I turned out okay.
QUESTION: Where do the flutterbys go when they die?
ANSWER: Well, little girl, actually we spray them with alcohol, freeze them, and throw them away in a bin marked BIO-WASTE.
QUESTION: Don’t the butterflies have a soul?
ANSWER: I’m guessing not, since they’re so small. God knows where they’d keep it.
I wanted to go back in time and ask my camp counselor how she looked me in the eye and expertly lied to me about the frogs. I was, in a word, unfit. Unfit to lie to children. Unfit to tell them the truth. Who was I but a girl with a mission and a social security number? I had anticipated T-shirts or name tags or something courtesy of the museum. In fact, the only thing I had to wear to identify me as butterfly staff was a fist-sized blue button with a huge question mark on it. No “Ask me about our butterflies,” no “Mind your own proboscis.” Just a giant unsteady piece of punctuation that made me feel like I should be the one asking the questions.
I felt alternately superior and guilty asking people not to touch the butterflies. True, other people are scum and don’t wash their hands after they go to the bathroom and even if they did, touching butterfly wings can kill the dear things. I, on the other hand, touched the butterflies all the time. I felt up my fair share of nymphalini all right. Simply because I was allowed to. I would pick up a giant slice of orange and let a blue morpho crawl off it and onto my finger. Morphos are about the size of a playing card. When their wings are folded up, they look like moldy chocolate moths. When they fly, however, the top of their wings are exposed, revealing the most solid electric blue I have ever seen. The death-obsessed midgets would come in the exhibit and “eww” at the specimen in my hand. I’d slowly tip my finger, causing the owl to spread its wings for balance and flash its blue like the inside of a trench coat. Then the children would “ooh” and “ahh” and I would feel that not only had I taught them a lesson about science but about life: You can’t judge a book by its cover. Ducklings become swans. Blah, blah, blah.
Because I worked Saturdays, I even got to be there at the end of the week when a new shipment of butterflies would arrive in a tall black cage made of fine wire. It looked like it fell off the back of Darwin’s Beagle. Before the museum opened, Lindsey would place the cage in the center of the exhibit and expertly remove the top, freeing the butterflies like they were lactose. It was a beautiful sight. Everything about volunteering was coming up orchids.
Except for the one particular winged thing that did me in. I situated myself near the front of the room because the Atlas moth lived in the back of the room. In that corner, measuring ten inches by ten inches, with other butterflies clearly visible through translucent patches in its fuzzy wings, the Atlas moth was a force to be cowered from. I would rather adopt a giant Peruvian hissing roach and parade it around Manhattan—holding it between my teeth—than lay eyes on an Atlas moth ever again. Its head looked like the head of a venomous snake, poised to strike at any moment. Atlas moths are, logically enough, referred to as “snake heads.” Their backs are covered in a spindly kind of fuzz like a porcupine. In some countries, their cocoons are used as evening bags.
In the entire time I volunteered at the butterfly exhibit, I never once saw it move. Named for its worldly wingspan, which holds a replica of the earth-from-above in its pattern, the Atlas moth is the largest known moth on the planet. If the scientists discover a Paleolithic-descended underwater moth at the bottom of the ocean tomorrow, I don’t care how freakish it looks: the Atlas moth can take it. It’s nocturnal and, not being big on the whole flapping thing, it sticks to the side of the tree, wings out, feathered antennae up, creepiness high. I was petrified of the Atlas moth. I had nightmares about the Atlas moth.
I dreamed that I would come into the exhibit late at night. I had forgotten something. I would be the only one there but the heat would be on. A fluorescent tube of light would flicker above my head, revealing all the butterflies stuck to it—all except for the Atlas moth, who stayed fixed to the tree trunk, even in my unconscious. Just because I could, I’d lean my face in close to the moth.
“Boo.”
And for the first time, the moth would move and it would…it would…eat me.
Actually, the nightmare was that it would land on my neck and refuse to be swatted away. But when I recounted my dream to Ruthy, my impressionable covolunteer, with the longest functional fingernails I’ve ever seen, I took it that crucial eaten-alive step further.
“That shit’s nasty,” she said.
“Well, let me tell you. It was.”
“The Atlas moth can’t eat you,” Lindsey offered. “It has no mouth parts. It survives off larval fat until it gives birth and starves to death.”
“Fuck, that’s gross.”
“Shhh,” said Lindsey, gesturing toward a little boy in ear-shot.
“Oh, because ‘larval fat’ is so much less traumatizing than ‘fuck.’”
Lindsey gave me a disapproving look and reached around her neck to tighten her bandanna.
“Ruthy,” I whispered, “said the S word.”
We were warned not to brush against the butterflies, but the five-year-olds were undeniably rubbing off on me.
Under normal circumstances, I might have been upset about being scolded by a peer. Especially a peer so well versed in a subject whose most basic building blocks I failed to grasp. That subject being social consciousness, not biology. It was a familiar situation. My volunteer job turned out to be not dissimilar to another joy-sucking position: retail clerk. Having spent my formative post-babysitting/preinternship years within ten miles of three different malls, I have held no less than five mall chick positions. The whole volunteer experience smacked of déjà vu—the tired feet, the (very) low pay, the loss of free time, the casual lying to customers. Except that instead of telling a spoiled anorexic girl that Bebe was out of stock in XXS black stretch pants, I was lying to children, and getting the Latin names of butterflies wrong.
I also recognized from my retail days the small but distinct thrill I got from working somewhere “prestigious.” It was the perfect snooty conversation piece. Sure, I got those retail jobs for the money. My allowance disappeared on my twelfth birthday, along with my lunch being made for me, my bed being made for me, and “hugs.” But if you had offered me a high-paying job at Aldo Shoes versus a low-paying one at Louis Vuitton, I would have taken the job selling overpriced baguette bags any day. In mall culture, there is a hierarchy and a camaraderie between the high-end stores.
At one point I worked at Oilily, a Dutch women and children’s clothing company that sold two-hundred-dollar cow-print jackets for newborns. Black was banned and company clothing encouraged even if you had to borrow it for the day. I found myself wearing fluorescent orange stretch pants (mine, of course) and a hand-knit baggy sweater with swirls on it (theirs). This, I thought, surely this is better than working at Aldo. I tried to avoid leaving the store during lunch for fear of being shot by a hunter. But at least I had my dignity.
My best friend worked down the hall at Lacoste and would periodically send me envelopes of alligator stickers through the intermall mail with a note: “You’ve been lacosted!” My other best friend (they’re like cars when you’re a teenager; most suburban families have at least two in case one breaks down) worked upstairs folding shirts at the Gap—but we liked him anyway and he let us abuse his discount. It was a time when we were proud of ourselves constantly and for nothing. Our first jobs! And look how we had mastered how to abuse them! Eventually, the best friend who worked at the Gap moved to Florida only to work for a different Gap and the one who worked at Lacoste was arrested for the kind of shoplifting where instead of stealing from the shelves, you steal from the register.
Yet, even without these dramas, our bubble-like mall existence would have come to an end. You had to do more—go to college, pick a major, get a boyfriend, a job, an interesting scar, a dream house, an educated position on the death penalty. Suddenly you had
more mail, more keys, more passwords, more toiletries. And all for less praise. People are less quick to applaud as you grow older. Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there. If you stop and think about it, it’s a miracle that we get out of bed every day and brush our teeth and remember to buy toothpaste. We all deserve to be congratulated but sadly that would mean there’s no one left to do the congratulating.
I have a very distinct memory of watching Martina Navratilova pat herself on the back after losing in the women’s final of the U.S. Open and not being properly acknowledged during the trophy ceremony. The crowd chuckled. That image pops into my head more than I care to admit in my adult life. I knew I wanted the same thing Martina had wanted when I knocked on the museum’s volunteer office door. I didn’t need a grand slam title, although that would be nice, I just wanted a pat on the back from a hand that was not my own. After all, if a soup kitchen is set up in a forest and no news crews are around to see it because they all saw The Blair Witch Project and they’ll be damned if they’re setting one foot into the woods for some stinkin’ homeless people, does it count? Somehow I don’t think so.
But there was no one to congratulate me. Thus, my fervor for my volunteer stint began to dwindle. The combination of forgetfulness and self-centeredness was lethal to my budding charity career. The first time I forgot to show up I had gone to the movies with my mother. Just as the lights dimmed, I remembered I was meant to be at the museum. My seat was a springy one and only too happy to help me bolt upright.
“What time is it?”
“Quarter past eleven.”
“That is not good.”
“Well, you’re not going to leave now, are you? The previews have started.”
She had a point. But it was not the point of a responsible adult. Always a stickler for “doing the right thing” when I was growing up, my mother surprised me now. I decided to interpret her blasé attitude as a sign that she saw me as an adult, responsible for my own decisions if not actually capable of making them. To rush out to the exhibit would have been to ruin my mother’s movie date with her grown-up child. It occurs to me now that perhaps if I was ladling minestrone by the quart somewhere above 125th Street, she would not have been so serene. At the time, her reasoning meshed perfectly with my desire to see How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and the subsequent free eggs Florentine. I squeaked back in my chair.
What annoyed me was not that I had missed out on volunteering. It was not that I had let the butterflies down and now some fifth grade Future Psychopath of America was on a wing-ripping spree. What annoyed me was that I so often attempted to weasel out of things on purpose, it killed me to do it by accident. It seemed like a waste of whatever detailed lie I was going to have to come up with. I would have had twenty minutes left on my shift when the movie let out so I called Lindsey, knowing I would get her voice mail. I told her the truth, that I had completely forgotten, and then I made a joke about the minimal obligation. We were two weeks in, which meant I was unreliable only 50 percent of the time! I am pretty sure that’s not how commitments work, but it sounded good. I told her I looked forward to coming in the following week.
The following week came and I showed up. But the week following that I forgot again. The dreamlike revelations—that panicked feeling that I was meant to be elsewhere and immediately—startled me like night terrors. If remembering you had to be somewhere else could take the shape of a person, it would be a mugger in an alley. There I was walking along the street, on my way to pick up my dry-cleaning, and a man in a black mask would pop out of nowhere with a gun made of guilt.
Another time I slept in and leaving the house as soon as possible meant I would still be an hour late. So I played dumb and cited a schedule confusion.
Much to my mystification, they let me stay. One could argue that because I volunteered the minimum amount of time possible, I should at least show up. Thankfully, they seemed to view my sporadic appearances as I did—so rare, they were difficult to depend on and therefore difficult to be disappointed by. Most likely, it’s problematic to fire a volunteer, even a half-assed one. It would be like breaking up with someone because they’re too nice. Carnations again? You bastard.
After a while I became irritated by their unwillingness to fire me. Had I not behaved poorly enough? Was absenteeism so slim a crime? Apparently. I walked into the exhibit with an expression that attempted to convey the major personal problems that had prohibited me from showing up the past two or five times. When the first child asked me about butterfly death, it was like the final pin into the fragile crisp wing of a specimen: volunteering wasn’t for me. Perhaps I would have been better off at a less cushy institution, like a homeless shelter where death is the last thing that needs to be explained to children.
QUESTION: What happens to butterflies when they die?
ANSWER: I honestly don’t know. They stop flying, for one thing.
QUESTION: Don’t they get angel wings?
ANSWER: Yes, that sounds about right.
The kid shrugged and meandered down the path. I checked my watch. I had five minutes left on my shift and took a nostalgic look around the place, lamenting that I could probably never come back as a civilian.
Like the retail positions I had held before it, the imagined glamour of the volunteer job had drawn me in, but wasn’t enough to keep me there. I was familiar with this ruining process so I knew what to expect. At the end of the day, I rushed for the door, an anxious expression applied to my face. I tripped backwards attempting to maneuver around a pair of Japanese tourists. I caught myself, but not before my bare elbow brushed against the Atlas moth.
A shudder began at my funny bone and spread to the hairs on my neck. I shut my eyes. Maybe it was not the Atlas moth but some…some very fuzzy tree bark? Within seconds, a series of forbidden images plowed through my mind: this was like the opening of Pandora’s box, the eating of God’s apple, the crossing of the streams in Ghostbusters. I glanced furtively behind me to see that I had shifted the sleeping moth ever so slightly. Now it hung off center, the way a painting does when you bump into it in a narrow hallway.
Tainted by an overpowering grossness, I don’t remember walking so much as flying through the doors and past the security guard standing in the mirrored Outbreak chamber. I walked at ramming speed through the back entrance of the museum, up the delivery driveway, and straight to my apartment, where I went up the stairs, skipping two or three at a time. I slammed the front door behind me and headed for the bathroom sink. I needed to rid myself of Atlas cooties. I grabbed a towel with one hand and excessively pumped hand soap with the other. It was unfair: I had already decided to put the kibosh on my days as a volunteer. I was on my way out, leaving in a manner that finally suited my ostensible job title, and I resented that the butterfly gods felt the need to let the Atlas moth hit me on the way out.
And it was at that moment, when I glanced up at my reflection in the mirror, that I saw I was not alone.
I gasped. One of the smaller butterflies was stuck to my shirt like a lapel pin. It was neon yellow with brown-tipped wings that looked like two pieces of charred paper when it moved. The fact that I had run through the room of mirrors without checking myself for stowaways I understood. The fact that the wind created by my speed walking had inadvertently pinned the little beast to my chest, I understood. It was the fact that it had chosen me of all people to land on that boggled the mind. After everything I had done to neglect its kind, this thing still chose to follow me home.
I pushed my finger slightly underneath its head until it crawled up my wrist and flew onto the shower curtain, which was covered with a pattern of brightly colored butterflies. This made it difficult to keep track of the three-dimensional one’s whereabouts. I shut the bathroom door. I had to think. Instead of thinking I remembered that I had left the bathroom window open. I grabbed my cell phone and rushed back into the bathroom and shut the window. The butterfly had not moved. I didn’t even know
its proper name.
It was almost five P.M. I sat on the toilet and called the ASPCA. I was directed to a phone system that asked me to report the nature of the abuse. There’s a whole button reserved to report barking. I looked at the butterfly. The butterfly looked back at me. It all seemed too official. The ASPCA would probably give me a case number longer than the wingspan of the victim. Also, I would have been implicating myself in a lepido-napping. My selflessness had its limits.
I hung up. It seemed more and more like something out of a children’s book—the butterfly that followed the little girl all the way home to her fifth-floor walk-up. How above-the-law children’s books are. Hansel and Gretel (littering, breaking and entering), Rumpelstiltskin (forced labor), Snow White (conspiracy to commit murder), Rapunzel (breach of contract). “What am I going to do with you?” I said aloud. It occurred to me that I could get into real-life trouble for this. Perhaps if I had been a worthy volunteer I would be granted some leniency, but I had already proven myself a delinquent. How far off was “thief”? As it turned out, shoplifting—the extreme sport of the American mall—also had something in common with my volunteerism. Then again, is it theft if the item flies up out of the store, lands on your shoulder, and follows you home? If only Hermès scarves and Fendi handbags did the same thing, women would clamor to work in retail.
I thought about reopening the window and setting the butterfly free. This seemed like the romantic thing to do. It was without doubt the fairy-tale thing to do. But then I figured it might starve (negligence) out on the mean streets of the city. How many orange groves were there in Central Park? Or it might get eaten alive (involuntary manslaughter). Or be poisonous to the pigeon it was eaten alive by, thus causing an inexplicable mass epidemic of rabid pigeons (very, very bad). I thought about keeping it. But it would never survive in my apartment. I don’t own a Darwin cage thingy. Its bright poison-colored wings flapped open and shut. I could kill it myself. Let it crawl into the toilet and press down on the flusher. I hit a squirrel once while learning to drive. It wasn’t pleasant, but I lived through it. I could kill again if I had to.
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