The Bat

My family and I had just arrived home from our annual summer beach vacation. It was late in the evening, and we had been driving for over ten hours straight and were very tired. Begrudgingly, I carried my bag onto the porch, and waited for my father to unlock the door. It always seemed to take such a long time for my parents to unlock the door, especially now when I was holding a heavy suitcase. Finally, my father found the right key, inserted it into the lock, and opened the door.

            When we walked in, we heard an unfamiliar sound—a loud flapping coming from the ceiling near the stairwell. We looked up and saw, like a three-dimensional shadow, a black mass gone mad, a large, terrifying bat violently flapping its wings. Our cat, Lucky, stood transfixed on the floor, watching the bat as it circled the ceiling.

            My sister, a girl of highly delicate sensibilities, let out a loud, piercing scream and ran back through the door.

            My mother, who was trailing behind with extra luggage, walked in. “What’s the commotion?” she said. Seeing the bat, her jaw dropped.

            My father, knowing exactly how to diffuse the situation, turned to my mother with a wry smile. “I didn’t know your mother was coming to visit,” he said. My mother laughed. She had a terrific laugh. It was warm and rich and high and knowing, a laugh of wisdom and understanding, and always, no matter what the situation, when you heard it, you knew my father had everything under control.

            My father said he needed a broom, a bucket, and a large lid, so my little brother, who was always eager to help, went to the kitchen to grab them. While he was gone, my mother began telling my father that a bucket would not be large enough. My father, ever defensive, insisted that it would be. “It’s not a cave,” my mother said. “It’s not just going to fly into it as if it were.”

My brother came back and handed the bucket and broom to my father. The lid he gave to my mother. With one hand, my father began swiping at the bat with the end of the broom, and with the other, as the bat slightly lowered itself, he tried to capture it in the bucket, or at least direct it toward the open door.

“Careful!” my mother shouted as my dad nearly struck the stained glass window with the broom.

Then, the bat, obviously frightened, began flapping its way all around us, and my mother began to scream and ran outside.

“If you’re too scared, give Daniel the lid,” my father called after her. My mother crept back in warily, and handed me the lid. My father turned to me after she had gone back outside. “That’s one thing about women,” he said. “They can eat a full grown man for breakfast, but when it comes to a tiny bat, they’re completely impotent.”

            My father continued to swipe at the bat with the broom. I stood by watching, thinking to myself that the probability that my father’s plan would work was about the same as if the bat would suddenly turn into Count Dracula himself. “Dad,” I said. “Let me go grab a sheet.”

            “A sheet? What...why?”

            “You’ll see.”

            I handed the lid to my brother, ran upstairs (ducking to keep from running into the circling bat), went to the linen closet, and grabbed a sheet. When I came back downstairs, my father was still futilely swiping at the bat, my brother watching keenly, ready to help at any point. I unfolded the sheet. “Here,” I said, handing one end of the sheet to my father. “Now, we can surround it.”

            My father again swiped at the bat with the broom and it flew down just enough for us to capture the bat between the sheet and the wall. We quickly wadded up the sheet around the bat, carried the gyrating bundle to the door, stepped outside, and unwrapped the sheet. The bat flew off, my sister cowering behind the porch swing, the rest of us watching as it twirled its way into the night sky.

            My father gave me a pat on the back. “Good thinking, Daniel.”

            As I stood there watching my father watch the bat disappear into the darkness, I had a vague premonition of a time when my father would no longer be by my side, when I would be forced to make every decision on my own, and as this premonition occurred, I had the feeling that I would be ready for the time when it came.