Tag: Pleasures of Life

It’s May 2002, and I make my way up the stairs of Winston Hall at Wake Forest University to meet up with Nick, the graduate student in charge of the bat lab — or The Batman, as I come to call him. He uses his key card, leading me through a labyrinth of locked doors and staircases that end in a dark basement room — a bat cave, if you will. You see, I’ve taken a summer position as an undergraduate research assistant studying bat echolocation. As an eager biology major, I’m ready to get started on this dream job, rabies vaccinations and all. In my first week, we insulate the cave with foam pads to make it fully soundproof for recording bat calls. Nick and I work side-by-side for several days, listening to The Best of Sade CD on repeat while he tells me about his home country, Bulgaria, and his dog, Max. By week’s end we finish the room, and I’m gifted a container of fresh feta cheese, a surprising but welcome gesture. The Batman continues to pay me in feta all summer as I hurry along by his side, carrying stacks of notebooks and tools. Just call me Robin.

Our next mission involves collecting bats from the field. And by “field,” I mean anywhere a colony of bats may be living. During the first expedition, I find myself stabilizing a ladder in the dark while The Batman climbs underneath bleachers at a local high school, using gloved hands to carefully scoop bats and bring them down one-by-one to a carrying case. The next week, an exterminator tips us off that a woman wants bats removed from her attic. We speed over in our bat mobile (an ’80s hatchback), crawl into the hot, clammy attic space, and secure the bats.

Once the great migration of bats to the bat cave is complete, I’m tasked with cleaning their cages and providing them with daily food and water. Simple enough, except that, believe it or not, I don’t particularly like bats. In fact, years of media villainization have left me terrified of them — especially that they’ll somehow get caught in my hair. As I peek inside a cage, psyching myself up to clean, I see a cauldron of bats hanging upside down, their beady eyes glistening in the red light of my headlamp, and I draw back with a gasp. In another cage, a bat is gripping the wire door, so when I open it, he swings open to greet me. The stuff of nightmares. Only after some serious self-negotiation am I able to squeeze my hand through the smallest crack in each door. Mission accomplished.

Finally, what we’ve been waiting for — we begin our experiments with bats and moths in the lab. It turns out that moths can emit a buzzing sound to “jam” a bat signal and avoid being eaten. We want to capture the sound waves of that particular moment of survival. Nick turns on the sound recording device, we turn off our headlamps and crouch down, waiting in the darkness, as Hercules (our favorite bat – yes, we name them all) starts to circle the cave. In his quest for food he repeatedly flies within inches of my face, close enough to feel the wind from his wings tickle my skin. Each time he swoops by he slows just enough to get a look at me, and I at him. I surprise myself by not being afraid, but instead feel a tingle of exhilaration each time he passes.

Mere weeks later, I’m now feeding the bats by hand (Holy Toledo, Batman!) and spending hours alone in the bat cave running experiments. There’s a tranquility found in that room, the bats whirring around me again and again, and I grow to enjoy the dark. “I am darkness, I am the night.”

We also raise baby bats in the lab, and I find I am falling all over myself to help. Wrapped up in tiny bundles, the babies greedily accept formula we feed them through droppers. Just like with human babies, we wake to feed them in the middle of the night. I leave a summer party at 2 a.m., announcing that I must go feed baby bats (surprisingly, no one questions this). In the stillness of the lab, my ears still ringing from the blaring music of the party, I drop milk into their little mouths.

When the babies are older, I take them out one-by-one and walk around the bat cave while each bat hangs upside down from my finger. As they feel the air under their wings, they begin to open them, eventually extending them fully to push off and take their first flight. I sit in awe. I’ve just taught baby bats to fly.

Throughout my summer in the bat cave, I meet other bat lovers. Led by The Batman, we’re a motley crew — all of us used to spending hours alone in darkn ess. One has a bat tattoo, another a bat navel ring. We have cookouts and gatherings. We give each other bat-themed gifts (the children’s book, Stellaluna, being one). As the summer ends, I sign up to work in the bat lab during the next academic year and again the following summer, having found my place in Gotham City.

These days, I no longer study bats, but I sometimes wish I did. In those quiet moments in the lab, I experienced a peace that I’ve never quite been able to replicate. One that comes from watching, from listening and from being still in the dark. A few years ago, I met up with The Batman, who now is an internationally recognized professor. We enjoyed a glass of wine and discussed the research that we each do. As a lifelong Robin, I’m hopeful that we can work together again one day. I’ll await the bat signal.