Over the past few years, I’ve written regularly for this magazine about my devotion to New York City. I love the cultish exercise classes that test your psychological mettle and the cryptic linguistic idiosyncrasies of the people you meet here. I love the know-it-all doormen – the actual kings of Gotham – and that any day, a celebrity might move in next door. I love that this is home to the world’s most audacious rats and, yes, I love Staten Island – proof that my affection extends beyond accepted social norms.
Only here would someone say ‘I named a roach after you’ and consider it a heartfelt gesture of affection
When a recent email landed in my inbox, though, it ignited a whole new appreciation for this brazen metropolis. It was from the Bronx Zoo, and it was a Valentine’s Day offer: the chance to name one of the resident cockroaches after a special someone in your life – or perhaps after a lying, cheating, newly dispatched someone who is no longer in your life. “Finally!” I thought, “a romantic gesture with both heart and longevity.”
At this point, some context, for roaches and I have a long and not-that-complicated history: I hate them; they don’t hate me. In fact, over the past few years, they’ve actively sought me out with the persistence of a toxic ex, popping up uninvited, catching me off guard and reminding me at every opportunity that they possess an influence over my emotional well-being that will certainly concern the therapist that I – as a real New Yorker – have been meaning to get.
My first encounter with a roach occurred one evening as I stepped out of the shower – naked, vulnerable, with no place to run. Through the residual steam, it stared up at me from the bathroom floor like the apartment’s lease was in its name and I was some mad squatter. I didn’t have the courage to scream like Marion Crane in Psycho. I merely managed a pathetic whimper before hurling a shampoo bottle in its vague direction. It nonchalantly sidestepped, presumably rolling its many eyes.
Next, after moving apartments, a veritable procession of roaches visited. They greeted me first thing in the morning when, bleary-eyed and caffeine-deprived, I was least equipped to feign bravery. They would scuttle across the living room floor and loiter beneath the bed. There were a few weeks when I deliberately kept my gaze above waist height, knowing that if I glanced down, I’d spot yet another six-legged critter patrolling its territory. If I don’t see it, I reasoned, is it even there? Just ask Schrödinger.
I began dreaming about roaches. As someone who processes difficult situations through aggressive oversharing, I told anyone who would listen – baristas, my dentist, dispassionate strangers – about my encounters, hoping that narrating our cohabitation might somehow make it less vile. Reader, it did not.
But over the past year, after staging a military-style operation to roach-proof our place, I can report promising results: sightings have become rare. The tiny roach that skittered across my toes the other night felt like a relic of a bygone era – the last gasp of an old flame. Now, with the benefit of distance, I can admit something I never thought I’d say: for all their repulsiveness, there is something I respect about roaches. They are resilient, unkillable and persistent. They survive chaos, adapt to adversity and thrive in the kind of environments that would flatten grown men. They are, in their own horrifying way – and perhaps with the exception of rats – the most New York creatures you could possibly conjure.
Which brings me back to the Bronx Zoo. Of course this city would turn a cockroach into a Valentine’s gift. Only here could romance and pests intersect so harmoniously. Only here would someone say “I named a roach after you” and consider it a heartfelt gesture of affection – or, you know, catharsis. And that is yet another reason I love this place so fiercely. New York doesn’t try to be pretty or polite or reassuring. It doesn’t apologize for something skittering across your bare toes at 11 p.m on a Thursday. But it also finds ways – strange, ingenious, profoundly unhinged ways – to make you laugh and to remind you that love, just like a roach, can be resilient enough to survive anything. Even another Hallmark-powered Valentine’s Day.
And yes, I may well be naming a cockroach this year. I’m not sure for whom just yet. But nothing says “I love you” like embracing the creatures that have embraced me – repeatedly, and with far more fervor than any ex ever could.
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