Chapter 3. The Exterminators

I was having a steady stream of bad thoughts
And a buzzing in my ear that wouldn't stop
I joined a temporary employment agency
And they gave me a job with uh, an exterminating company
Run by Betty and Albert, a Chinese couple
Who ran it out of an auto garage off of Bayshore

It was very behind the times
I was given an old tin pump, something leftover from the 30s
It even squeaked when you squeezed it
You walked along the walls and squirted the blue powder into the corners
It was very simple

I was standing there with Albert having a cigarette
In front of an old Victorian
It was run down, the paint was peeling, the stairs were rotting
It was old and shabby
I looked at my squirt can
It was also old
Some things don't change I thought
And I looked at my reflection
If only that would change
If only I could squirt some blue powder on that

Anyway,
Weeks passed
The buzzing in my ears wouldn't quit
The blue powder was making it worse
It was in my hair and my skin
Sal convinced me to go to the hospital

“What if you've got cancer? What about the kid?”

The doctor had that gaze
The gaze of a cow
A Chinese man with sunken shoulders
Sunken jowls
Sunken eyes
Out of his mole drooped two long sprouts of white hair
I was to lie down in a CT Scan machine
The motorized bed floats me into this space-age donut device
And I think, well
If you don't have cancer now this thing will surely give it to you

A few weeks pass and I get a letter from the doctor
The CT Scan report
It says there's nothing bad going down in my head
Little do they know