Guano Tales

Willy Offenheimer smoked too much. His yellowed nails and blackening teeth caused him to resemble a grey-toothed hound more every year; but that was okey-dokey with him, yes-sir-ee-Bob-indeed, it was just fine, mighty fine. He’d lived alone all his life since his Daddy told him just where he could go years back when Willy wouldn’t buckle under Daddy’s rule, and sure ‘nough no woman ever talked him into settin’ up housekeepin’ neither. He was happy as is, long as there was work in the day and beer at night. These thoughts pervaded him momentarily, as he watched his right hand slide along the metal banister, making his way up the stairwell to the top¾ten floors¾eight to go and he was already wheezing and coughing.

When he’d first entered the condo and saw the jeering sign, “Out of Order,” he sputtered, “God-blessed-almighty¾ elevator’s busted, well if that don’t just make my little visit here a pleasant one, yesssirrry, indeed.” Willy was an exterminator, whose specialty as of late was bats. When he’d first found out what a nuisance the critters were on the gulf coast, he was surprised, but what was more amazing was that folks were willing to pay a might-good dollar for his services. Willy would set up to keep the bats away: plastic owls, electronic sound-wave boxes, and one-way netting. Then he’d scrub and clean the guano¾the fancy word he preferred to poop, shit or dung and the urine smears. He’d sanitize it all, “so the folks livin’ in the condo could go back to feelin’ fresh as Memphis gladiolus, all pink and spring-like.”

Just beyond the lobby marble-table, he’d spotted the metal door (unlike the la-de-da one residents and guests used) to the stairwell, picked up his gear and trudged through. As the door swung shut, the strike on the latch caught his sleeve and bestowed him a vicious tear and caught is flesh. “Dammit, Dammit all,” he griped, “should sue these high-on-the-hog con-do people¾gonna’ flare up my asthma (never mind the smoking) and now I’m decidedly injured¾on the job¾sending them a bill for my troubles, I am.”

Eighth floor now, two more to go, Willy pursed his lips, set his concentration on commanding his legs to move. Always determined he was, ever since his mean bear-of-a-father ripped into him daily over the family business. Gas stations¾two of them, just outside of Memphis¾in a pea-sized town named Turrell. Daddy’s family used to be in the mule tradin’ business prior to the automobile industry (Daddy’s people always were always on the industrious side) but since he was a little boy, Willy had a mind his own¾independent-like.  Willy was so stubborn, Daddy got to callin’ him Willy-mule¾had a kind a ring to it, Daddy said. When Daddy gave him an ultimatum, his way or go away, Willy took off for Florida and never looked back.

He reached the top, finally, and threw the roof-hatch open to the clean, bright sky, all Willy’s now, no one to bother him as he worked. He got to settin’ up his equipment, but started soon to swear again. “God-dammit, dammit all¾where’s my mask?” Willy always wore his mask around guano, the stuff not only stank, but it caused a respiratory condition, histoplasmosis (Willy liked to throw this in on his fee-estimates; it made his work sound more dangerous and his fee more justifiable) which was akin to a nasty-flu-like condition. “Geez-us criminey, gonna sue these yahoo-socialites and big-whigs for that too, yesssirr, I am!” But Willy-mule set to scrubbing and scouring, without his mask, as the sun rose a little higher by the minute.