The main road near the house was newly paved, smooth, and except for a few small turns, relatively straight. I usually started my ride right after lunch, and most nights, came home right around dinnertime. Grandma used to ask me where I rode to, and I really had no answer for her. I got on the bike and rode for endless miles. Sometimes, I rode to the beach, and then after a short rest, would ride another 20 or so miles along the Gulf Coast. The roads were flat, and I usually kept my legs going a good pace to keep my heart rate where it needed to be.
The rides were peaceful but lonely, and I rode with my eyes firmly planted ahead of me. Most days were hot and the air was often thick and hard to breathe. Once I mapped out my first ride, I knew where to stop to get water and towel off, and I have to be honest, I really liked the solitude.
On most days, the rides were between forty and fifty miles in total distance and they helped tire me out for sleep. I didn’t notice many of the things around me other than the route I memorized and the last 5-mile road to Grandma’s driveway. On either side of that road were drainage ditches filled with storm run-off, and for miles I would see nothing but palm trees and the occasional car that passed by. I didn’t mind riding in the rain, and it usually poured late in the afternoon. I would welcome those hard, driving rains as they kept me clean and cooled me off.
Riding a bike like that alone is strangely liberating.
One day in late July, it was so hot I thought for sure a dragon was breathing fire directly on me. I was riding hard and fast along that deserted stretch of road, and the one time I wanted a rainstorm there was none in sight. Sweat was running down into my eyes, stinging them, and I was almost out of water. I took a long swallow from my bottle, poured the rest over my head, and looked ahead at the endless road ahead.
As I was riding, I saw what I thought were hummingbirds hovering around the telephone poles that lined the road. It never really dawned on me that they were anything else, and I figured that at least I had some company for the journey home. I was riding rather fast, and as I ripped miles off, I noticed that maybe they weren’t little birds. I wasn’t exactly sure of what they were until one landed on me and smiled.
It is amazing to me how the mind plays tricks on you in moments of crisis. I looked down and saw what was—and to this day still is—the largest roach I ever saw. He was staring at me, smiling his twisted little smile, and I swear he was wearing clown makeup. I think I screamed as he started walking up the front of my shirt, and as I turned to wave it off of me, I swerved to the left and rode down the hill…
…and right into a drainage ditch.
I got off the bike swatting and waving my hands like some wild man from Borneo screaming at no one to “GET THE HELL OFF OF ME!” I didn’t care how stupid I looked or what I sounded like, I wanted the bug off of me. I looked down, and either he flew off, I killed him, or he was lurking somewhere close. When I saw he was gone, I grabbed the bike, hopped on, and pedaled home as fast I could. The stink of stagnant water was in my nose the whole way and I couldn’t wait to get my soaking wet clothes off! I rode faster, figuring that I could outrace the horrible odor emanating from me. I looked down from time to time to make sure the brown lord of the bugs wasn’t staring up and me and smiling anymore. I covered the last five or so miles very quickly and when I got to Grandma’s, I made a beeline straight for the shower.
Many years later, I was watching a movie with the kids called Men in Black. I actually like that movie a lot, because for as far-fetched as it is, it really does entertain me. Toward the end, as Will Smith is facing the largest roach to ever grace human kind, I thought to myself, that bug that landed on me was probably the father of the one on screen. When I watch that movie now, I sit with a large industrial-sized can of RAID. Just in case…
When I came out of the shower about an hour later and satisfied that the stink of decay was off me for good, I sat down and noted the various bruises on my legs and arms. Grandma, ever the observant adult, asked me what had happened, and I told her. “A big roach landed on me.”
Tom said that it was called a Palmetto bug, and without so much as an afterthought, I blurted out, “Palmetto, mighty bug, roach, or whatever, that thing tried to kill me.”
Neither of them said a word.
A few days after the attack, I went into the garage to get a bottle of coke out of the refrigerator and then I noticed something crawling up the far wall. I slowly made my way across the floor and when I saw that it was King Roach coming back for the final kill, I looked around for a suitable weapon. There on the workbench was one of those rubber-headed mallets—I never quite figured out what to do with a rubber hammer, and I’m almost afraid to ask—and thinking like the noble warrior I was, I grabbed it and moved in for the kill.
The bug had stopped crawling and was just sitting there staring at me. At sixteen, I wasn’t going to let some 3-inch long monster get the best of me again. I raised the Holy Hammer, and with all my might, I brought it down onto the bug hoping to hear a large SPLAT as its life ended and he went to bug heaven.
Unfortunately, no one told me that these insects have armor plating, and I swear to this day that I hit the bug square on. However, the mallet didn’t kill the bug. Oh no, no, no, it bounced off the insect and before I realized what was happening, the damn thing started flying right at me.
Great. A pissed off mighty roach, with armor plating and big teeth, flying straight at me. That was just what I needed to ruin a perfectly good day. I ran inside and hid under the bed for an hour.
I vowed that after being attacked by one of these flying monsters I would never ever go to Florida again. It’s funny when I think of this now and realize that I moved there for eight years and not once did I see any of those bugs while I was there.
I think word got around at how adept I was at swinging rubber mallets and they decided to stay away.
That’s good for me, because I hate hiding under the bed.
