“I got the bed bug the bed bug the bed bug blues, I got a real bad case of the bed bug blues.”

Can’t live with them.

They can’t live without you.

“How’d you get them?”

Former roommate?

Present roommate?

Apt. 4D?

Apt. 4B?

 Take photos, lots of photos.

Show them to your friends or put them on the internet.

Visit your internist who will send you to another doctor.

Diagnosis: “We don’t know.”

I can’t stop itching. I itch everywhere. It starts at my ankle, wraps around my leg. My head itches, my ears, my neck, shoulders, hands too.

***

The night I arrived home from vacation, “there they were.” I killed two bugs and placed them in a plastic Ziploc bag. The next day, I killed two more. 

***

After three visual inspections, and no results, I call the building manager to tell him that I’m hiring an exterminator and canine dogs. 

“Let me know when, I want to be there,” he says.

More bugs, more bites. The manager arrives to inspect the bed. Lifts up the mattress. The platform is peppered with eggs.

“Yeah, you gottem! And out of the goodness of my heart, I’m gonna to do you a favor and call the exterminator.” 

“You have to call, it’s the law!”

“It’s not the law and it’s gonna to cost us a thousand dollars.”

“I know my rights,” I say.

“We don’t have to do this,” he repeats.

“Yes, you do,” I say to myself.

“Are you going to inform the neighbors?”

He avoids my question. An hour later, I receive a call from his supervisor.

“We’ll clean this up, but don’t tell the neighbors. Last time you caused a ruckus.”

***

Lena, my beautiful, honest roommate tells me she is moving out. Two days ago, she agreed to stay.

She leaves in the pouring rain. Carries fifty boxes of designer shoes and all her clothing in brown plastic bags.  I try to be friendly while dismantling the apartment. “I can’t talk,” she says. “It will make me too emotional, and I won’t be able to do this.” 

***

How am I going to do this alone?

I throw out one-third of what I own. Clothes, shoes, boots, tools, tiles, toys, photographs, beads, fabric, yarn, sketch pads, drawings, a third of my books, hundreds of New Yorkers and newspaper articles about Martin Luther King, September 11^th and Obama. I got rid of so many hats that I no longer have a collection. I toss the dress, the one I made in 8^th grade, with the tiny pink and grey flowers, a purple mirrored Indian skirt and a box of love letters that I kept for over twenty-five years. 

My life is in sixty black plastic bags sealed with duct tape, one piled on top of the other like a sand dune in the living room.

***

Like thugs in the middle of the night, the super and his wife show up and remove the bed.  I expect them to wrap it in plastic, but instead they carry it into the hall, uncovered, untreated, no sign. “What are you doing?”  Should I ask them to bring it back? I move from outrage to denial then relief.

***

The exterminator arrives at 7am. I leave the apartment and head to Starbucks for the next five hours. Where else can I go?  

Lifeless rooms, empty bookcases and furniture pulled away from the bare walls. The bedrooms and closets are empty. No sign of life. I struggle to put the “safe” mattress on the frame and make the bed. It’s January and it is cold. 

***

I enter the formerly infested room and commune with my computer. Every night, I check under the pillows and the sheets. I crawl into bed wearing my mother’s old red flannel night gown, a pale blue chenille bathrobe, black socks and wrap a blue microwavable heating pack around my neck to stay warm and soothe my aching muscles.

***

Inside clothes, outside clothes. Each piece of clothing is placed in a plastic bag or sealed in a container. Dry, steam or spray with alcohol.

The kitchen packed. The bathroom crammed with two plastic file containers filled with the contents of my desk stacked six inches from the toilet. 

***

Lucky for me, they only had to exterminate twice. After the second extermination, I cleaned and reassembled the apartment.

Only then did I see the emptiness, the loss. The closet shelves barren, paintings and photographs dismantled.  Book shelves sparse. The large plastic file bins used for clothing now sat on my closet floor—each containing journals of poetry, fiction and ramblings from the past thirty years.