Collections - 11. Chapter 11 -- What About Bats?

What About Bats?

When I woke this morning, it was dark and something was scratching at my window. I rarely wake at night; I'm the oldest of four kids and sleep practically without guilt. Then again, I rarely hear mid-night noises at my window.

I squinted toward the sound, but, without my glasses, saw only a blur. I wasn't expecting much: a moth; maybe a dead leaf against the screen. Ghostly faces, I'm convinced, are confined to horror movies and Shakespeare's plays. The rare face that does appear, at most, belongs to a thief; at least, to a person of barely legal curiosity. But I live on the top floor of a house with ten-foot ceilings. Only a stunt-seeking fool would scale that blank wall.

Seeing nothing, I would have gone back to sleep. But the scratching continued. I felt for my glasses and towards the light. Before I reached either, something dove---crazily---at me. I flattened, instinctively, the impulse oddly familiar. Lying there, I knew---in another town, another apartment---I'd done this before. Pulling sheets over my head, I sourly admitted the thing scratching at my window was a bat.

I no longer believe these things happen only to me. There are many rooms, many bats. If other people don't talk of their experiences, maybe they consider them ordinary. And when you know what to do about the bat blithely circling your head at 4 AM, maybe they are. Maybe there's a whole stretch of maturity that teaches you to handle these things without fluster. But I've yet to wander that way.

At first, I cowered under the sheets, trying to remember what had happened the last time. (I'd mostly panicked: it was also night, I was also in bed, and I didn't even know what was attacking me. A bird? The escaped parakeet of the old woman who lived down the hall?) (Old women always live down the hall from me; it's a parallel phenomena to being well-liked by parents of people I unsuccessfully date.) Once I'd decided it was no mere pet pecking at my sheets, I also realized what little I knew about bats was mainly superstition. (I was raised in a city; I know lots about subways and rats.) Were bats really rabid? Did they honestly crave human blood? Could they actually suck the breath out of babies? (No, that was cats--a superstition for another time.) Now I know that bats only sometimes get caught in your hair. Only rare ones are rabid or suck blood. Most live on small insects, and they're friends to man.

I also now know bat guano---an exceedingly polite term probably invented by a spinster minister---was once mined for fertilizer. (I don't know who mined it or why they chose that career. Or why they stopped, or who used it. It's clearly not something bats stopped producing.) Once, in New Mexico, I toured an enormous cave full of these "friends to man," but the reason for my past curiosity presently escaped me. I'd even bought a souvenir book called WHAT ABOUT BATS? Though short, with repetitive sentences, I never finished it . If I had---if I'd memorized the whole damned thing---I'd probably now only know The History of Bats--but not one practical thing about getting rid of the flying buggeroos.

I peered from under my covers, vaguely locating the dark blob gollywalking on my screen. I made another pass at my glasses, and the bat made another at me. Vainly, I tried to become part of the bed---until I heard the familiar scratching at my window, telling me the bat had landed. Squinting again, I noticed it was trying to get out, and I wished it all the luck in the world.

I considered my options, which seem fairly slight, then haphazardly hit on a somewhat cowardly solution: if the bat crawled to the high end of the screen, I could leap from my bed, smash down the lower part of the window---what Clement Moore poetically called "the sash"---and trap the bat. I often did this with wasps and bees. (In addition to old women and married folk, I'm a magnet to all things creepy; don't ask me to explain.) Trapped, the bat probably wouldn't die overnight, as forlorn insects seemed to, and I could figure out how to safely release it in the morning. Meanwhile, I could go safely back to sleep. Unless it had friends.

It seemed a good plan, but, unfortunately---as with many 'reasonable' plans (the two-party system, for example)---it didn't work. The bat wouldn't---or couldn't---crawl to the upper screen, denying me my triumphant leap. I took another shot at my glasses, and the bat took another fling at me. Fred and Ginger were never more in sync.

Getting my glasses, of course, would solve nothing. But it would make me feel better. So would getting some clothes, as I quickly remembered how demoralizing it was to battle a bat while panicked, naked, and blind. True, it evened the sides some: I was considerable bigger. But I didn't have sonar and wouldn't bite. (Bite a bat? I'd rather mate with old dogs.)

On the fourth try for my specs, the bat---regimentally sweeping its cell---smacked fearlessly into my shoulder. This time, I didn't just flatten. I rolled from the bed, pulling sheets, blanket, and my pillow behind me. Huddled on the floor, I waited for the scratchy "All Clear" of bat against the screen, then---my sheet as a shawl--I peeked o'er the mattress. The thing was probably staring me down. Who could tell?

The last time I got rid of the bat by luck: it flew out an unscreened window. The present screen wasn't even something I could easily dislodge and push to the ground, where---in falling---it might merely nick a rabbit. It was the old-fashioned kind: hung from outside and nailed into place. In a fire, I'd kick it out, and my landlord might understand. But he'd never tolerate a grown lunk-of-a-man partly destroying his house trying to flee a flying "friend." (My landlord's exactly the kind of guy who knows how to get rid of pests.) He probably also wouldn't appreciate my SPCA-humanely slashing a bat-escape-route through his screen.

The bat strafed me again---for no reason; I was simply lurking. I ducked then wormed out the door, my bedroom being too small for amateur wrestling. My apartment's also small: 3 rms, 1 bth. The bathroom's off the bedroom, and that door was closed (who wants to fall asleep listening to his toilet?) The bedroom has no door and opens on a short entryway which also contains the kitchen arch, the living room arch, and a presently-empty arched nook perfect for hanging a stuffed bat. (Dreams.)

I crawled to the living room, and---remembering bats hated light---turned on everything I had (though if bats are blind, how can they tell light from darkness?) I tentatively stood, sheet draped around me, wondering what any of my neighbors---awake early for their own weird pleasures---might think. (I resembled no Roman god; that was for certain.) But standing again felt great, and I strutted to the kitchen and turned on that light, as well as the fixture in the entry. I was truth and right (and one room removed from the little black death).

I considered the bat. The easiest way for it to leave my apartment---alive---was by the door, though I doubted it would politely respond to that invitation. Tightening my shroud, I entered the hallway, hoping my gymnastics hadn't awakened my neighbors. They foolishly thought me "one of the nicest guys around" (another myth my pre-Halloween toga-sheet drag would quickly eviscerate). The house was quiet: either my neighbors slept on, or they were intimidated by the noise of nocturnally-clicking switches (I was quietly killing the hallway lights). There are only three apartments on my floor: one of the good ladies is deaf and the other shy. I'm "their protector." Hoo-hah!

Once the hallway was enticingly dark, I reentered my apartment and crawled to the bunker behind my bed. The bat was humping the screen, perhaps desperately amusing himself after failing to burrow free. Silently, I slithered across my mattress, stretching toward my glasses. The bat whirled, but---before I hit the floor again---I grabbed what I'd intended.

Crouched in the tent of my sheet, for the first time, I clearly saw my foe. It perched mirthlessly on the window. "Nevermore." Creeping around the bed, I worked toward the light switch on the wall. Placed nearly across the room, it always seemed stupidly located. Now, it seemed a zoning violation, and I'd have to crawl practically under the bat to reach the switch, flip it, then dive like hell for the rug. If the bat rose, while I dropped, one of us might die of shock.

I tensed on the floor under the switch. Were I braver, I'd boldly tangle the bat in my sheets, drop kick the screen, then toss the tangled wreckage to the squirrels. Instead, I silently prepared, abruptly lurched, tripped the switch, then crumbled.

The bat flew, crashing into walls, windows, pictures, and walls again. But it didn't seem to hurt itself--it was playing tag. The ceiling light's especially bright, and I use it mainly to find something that's rolled under the bed. I used to leave the socket empty, but friends, passing through my bedroom to the john, considered that choice either cheap or slightly unbalanced (and who want his friends to think him more than acceptably nuts?)

When the crashing stopped, I hesitantly looked for the bat. Nothing. Not on the window. Nor on my bed. Nor near the dresser or on the floor. Perhaps he'd spotted the route to the dark hall. Cautiously, I edged to the closet, slowly stood, then grabbed my pants, shirt, shoes--forget the nicety of socks and underwear. Halfway into my pants, the bat hurled itself from under the bureau. Chaos! Legs, shirt, and sheets tangled on the rug. The more I tried to cover myself, the more skin I exposed. Finally, I was safety under the sheet, while, above, the light strobed as the bat flew.

Again, I slipped from the room---clothes and sheets trailing behind, my brass belt buckle clunking heavily on the entryway tile. Soon stretched on the carpeted living room floor---trying to stay low---I limboed into my clothes. If my neighbors were watching, no doubt they were having fun. ("Quick! Look out the window! See what the looney's doing now!")

Still, dressed, I felt manly---intact. But every light in my apartment gleamed, and the bat flew free. "Why not try the dark hallway," I earnestly suggested out loud, gesturing toward it like a mad appliance vendor. No luck. I picked up the phone. It was too early to call friends raised on farms, but the police were ever vigilant (all that supposed donut sugar). Vigilant, but uninformed, "Try the fire department," they suggested, when I asked how to lure the flying creature from my lair.

"Kill the god damned thing," a fireman soon grunted. "It'll splatter, but---hell---that's what they're for."

"Would you like to come over and simply bite off its head?" I asked.

At least, the guy laughed.

I scanned my apartment. The traditional bat-fighting weapon's a broom, but I had only vacuum cleaner wands. I swung one experimentally: it was no light saber, and I'd probably smash a window. I settled on a yardstick---sturdy, but more flexible. For added protection, I upended a laundry basket on my head and donned winter gloves.

Furtively, I entered the bedroom. Everything was still. Quietly, I poked my yardstick under the bureau. No response. Less-fearfully, I explored under the bed. Bankrolled dust made me sneeze, and I absently reached for a Kleenex then screamed. The bat flopped languidly around the room. "Got you! Ha-ha!" I'm sure it was thinking. "Boo!" In response, I rolled crazily on the floor. Falling after me, the laundry basket seemed to waft down at slow-motion cartoon speed. No doubt, the bat laughed. "Heee-heee-heee." But inaudible.

I was gonna kill the son-of-a-gun.

Boldly, I found my basket and stick (I needed a flashlight to become Diogenes). Defiantly, I rose with the strength of Li'l Abner (and maybe half the intelligence). Sighting the bat precisely on the wall, I swung.

Crack! The yardstick split like the Red Sea. The bat looped, spun, and whipped from the room. Into the entry. Then to the kitchen. He hovered there for a moment, then winged away. Back through the entry. Into the living room. Swooping, gliding, soaring, pitching. Lapping the room in triumph while I clutched my now eighteen-inch stick. Then he was gone.

I'd glanced away a moment---all right, ducked---and he vanished---Houdiniesque. It's what I wanted---what I'd been struggling toward---but I needed to know where he'd gone. I wouldn't be Kleenex-suckered again.

I quickly closed the front door, excommunicating the louse (I hoped) then began to search. In the bedroom, I tilted the mattress and box springs on their side, bleaching the murky carpet with white dust, but revealing no bat. I eased the night table and bureau from the wall, tipped them to look below, but found only two pennies, a button, and a gas station pen. There was no other furniture in my bedroom room, no further dark places. The closet and bathroom doors were shut and almost always had been since this adventure began. Still, I opened them, ransacked the interiors, then sealed the doors again. Then I tacked a sheet over the bedroom arch and moved into the entry. One room bat-free.

In the kitchen, my cupboards went to the ceiling and my cabinets to the floor. The dark places were behind the stove and refrigerator, so I quietly moved them (okay, as quietly as possible, considering the woman living in the candle-lit, Blue Grotto-like apartment below me is also a noise-hound. One night, not even late, she called the police because---unable to sleep---I'd recklessly turned my lumpy mattress). Still, at that moment, the phone neither rang, nor did bats fly by the time my stove and refrigerator were lurched back into place. And after quickly scanning my sterile, furniture-less, telephone booth of an entry, I again moved the contraceptive sheet. Two rooms, an entry, a bathroom, and a closet free o' bats.

Probing the living room, I found two spiders, a battered cat's eye marble, a tiny Origami bird folded from gold foil wrapping paper (the product of a hobby of a nervous friend of mine), and a stale raisin I first thought was a misplaced black Go marker (there are no mice in my apartment; let me repeat, "No Mice!") If there was a bat, he was harder to find than the designer's initials on a dollar bill. (That was a party game; it was a weird party; don't ask.)

The absolute worst feeling in a bat hunt, I suddenly remembered, is thinking the dreaded creature is still there long after it's finally vamoosed. The last time I'd endured this---even after I was swear-before-virgins positive I'd seen the damned thing flop out my window---I sat up till dawn wondering if that had been an illusion: maybe I hadn't seen one bat fly out; maybe another had swooped in. Did they travel in pairs? Mate for life? Besides me, what were their natural enemies?

I checked the living room again, then rechecked the entry, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and closet. Bat-free all. As the sky outside blanched, I entered the still-dark hallway---as windowless as the stairwell. Once I---stumbling---found the switches, I was in a bright vacuum, a TWILIGHT ZONE of bat-lessness. The outside door was locked, and I could see no holes in the walls, floors, ceiling, or steps. The more I searched, the queasier I felt. If the bat wasn't in the hallway, it had to be in my apartment. But it wasn't in my apartment. That, I definitely knew. As it knew it wasn't in the hallway. So I was trapped in Mobius strip of no bats.

I went back to my apartment and perched on the edge of my couch. I craved sleep, but that wasn't going to happen. I'd actually felt safer after first hearing the bat than I did by then and wouldn't even consider lying down--or possibly blinking---till sunlight drowned my rooms and the bat was safe back in his belfry. And what's a "belfry" anyhow?