There was death in that place on the hill. I knew it the first day I walked out the screen door and into the backyard. A zing– ing binging buzzing whining sound came right at me: 10,000 flies rose straight up into the air at once. All the backyards had
these flies—there was this tall green grass and they nested in it, they loved it.
Oh Jesus Christ, I thought, and not a spider within 5 miles!

As I stood there, the 10,000 flies began to come back down out of the sky, settling down in the grass, along the fence, the ground, in my hair, on my arms, everywhere. One of the bolder ones bit me.

I cursed, ran out and bought the biggest fly sprayer you ever saw. I fought them for hours, raging we were, the flies and I, and hours later, coughing and sick from breathing the fly killer, I looked around and there were as many flies as ever. I think for each one I killed they got down in the grass and bred two. I gave it up.

The bedroom had this room-break encircling the bed. There were pots and the pots had geraniums in them. When I went to bed with Joyce the first time and we worked out, I noticed the boards begin to wave and shake.

Then plop.

“Oh oh!” I said.

“What’s the matter now?” asked Joyce. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

“Baby, a pot of geraniums just fell on my ass.”

“Don’t stop! Go ahead!” “All right, all right!”

I stoked up again, was going fairly well, then—"Oh, shit!”

“What is it? What is it?”

“Another pot of geraniums, baby, hit me in the small of the back, rolled down my back to my ass, then dropped off.”

“God damn the geraniums! Go ahead! Go ahead!” “Oh, all right . . .”

All through the workout these pots kept falling down on me. It was like trying to screw during an aerial attack. I finally made it.

Later I said, “Look, baby, we’ve got to do something about those geraniums.”

“No, you leave them there!” “Why, baby, why?”

“It adds to it.” “It adds to it?”

“Yes.”

She just giggled. But the pots stayed up there. Most of the time.