I was working on the roof the other day - an old torch-down roof, flat but sloped to help with run-off - laying down latex to waterproof it against the elements. Amazing stuff, really. It's a pretty light blue, lighter than the sky, and goes on like paint with a brush or roller, and cleans up with soap and water. It's much more expensive than the petroleum-based products, but worth it in time and effort saved - no spreading with a trowel, no black tar on hands and clothes, no smell of mineral spirits during cleanup.
In the tight corners, where the roof's slope leads the run-off, I use the brush. I slap it, loaded with latex, into the downspout opening, sealing the seam between roof and metal. A moment later a spider - small of body, long of leg - crawls out covered in blue. It's on him and beneath him. He drags one leg forward, then another. (What's forward for a spider, whose shaped like a circle?) He's like a roach in the motel, a fly on the paper, a wildebeest in quicksand, a dinosaur in a petrol pit of his fellows' remains, or a Celt in the slurpy suck of the peat bog. Mummydom becomes him. He's making for the horizon where, he imagines, this sticky blue swamp must end. He cannot see there is no escape. Only I, the being he cannot see, can see this. I start humming an old tune from choir days:
All things bright and beautiful,
All crea-tures gray-hate a-hand small,
All things wise and won-derful,
The Lord God may-hade them all...
I watched in curious omnipotence His struggle against the indifference Of Fate, the quirks of happenstance, The vagaries that seem to thrive on chance. There seemed in one of little brain No aptitude for joy or pain, Nothing of existential flavor, No angst, no peace for him to savor. Imagine my surprise, therefore, When he parted the interspecies door And spoke: "Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, "And offer no aid in my agony?" Taken aback, I cocked an eye. "It requires some impertinence To thus address omnipotence." Then continued by and by, "Twas no more than an accident, Your choice of home improvident. It's nothing personal," I explained, "Just as on the day it rained When I was trying to fix the roof - So now you're carrion on the hoof. Don't you like your new blue coat, Though it serves to sink and not to float?" "I shouldn't have thought you'd hear my plea," Said he, "For now I see Your kind is marked by cruelty." I heaved a heavy, patient sigh, And thought it worth my while to try To explain the way of the universe, How, though bad, it could be worse. "So few of us, so many of you. You might try taking the broader view That, while spiders are by numbers blessed, Who would miss one more or less? That He, by widely held opinion, While Maker of all, gave us dominion." He dragged one leg, then another. "Why, you don't even know your mother, Your brothers and sisters scattered abroad, Any claim to affection an utter fraud." As he fought to perform his blue ballet, The latex baking in the heat of day, As I observed his desperate dance, "Consider," said I, "the carpenter ants."
And so I proceeded to explain, in more prosaic terms, how, before discovering the latex, I used to patch the roof with petroleum-based rubberized cement, which sent the carpenter ants fleeing in panic. Many blundered into the goop to become fossilized tar-babies. The smell of petroleum sets off a survival instinct, which, in its frenzy, ends up killing them, an irony both tragic (for them) and sweet (to me). They come out of the cracks, out of the home they've made of my home. They emerge at night to forage, crawling over the roof and walls. They are carnivorous. Haven't seen them in the main house yet. Good thing for them. I have remedies. Used to see them in the guest house; they used the ancient (the house is 78 years old) electrical conduits as highways for their caravans. But I've beaten them back after discovering their home in the rotten old azalea roots outside. A perfect home, thousands of ants boiling in the maze of tunnels. I turned them up with a pick-axe. The mocking birds shrieked at me to get out of the way of their feast, and what they left, I finished. I have recipes and remedies. The birds are always watching, opportunists extraordinaire. They follow me around while I mow, swooping down to capture those whose rest the whirling blade disturbs. The birds think I am their friend. The blade is a tornado to the insects, a headsman's axe for moles and toads, a veg-a-matic for lizards.
"And that's the way it is," said I, "Some must live and some must die. The higher creatures rule, I've heard, Though I've yet no cause to kill a bird, And from that day we first made fire, Than man no beast on earth is higher. But a rose exhaling its sweet perfume Cannot thereby extend its bloom. Consider, therefore, your race is run - So it is written, so let it be done." He listened to my exegesis, Unimpressed by its central thesis. "Your philosophizing bores to tears, Serves nothing to allay my fears - Won't you try to set me free?" "I have not the technology," Said I, Said he, "Your technology delivers death, But restoreth not my life and breath. What good is it, if I may ask, Unsuited, as such, to a simple task?" "Our science has a light to guide her, But none by which to scrub a spider. The use of soap and water might - Just might - Postpone your final loss of sight, Restore your basic synergy, That sense of boundless energy That comes with health and life and light - But I fear your coat has grown too tight." The latex in the sun was drying. "I cannot breathe," said he, "I'm dying." Said me, "That's the way of the universe." Said he, "One day they'll send for you a hearse. You lay a barrier against the rain In this, the season of the hurricane. Someday you'll know what it is," said he, "To live one moment and the next not be." And with those words he commenced to fall, Collapsing into an angular ball, Yielding at last a life foredoomed, Now in its case of blue entombed. A final brushstroke sealed him in. 'Twas not, I trust, an occasion of sin, Preserving him thus to a far off day When a scientist, shovel in hand, would say, "Let's excavate, lads, straight away!" And find our spider, many years hence, Immortal in permanent residence.
____________________
Reader Comments to Home Alone II:
Marvelous. Funny, poignant, and humbling all at the same time!
I can just see you singing that hymn as you plaster the spider!
Posted by KTC email at August 5, 2003 07:04 AM
*applause*
Posted by PeonyMoss email at August 5, 2003 08:04 AM
A great read. You have gotten downright prolific in the last couple of days.
Posted by Jeff Miller email at August 5, 2003 08:49 AM
I tried to write a poem in homage to your words.
I failed.
Miserably.
I am blown away.
Posted by The Barrister email at August 5, 2003 12:43 PM
Thanks to all.Jeff, I could use a rest about now. There are other things that need doing, like the lawn.Peony - *bow* (to the left) *bow* (to the right) *exit* (stage center). Hope Pansy's getting along.
Posted by William Luse email at August 5, 2003 02:19 PM
I will have to send this to my own dear husband. It is something that I am sure he will appreciate. Mayhap he will read it as he eats his dinner of leftovers tonight, as I wait for another laboring mamma to grace the doorstep of the hospital.Just helped a 7 lb baby boy out of a grateful mamma. Grateful, especially because said child had overstayed his welcome in utero by a couple of weeks!
Posted by alicia the midwife email at August 5, 2003 05:08 PM
Ahhh! The page looks fine now, Bill.
Posted by Paul Cella email at August 5, 2003 10:05 PM
THe poem and dialogue is marvelous, by the way.
Posted by Paul Cella email at August 6, 2003 01:15 AM
poor spider....
Posted by Anita email at August 6, 2003 01:21 AM
Poor spider? What about me? Do you know how hot it is on the roof in mid-summer? I had to drink an awful lot of beer to replace the 5 pounds lost in sweat. Besides, I don't think he suffered...much.
Posted by William Luse email at August 6, 2003 01:37 AM
If they had taken in as much fluid as you, my kids would've peed on the spider, too.
Posted by KTC email at August 6, 2003 08:24 AM
Hmm. There's still time. I know right where he's buried.
Posted by William Luse email at August 9, 2003 01:56 AM
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