Free Super in the City by Daphne Uviller Page B

“Ridofem” and an image of a cockroach and a rat holding their antennae and paws to the sides of their faces in a Munch-like
The Scream
pose. He was carrying a spray can with a long hose. I would have confidently concluded that he was an exterminator, but, all avowals of class- blindness to the contrary, I knew blue collar from white collar, laborer from lawyer, and something about this young verminator didn’t compute.
    He was angular and pale, but not unattractively so. His nose was just big enough to keep him from being vain—I guessed— but not so big as to be a deal- breaker. He had a mop of chestnut hair that needed a trim, a brooding brow, and big eyes— ish-colored, like mine—fanned by thick black lashes. The long, bonyfingers wrapped around the nozzle looked like they should be covered in paint splatters, caked in ceramics mud, or leafing through precious, rare books. He looked, I realized, Jewish, and I didn’t know Jews could be exterminators.
    I must not have been the first person to regard him with some degree of surprise, because he sighed as if he was waiting for me to finish my mental computations.
    “I thought I rang James’s bell,” he said a little impatiently.
    “You did, you did. But James isn’t here right now. Can I help you?”
    Now
he
looked confused, and I realized he was trying to figure out what I was doing in James’s apartment. Was he wondering whether I was James’s girlfriend? Did he deal with Brooklyn James or English James? Which one did he think I dated? What would it be like to date James anyway? Did he escort his women to Hooters or did he invite them to swirl mojitos at Gotham? I was finding a fleeting satisfaction in presenting this oxymoronic Jewish exterminator with a mysterious front. I was rarely—no, never—mysterious to anyone.
    He lifted up his spray can. “I’m supposed to do this building today.”
    I had no reason not to believe him, especially since I’d seen bills from Ridofem in the mess upstairs. But the new me, the responsible, lemonade- making, Super me, figured I should ask some questions before allowing a stranger to spread poison throughout my building.
    I nodded at his canister. “What do you use?”
    He looked at me squarely. “Are you familiar with pesticides?”
    “Somewhat,” I lied.
    “Will it make a difference if I tell you we use cypermethrin instead of bendiocarb?”
    Now, I could have been a chemist for all he knew. Or a public health researcher, or maybe my best friend in grade schoolhad been a DDT baby. My hackles were up, but rather than directly address his impudence, I chose instead to take my pique out on a passing double- decker tour bus that had turned illegally onto our narrow street.
    “Sign on the corner says no commercial traffic!” I shrieked, bolting out onto the stoop in my bare feet. “Get out and walk, you fat Americans!” Carl, a neighbor who ran a biofeedback therapy clinic out of his living room across the street, waved cheerfully to me.
    The exterminator stepped back and pretended to wipe spit from his cheek. “So you’re doing
your
part to improve New York’s image.”
    “We’re the most helpful people on the planet,” I retorted, self- conscious about my outburst, which, on some very uncomfortable level, I immediately knew to be a show of bravado for this guy I’d just met. Why, Zephyr?
Why?
    “As long as other people don’t drive down your block.”
    “Not when they should be walking, no. Not when those polluting buses wreck our air and break the branches on our trees. If they want to sit on their asses, they should stay back in Idowa. I mean Idaho.”
    The exterminator grinned. “You don’t know the difference between Idaho and Iowa.”
    “Of course I do.” I sneered unconvincingly
    “Where’s Idaho?”
    “I can’t
explain
it.”
    “Sure you can.” He crossed his arms.
    “There are three ‘I’ states in a row in the Midwest,” I said impatiently. “It’s one
of them.”
    “You