Dear Flagstaff,
I am sorry. Truly, madly, deeply sorry.
If you’ve noticed an increase in mosquitoes this summer, I have to take the blame. If you’ve been ambushed by a swarm, if you’ve slapped more than the usual seasonal dose, if you’ve returned home from a walk in the forest with what looks like a constellation chart of bug bites on your arms and legs, mea culpa.
Let me explain.
If you grow up in South Florida, as I did, you grow up with mosquitoes. Not the occasional mosquito or the tepid gathering of a half dozen that gingerly land on your arm but hellish carpets of mosquitoes, aggressive squadrons of kamikaze mosquitoes bent on vengeance and world domination, malevolent mosquitoes whose tinny, satanic chorus is as torturous as their bites.
Mosquitoes taught me hatred. And also itching, scratching and the pink wonders of Calamine lotion.
Mosquitoes aren’t the sole province of Florida, but the state does have more species of the bugs than any other. States along the East Coast are also technically considered part of the occupied territories. In the Florida of my childhood, mosquitoes were both action verbs and states of being. They were irritating and omnipresent but mostly they just were. Everywhere. All the time. They haunted our backyards, colonized our neighborhoods, infested our riverbanks and organized death squads in our state parks.
We grew up thinking mosquitoes were drawn to those with sweet blood or red hair. There was always one kid in the crowd who spent more time smacking himself to shoo the bugs away. One kid whose legs were polka dotted with bites. I wasn’t that kid, but I had no Kryptonite to keep them away. They still came for me even though I shot laser beam death rays from my eyeballs to kill them. My mom’s way of combatting them was to oil our arms and legs with Off, but mostly we lived with them as a fact of our lives like humidity and hurricanes.
The only good thing about mosquitoes was the mosquito truck. In the summer at dusk, every few weeks a truck trolled our neighborhood, billowing pesticide plumes. The neighborhood posse mounted our bikes and chased the truck, marauding in and out of the chemical clouds, inhaling the musky, metallic sweetness of DDT and Malathion while my ovaries wept inside me.
I moved to Flagstaff 14 years ago, and during my first summer when friends bemoaned the mosquitoes, I rolled my eyes. Weenies, I thought. As far as I could count, Flagstaff had about a dozen mosquitoes, amateurs each of them. I had no need for screens on my windows, for insect repellent, for my childhood arsenal of evil wishes for the bugs. I pulsated with superiority and relief.
Summers passed. During visits to Miami to see family and friends, I made Flagstaff mosquitoes the butt of derisive jokes. After all, I had endured the Everglades in the summer months where mosquitoes have taken hostages and left people bloodless and writhing. I had lived in the state where the mosquito is known as the state bird. I was smug. I was battle scarred, but I had escaped. I was far, far away from mosquitoes.
Until this summer.
A few weeks ago I made my way toward Buffalo Park, past the disk golf course and through the pine trees for my morning walk. A woman passed, looking distressed. Her hair was disheveled. “Are you being attacked my mosquitoes like I am?” she asked. I told her I wasn’t and carried on. Wasn’t she being a bit dramatic?
About 20 steps later I heard the telltale tinny buzz and looked down. More than a dozen mosquitoes had made my forearm a buffet. I swatted and saw my legs covered in black wings. My calves prickled from an onslaught of bites. I swatted and shooed them away. More flew in to take their place, organized fleets of wrath-filled mosquitoes with tattoos and shivs and nothing to lose.
I’ve heard similar tales from friends. More mosquitoes than anyone can remember. Unheard of numbers. Bites, swarms. I thought moving across the country might deliver me, but no, I still walk in the shadow of death. Clearly, nihilistic brigades of mosquitoes have come to town to show me who’s boss, and some of you may be getting caught in crossfire.
Forgive me, Flagstaff. I never imagined it would get this ugly.
