4.

One cool morning in the early fall Marty was awoken in his room by a distant loud thumping on the door. Sleepy, and angry at being woken up, he shuffled in his socks and pajamas to the door, and opened it to see a portly man with a gray goatee beneath a beige mask over his face, and what looked like a flame thrower canister on his back, complete with a silver spout and handle in his right hand. “What in hell?” said Marty.

“I’ve been knocking here for five minutes,” said the man.

Now Marty knew what this was. “How long do we have to be out of the apartment?” he asked.

“Five hours should do it,” said the man, and Marty moaned.

He went and woke up Alex, walking into his room without knocking. “Alex!” he said. “Wake up. Exterminator’s here. I guess they’re doing the whole building.”

Alex fumbled around in his room doing really nothing of consequence, and by the time Marty and Alex were back in the living room there were two men spraying bug spray throughout every cabinet in the kitchen, crevice, and corner of wall in the apartment.

“You’re still here?” said one of the exterminators through his beige oral filter. “Get the hell out.”

“Why didn’t they call us?” asked Alex, in his pajamas and bare feet just like Marty.

“We don’t have a phone,” said Marty, and they walked out the door.

They shivered in the courtyard of the building for a half-hour while all the apartments were sprayed. “I don’t know why they’re doing this shit now,” said Alex. “All summer they let the bugs breed and breed and just when the weather is likely to take care of it anyway.” He didn’t finish.

“I’m glad as hell it’s being done,” said Marty, “but it is a pain in the ass. But look at it this way--it’s like they’re gonna put a real dent in it. The bugs won’t come back in full force because of the fall and then winter and all.”

They were sitting on a bench in the courtyard. Marty stood in his pajamas and began to swing his arms back and forth to stimulate some heat. Alex stayed sitting--also in pajamas--and his body was working through gyrations of shivering.

“There’s something I want to tell you,” said Marty. “I’ve been doing some reading.”

“About what?”

“That’s what I want to tell you,” said Marty. He paused, swallowed.

“Have I . . .” he said . . . “have I ever gone off to the mountains some night while you’re sleeping? Or out to the suburbs? Or the eastern plains?”

“I don’t know how you would get there,” said Alex. “And if you’ve done it while I’m sleeping I wouldn’t know.”

Marty approached him where he sat on the bench, stood in front of him and fingered a large lump on his forehead. “See that?” he said.

“Where’d that come from? It’s giant. You should have that looked at. How long has it . . .?”

“I just noticed it the other week,” said Marty. “It’s some hard--something hard under the skin. Not a cyst--those are in the skin, not completely under it. And if it were a cyst it would have built up gradually. Just one day I woke up and it was there.”

“Get that looked at,” said Alex. “Could be cancer.”

“Look,” says Marty--“with all the weed I smoke, if I’m gonna get cancer where do you think I would get it?”

“Could be cancer. Get it looked at.”

“The lungs,” said Marty. “If I haven’t got cancer in my lungs with all this damn weed smoke, why in hell would I get cancer--?“

“Well what are you saying it is?”

“Look,” said Marty; “I’m just saying. I’ve been doing some reading. Aliens put these implants into you that make you get sudden desires--sleepwalking-like--to go out to the wilderness where they can pick you up. They put these things in you and you can’t help but go out there--it’s like you get mind controlled and then once you’re away from the city, well.” He fell into silence.

“When in hell were you in the wilderness? Are you saying you walked all the fucking way into the foothills? It’s got to be fifty miles.”

“Just stop me if you see me headed out the door,” said Marty. “If I’m in a trance or some shit--take a hold of me. I’ve been having dreams. I think they’ve got me before and--. And I’ve been having dreams.”

“Do you think it’s safe to go in to get our weed?” said Alex. “I could use a joint.”

Marty didn’t reply. He thought it was probably safe to duck into the apartment and right back out, but it wasn’t safe to smoke it out here. The apartment manager might be around because of the exterminators, and plus a cop may pass by. But he didn’t say anything and Alex took his silence for a negative.

Two and a half hours later they’d had enough. Fuck it, they said, we’ll go in and get warm and come back out if the chemicals get too strong in there. But when they got to the door they found the handle locked, which reminded Marty he didn’t have his keys.

“Fuck!” Marty was saying now. “Fuckers locked the handle!” The thought occurred to him that this was one of the dreams he’d been having, the dreams that put such a hook in his gut but that he had such a hard time recalling. But then he knew it wasn’t a dream, knew it was impossible, just as we all know in waking life that it can’t be a dream, however fooled we are when dreaming.

Marty had nailed wood into place where the square of window had been broken and the hooker had entered, and now they banged and pushed on that wood and it wouldn’t budge. “Did I have to fix it so fucking good?” said Marty. This was a hell of a day.

“Looks like we better call a locksmith,” said Alex, but they both knew it was impossible, given their finances.

They walked in their pajamas and bare feet the whole environs of the building, to see if the manager happened to be around. He wasn’t. Alex suggested they go to a pay phone and call him, but they didn’t have a penny on them. Finally Alex managed to throw his fat shoulder into the door hard enough to break it. The deadbolt wasn’t locked, just the handle, so they’d be able to lock it back up again at night.

“If it was that easy to bust through this door,” said Alex, but he didn’t finish his thought.