13) Bats, Bees, Squirrels, Trees…

”Do you remember waking up last night?” Your husband wants to know.

You just woke up and the two of you are laying in bed, your eyes still foggy.

“Vaguely… I remembered hearing a commotion, but I heard you get up, so I went back to sleep.”

“There was a bat inside last night.”

“Really?” You ask…

“Did you here Jackie screaming?”

Your good friend is still here, she has been sleeping in the guest room under the Belfry.

“I think I remember that…”

“Well she was screaming and running down the stairs into the reading room… I’m shocked you didn’t wake up, wake up…”

“You sounded like you had everything under control…”

He pauses a moment and gives you a side eye, somehow he’s always the one that has everything under control when things go wrong in the middle of the night… His look tells you that he’s very aware that you never get up… that he’s always the one jumping out of bed to put out whatever late night fire has started to burn… You both know this but he lets it go unsaid, his glance saying it all… You’re a heavy sleeper he is not, it only makes sense that he is the put-er-out-er of nighttime fires.

“Jackie came running to our room yelling about a bat…”

You know everything is ok now… so you laugh a bit… “Oh boy…”

“You’ll have to have her tell you the story… but she said that something woke her up… she was laying in bed (the cot she brought until we order a bed for the guest room) and saw something moving out of the corner of her eye…”

You chuckle at the thought: bats in the belfry.

“And it was a bat flying around?” You giggle…

“Yup… she said that at first it was flying close to the ceiling and that because the ceiling was so high and she was so tired, she was starting to fall back to sleep when the bat began to dive down near her head…”

“Jesus…” you’re laughing now.

“Yeah I guess Eve (her cat) started leaping into the air when the bat started swooping down… and she said that you had told her that you just throw a towel or t-shirt over the bat to get it out… so she started tossing clothes…”

You picture your friend holed up under her covers, blindly launching a plethora of pants and socks and t-shirts into the air in a vain attempt to net the little winged creature… and you’re cracking up.

“So did she catch the bat with a t-shirt?” You laugh…

“Uhhhh…. No.”

“So what did you do?” I’m still laughing.

“We both ran back up to her room, I’m trying to catch the bat… she’s yelling and ducking down as it kept swooping for our heads… I’m looking for a towel or blanket to toss over the thing… but I can’t get it… it’s late, we’re both tired… so we figure, ‘fuck it,” and decide to carry her cot downstairs into the Reading Room (right outside our room), so I can deal with the bat in the morning…”

“I didn’t notice her cot out there when I woke up earlier to use the bathroom…”

Now your husband is laughing too… “You’ll have to hear Jackie tell you all this but… we were both standing there in her room, the bat dive bombing us, me tossing any and everything I could find at the bat… her screaming… Eve leaping into the air… and finally we both look at each other in a fleeting moment of clarity, and we collectively said ‘fuck it…’ each of us grabbing an end of the cot to carry downstairs…”

You’re laughing… you can’t help but picture the three of them up in her room… David, Jackie, Eve… pure chaos…

“So yeah we’re carrying her cot down the stairs and Vanessa it was like a shitty old horror film… the bat followed us down the stairs… but it looked like it was tied onto some sort of fishing line just bobbing along behind us… and now we’re in the narrow stairwell and Jackie is screaming that the bat is right behind us…”

Now your husband is laughing too…

“Oh my god…” you sputter…

“So we’re downstairs with the cot outside our room… and the bat is now dive bombing us in THAT room… I can’t believe you slept through all this…” he turns to look at you…

You shrug… he knows what a sound sleeper you are…

“So did you catch it then?” You ask.

“No. We both looked at each other, knew what we had to do, and we did it.”

“And what was that?!” You’re still cracking up…

“She grabbed her cot and made a b-line up the stairs to her room, slamming the door shut behind her… and I did the same, running back into here and closing the door before the bat could get in…”

“So where’s the bat then?” You’re not quite laughing now… but you’re definitely still amused…

He shrugs.

“So no one got the bat?!”

“I mean… yeah…”

“So the bat is still somewhere in the house then?!”

“Maybe?” He offers…

“Maybe?” You repeat…

“Well we couldn’t catch it… but I haven’t seen or heard it since so…”

“So there is a little bat somewhere, anywhere, in this massive church, and we have to somehow find it?” You ask in comical disbelief.

“Maybe not…”

“Maybe not? We can’t just let the bat stay in here…”

“Well it could have flown back out…”

“Well how did it get in, in the first place?”

“I have no idea…” he says.

“Well shit… I guess we’ll add ‘find bat entrance/exit and or bat’ to our list today…”

“Good. Luck.” He adds with a thick skepticism that no one could have missed.

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Later when Jackie is up and out of bed, she tells you the story again, David right there adding little bits about the bat looking like it was on some sort of wire or string, like those cheap headbands you find at Halloween with a little rubber bat on the top of a thin spring… it flaps around over your head, bouncing with each of your steps… Everyone is laughing.

“So the bat then…” you repeat… wondering if maybe… just maybe there was the slightest chance that Jackie had seen the bat leave… “is still in the church?”

Jackie shrugs. She’s laughing… “I mean… yes?”

No one knows how the bat got in… you’re both on a mission though… David already fulfilled his duty… mission accomplished, he’s the night time bat catcher he says, you got the day shift (though you don’t mention that he didn’t catch shit) - and he goes about his day… working on the lists of lists of lists of lists of things to do… ‘more pressing things’ he says…

The two of you, and eventually the kids after they hear the story… they shriek in laughter when Jackie gets to the part in the story where the bat chases her and their dad down the stairs… her screaming… their dad swatting at the air with one hand, the front end of the cot in the other… try to find the bat… if there was ever a proverbial needle in a haystack moment… this is it…

Finding a little, teeny tiny bat… that can fit in the smallest of openings… in this nearly 7000 square foot building with 23’ ceilings and more cracks and crevices than you could even check… proved to be a fruitless effort. Every blemish on the soaring cathedral ceilings became a “Hey, maybe this is the bat?!” And so you and Jackie and the three kids would stare at the ceiling saying things like… “Maybe… and I think that I saw something move…” quickly followed by, “Oh nope… never mind…” Until finally you all accept defeat and go about your day hoping that the bat did, in fact, find its way back out on its own accord. You had plenty to deal with already…

“Did you see the fucking bees?” Your husband wants to know a little later that morning… you’ve long since abandoned the bat hunt.

“Huh? What bees?” You ask.

“The bees on the house.”

“Uh…no… what bees on the house,” you wonder incredulously…

“One of the neighbors came over today and pointed out what he called, ‘the largest hive he’s ever seen,’ that has been there, and I quote, ‘for forever,’ which I don’t doubt… seeing the size of it…”

“Well fuck… and I’m assuming that since you’re asking… it’s just become another problem that we have to take care of?”

“Well I have to get on the roof and fix a leak right by the hive… and I don’t think that’s going to be safe to do with ‘the largest hive (our neighbor) has ever seen’ right within arm’s length of me some 30 feet off the ground… come here… I’ll show you…”

And so the two of you walk through the church, out the foyer and around to the backyard (which is really the side yard) and you make your way about halfway down the building before he stops and points up to the church’s soffit… “See it,” he asks.

You actually hear it before you see it… a steady hum… like an industrial machine whirring away in another room… and then you see it… way, way up… there on the soffit is what looks like handfuls of bees. They’re crawling everywhere on the building’s trim… a few holes have become the opening to ‘the largest beehive’ your neighbor has ever seen… and you quickly realize that this is also the largest beehive that you’ve ever seen too. It was cold and rainy when you moved in… bees aren’t active below 60 degrees… so you never noticed them… but now, in the heat of the summer’s tale end… they are going about their day… with a fury of activity.

“Fuck,” you offer.

“Fuck indeed…” your husband replies…

You learn from neighbors that it’s been there for probably close to a decade… something else the previous owner forgot to mention… and that it’s huge… someone even said that an uncle of a neighbor had a thermal gun and they, one night after a couple of drinks, trained it on the church’s side… the entire soffit glowing a mean orange red at least five feet in length… maybe more.

“One more thing…” you think… Bats…. bees… two more things actually, you correct yourself.

The roof HAS to be fixed. And the bees unfortunately HAVE to go…

You spend the day looking for bee keepers. And while there are plenty of bee keepers, once you mention that the hive is over 30’ off the ground, they immediately let you know that that is out of their scope of comfort. So now not only do you have to find a bee keeper, but you have to find a bee keeper that is nuts enough to take care of a hive almost four stories up… and that is proving to be quite the task.

When you take Jackie outside to show her the bees… she also points out all the trees… there are several rubbing up against the church, scraping shingles with each gentle breeze, and a few others leaning at precarious angles… “Since we’re talking about outside problems that need to be dealt with… figured I’d mention the trees too… a bunch of these have to come down.”

“One more thing to the list…”

“Sorry,” she offers…

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You spend the rest of the day in vain, calling every single bee keeper in the area. Late in the afternoon, exasperated by the complete waste of your day spent on the phone for naught… you head down to the kitchen for a snack, but you don’t go through the church… you decide to go down to the kitchen from outside so that you can check on something else on your walk along the building to the kitchen… The first day you saw this place you noticed a massive wasp nest high up (on the other side of the church directly across from ‘the largest hive’ your neighbor has ever seen), nestled in one of the many peaks on the roof… it had look deserted… but you wonder now, if in the warm sun, the hive has sprung to life… might as well take care of the wasps and bees in the same visit… whenever you can find someone…

The hive is empty though. No movement at all. But what you do notice is something up even higher, the tallest peak on this side of the building… and just below the overhang of the roof, the very top brick of the wall’s exterior appears to be missing. Except that on closer inspection you realize that the brick isn’t quite missing, it’s just been pushed aside and is now hanging precariously at the top of the peak… one little shove from the attic would send it plummeting down to the ground (and right on the top of someone’s head should they be unlucky enough to be walking there at the time). It seems weird for that one brick to be hanging, balanced like that, what would have caused it to just pop out like that… and as if the universe was intent on answering your internal questions, a single squirrel poked its head out of the gap caused by the turned brick… you picture the squirrel smirking like in some sort of old Looney Tunes cartoon, before tossing the brick on your head, maybe he’d hold up a little wooden sign with red lettering: HA HA. You would be below, a brick in your head… imaginary squirrels circling you with stars, your eyes x x ‘s.

“Jesus Christ…” You have to laugh… something else.

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That night you lay in bed thinking about the day… the waste of time spent looking for a lunatic bee keeper crazy enough to ‘bee keep’ nearly four stories up but also sane enough to not die while ‘bee keeping’ nearly four stories up (no easy task, you’re finding); the bat you couldn’t find… the trees that look like they’re ready to come crashing down on the roof; and even the little fucking squirrel that you are positive was mocking you from the hole… threatening you with that brick… he could end it all you know… he knows… you’re sure he knows… “Bats, bees… squirrels… and trees… (and everything else)…” you say to yourself. And then again, “Bats and bees and squirrels and trees… Oh bats and the bees! And the squirrel and the trees… me down on my knees… no more… pretty please…” you sing a little impromptu song and that makes you chuckle as you close your eyes…

They don’t feel like they’ve been closed long though when you hear your name… was someone calling your name? Are you dreaming? But then again, louder, with a little more urgency, intensity… “VANESSA!”

“Mmmm… uh… huh… what?” You’re stammering, still half asleep. It’s David and he’s standing by the bed…

“The cats… the cats got a bat… I’ve got the bat… I need you to help me…”

You’re not quite sure what in the fuck that entails… and now again you sing to yourself… “Bats and bees… and the squirrel… and the trees… and now I’m awake… this bat made a mistake….”

And you’re up… helping your husband place the metal bathroom trash can over the bat, caught in a t-shirt, flapping frantically under the cotton fabric.

“Welp, maybe that’s one thing off our list…” you say after washing your hands and getting back into bed. The bat is fine for a few hours under the trash can David had told you, until you can find something to slide under the can and safely bring the bat back outside…

Except… and you kind of had an inkling… that that bat was all about being a part of the problem… the first of the new problems… THE bat… before the bees… and the squirrel and the trees…

And you weren’t wrong. You would later all joke, after back to back nights of swooping bats; cats leaping through the air, sometimes catching one of the little bats, your husband scooping the downed bat into a waiting tupperware container… and zero luck finding where they were getting in… that perhaps you should have s sign made up, like one of those counters they hang up at large industrial factories, proudly proclaiming… “x amount of days since an accident”…. Except you’d have the counter at zero (for the foreseeable future) and yours would read: 0 Days since a bat incident.

“Bats, bees… squirrels… fucking trees… I’m on my knees… no more problems please…” you belt out singing to no one in particular later that day… “Oh please no more… cuz I’ll be out the door… in my car I will drive, far away from the hive… and the squirrel with the bricks… oh please no more tricks… like the dangerously bent trees (not too far from the bees)… I’ve had enough… oh this ‘churching’ is tough…”

Which of course was all before the huge hole in the floor… and the sneaky smell of sewage wafting up from the basement… or the water heater spraying 130 degree water all over the boiler room floor, turning it into a steaming hot mud pit filled with several inches of filthy water…

But you weren’t in your car driving off like you had promised your church you would do… nope… you just added more verses to an ever growing chorus, a longer song and you sang it at the top of your lungs in the sanctuary… where a congregation of churchgoers once stood, just like you, singing their prayers (vastly different, you’d imagine, from yours) up to the rafters…

“Bats… bees… squirrels… fucking trees…

The hole in the floor… I can’t take anymore…

The sewage, the stink… oh I can’t fucking think…

The steaming water bath… these costs I can’t math…

Oh dear lord…

Oh dear lord…

Oh dear lord…”

And then more quietly…

“Oh dear lord…

Oh dear lord…

Oh dear lord…”

But you never once got close to driving off… you were seeing this… ALL of this through, however long your made up song’s chorus got: bring it. And you were pretty sure, that IT, whatever IT was…would definitely be brought…

And of course… you weren’t wrong.

The belfry… the top of the weather vane (not seen here) is roughly seven stories up… for a while we thought the bats might be getting in around here somewhere….