I sat with my friend Ed at the tiny kitchen table in my shitty apartment sipping coffee, watching the spider dangling above us. The table used to sit in a Village Inn, before it became the place where I ate ramen and drank coffee with my downstairs neighbor.
“Dude. Squish that thing.”
“Aw, we don’t have to do that,” he said, stepping up on a Village Inn chair. “You got a jar or glass or something?”
I handed him a jar. He trapped the spider in it and offered to take it outside, but I stopped him, reaching for the jar. A weird curiosity suddenly laid eggs in my brain. I poked some holes in the lid.
“I’ve got to get rid of the arachnophobia somehow,” I said.
I named the fuzzy brown wolf spider Cowboy Otis. For a few months, I took him everywhere. To work. To the bar. To lunch at Souper Salad and to my weekly therapy sessions. He sat on the desk next to me while I wrote. I fed him juicy bugs. We had adventures together. We were pals.
Until a horrific incident took place during a long and gruesome gladiatorial match with an ant during a camping trip with a group of happy pagans. That’s another story. But, long story short, both Cowboy and the ant died. There was a funeral pyre. It was a whole thing.
I was bummed, but also satisfied that I’d conquered my arachnophobia and was now a friend to man and beast alike, even creepy crawly beasts with too many legs. I stopped squishing them. I stopped going Judge Dredd on every spider I encountered; deciding whether it was innocent enough to live, or guilty enough to execute on the spot. When a fat, black spider made a home in my kitchen window, I dubbed him The Beast and we coexisted happily.
I named the next one Creature and on and on. We all got along just fine until I moved away.
I moved to France and for the first few years, we lived in Paris, where I did not have a single arachnid encounter of any kind. I felt their absence, now that I had evolved into a much more enlightened human who was cool enough to live among the spiders and have lunch together, but not so far gone that I’d spun into full-blown creepy and would let the fuckers crawl on me.
Then we decided to move here, to the countryside. It was only a matter of days before I realized we had entered the Kingdom of the Spiders.
Enormous webs occupied every corner of every room. Tiny dark shadows twitched in the corner of my eye and skittered at the moment I turned my head. On sunny days, I’d look out the window at our front yard, and when the light was just right, I’d see the translucent wave shimmering across the lawn. For a moment, the sheer blanket of spider silk that covered our entire yard became apparent, which was simultaneously beautiful and creepy.
They’re everywhere. Occasionally, I’ll find one of the little guys running across my knee, or rappelling from the ceiling and dangling right in front of my fucking face. One morning, I opened my eyes at 6am and the first thing I saw in that dim early morning light was a monster skittering on the wall, headed right for my face. Even worse, I could hear the goddamn thing.
During spider season, we’re infested with giant house spiders. After taking a shower, I’ll grab my towel off the hook and find that I’ve smeared a spider to death on my wet torso by drying off with it. When squishing a spider in my garage, I’ll return the next day to find an even larger one in the very same spot. While watching a movie, they frequently dart out from underneath the TV, running directly to the place I’m sitting. Or, I’m too slow and look down to find a monster with a leg span the size of my goddamn hand on my arm.
But, I had conquered my arachnophobia. Me, friend to all manner of eight-legged beasts. I’d lived in the Rocky Mountains and in Florida, where the spiders can kill you. French spiders can’t kill anything, but they don’t fear anything, either. So, when the spiders infesting our home began to get cocky, sticking to me all the time and apparently, growing much larger, I’d step out into my backyard or my garage, shaking my fist, telling them, “Fuck you, spiders. You’re just a bunch of bullies full of bark with no bite. You don’t even have any venom. Fucking amateurs.”
I honestly didn’t think they’d be able to up their game beyond that. I really didn’t. I’d underestimated them.
Olivier and I were standing in the grocery store looking at some of those mini sausages in a display case. In my peripheral vision, I saw something on my shoulder, then it was gone. I tried to crane my neck Exorcist-style, attempting to get a good look at my back. It didn’t work. I can’t bend that way, so I started pawing and pulling at my coat to see what was back there. Olivier was circling the sausage case, chattering about barbecue sauce. I followed him, pulling at my coat.
“Something is on my back,” I said.
My loyal and protective husband leaned farther over the display case. “Mm-hmm.”
“Hey, I think there is some kind of creature on me. I think I have a spider on my back.”
He didn’t look up. I continued twisting and contorting my body there in the freezer section. Passersby began to stare. I knew I looked like a lunatic, but was still convinced that something horrible was happening to me.
A man stood next to me, perusing sausages. He looked at me. I looked at him and watched his gaze turn to my back. Evidently a brave and gallant man, he showed me his grossed-out face and quickly scurried away from me.
The expression of horror on a stranger’s face upon glancing at my back was confirmation enough. I went back to my husband, more insistent this time. “I AM TELLING YOU THAT THERE IS A HORRIBLE CREATURE UPON MY BODY WHICH MEANS TO DO ME HARM. STRANGERS ARE RUNNING FROM ME.”
He gave me that look. You know the one. The “I think you might be blowing this out of proportion but I will humor you” look. He put his hand on my arm and gently turned me around. I peeked over my shoulder and saw my husband’s eyes grow wide. “Oh my god!” He began slapping my back. The fat, black spider fell to the shiny white linoleum.
“I told you,” I said.
“Holy shit.” He shook his head. “That was fucking gross.”
“I told you, dude. I told you.”
“Those things really seem to have it out for you.”
“What, like a Jaws 4 situation? No way. Spiders aren’t like crows or vengeful sharks. They don’t remember faces. Besides, me and Cowboy, we were pals. And even if he had a grudge, he was a Colorado spider. I don’t think they keep in touch with French spiders.”
“Right,” he said. “Maybe they just really like you a lot. Like cats. Cats like you. Spiders must like you, too. They seem to be really attracted to you.”
I thought about it, and it dawned on me that this creepy problem isn’t new. Flipping through the slide show of my memory, I realized that I’ve had this problem for years. Yeah. So, that’s me. Friend of the arachnid kingdom. Whether I like it or not. Lucky me.
I’m not sure if they love me and want me to be their queen, or are toying with me until they finally do me in. Whatever. I’ve got to get over the arachnophobia somehow.