PRE-WAR

By most standards, the apartment I share with my wife is nice. It’s one of ten units in a five-story walkup on 24th Street and Third Avenue. There are swastikas in the lobby’s tiling, though. The landlord made a point of acknowledging them when we toured the unit. “They’re the Buddhist kind,” she offered. “A pre-war accoutrement.”

Aside from the swastikas, we thought the apartment was great: high ceilings, two fireplaces, crown molding, and built-in book shelves. It is kind of dark and cold, though. The big windows are neither south-facing nor properly insulated. And the landlord failed to mention that there are a lot of cockroaches during the summertime.

Back when it was hot out and the roaches hadn’t yet frozen to death, the building’s appointed exterminator spent a lot of time with our unit in particular because, for whatever reason, we had it worse than our neighbors. My wife was always gone by the time he knocked. Weirdly, he looked a little like her. Except his face was closed-off and industrial and does not impart feeling, whereas my wife’s face is broad and a little too communicative. He is a man of few words and smells just how you’d expect him to: metallic, a little autumnal.

The thing is, it’s hard for me to be social. I’m alone most days so even the most minor sort of togetherness, just being in a room with another person, is enough to set me off. At first, my fantasies towards the exterminator were limited to a degree of politeness. I wanted to be quick-witted and pleasant, to say something amusing and come across as perfectly balanced. Whether I was drawing an initial restraint out of a subliminal respect for my wife is neither here nor there, because deep down I knew that it was still a kind of betrayal. 

He was so remote it drove me crazy. I wanted to speak with him, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. From the dining room table I’d watch him spray poison into the interstices of our kitchen from a jug strapped to his back and my mind would go blank. Really, for the life of me, I could not summon any conversational starters. One morning, I finally asked him if he’d ever noticed the swastikas. But in response, he only nodded. I convinced myself that the landlord was to blame for his reserve, that she had forbidden him from making conversation with her tenants. I was a little outraged on his behalf. 

Later into the summer, I made up a lame story. I said I was a writer working on an article about pest control in Manhattan. “Could I have your email?” I asked him. “I’d like to interview you.” I hadn’t really paused before beginning the interaction, and I’m not sure what I was getting at or what my plan could have been. After he left, I tried to think of questions to send him. Have you always wanted to be an exterminator? What’s your favorite thing to kill? 

The next time I saw him, he asked why I’d never emailed him. I told him the truth. “I don’t know what came over me,” I said, shrugging. “I blame the heat.” This admission led to sex. He was flushed and nervous throughout, but the only time I ever saw him smile was while we did it. He had hardy gums; I placed my hand over his mouth. Afterwards, as he put his clothes back on, I asked him his name. He said the full thing, both the first and the last parts, which struck me as odd but also appealing. His name wasn’t common so after he left I looked him up.

Immediately I was confronted with his mugshot. I had a hard time believing he’d done such a thing, but he had. And he’d only served seven years. I was slack-jawed, nauseous, when I read that the court had considered his "cognitive limitations” as a mitigating factor in his sentencing. I nearly slid off my couch when I read that. 

But I never told my wife. Or anyone, actually. How would I explain my discovery? It would be our secret. And besides, who was I to judge? I believe in the exterminator, in his absolution. He seems to believe in himself, too. Still, for the rest of the summer, I tried to step out before he arrived, leaving the door ajar for him. When the weather was nice, if it wasn’t too hot, I’d just circle the block. And, sometimes, I’d oversleep and we’d brush against each other in the hallway.