17) Batman and the Alien

“What in the absolute fuck is going on here?!”

“Daddy’s hunting bats!”

“David… are you kidding me right now?”

You just walked into the sanctuary, every light is on, it’s after 9:30pm and the kids are running around excitedly looking up at the soaring ceiling… your husband stalks about with purpose… a rifle in his hands…

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING???”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He says…

“Honestly? It looks like you fucking snapped and you’re getting ready to shoot your entire family…”

He chuckles… “I’m hunting bats Vanessa!”

“Well the optics ain’t good… and I’m sure from outside… no one is assuming you’re hunting bats…”

He smirks, unshouldering the rifle, checking the scope… “You know these things are illegal here…” he grins. You swear he gets off on riding the grey areas… it’s never black and white… always that in between…

“Well I can see why… that thing looks real…”

“Tell me about it…” he laughs, shouldering the way too realistic looking BB gun…

“Mommy, we saw the bats… they came in through the plywood!” The kids are still tearing around the sanctuary, overtired and hopped up on bat hunting adrenaline.

You turn to your husband, “So when the cops barge in and put a bullet into you… I’ll let them know that you were just hunting bats… not your family.”

“Vanessa, stop it. No one is barging in here. Jesus.”

“All we need is one person to drive by and…”

“And what?” He asks, not even turning around, just eyeing every crack and crevice of the old oak ceiling…

“I’m just saying… is this whole… (you gesture to the scene in front of you, the kids running around, your husband stalking the space with a very real looking BB gun…) bat hunting thing necessary?”

“Do you want rabies, Vaness? Will it be necessary when our entire family is in the ER getting shots in our bellies and animal control comes in to confiscate our cats and cut their heads off….?”

“Wait??? Who’s going to cut the cats’ heads off? Daddy, who cuts the cats’ heads off?”

Your youngest has stopped running around, intrigued and probably horrified at the thought of stomach needles and headless cats…

“Nothing, Bevvy,” you say…

“But daddy said…”

“Daddy is joking…”

“I am not joking… I am hunting bats…”

“And you can’t Tupperware them like you did all the other ones?” You ask.

“Tupperware them? How in the fuck do you want me to Tupperware them 23 feet off the ground…?” Which was a valid question.

“Fuckin’ A… this just… this whole thing seems… excessive…”

“So does rabies shots and headless cats…” he replies before going back to scouring the ceiling…

“DADDY I THINK I SEE ONE!” And David stalks over to where the kids are, pointing at a little crevice up above, his big work boots heavy on the floor…

“Jesus Christ… I’m going to bed…”

***********************************

“So…?”

“So what?”

“Did you shoot any bats?” You ask first thing the next morning… soft morning light streaming in through the stained glass window.

“Nope… never saw any…”

“Well that’s good…”

“I guess… I didn’t want to shoot them you know… I just don’t want…”

“Headless cats?”

“No. I was thinking rabies… but…”

You sigh loudly… “Well hopefully that’s the end of it… maybe those bats saw what a fucking lunatic you looked like with your rifle…”

“BB gun…” he interrupts…

“Like you can even tell the fucking difference…”

He laughs at this.

And maybe there was something to be said about the optics, because that was the last time the bats came in. It was as if every bat in a 100 mile radius got the memo, “this guy is fucking nuts… stick to the trees fellas…” and they did.

******************************************

You’re up early, dressing for demo… an old t-shirt and shorts on account of the stifling heat… the neighbors tell you it’s never this hot… “maybe you brought the Florida weather with you?” And you’re beginning to think that maybe you did. It’s still warm inside… with no windows in the sanctuary it takes a while for the cavernous room to cool. What a time for all of the massive fans to suddenly stop working. A mystery David still can’t figure out. He‘s found five electrical panels around the church thus far and not one seems to have anything to do with the four sanctuary fans.

You and Jackie have been trying to brainstorm a way to put a screen door up on the sanctuary’s emergency exit… but because you plan to rent the space out eventually, and to your knowledge, there is no such thing as a panic bar for screen doors, you admit defeat and tell yourself that the weather will break soon.

It’s cool in the stairwell leading down to the basement… and although the smell of mold in the basement has begun to dissipate on account of the drywall being lugged up to the dumpster… an uphill battle with the wheel barrow, you can’t say the same for the stairwell… The smell of mold lingers here, wafting up to the first floor.

You put on your respirator. Jackie’s got hers on too. You survey the old faux wood paneling on the stairwell’s walls… looks like something from the 80s… “It’s all got to go…” you yell through the filter, pointing at the wall coverings.

Jackie nods her head… and the two of you go to work, tearing down piece by piece, Jackie carries everything downstairs into the basement… it would be quicker to walk everything up to the first floor, down the foyer steps and out to the dumpster, but no one is keen on the idea of parading moldy wall chunks through the living area. So everything goes into a pile in the basement, where her and David will later load it all up into the wheel barrow and lug it up the hill.

The walls underneath the faux paneling aren’t in the best shape, though not quite as bad as the basement. It’s the same layering of plaster, concrete, lathe and plaster (that you find when the whole chunk of crumbling concrete comes crashing off the wall in the landing), and stone.

It’s takes you and Jackie two days to strip the entire stairwell clean of the offending building materials… and you, when Jackie heads upstairs to shower, a good hour to vacuum up what’s left of the rest… a thick coat of fine white dust on everything, including yourself.

“Thank you,” you tell Jackie later that afternoon. You’re both showered and sitting outside on the back of the north lawn, you take a long drag from your joint before exhaling slowly, “Did you notice how different it smells in there now? That moldy smell is gone…”

“I did. It definitely smells better.”

“Well thanks, I really appreciate you being here and demo-ing and helping us out…”

“No need to thank me, this is so fun. I love demo work and this whole church experience… I’m the one that should be thanking you… I’m so thankful to be a part of this…” she relights her joint.

“Well no need to thank me then… you can do all the demo you want… I’m so nice I’ll even let you do it for free…”

She laughs. You both laugh.

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” She asks.

“How about the backyard? The dumpster guy said he’d haul any brush when he comes for the dumpster, so I figure we can tackle this shit before he comes…” you say pointing to the badly overgrown yard and several Maple saplings growing out from under the foundation.

“Oooooh! Chainsaw time! I can’t wait…” she says excitedly.

“Well I’m not touching that shit… I know I’ll take an arm off… so I’ll man the rake and what not…”

“I wouldn’t let you use the chainsaw even if you wanted to… this is MY thing…”

“Have at it…” you say, stubbing out the last of the joint on the grass by your feet and flicking it under the little wooden porch off the laundry room door.

“I’m going to see if David needs a hand with anything…”

You walk up to the front of the church, Jackie sitting on her folding chair still finishing hers, David is by the foyer entrance, a huge grin on his face and three massive boxes, six inches tall, three feet wide, and about seven feet long…

“The scaffolding is here!”

“Cool…”

And then Jackie is there, and she asks David if he wants a hand lugging the boxes inside…

“No, I’m going to inventory everything up here, then carry all the pieces in… If we’re going to rent this out when we’re done… I want a detailed list of every single nut, screw, and bolt…”

“Alright then… well I’m going to grab something to eat, does anyone need anything in the kitchen?” It’s a long walk down there, and at this point, common courtesy to see if anyone needs anything while you’re already headed that way.

“No.” They both say.

**********************************************

Later that night you find David in the basement with the three kids. He’s taken one of the empty scaffolding boxes and stood it up on end against the wall, scrawling a crude looking alien creature with Sharpie marker. The alien has a big head, and a protruding rib cage… and tons of BB holes on and around it…

The kids are standing back from the alien, they’ve got on protective glasses and their noise cancelling headphones… “What’s going on in here?” You ask…

“I’m teaching the kids how to shoot…”

He’s got the BB handgun and is going over gun safety with the kids. Like the rifle, this one looks pretty real too.

“Look at how good we’re shooting the alien, mommy!” Your middle child grins…

“I see that…” you say.

“Do you want a turn, mommy?” David asks.

“I don’t really like guns… and I’ve never shot one before…”

“It’s a BB gun, Vaness…”

You sigh and put your hand out. David hands you the gun, it’s heavy in your hand. He shows you how to aim (though you know how to do that from years of playing Nintendo Duck Hunt) and how to take off the safety. When everyone is standing back safely you unload a round of BBs into the alien’s chest, not missing a single shot.

“Wow! Mommy’s a great shot!” David says, as the four of them run over to the cardboard box to survey the damage…

“Looks like I’m on bat duty then?” You ask…

“Something like that…” he laughs.

“I’m going to bed guys… I’ll see you all in the morning… I’ve got a busy day of felling trees and shit…”

You walk out of the basement closing the door behind you, the kids asking excitedly their voices muffled behind the door, who gets to shoot the alien next; all the debris has been removed, a thick fine dust still covering everything… six sets of footprints make a path from the stairwell to the kitchen. And despite the bats and the mold and the thick layer of dust and the trees in the foundation… and even the fucking bees that you have yet to get taken care of on account of no one being crazy enough to get on a 65’ lift to do battle with “the largest bee’s nest,” anyone has ever seen… that you truly start to believe that you made the right decision… that you belong here… that this is exactly what you should be doing… right down to the alien target practice… this is your life now… and that makes you smile.

After a long day of demo… and the alien scum (he didn’t stand a chance) in the background…