Rudy Jones: Predatory Mites

Since I can't seem to Google any references to Rudy on my own fucking blog, I'm hoping I don't tell the same story again. For those of you who weren't reading (assuming anyone still IS reading), Rudy was a chemical applicator for me several years ago. He's absolutely wacko, but quite charming in his own way.

Now, Rudy was really superhuman when it came to a lot of things. He sprayed more turf than I've ever seen anyone spray, ate hugely (my boss once followed him down May, and watched him stop at six fast food restaurants in the span of half an hour), and had an optimism about life and his place in it that I haven't seen matched anywhere outside of the White House.

But Rudy had weaknesses. Gurls, as you're all aware, could wrap him around their cruel talons with a smile. The sight of his own blood caused him to shut down for a week. And he had a fear of the microscopic that bordered on supernatural obsession.

Rudy believed to the core of his being that there were bugs that lived in and under his skin. These bugs came and went periodically, and made their presence known by boils or eruptions on his skin. To me, these looked like quarter-sized scabs, but to Rudy, they were tiny parasites, or monsters. He regaled me with earnest tales of cutting them open to try and dig out the little critter inside, with varying results. "Normally I get 'em," he said, "but sometimes they just move."

Once I saw what Rudy was using to dig around (in his own flesh, let's be clear on this), I was sure that the problem wasn't anything other than a very bad skin condition (brought on by not fucking bathing for weeks on end) complicated with unclean "surgical tools." The original tool was an X-acto knife, which was crusted with matter and secreted in the glove box of his work truck, but later he switched to a swiss army knife the company handed out as gifts one Christmas. Sometimes, when his flesh was very tender, he'd dig into his face with a toothpick.

Gross, huh? Where did these bugs COME from, you ask?

Off trees. Cedar trees, specifically.

See, his face was bad, but not truly horrifying, until the second winter he was living in his car. Previous to this, he'd taken a shower pretty regularly (although not exactly frequently), but upon losing his apartment and moving back into the MMRU, the whole hygiene thing just fell apart for him. Further complicating this was the fact that he spent most nights in a crappy little restaurant very close to my house, which had both off track betting and the dubious patronage of Jamelle Holloway.

(As an aside, will someone please tell me I'm not an old coot because I know the name Jamelle Holloway?)

Thus, he spent most evenings that fall and winter hunkered over a draw beer and a plate of greasy steak, eyeing the big screens and the firm buttocks of the serving staff, who soon learned they made a lot of money if they'd just shut up and smile.

But as time wore on, his face became a serious problem. It got bad enough that children (and not a few housewives) were scared of him, and I began urging him to see a doctor, or barring that, start bathing nightly.

"Aw, man, them doctors don't know nothin'! I know what it is already!"

"What, then?"

"Predatory mites! They jumped off them cedar trees we put in a few months back, and I been trying to get the little suckers out of my face for the longest time!"

He went on to tell me that it's a well known fact that predatory mites get on people all the time, and while they rarely do serious injure to people, they're also hard to get rid of. Rudy felt that the only way to really get them to leave was to keep their little entry wounds open, so they could crawl out on their own. Thus, the X-acto knife in the truck, so he could work on them during lunch.

This went on for several months, but as his face worsened, his outlook worsened, so by springtime (that is, after his wrongful arrest for DUI, which is another story), we forced him to visit a doctor.

Of course, we paid for it, and had to pitch it to him in terms of our own peace of mind, but he did go. The doctor wrote him a prescription for an antibiotic, and told him to start washing his fucking face already.

But Rudy wasn't convinced. "Aw, man, them doctors don't know what they're talking about. It was one of them minimum wage doctors, anyway. He never even heard of predatory mites!"