When the terrible virus was unleashed and our lives screeched to a halt, I planted a garden. My first. I tended it zealously, with the darting eyes of a suicide bomber. This was March, April, May, the world hijacked by hysteria. I could have watered my garden with tears after returning from the store rumored to have toilet paper, after scrubbing my hands and changing my clothes and scrubbing my hands and disinfecting every sack of off-brand rice, every dented can of beans.
So, the garden. I would grow our groceries. I would knit a chlorophyll blanket around my family: my industry, their immunity.
At first, it worked. Everything grows in Mississippi, even for a “gardener” Googling “how to plant a seed.” In a Mississippi minute, things were sprouting, burgeoning, prospering: #winning.
Until the day my frothy cilantro fronds went missing; only their naked flagpoles remained, resembling chives. The next day, no poles. And, for that matter, no chives. My fennel (yes, I’d grown it solely for the name) was depilated. My dill, dead-headed. What invisible blight was this? My garden was syruped in sunshine, watered daily, and mulched to keep my sproutlings moist.
Slugs, said Google. Slugs shimmy from under the mulch at night. They munch until dawn, then slime back under the mulch, engage in some hermaphroditic kink, then squirt out thirty eggs. And you know what happens to the eggs: everything grows in Mississippi.
Beer, said Google, a plate of beer is the answer. I poured a can into a Frisbee, placed the shallow grave in the garden, set my alarm for 4:30 am. With my phone flashlight I returned. Six or seven gray bloated bodies lolled in their Bud Light Jacuzzi. But angling my phone I could see other slugs still chomping. Not thirty, but thirty times thirty times thirty, the flagstones glistening with their calligraphy, the screen door snotty with secretions. I donned my gardening gloves like a knight would his gauntlets, plucked a fat slug from a leaf of butter crunch, and chucked it into the grass. But it was probably already U-turning to resume its salad course. I plucked another, gritted my molars, and squished. Enough: I didn’t have the stomach for it.
Two-thirds of my children accepted the bribe, a dime a slug, thrilled to be out past bedtime and armed with flashlights. The nine-year-old earned $2.60, the fourteen-year-old $4.10. But the next night they quit after only a buck a piece. “There aren’t any more,” they claimed the third night. But, oh, the slugs were there. I could feel them crawling in the tender hollow at the back of my neck.
I foraged deeper into Google, which now said beer was not the answer; instead, wait for midnight, make a pail of suds, drop the slugs in. They’d die beneath the bubbles, and I wouldn’t have to watch or assist.
Google was right about the soapy water, but beer was still the answer. I drank it steadily, girding for battle. Then I rampaged through my garden until every last slug had been dunked. The next day, I made my husband empty the sluggish pail. Game over.
Months later, when things were still bad, but better, when we understood how the virus spread, and learned to wear masks, and thought we might survive, my fourteen-year-old mentioned the night of my slug fest, mentioned hearing me in the garden.
“Oh, really?” I asked uneasily.
“Yeah,” he said. “I woke up, and I could hear you cursing.”
“Cursing?”
“Yeah.”
It remains to be seen how historians will contextualize this long dark pall of pandemic, the fraying of global mental health, the toll on our children’s futures. And that official reckoning will overlap with our private reckonings, the large suffering as well as the smaller stories, the cringe-worthy, told for a laugh. Perhaps at a dinner party, say, people offering up their personal pandemic low. I won’t have to scramble for mine. That night, which should have rightfully slipped into oblivion, is now freshly imagined from the point of view of my son, lying in his bed, in the dark, listening to his drunkish mother marauding in the Mississippi night.
“You kept calling them”—he broke off—“Can I say the word? Without getting in trouble?”
I nodded.
“—Assholes. You’d shout at each slug, before dropping it in the pail, ‘You’re a little asshole.’”
I closed my eyes in a slow blink.
“And—” he continued.
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes you’d laugh.”
____
Beth Ann Fennelly, the poet laureate of Mississippi, has won grants from the N.E.A., United States Artists, and a Fulbright to Brazil. Her sixth book, Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs (W. W. Norton) was an Atlanta Journal Constitution Best Book and a Goodreaders Favorite.
So clever! And such a poignant essay about one woman and her family’s very particular experience of Covid. Loved this and always love Beth Ann Fennelly’s writing!
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Oh this is just the best. The drama!
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what a great piece! Thank you.
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Oh my! So funny; so poignant; so human. Thank you for sharing this wonderful piece.
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I am a huge fan and so happy to read this new piece! It’s brilliant, as always.
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Intentionally, this was my first read of the current issue. After COVID cast a heavy shadow of loss and illness for our family, “Heating and Cooling” was one of my few reads that offered me a much-needed giggle. This piece did not disappoint. Thank you Beth Ann Fennelly.
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“They munch until dawn, then slime back under the mulch, engage in some hermaphroditic kink, then squirt out thirty eggs.” Such a great line, among so many great lines!
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Loved the ending. It made me laugh. I can relate.
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What a delightful read. Thank you.
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ahhh thanks for the love, fellow Brevity fans! So happy to be in this issue.
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This is so good. It’s funny and beautifully crafted. Thank you!
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Because of this essay, I ordered and have already read Ms Fennelly’s micro-memoir three or four times, and sent a copy to a friend for his birthday. This all happened during the past ten or so days.
Thanks, Ms Fennelly! Thanks Brevity!
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This is so good!
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I love everything about this essay, but the line I will remember is “Two-thirds of my children accepted the bribe…” I admire the one-third immensely for not buckling.
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Laughing out loud! Can’t wait to share this!
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Fantastic little essay.
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I love everything you ever write!
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Love this story! I am battling with slugs too.
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I know right 🙂
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This is such a quietly dark and relatable piece. I so enjoyed the small wars she waged to get by and her children’s telling perspectives. A funny and poignant piece about parenting in the pandemic. A brilliant closing line!
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Thank you, i loved this piece. So man emotions of darness written with humor
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I enjoyed this from the fantastic opening sentence to the soft bullet last sentence.
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I love this intimate tale of slugs, family gardening, growth and language.
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I LOVE it! Such insight! Beautifully written!
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Just stumbled on this during my latest procrastination meanderings. Made me laugh out loud and think differently about writing my own lockdown experience. Has led me both to donate to Brevity and keep reading, and to hunt out more of Beth Ann Fennelly’s writing. Thank you for such a great piece.
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hahaha enjoyed the article through out and felt like my life story had a good relaxed laugh after long time good one
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This is so wonderful. I recently had my monthly acupuncture treatment, in part to treat anxiety. My acupuncturist felt my pulses and said I was a broiling vat of anger and resentment. That’s really not me, I promise. But lately, well. Oh how I wish I had some slugs to swear at and drown. I do hope your garden otherwise thrived, but boy that sounds therapeutic right now! Thanks for this. Many of us needed it.
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What a great read!!!
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Really nice writing. Your description reminded of the tiny pea shoots that were disappearing from my fenced garden. Turns out some wild bunnies were chomping the tender tops as soon as they popped up. I ceded the peas to them. They were, unlike your slugs, too cute and not greedy.
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Got, something good to read after a long time. It was too much fun and make me laugh loudly. What a great story!!!
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Loved this!!! Could so relate from halfway around the world!
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