Rats                        

1850 wds          

Rat B leaps, driven by a stomach surge at the aroma. 

The growl of hunger alerted Rat A. 

    Spinning, facing friend turned foe in flight, bare fangs flashing, Rat A slips aside and sinks deadly sharp fangs into the throat of Rat B. They roll, entangled, Rat A ripping open the gullet as the assailant's heart pumps hot blood into the A’s dry throat. 

    The taste of Rat B’s blood sends Rat A into a frenzy; ripping Rat B open to the spine, gorging on the hot fountain.

Sated in body but not mind, Rat A then turned to a tradition among rats; with claws and jaws working in perfect coordination, tearing open the chest cavity of Rat B and devouring the heart. The tastiest part of a rat is the heart; same is true of the homo sapien heart, according to cannibal lore.

I saw all this happen from a boat on the James River across the water from Turkey Island. My friend was asleep in the bow, we had been fishing for an hour or more as we drifted. No luck, the catfish were asleep below us.         The river flows so slowly there a man has time to think. On the way in the truck, the boat in the back, we drank beer and smoked a joint and talked. I told my friend about getting ripped off by a squirrely guy selling tires and my friend said, “Maybe you and me can do business sometime.” I was expecting sympathy, don’t ask why, i guess i better look in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. My friend often takes a hard line. Sometimes i admired that strength in him.

The fish ignored our bait, we emptied the cooler of beer and grew drowsy in the sun. My sleeping friend and i drifted toward the shore and rocked there in a gentle eddy.

Across the water was the grounded barge, rusty, abandoned, a broken down truck on a highway of water. As my friend slept i watched the rat fight. I did not wake him to enjoy the savage scene of fang and claw, as i’m sure he would have enjoyed it. After the claim jumper’s throat was ripped open and heart devoured my mind drifted away. I thought about my cousin, my poor lovable, mistreated cousin; for her a cruel world full of rats.

I had glimpsed a particle of the eternal struggle; i thought i might, of necessity, be ruthless in order to set things right in my own world. But looking upon my friend, my coworker, my confidant, a man i loved, i felt helpless to act.

My opinion of and feelings for him had taken an unfortunate turn. He didn’t know my thoughts and feelings had changed and i tried not to let them show. I still had a lot of thinking to do.  I guess we could say my mind and heart were ‘stressed,’ and another ten dollar word, ‘ambivalent.’

A few days ago i saw my friend in Chiota’s with his new woman, the home wrecker. He had little to say, just sat and made puppy eyes at her so i split quick. She had taken him away from his second wife and children, but i knew how he felt; he sought a new, free life as his wife was heavy now and unattractive from childbearing. Plus children take a lot of time and money. My friend (i now saw) was also heavy, and i wondered what he thought of that. 

When my cousin married him he joined our family. That’s how it happens. My cousin was his first wife, let’s call her wife A. Then he divorced her, lured away by Wife B with whom he had three children. Wife B and the children were cast aside for yet another, a claim jumper. I didn’t catch her name, don’t want to know it. I thought this was an understandable role of man; to seek freedom, until my cousin, Wife A, moved to the other side of the country. She did not want to live in the same city or state if a man as heartless as my friend lived there. Heartless, how so? Come on, i asked her, how bad can a guy be? Before she got on the bus she told me she wanted children, her husband forbid it so required her to get an abortion. I didn’t know about this when it happened. When he split with her we were on the same job and i asked him about it and he said nothing about an abortion; he said, “I’m just not happy with your cousin anymore.” This seemed reasonable to me then, as they had no children. Couples come and go, no matter. Then he consorted with his next one, Wife B, and they had three children. Wife B sunk in her fangs, put her requirements on him and would not get abortions. This is what he did to my cousin, my family. A man i loved wronged my cousin and family. I’m divided by this pain now. Learning all this, i felt the need for justice, for action, but lacked the opportunity and the drive; as soon as i decided one way i switched back to the other; that’s the way people are, that’s how they do each other and it happens all the time. This was when i began to think seriously of life and death and planned or accidental changes. I say changes, you know what i mean. It was revenge; i thought this and didn’t want to admit thinking of it.  

As we drifted on the river, my friend deep in sleep in the bow, it occurred to me that if the boat capsized he would be thrown into the river and maybe he would be so surprised by suddenly being underwater he would forget how to swim. Not a bad plan; we both drank a lot of beer, officer. 

We drifted, the sun pressed on my neck and shoulders, the weight grew heavier. I would not hurt him to satisfy a dark, unjust purpose, if that is what i had, but i must defend my family; family is all we have. Yes, a contrary voice said, family is family but murder is murder. Still, to see on my cousin’s face that last time, when she told me what he had done, the look of a mother whose child had died and not merely died but murdered by her own hand, pushed me to ponder seizing this moment. Yet then i was only thinking murder, only drawing up a design. I studied the situation.  

As i obseerved my friend’s position, his body turned to one side, head on a seat cushion, i thought he might find it easy to surface from under a capsized boat and swim away. I then noticed that the anchor (nothing more than a couple of iron window sash weights roped together) rested in the bottom of the boat directly under his head. I figured together they weighted above thirty pounds. If the light anchor chain somehow encircled his neck as the boat rolled over he would have to manage the surprise of water plus anchor and chain around his neck, pulling him deeper. I would have to move the chain. It would make some noise; a metal chain scraping across the aluminum hull of the boat, and this might wake him. It was a possibility, it could be done, but should i do it?

Again thinking agitated me, drilling in again, why did you do that to her, you said you loved her, why did you dump my cousin and break her heart? Then you did it to another woman! When it happened he offered that reason, “I’m just not happy with her.” And your happiness is more important than anyone else’s, than a person’s life? 

I can trade a life for a life, right? Police do it, judges do it. 

I say “I’m just not happy with you, my friend,” and dump him into oblivion, okay? He would go to hell, that’s sure. Two wrongs don’t make a right, they say, but one right can correct a wrong.

I stood up, too agitated; i had to do something, move. I prepared to move forward, just to see, to consider the possibility and as my friend slept, take a rod, or the handle of the net, and move the anchor chain over toward the other side so it would have a better chance of encircling his neck if i really decided to really do it. 

On the way there, however, i stepped on one of the fishing rods and maybe broke it and thought, shit, and not wanting to break it more, stepped back and the heel of my shoe caught the edge of the seat and i fell back, twisting to one side, falling onto the edge of the boat. I scrambled to grab the edge rolling off and this threw all my weight against the edge and the whole boat went over on top of me. 

I don’t know where my friend is now. Well, I’m pretty sure he’s still sleeping. I’m still drifting down the river. I’ll never stop drifting. I’m not sure of anything. All i did was get out from under the boat and float away. I didn’t want to look up stream, or down. I’ll spend the night soaking in the water sleeping on a sand bank if i have to, if i ever wash up. This is what it really means to be washed up. I don’t care. I do care. Maybe i’ll just melt away, spread out and dissolve. Of course my wife will give me all kinds of shit about it. Where is my guiding hand? Who can tell me what to do now?  I will never get off this river, now i don’t want to. 

End of “Rats.”

The work praises the man or woman or nonbinarian. 

                            Irish proverb, lengthened.