This is all Mitchie’s fault. Or, more specifically, this is all the bugs-that-live-in-Mitchie’s-asshole’s fault. We wouldn’t be here, dealing with these pissed off cops and these inquisitive glowers if Mitchie could have afforded to go to a doctor when the bugs first started nesting, though. So maybe it’s the government’s fault. I don’t know much about politics or healthcare, but I know that if a man has bugs colonizing his anus he should be able to see a professional without worrying about how he’s going to pay for it. When Mitchie first told me about the bugs I didn’t believe him. I didn’t even see the bites.
“You don’t see them?!” he screamed, stripped down to his boxers and clawing at his chest and stomach, “How the fuck can you not see them? They’re everywhere and I’m not fucking crazy.”
So I googled “bugs that live in assholes” and got nothing relevant. There was a rare case in Australia in which a fly laid eggs in a man’s ass and then he had maggots coming out of it, but that’s Australia. Crazy shit goes down in Australia. I told Mitchie what I didn’t find in my google search when he came down the hall from his fourth steaming-hot bath of the day. His skin was bright red from practically boiling himself in the tub. Here’s the problem with the internet: you can find anything you want on there. So when Mitchie searched “bugs that live in assholes” he found plenty of cases of just that. And, naturally, all of the symptoms matched his. This only confirmed his suspicions and now he had pictures, on the actual internet, to corroborate his claims. Now Mitchie KNEW he wasn’t crazy.
I thought Mitchie was crazy, though. Especially when he explained to me that some type of bug had obviously nested in his asshole and that the hatchlings were feasting on his skin while he slept. Bed bugs, right? Obviously, I was thinking my roommate had brought bed bugs into our apartment. But Mitchie didn’t have any actual bites. The only markings on his skin were the scratch marks from his incessant itching of the imaginary bite marks. I’m not a psychiatrist, but it seemed to me that it was all in his head. I just had to convince him of that so that he could think more logically about this dilemma. Mitchie had never done anything crazy before so I figured I could just reason with him. I never finished that book Catch-22, but I think the premise is that you can’t be crazy if you know you’re crazy. I just had to show Mitchie that he was crazy.
So I guess this is the internet’s fault.
For the first few weeks, it wasn’t too bad. In an attempt to get rid of the critters, Mitchie had become a bit of a clean freak. There was never a dirty dish in the house and the floors and upholstered furniture were vacuumed at least once daily. I had seen a carpet beetle or two, but nothing alarming. I didn’t mind the obsessively clean floors, though. Our neighbors complained about the hours he chose to vacuum once, but all we got was a stern text from the landlord. The toilet, obviously, was always spotless and the whole bathroom was bleached regularly. The water and electric bills were astronomical though, due to his compulsive bathing and vacuuming. We were going through toilet paper way too fast for two men in their thirties, but it was nice to have a clean apartment. There was the flashlight, also. Mitchie had one of those super bright LED flashlights and he would creep around the apartment with and look in the corners or into the carpet fibers. I don’t know what he would’ve done if he had caught one of those little bugs, but he was determined to find one. He wore purple latex gloves and everything. It became commonplace to find Mitchie skulking around the apartment shining his light into all the cracks and crevices and getting in between me and the tv.
Mitchie noticed he didn’t itch quite as much at work and that’s when the problems became unmanageable. He was convinced that our living situation contributed to the survival of the seemingly microscopic culprits. It started with things like throw pillows and spare blankets going missing. His bedroom quickly became stark and Mitchie replaced his bed with a Wal-Mart air mattress and those special sheets for kids that wet the bed. He just tossed his perfectly good bed out. He wanted to burn it, but he didn’t have a truck to haul it from our apartment complex so he smashed it with a hammer until he could fit the pieces into our dumpster. This was fine with me until he started getting rid of items from our common areas. After the living room drapes vanished I had to start locking all of my personal belongings in my room so Mitchie didn’t send them to a landfill. I was constantly worried he was going to rip our carpet up and I don’t think that’s covered on the security deposit.
I called an exterminator out to ease Mitchie’s mind. I thought if a professional could tell him that there were no bugs that he would be able to accept it. Worst case scenario: they would really find bugs and we could get rid of them. I found an exterminator online called Kill ‘Em All and their logo was a replica of the Metallica album of the same name, but with a bug. I thought that was pretty clever and they were affordable so I had them check out the apartment. When the guy came out he didn’t seem to have anything scientific or moderately professional with him; just a flashlight like Mitchie’s except it was clipped to his hat. He just walked around the apartment, shining his light around the beds and baseboards and asking a few questions. He took off his hat, scratched his scruffy head and told me he didn’t find anything. The way he emphasized the word anything gave me the impression that we were more than just bug-free. He had turned it into a five syllable word to really get his point across. It seemed to imply that Mitchie had transformed our apartment into a negative zone for anything that crawls; an insect black hole. Mitchie just said that the guy was a hack and stoned out of his mind. I couldn’t disagree on the stoned part, but what can you expect from a heavy metal-themed exterminator?
It was the day I pulled in our parking lot and saw the remnants of our sofa – an unmistakable pale yellow and maroon plaid – that I decided I had to do something. I stormed through our now cavernous apartment and barged into the bathroom without knocking. It was like a shameful Russian bathhouse in there and I had to wait until some of the steam escaped the door I had just busted through before I could see Mitchie in the tub. He reminded me of the scene where Bugs Bunny is being boiled alive by some natives and he’s just in there, scrubbing his back while they season him and cut up carrots and whatnot. Mitchie didn’t even look startled.
“Look, Mitchie,” I said, “we’ve got to go to the ER right now. These bugs have got to go.”
Mitchie just nodded and reached for a towel, one he would throw away after one use. He had recently become the proud owner of a bulk box of hotel-grade towels; I’m not even sure how he found something like that. I was pacing our empty living room waiting for him to get ready when I felt it. I can’t really explain it, but it was kind of like a little tickle in my butt, like something moving or burrowing. First a tinge or two, but it quickly became constant. In not even two minutes my thighs started itching. But not just a regular itch. It was as if hungry fire ants had consumed my lower half. I couldn’t scratch enough. I couldn’t get to the right spots and it was moving up to my stomach as well. Mitchie came in the room and saw me there, writhing around and scratching and poking my hard to reach places and he smiled. This sunuvabitch smiled at his vindication.
“We gotta go!” I said, “We gotta go right now.”
I get why the lady called the cops. I’m sure Mitchie and I looked pretty terrifying running into the hospital, both shirtless and ranting about invisible bugs while we aggressively tried to reach our own anal cavities. I would have called the cops, too. I would think that in our frantic state a doctor would have rushed out to see what the commotion was, but no medical professionals came to our aid. Not even a nurse or medical student. Everyone else in the ER just pretended they weren’t glaring at us while they glared at us, howling like banshees and demanding that we get to a doctor right away. The lady at the desk was pretty calm, too. She kept asking us to fill out paperwork and calm down, acting as if she hadn’t already called the cops. She simply glanced at us when the two officers came in and they quietly escorted us outside. She felt pity and I appreciated that in the moment, I really did.
It was cold as fuck, but the brisk air calmed the itch. I immediately wondered why the fuck Mitchie was taking hot baths. I would have been in an ice bath every fucking moment of my life if I could. What if I had different anal bugs than Mitchie? It suddenly occurred to me that it probably wasn’t a contagious thing. There are probably dozens of different species of assbugs creeping all over the country and no-one has notified the CDC yet. This really freaked me out; that the majority of the population – like me just hours ago – didn’t or wouldn’t believe in these insidious little insects until it was too late. This is how full-scale invasions start. Disbelief is a weapon.
The cop was a husky guy with a fresh face, probably right out of academy and he was being exceptionally nice to me. Mitchie was with a tall, older cop that seemed a bit more frustrated, but I overheard him asking Mitchie the same thing I was being asked:
“Did you two take anything tonight?”
We kept reassuring them that we weren’t on drugs and I could see on their faces that that was the wrong answer. They would have known what to say or do if only we were on drugs. I’m sure there’s nothing in the police handbook on how to handle two irrational grown men attempting to get anal invaders out of their bodies.
That’s when it occurred to me that I was standing there, in mid-January winter without a shirt and trying to convince a cop that bugs had moved into my asshole and were feasting on my flesh. I was crazy and knew it. I could feel my eyes darting wildly; I could hear my voice rising, my words coming out too fast and frantic. If I could have just lied to this cop and told him I was on meth or bath-salts or whatever, I could just take whatever kind of misdemeanor charges they have for that and slept it off. But I couldn’t. I needed them to know about these bugs because they had to stop them before the entire city, state and country’s assholes became nests for these devious little invaders. I needed them to know so we could burn all of those things Mitchie put in the dumpster to destroy the colony. I needed them to know so I could get back the apartment and get rid of my bed and all of the other things these bugs could be hiding in. I had to warn my neighbors and anyone else that could be in danger. I needed them to know I wasn’t crazy even though I knew I was crazy. As soon as I saw that look in that young cop’s eyes, though, I knew it was too late.
Because there is no catch-22.
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