I Mostly Just Watched the Critters.
Larry’s small ranch house was fairly typical of the nearby Florida landscape. All the other houses in St. Petersburg looked like his house, although most of those were better maintained.
We parked in the yard since the driveway was just a bit of gravel and concrete and not a driveway at all. Also, everyone else parked in the yard. I liked this feature, since it reminded me of Mask.
My mission was to be perpetually barefoot; Florida was always warm. I’d envisioned myself – in spite of my spring break foreshadowing – spending all my time on the beach, my toes in the sand.
But we still hadn’t gone to the beach, and much of the “sand” in our front yard wasn’t actually sand. It was dirt shaped into mounds by something called a fire ant. Unlike regular ants, fire ants were vicious, evil red creatures that stung mercilessly when they bit people. These were to be avoided at all costs – so being barefoot outside became suddenly impossible.
Lizards – who, I learned later, occasionally eat fire ants – were my favorite critter in Florida. The lizards lived in the house with us, and I’d drink beer and watch them peek out from behind a chair or a table, or squeeze out through the crooked patio door.
They were so cute, scurrying quickly across the floor toward whatever insect might be flying through. There were no screens on the front or back doors, so we got lots of bugs.
By far my least favorite critter was the palmetto bug – otherwise known as a giant, flying cockroach.
Larry told me that they weren’t roaches, though, and I believed him. “Roaches don’t fly,” he laughed. “Palmetto bugs are harmless! Like lady bugs!”
I believed him.
We had enough palmetto bugs in our house to start a lady-buggish colony. They were everywhere, scattering when the lights came on (like roaches) and flying across the house when they needed to get somewhere quickly.
More than once, a palmetto bug in mid-flight ran into the swirling ceiling fan above the dining room table. When this happened, the giant roach would be flicked lightning-fast across the room, causing everyone to duck for cover, hoping not to get hit by the enormous bug. If it didn’t hit anyone, it would smack against a wall, stunned, then scuttle into a dark space to recover.
There were also the occasional flying creatures, which Larry murdered for having the audacity to fly through any open door. I spent a lot of time playing catch-and-release with bees, flies and wasps before Larry saw them.
Larry had a lot of biker friends in Florida. They’d sit outside working on their bikes, or stand around with open beers talking about nothing at all.
I stayed inside. It was brutally hot anyway. After my third beer, I mostly just watched the critters scamper from place to place, or fly across the room with or without the aid of the ceiling fan.
I found the “action” in Florida to be tremendously boring. Previously I’d had a place to go with friends and peers when I got bored. College kept me entertained.
Now I had lizards and palmetto bugs and fire ants and a whole lot of time on my hands.
So I drank, and watched bugs, and wondered what to do with my life.