The cockroaches
become more abundant and bolder every day. I am taking a shower and there are six
of them on the wall, completely ignoring the spray of water from the shower
head, they run when I go to swat them but quickly return and bring two more
with them. Looking around the bathroom I can see several cockroaches running
along the fixture that is holding up the shower curtain directly above me, and another
group has formed on the ceiling.
I am afraid to kill them, we are afraid that
they are waiting to just take over the apartment and kill us. They are
everywhere lately; we have found them in the fridge, in the stove and in our
beds. We are afraid to kill them with our hands and we joke that there must be
a giant cockroach king hanging out in the basement, sending his minions to
our house to do his bidding. Kim is no help and everyday returns with cockroach
facts. “Did you know that a cockroach can walk in your ear while you are
sleeping and live in your brain?” She goes to bed with cotton in her ears.
Kim and I are constantly being asked by our downstairs
neighbor Ingrid, if we will babysit her kids. Ingrid is twenty four and already
has three kids. The oldest is kid is five and the youngest is two. Every time
we see the children they are covered in filth, either in their own or filth of
their making. Their hands are always sticky with something grape colored. Two of them are in diapers, and the oldest one
has a magic marker line that has been on his face for at least two weeks now. Every
time we get home, they are playing on the sidewalk in dirty clothes and the two
wearing diapers have filled them to capacity. The children will run to us and touch
us with their sticky hands. The smells that cling to them are just as overwhelming.
The children never seem bathed, there is always dried snot under their noses
and the corners of their eyes are filled with yellow puss that cakes on their
eyelids. Their eyes are almost glued closed. I point this out to Ingrid who
sits on the top step smoking a cigarette. “It’s gross right?” she says exhaling
smoke from her mouth as she shoos the baby to get away from her.
I take to carrying a wet paper towel with me so I can wipe
them down whenever they get close. They remind me of the children you see in those
Save the Children commercials, except the flies have been replaced with cock
roaches.
Ingrid on the other hand is glamorous, clean and
extravagantly dressed. She stands 5’6 with a Barbie doll figure, big doe eyes
and bleached blonde hair. She wears glasses but refuses to wear them because
she thinks they make her look “too smart, to get a husband.”Ingrid tells us
that she is legally blind without them. Ingrid has also never had a husband and
believes that all the children have different fathers.
Today she is in a foul mood. Ingrid tells us that “someone
in the neighborhood keeps calling child services on her and when she finds out who
it is “heads are going to roll.” I know that when it’s not me calling child
services, its Kim, Jackie, Billy or Michael; Kim and I look at each other and decide
not to ever tell her.
We are about to go inside our apartment, when Ingrid asks
Kim and me, if we can babysit tonight. Kim and I try to come up with every
excuse not to, but our cable has been shut off due to lack of payment and
Ingrid knows it. She reminds us that not only does she have cable, but more
importantly she has MTV.
MTV is relatively new and plays the same six videos all day,
but we watch them as if we have never seen them before. Ingrid lures us into
babysitting with MTV, Cigarettes and Beer. Kim and I agree to watch the kids
later that night and plan on coming down at 7pm.
Ingrid jumps, claps her hands ecstatically and runs inside,
leaving her three dirty kids staring at us. The youngest has a permanent runny
nose that he walks over and wipes on my pant leg. Kim gags.
At 7pm, Kim and I make our way down to Ingrid’s house and
ring the bell. One of the kids, the oldest is naked when he answers the door. “Mommy
is not here,” he says wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Kim and I push
our way through the door and the smell hits us like a frying pan to the head.
The house is dimly lit and smells like rot, death, poop and
disease, Kim and I make gagging noises as we cover or mouths and noses with our
hands. Everywhere you look the house is crawling with cockroaches; there are
literally seas of them. Somewhere in the house we can hear that the baby is
crying.
As we start to walk through the house we notice that every
room has writing on the walls but it doesn’t go any higher than kid height.
There is a bedroom to the right that has one dirty mattress on the floor that is
the bed for two of the kids and a busted crib that has missing slots. Sitting
in the crib in his own excrement is the baby. He has wiped the poop in his hair
and on the wall and when he sees us, his little hands reach out to be picked
up.
To be continued…..
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
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