Chapter 21
OCTOBER
It's already the middle of October, and I haven't raised a dime.
Daisha and I tried a car wash with the other theater kids, but as soon as people found out what we were raising money for, they drove by especially to catapult roadkill at us.
We attempted an online fundraiser, but it's impossible to compete with the bottomless pit of fundraisers for people who can't afford their cancer treatment or lost their homes in wildfires.
All the while, Clint staying with us for a few nights morphed into him living with us indefinitely.
His body odor has already settled on the walls and in the carpet, so there's no escaping it.
Gun racks with his collection of firearms and a flamethrower have cluttered the house.
Even worse, he was sleeping in his coffin in the living room like a derpy Dracula until he quickly transitioned to Dinah's bedroom. There's not enough vomit in the world.
This is all capped by the fact that there's been a weird vibe between Felix and me ever since the night Roland went through Sutter's window.
We'll hang out and go to the movies and all our usual stuff, but whenever I suggest we do something funny like prank call the megachurch prayer hotline, he'll have something important to do that he forgot about.
I think, no matter what, he's going to stay disappointed in me after everything that has happened. I know I deserve it, and I wish I could find a way to build back his respect.
Maybe if I got a job and actually kept it this time. Still, I'd rather be eaten by Ruby than get another minimum wage job serving coffee to Brandon Barton Buckley. I have to think outside the box.
What if I started my own small business? Maybe I could earn enough money by December to save the show myself. I imagine myself offering to doodle people as horror movie characters or diving into dumpsters to find anything I can to exchange for cash. Nothing gives me hope.
It isn't until Friday night during the podcast that the idea hits me.
“It's a statistical fact: Women who have cats are insane,” Clint says.
“I believe it,” Dinah responds.
“Cats have a bacteria called toxoplasmosis in their feces. Toxoplasmosis turns women into raging feminists and even deforms their babies.”
“Awful,” she adds.
“It's not women's fault,” Clint says. “They're so nurturing, so they naturally want to take care of cats. They don't know it's an insidious trap.”
“My best friend in high school had a job as a cat sitter for rich people. She made a killing, but you could smell her brain chemistry changing. She was never the same after that job.”
It's a wonder why nobody is tuning in to their podcast.
But wait. She made a killing as a cat sitter? I don't care what kind of bacteria they have. I would risk the Ebola virus if it meant getting a job that paid well and didn't revolve around human interaction.
Maybe I should! I could start my own petsitting business!
Or I could offer a more generic pet service—like petsitting, walking, feeding, transportation to the vet's office, massages.
I'd even be a good pet therapist! I mean, dogs might sniff my butt, but they're not going to sexually harass me like Brandon Barton Buckley.
I create an account on a petsitting app called PetFavor. There's an option to upload a photo of myself. Unfortunately, the law of apps dictates that your worth, talent, and usefulness are immediately decided by how attractive you are. I click decline.
A week goes by and I don't get a single bite. I have competition in the form of IntegriPets. There's going to be an Integri-everything by the time I die. IntegriHerpes. IntegriProstitutes. IntegriAssWipers.
One day, I finally get a message on the app:
Looking for someone to feed and watch my dog and cat whenever I'm out of town. Get back to me if you're interested. – Kidtal
I am now officially in business!
When I arrive in his neighborhood, I see mostly unkempt lawns and boarded-up houses.
The address he gave me looks like an abandoned house, and I start to think maybe I put the wrong zip code in my map app, but I didn't. I should have brought Felix with me.
I park my car on the street in case I need to get out of here fast.
The door opens to a buff man with buzzed hair. His sculpted pecs push through his white tank top. Tribal tattoos run down his shoulders to his elbows.
“Come in,” he says.
Walking through the front hallway, I scan through the rooms as I pass them. They look bare, almost unlived in. There's a weird patchouli-like smell across the house. No trace of a dog or cat.
“Where are your pets?”
“So I sort of lied to you,” he turns and says to me. Needles start poking the back of my neck. I'm already in the house. He could pull a knife on me or a gun, and that would be it. His hands are empty, so I start to step backward. “I do have pets, but not dogs and cats,” he adds.
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Come here and let me show you.” He motions for me to go into a dark room. I say no way. He goes in anyway.
I'm already hightailing it to the back door. It's locked. I run to the nearest room to find a window to jump out of, but it's pitch black. I can't believe I'm going to die because I was stupid enough to go into a stranger's house. I knew I should have brought Felix with me.
Right as I realize there's no window, the lights turn on. Terrariums of centipedes, scorpions, and huge spiders surround me. I slap my cheeks and scream so loud you can probably see squiggly cartoon lines flying out of my mouth.
“Yeah, I wanted to show you the other room first before this one because the other room was exotic lizards,” he says from behind me.
Behold my fate. I've walked into an illegal exotic pet den.
“Why did you lie to me?” I ask again.
“Because nobody wants to babysit venomous animals. I need the help, brother,” he says.
I start to walk past him until he pulls out a huge wad of cash from his pocket.
“I'm out of town a lot on business. I need you to feed the animals and make sure they got water, make sure they aren't dead. That's all.”
The wad of cash sparkles in my eyes. I don't know how much he's got there, but I do know it's more than whatever I'd get paid for walking a labradoodle.
I take a closer look at all the animals in the room.
The centipedes skitter around their terrariums, and the scorpions sit in their corners.
At the far side of the room, a gargantuan spider, an absolute chungus, has its legs sprawled against the glass, its sharp fangs tapping against it.
Its body is a deathly shade of gray, the bottoms of its legs the color of mustard, with thick black stripes.
It's got two pairs of eyes stacked on top of each other, flanked by another smaller pair on both sides.
It moves carefully and robotically like it's walking on stilts, and its fangs hide under two reddish-orange poufs of fuzz that resemble butt cheeks.
I have never imagined a spider this big in my life.
“Where the hell did you get that? Were you playing Jumanji?” This thing is the size of a freaking dinner plate!
“My babies are okay for the most part, but this one is no joke,” he says.
He glides a finger across the glass, and the spider sways side to side like it's doing a little dance.
“Dance of death, dance of death, sway to the right, sway to the left,” he recites like a nursery rhyme.
The spider bashes its fangs against the glass. I gulp hard.
“Phoneutria nigriventer. The Brazilian wandering spider.
Of all the animals in this room, he's the one you gotta watch out for.
Venom more potent than a rattlesnake's. He's a little escape artist, too. Moves like lightning,” Kidtal says, staring at me intensely.
“My friend found him in a banana shipment in August. He's locked in for good unless you do something stupid.
You ain't stupid, right?” I shake my head.
“You toss the crickets down the tube and let him do his thing. Win his trust.”
As he takes me to the door, he holds up the wad of cash again and stops before placing it in my hands.
“You know how to keep it real, right?” he asks.
“Huh?”
“This is how I make my living. I do it quietly. Don't fuck up my vibe or equilibrium, you know what I'm saying? The law of this land ain't freedom of speech or freedom of religion; it's ‘don't get in between a man and his money.' Bet they never taught you that in school.”
“No, they didn't.”
“So I ask again, do you know how to keep it real?”
“Yes,” I say, wondering if I'm making a huge mistake with that giant nightmare spider that looks like it could pull me into its terrarium. The wad of dollars in front of my face tantalizes me back into reality. “You can count on me.”
“And you gonna keep keepin' it real?”
“Yes, sir, I will keep on keeping it real.”
All right, he tells me, and slips me the cash before seeing me out.
___________
So, I have my first job. It's not going to get me enough in time to save the musical.
Still, it's a good start. When I go to sleep, I can't get the image of that dangerous spider out of my mind.
Exactly how dangerous are we talking about?
When I do a quick search on my phone, a photo of the same kind of monster spider I saw earlier appears, along with a description:
brAZILIAN WANDERING SPIDER (GENUS: PHONEUTRIA – the Greek word for “Murderess”)—ONE OF THE DEADLIEST SPIDERS IN THE WORLD.
MEDICALLY SIGNIFICANT. HIGHLY AGGRESSIVE.
HIGHLY VENOMOUS. BITES CAUSE INTENSE PAIN, VOMITING, SWEATING, BLURRY VISION, PRIAPISM, AND DEATH.
SEEK MEDICAL HELP IMMEDIATELY IF BITTEN.
Okay, so it's a little dangerous, but Kidtal assured me it was good and locked up.
Underneath the description is a link to a video titled I LET A brAZILIAN WANDERING SPIDER BITE ME?! The thumbnail shows a too-handsome-for-his-own-good blond guy with a derpy, frightened look on his face next to a giant, superimposed picture of the spider. I have never clicked on something so fast.
Mega Max, as he calls himself, crouches in the darkness of the in camouflage safari clothes, shining a flashlight on a very annoyed wandering spider that's chilling on a branch leaf until he gets too close.
The spider lifts its front legs menacingly and does the same dance of death Kidtal showed me.
Max grins at the camera and sticks his thumb up.
“It's Phoneutria, all right! The most dangerous spider in the world, right here in the , doing its famous dance of death!
Let's see what happens when it crosses Mega Max!” Making good on his promise, the idiot grabs the spider from behind with his bare hand.
“Nonononononono,” I scream at my laptop, and slap my hands on my cheeks.
The spider strikes him like lightning and sinks its fangs into his hand. Mega Max throws his head back and howls in pain.
“Close-up! Close-up, you asshole!” he screams at the cameraman, who zooms in on the fangs piercing through his skin.
I dig my fingers into my cheeks and bite my own tongue. A draft of air hits me from behind, and I twitch and squeal as if the spider itself was crawling on me.
“I can't take it anymore!” he shouts. With his other hand, Max whacks the spider so hard it goes flying out of view from the camera. The rest of the video is him keeling over in his tent, enduring two hours of vomiting, chills, aches, and blurred vision.
As if this couldn't get any weirder, he starts rubbing his crotch. “Last but not least, folks—the spider's signature stamp: priapism! That means its neurotoxin causes a painful, long-lasting erection, for those of you not up to date on your medical terminology!”
I'm sorry, a painful what?
“It's happening!”
A PAINFUL WHAT?
“Oh god, help me! I feel like my dick is being filled up with rocks and jerked by a rope!
I'm not even horny! This is the worst pain I've ever had!” Mega Max writhes and screams, rolling into a ball and begging for the cameraman to stop filming.
He ends up in the hospital on a saline drip, looking very beat up.
“I regret everything,” he says before his head rolls dramatically across the pillow and he goes unconscious.
I realize I've been holding my breath and my crotch for a minute.
I'm not babysitting a simple venomous jungle spider; I'm babysitting a legit dick-zapping, eight-legged monster straight from the pits of hell.
What a world we live in. The more I learn about it, the more I regret it.
Add “death by boner spider” to my already ridiculously long list of phobias.
As I'm about to send this to Felix, I get a new DM on PetFavor from a lady named Beatrice:
Hi, I need to remove a large rodent from my house.
I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I tell her to call animal control, but she quickly responds with a whole block of complaining about how they're closed on weekends and she needs somebody now. I'm just about to block her when she sends one more DM:
I'll pay you whatever you want.
Then again, what could be worse than Phoneutria, Eater of Dicks?