One must see an episode of severe defoliation by the gypsy moth to appreciate fully the dramatic impact this insect can have. Most noticeable, of course, is the great change in appearance of yards and gardens when autumn appears to have arrived months ahead of time.
—“The Homeowner and the Gypsy Moth: Guidelines for Control,” United States Department of Agriculture, Home and Garden Bulletin, No. 227 (1979)
Tree trunks may be encircled with a 14–18 inch piece of burlap or similar material. Place it at about chest height and arrange so it hangs apronlike around the tree trunk. The apron must be checked daily, and all “trapped” larvae and pupae should be destroyed.
—“Gypsy Moth” Fact Sheet, Dept. of Entomology, Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences
24.
Jules
He put in a call to Dr. Feinstein, the old goofball who had talked about “our green neighbors” at Harvard as if they were humanity’s saving grace. And what if they were, Jules thought. Then they were doomed.
He ordered three cases of sticky tape from a natural pest-control company per Dr. Feinstein’s suggestion. He waited five days for the package to arrive, aware he was checking the mailbox a little too frequently for a grown man.
Most days he spent hovering over shrubs in the garden, or up on a ladder in the tree canopy, using his fingers (he worked faster glove-free) to pick caterpillars off his oaks, speckled alder, willows, blackgum, paper birch, and poplar. The apple trees in the back were the pest’s favorite—the bright-green leaves Swiss-cheesed and the underside of the leaves, which he’d always thought so lovely with that hint of silver and velvety touch, were coated with newly hatched larvae. He picked until his bucket was full and then he dumped the mess of beasts into an old cooler filled with soapy water. He enjoyed watching the caterpillars wriggle around in the bubbles before falling still. He caught himself staring as time passed—the sun traveling across the now visible sky—without his realizing it.
When the box of sticky bands finally arrived, he did a dance in the driveway, gravel spitting out behind his heels. The triumph was short-lived. Sure, these bands were great if you had a small lawn with a few trees to protect but there were a thousand trees around the Castle. His trees.
He called Dr. Feinstein again, trying to explain the scope of the infestation but it was like the old man, who was pretty Looney Tunes himself, thought Jules was crazy. Don’t worry, the professor said, the leaves will grow back next year. Trees, he reminded Jules, are far more resilient than we, their lesser, weaker neighbors.
Jules had decided to screw the all-natural crap. He drove over the causeway to Home Depot on the mainland and demanded they point him toward the poison. A salesman in a canvas apron covered in inspirational pins—HANG IN THERE and DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY—tried to talk Jules into burlap sacks you tied around the trunk to catch the caterpillars. Like little caterpillar hammocks. And safe for the environment! Reminding Jules (as if he had to be reminded) about the dying bees. Instead, Jules had purchased a dozen pints of Btk, Bacillus thuringiensis—a nasty bacterial spore he knew Dr. Feinstein would never have condoned.
Back at the Castle, Leslie and the kids safe in the cottage with the doors and windows shut, he’d diluted the clear liquid with water (one and a half tablespoons per gallon of water), hooked his spray can to the hose, donned his safety goggles (Leslie insisted), and blasted those parasites out of the trees. It rained caterpillars and he whooped and hollered. Take that, you fuckers! Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies kurstaki spores gonna kick your hairy asses! He was the hero in every action flick he’d ever watched. Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo holding a rattling M60 machine gun. Kurt Russell in Backdraft saving a little boy trapped in a burning building. Hell, he was even Ernie Hudson aiming his proton pack at a green hot dog–gobbling blob in Ghostbusters.
The tangerine, late-afternoon sun caught the droplets and a rainbow arced overhead, and although he knew the science behind the optical illusion—he’d studied Snell’s law of refraction in physics his junior year, the bending of a light wave’s path as it passes between two medias—this felt like a miracle. An occurrence beyond science. Proof he’d made the right choice. Hope his trees, his garden, would survive. He sprayed until the bark of his precious trees darkened and his jaw ached from smiling. He sprayed until his goggles fogged over and the can was empty.
The next morning, he took a closer look at the layer of caterpillars blanketing the ground around his phenomenal chestnut tree. The smaller ones were dead. The bigger ones, who had already molted two or three times, shedding their casing and reappearing longer and wider with bristles so long they reminded him of the hair on his great-aunt Ida’s chin—they were squirming. Alive.
Back to square one. He ordered more green sticky bands.
Now the bands Jules and Brooks had wrapped around the trees were covered in big fat bristled caterpillars. Most looked dead but a bunch were alive and flailing and when the sun caught the red and blue dots along their backs, they winked like eyes.
“Ha!” he shouted, driving a finger at the tree. “I got your number. You going down.”
He slung an arm around his son’s widening shoulders and crushed him in a hug.
“We did it, buddy,” Jules said.
Brooks rolled his eyes and faked a weak smile. Since they’d moved to the island, his son was like one of those bobblehead dolls with googly eyes you stuck to your car dashboard. Eyes rolling, head shaking. Like every word coming out of Jules’s mouth Brooks heard in a foreign language. When had his son grown to despise him?
“Why can’t we just leave them alone?” Brooks said. His work-gloved hands were on his hips, and his body shouted bored and tired and fed up. “Maddie says they’ll be gone in a few weeks. The leaves will grow back, Dad.”
His son punctuated this last part with a comically loud sigh, and it made Jules see, just for a moment, how crazy he might seem. A madman on a doomed mission. The leaves around the garden had thinned so the roses were thriving, blooms upon blooms, from extra sun. Why, Jules thought, couldn’t he see that silver lining, take it to heart, wrap it around his aching back and shoulders?
No, this consumption of his land—it was his land now—was bigger than some cyclical disturbance of nature, even bigger than bad luck. It was goddamn unfair. To be given his dream, his fantasy garden, only to have it ransacked by pestilence.
He wouldn’t relent. He would stop those squirming freeloaders. Still, he had to save face. Especially in front of his son.
“You’re right about that, Brooks.” He made sure he sounded calm, even indifferent. “The leaves will grow back next year. But some of these trees will die. The defoliation…” He saw Brooks’s eyes glaze over as they did these days when Jules talked plants, which is what Brooks called it. “Listen to me, son.”