NOCTURNAL CREATURES

It's the spring after the bedbug scare has finally abated for good when I pull up in front of the bakery, which I won't name, but it’s the one right off Exit 17.

- SAÏD SAYRAFIEZADEH

This is my last stop of the day and the owner is waiting for me outside, standing in the early-morning darkness, hands on his hips, flour on his apron, white breath coming out of his mouth, saying I was supposed to have been here an hour ago. “Dispatcher told you wrong,” I tell him. In situations like these, I always blame it on the dispatcher. But the owner is right, I'm way behind schedule, because I’ve been crisscrossing the city all night, trying to cover as much territory as I can before dawn, since commercial properties can’t be done during business hours—for obvious reasons. Things were better during the bedbug scare, when I was earning a premium for same-day service, and getting nothing but respect from nonprofessionals caught up in a mass panic over the possibility of their property being overrun by vermin.

Now it’s going to be daylight soon and the owner is telling me to park down the street. He doesn't care that it’s cold outside. He doesn’t care how much equipment I have to carry. He cares that customers are going to see me in front of his establishment—and who can blame him? I’m persona non grata. I’m the Grim Reaper. I drive around with the logo of a cartoon rat painted on the side of my truck. “I wish I could,” I tell him, “but the dispatcher doesn’t let me re-park.” The owner understands the implication. He hands me five dollars. It’s not enough, but I take it anyway. Ten minutes later, I come walking back to his bakery, weighed down by my tool belt and three-gallon tank filled with state-of-the-art poison.