer at his cousins’ house
upstate New York almost ten years before. His parents would drop off he and
Bert up state for a few weeks every summer saying
“Hey its good to get away. You boys deserve a vacation.”
It wasn’t hard to realize who really needed a vacation.
Early one
morning as the fog refused to burn off in the Mohawk Valley Jake slipped out
from the farmhouse with his older cousin Buddy grabbing two 22 caliber rifles.
They escaped directly into the roving land based cloud, a world of dreams and mischief,
the home of the Pegasus, the deep dark pine forest. Bert and the younger cousin
Stan continued their own dream world in their beds from the night before. Buddy
had prepped this dawn raid by telling Jake he was going to teach Jake how to
stalk and hunt wild game. He selected rabbits as their target for the day as
bears usually stayed away from the farm until nighttime and they didn’t have
big enough rifles to take down a deer. Buddy was always prepared with explanations.
Weaving in and out of the tree line no words were spoken. Buddy had advised Jake
that
“Silence is
the key to success.”
After three hours of soft stepping successful silence and
poking around rabbit holes near the wall that separated Buddy’s farm from the
farm of their good neighbor they decided to sit for a minute before returning
back to the house.
“Shhh,”
Buddy dropped
his voice level to a confessional booth soft whisper
“Now…take off the safety. Raise the rifle. Quiet now”
Buddy pointed
to a rabbit about 30 yards or so away who was preoccupied nibbling on some grass or something…
“…put the rabbit’s body a speck above the center of your sites.
Don’t jerk the trigger just squeeze it softly and easy …. right………now”
Nothing.
Buddy noticed immediately Jake hadn’t taken off the safety…
and before it was too late he raised his own Remington without almost not
aiming and fired. The rabbit got hit. It wasn’t a kill shot as the creature
squirmed in shocked pain this way and that gushing bubbles of blood. Buddy rose
up from his sitting position and ran over to the rabbit. He picked it up and in
a split second, Jake hadn’t even gotten to his feet yet, Buddy yanked and
twisted the creature’s neck. His blood soaked hands reverently lowered the now
lifeless animal on to a bed of pine needles. He wiped his red soaked stained
fingers on his shirt
“’And with thy bloody and invisible hand’
…a pause
’Out damn spot out’ ….Damn me. I can do better.”
Jake shocked standing silently staring soberly at the still
creature of God resting peacefully on the ground.
Buddy spoke with clear mechanistic authority
“ You know I had to break its neck quickly to take it out
of it’s misery. I had to…”
Jake was a boy scout and was known as a merit badge and competition
winning riflery marksman. A new illumination burned within as he stood with
Buddy over the motionless creature. Shooting any live creature steals the spirit of the shooter as well as
the intended victim and is much
more soulless activity than firing a gun at inanimate targets for points . He was glad that his mom had come to
the rescue the day of the squirrel incident as he had not touched a rifle since
that day in the forest with Buddy.
Jake would write in his journal
“Mom’s make good rescue artists.”
The Niebo clan huddled up on the tobacco smoke clouded
first floor to discuss the a new plan of attack to resolve the quandary of the
uninvited guests in the attic.
Isabella implored Jake
“Jake do something. Help your dad but don’t hurt those
squirrels”
Before Bert could chime in about the rat poison they had
stored in the basement Jake proposed
“ I read recently about someone who had a similar problem.
They used traps to capture the squirrels and then released them in some distant
forest.”
Saying that he read about the proposed solution somewhere
seem to give him some credibility, (at least he felt credible .)
Isabella finally did something that she had never done
publicly up to that point in her time with Jake. She affectionately squeezed
Jake’s hand and gave him a small kiss on his cheek. Embarrassed but like a
brave great strategic warrior Jake stood up and began to commence the new
plan’s implementation.
Jake and his dad gathered the traps and they put in pieces
of apple , carrots and of course
nuts inside each cage-like trap . Everyone waited. Silence. More smoke filling the air. It wasn’t long until
they heard a “crack.”
Success!
“Buddy was right” Jake mused privately.
“I think that’s it! We got’em”
Jake’s dad had claimed victoriously.
Yet just as immediately everyone in the house heard
screeching and squawking.
“ Something’s wrong “
Isabella
worried aloud
“Jake go see”
Jake rushing squirmed his way through the crawlspace hole
in the ceiling above his bed where he saw one squirrel secured in a trap. He
was fine, sitting eating on the fruit left behind. There was another squirrel
though standing near the closed cage with the squirrel inside and this free one was screeching.
Jake and the free squirrel eyed each other and Jake asked
“What are you saying?”
The animal ignored Jake’s query and continued to shout at
the squirrel in the cage…
“You idiot!
Who’s going to help me now with gathering nuts and feeding the kids?” How could
you fall for such a silly human trap?”
Jake poked his head down through the ceiling opening and
hanging upside down reported the scene to Isabella and the others.
Isabella called out to him
“How could you? That poor squirrel is now separated from
her companion. What if she was screeching in horror? What if her heart was
breaking? What if she couldn’t go on living? How could you?”
Jake tried to calm Isabella down to no avail.
“The caged squirrel is fine “
Jake put on some heavy work gloves and removed the cage
with the squirrel from the attic as the other squirrel’s continued screeching.
Isabella called out to Jake
“Don’t you dare take that caged squirrel away from that
other squirrel! You hear me? What is going to happen to the one who is talking
and not trapped?”
“I’ll catch him later, Jake muttered “and then bring that
one to where I let this one go.”
“Just let that one free! Get a bigger trap for both of
them. There has to be an answer. If you continue to walk away from me with that
caged squirrel …. I will walk away from you!”
As Jake carried the caged squirrel down the street he tried
to ignore Isabella’s screeching. But he noticed that the free squirrel that was
once in their attic was now following Jake with the cage jumping from branch to
branch , tree to tree, continuing to periodically call out. Jake finally lost
sight of the freed squirrel and after he released the cage squirrel and
returned home he saw that Isabella’s car was also no where to be seen.
“Typical”
He didn’t call her for days . Days later Jake’s sensibilities finally kicked in
and he phoned Isabella she would not answer her phone. The day of the squirrel
incident was the last time he saw her and the last time they spoke any words.
His drifting finally faded and Jake came back to this
moment. Jake now sat sipping the cooled dish watered coffee in the Kenmore
Square pancake house when Sundance entered the restaurant. Jake asked
“Well?”
Sundance waived to the waitress
“Coffee please.”
He looked at Jake
“Well…Isabella was really surprised and though she said she
was really pissed at you she would still come over for some breakfast. “
“Now what? I knew it! I knew it! It is that damn squirrel
thing.”
“Not really…wait, what squirrel thing? …. I asked her what
the problem was. She said that you had written a poem for her to submit as her
own for her English class and she got her grade and it was a B . She is pissed!
That poem dropped her down to an A- in the course. She can’t believe you came
up here . She said sometimes you are a real pest!””
“What? Pest? Poem? Hey!....I scribbled out some innocuous
images about life and death on a napkin or something while at dinner at her
favorite New York restaurant,
months ago . She re-typed the words as her own poem. She thanked me because she
said she can’t write poetry! Grades? Who cares about grades? There’s more to
life than having another place stars, angels, points, awards or letters next to
your name. She asked me for help. I don’t understand her at all.”
Jake sipped his steaming cup of his own Ganges colored
coffee and imagined it as fresh roasted Arabica slowly streaming into his
exhausted body as he grabbed for
the pack of cigarettes in Jake’s hands. Sundance gave Jake one of his low
furled brow looks and grumped
“Obviously?”
In silence sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes they stared
through the grimes coated window hoping Isabella would appear soon.
