The Second Rat

I can hardly believe my eyes. There's a second rat.

I've gotten to Michael's to feed and let the dogs out but I'm nowhere over the trauma of the first rat so I enter the kitchen cautiously. I'm reaching for the latch to open the gate that divides the room - the back door is on the other side - when I see it, lying squarely in the middle of the floor and not moving. The dogs see it at the same time and chaos erupts as they try to storm the gate. It's sudden and deafening and the rat doesn't react but I learned a little something from the first one and I suspect it's a ruse. I drag each of the dogs out, kicking and screaming, and reach for my trusty broom. It only takes one tentative prod and the creature comes to life, jumping into the air, whirling around, and slithering into a corner where Michael keeps the kennels and a veritable forest of half dead plants. My heart is once again hammering in my chest as I back away but I keep a death grip on the broom. Then I realize that the dogfood is on the rat's side of the gate.

As slowly and as quietly as I can, I open the gate, keeping my eyes fixed on the plants and managing to retrieve four containers of Ceasar's. I feed the dogs outside, re-fill and move their water bowls to the office and close the kitchen door. Despite my earlier vow never to use poison again, I consider it but dismiss the idea at once and decide to leave things as they are. The thing is likely half poisoned already, I tell myself, maybe it will die on its own.

To my surprise and shock, that seems to be exactly what happens. When I go back at midnight, the rat has crawled into one of the kennels and is lying there motionless but whether it's asleep or dead, I can't tell. I take careful note of its precise position then use the broom to close and lock the cage door. It still doesn't stir and the next morning, it appears to be exactly where it was. Fully prepared to run at the first sign of life no matter how feeble, I prod it with the broom, gently at first then more roughly, until I'm convinced that it's dead. In the words of the Munchkin coroner, not merely dead but most sincerely dead.

Thinking that Michael will be less than thrilled to come home to a dead rat in the dog kennel,

I gather my courage, fight off the nausea and sweep it into the dustpan, dump it in the trash, and take the trash to the outside barrel.

I refuse to allow myself to think about the possibility of a third rat.

A Rat in Residence

For the last couple of weeks, my friend Michael has been making claims about a rat living in the kitchen. I didn't exactly doubt him - the small pit has been hunting something in the kitchen for several days now - but knowing Michael's penchant for exaggeration, I did suspect it was more likely a small house mouse and certainly nothing to be alarmed about. All that came to a screeching halt last night.

At first, when I saw it lying motionless almost within reach of the dogs' water bowl (rat poison, Michael has informed me, causes excessive thirst in its victims), it took a couple of seconds to process what I was looking at. The little pit was standing over it, delicately sniffing and kind of wrinkling his nose but the word “rat” simply didn't want to surface in my brain. When it did, my second thought was that it was dead - surely no self-respecting rat would tolerate the nearness of a curious dog, I told myself - it must be dead. But before I could even call to the dog, the rat suddenly twitched, I shrieked, and the dog seized the wretched thing by its tail and flung it fiercely in the general direction of the back door. Trapped squarely between terror and disgust, I shrieked a second time and somehow managed to fight off the desperate urge to turn tail and run like hell. I dimly remember thinking, this is what a heart attack feels like. I don't know how, but I snatched at the little dog and dragged him out of the kitchen then slammed the connecting door so hard it rattled the glass panes. Breathe, I told myself, don't panic, just breathe.

It might've worked too except for the fact that I slowly began to realize I couldn't avoid the kitchen for the next four days. I was going to have to initiate a search for what I hoped would be a corpse. But I wasn't going unprepared or unarmed or alone. I would send the dogs in as scouts, I decided, then approach with extreme caution. After all, a rat who would allow itself to be flung by its tail by a dog couldn't be all that dangerous. It must have ingested some of the poison Michael had been putting down, surely enough to slow it down.

I opened the door, called the dogs to go outside and followed them into the kitchen. The little pit showed considerable interest in the areas behind the sink and the refrigerator but I saw or heard nothing. No scrabbling, no rat corpse, no blood. My initial relief didn't last. No corpse meant the thing hadn't been killed by its encounter with the dog. I wanted to believe it had been mortally wounded and crawled out of sight to die miserably but I couldn't quite convince myself. It was, after all, a rat, not a harmless little house mouse. Who knew what it was capable of or what disease it might be carrying. The idea was unnerving and I hastily called the dogs back in, moved their water bowls to the office and securely shut the door to the kitchen.

Apart from the occasional cockroach and a one time massacre of a fire ant mound, I couldn't remember ever having actually killed anything but I was prepared to make an exception for the rat. I drove directly to the feed store and bought a box of industrial poison, broke off several chunks of the vile stuff, generously baited the kitchen. I've always been a live and let live kind of person but there's something about sharing space with a rat that I can't get around for love or money.

The following morning, I enter the house - cautious but no longer terrorized - and approach the kitchen with a hopeful heart. I immediately see the rat on the other side of the door, hunkered down by the water bowl but not moving. When he sees me, he hobbles awkwardly away and vanishes behind the stove but his slow, stiff motion causes my conscience to unexpectedly twinge. Get a grip, I tell myself impatiently, It's a rat, a filthy, disease spreading, sharp toothed, nasty looking rodent and it's ridiculous to feel sorry for him. Don't be an idiot.

The third sighting is encouraging. I can see him, still by the water bowl, but now lying on his side with his little feet up in the air. I rap on the glass and watch for several minutes but he doesn't move and though I'm almost entirely sure he's dead, I decide to give him a few more hours. I come back at suppertime and to my dismay, he's revived and is now stretched out just a couple of feet on the other side of the door. He doesn't move when I rap on the glass, doesn't move when I crack open the door but when I prod him with the broom, he comes to, turns around and staggers toward the back of the stove, walking crookedly and falling over once or twice in the process. I watch him right himself, stunned and in awe of his will to live.

“I'll be damned,” I tell the anxiously watching dogs, “What's it gonna take to kill this thing?”

Here's the thing. The following morning he was still holding on although as close to comatose as a creature could be. He didn't look like a filthy, disease-spreading, sharp toothed, nasty rodent anymore but more like a sad, suffering, helpless and pitifully frail creature who deserved mercy I had no means to give. When I was totally sure he was too far gone to resist, I swallowed my fear and pity and disgust and somehow managed to sweep his nearly lifeless body into the dustpan, dump the dustpan into the trash and take the trash to the curb. I'd have set him free but with the poison in his system, it would've put any animal that found him at risk. I truly hope the shock finally killed him.

I'm left with a sense of not having handled this well and a nagging feeling of guilt about the use of poison. It was, I think - even for a rat - a cruel solution and not one I'll ever use again.

Hope and Despair

“We learn nothing from despair. That's what makes it despair.” ~ Marty Rubin

The despair I have felt since the 2016 election has become a force of nature. I fall asleep to it, wake up with it, and feel it every moment in between. Sometimes it invaded my sleep and gives me nightmares. It's a black cloud of burden and there's no escape, no safe place to run to, no shelter. I turn off the news and try to distract myself. I remind myself that even the most poisonous of politicians don't last forever. We are, I tell myself, like the Six Million Dollar Man, better, stronger and we can be rebuilt. Mostly. I hope.

I recently heard an interview by Michael Scott Moore, the author of “The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast”. Hope, he writes, is like heroin to a hostage and it can be just as destructive.” The words resonated with me. Later in the interview he said, Despair and hope are just two ways of approaching the future and it turns out, you can live without hope.

So maybe one of my favorite authors is wrong. Maybe despair does teach us something if no more than how vital it is to take a break from it. I can't make it disappear entirely but I can, sometimes, exile it into a temporary, semi-retreat. I can, sometimes, force it to the edges of my mind and diminish its power for small sections of time.

I don't know whether it will be enough but it's all I've got right now.

Running Out of Light

It's not easy to admit, but there have been times - fleeting moments, to be sure - when the idea of suicide was almost comprehensible to me. There's a certain seductiveness to the idea of saying fuck it, I don't care anymore, I'm done. I know there are those who say it's selfish or the coward's way out but in my heart, I think it must take extraordinary courage to end your life, to utterly give up on the idea that things might get better, might change. Darkness almost always gives way to light if you can just hold on for another day or another few hours.

My friend Bud reached a point of letting go this past week. He'd had some health issues, to be sure, but nothing life threatening or hopeless. He wasn't in excructiating physical pain or poverty stricken or facing any kind of crisis. He had friends and family, a home, a dog and his music but it wasn't enough. He just ran out of light.

I hope and pray he's found some peace and that those he leaves behind will eventually come to terms with his death and forgive him for his absence. Darkness threatens us all at one time or another.

Lady Claire

She was the last of the litter, a delicately boned, fawn colored boxer puppy with floppy ears, enormous dark eyes and a massive red, ribboned bow around her neck. When Uncle Stan reached into the pocket of his trenchcoat and pulled her out, my mother went limp. Before anyone could protest, he settled her in my mother's lap and stepped back with a huge grin.

“Last of the litter,” he said proudly, “Six weeks today. Merry Christmas, Jan.”

“She's going to be small, we think,” Aunt Claire added, “Small but beautiful. We thought Fritz could use a friend.”

It was a rare thing to see my mother speechless, even more rare to see her eyes light up but at the first sight of the new pup, that was exactly what happened. I watched in amazement as she cradled the tiny animal in her arms and nuzzled it against her cheek, accepting puppy kisses as if it were the most natural thing in the world and returning them with a gentleness and an affection I had no idea she even possessed.

“She's been wormed and has had her first shots,” Aunt Claire was saying, “All she needs is a family to love her.”

It wasn't that simple, of course. There would be new vet bills to pay, another mouth to feed, a long process of housebreaking and socialization to be endured. It would take a combination of patience, persistance and kindness - qualities I'd never seen in my mother - but she took it all on without the first hesitation. From the beginning, the little boxer pup was unquestionably her

dog. It was a bond that would last for years.

“What about a name?” my daddy asked and my mother smiled.

“Her name is Lady,” my mother said instantly and firmly, “Lady Claire.”

This made my Aunt Claire smile.

“Well, now,” my daddy said gruffly, “If they're going to be living together, maybe Lady ought to meet Fritz.”

The grown dachshund and the new pup took to one another - as my grandmother said - like succotash, becoming inseparable from first sniff. They ate together, slept together and played together for the next 12 years. You almost never saw one without the other and on the truly terrible night Fritz died, Lady went into mourning and never really recovered. Not even my mother was able to comfort her and within a year of losing Fritz, she carried her beloved boxer, now thin from refusing to eat, depressed, and barely able to stand, to the vet and came home alone.

My mother buried my grand father without a trace of sadness or regret.

She was dry eyed and distant at my grandmother's death.

But she cried for Fritz and grieved for Lady for weeks. As high a price as it was to pay, the part of me that hated her celebrated her pain and was glad to see her suffer. The part that loved animals understood and mourned.

Oh, To Be a Cat

Just before I open the back door to let the dogs out, I catch a glimpse of the black and white cat sitting on the deck. She's half asleep with her paws tucked neatly beneath her, idly watching the birds on the back fence but not motivated enough to stalk. At the sound of the latch turning, she whirls and takes off like a shot, scaling the back fence as if it had steps, and disappearing into the neighbor's yard. The dogs trot out, as best I can tell, completely oblivious to the missed opportunity.

Of the half dozen or so cats that regularly prowl the neighborhood, this is not one that I see very often and I like to think that even as skittish as she is, she's not homeless or feral, just something of an adventurer taking advantage of an irresponsible owner and what some would argue is a natural affinity for wanderlust. It's not a theory I hold to and for my own cats, none of whom have ever spent a single nanosecond outside on their own and never will, I prefer for them to be kept safe rather than at risk.

To my surprise, she's back the very next morning, calmly sitting in the sunlit driveway, casually washing her paws and whiskers. Once again, at the sound of the latch, she turns into a blur and races across the yard and over the fence. She leaves no trace of her trespassing and once again, the dogs seem to have no clue. For a fleeting instant, I think about leaving a dish of Friskies out for her but (thankfully) the urge passes and I settle for filling a water bowl and leaving it in a patch of shade on the deck. Mine is a well intentioned and compassionate neighborhood and there's no shortage of roaming cat feeding stations - the odds of her going hungry are somewhere between slim and absolutely none - while the odds of my being once again overrun are considerable. The twinges of guilt I feel will pass, I tell myself, she's well fed, healthy and street smart and she'll be fine.

The next time I see her, it's the morning of the 4^th of July and she's comfortably settled in the notch of the tree just the other side of the fence. This time the dogs do take notice but don't appear to care one way or the other. Each gives an obligatory bark or two, then ignore her and go about their business. She watches with a mixture of defiance and indifference, nicely backlit by the morning sun and still as a statue. It would make a good photograph but my camera is inside and knowing this cat, she wouldn't be inclined to wait. Such is the independence and the free spirited-ness of cats.