Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer

by Leslie Peter Wulff

  Uncle Brucker said what’s his is mine. I guess that means the old house is mine too. This includes the barn, an old John Deere tractor and six junked cars my father left that I was fixing up. I had already pulled the front brakes off the Camaro and found an oil pump at Sturdevants in Crawley. New plugs too. I mean almost new. Next, the distributor cap and a not-too-old Diehard I hoped Otto’s Auto was still saving for me.

  Someday I’ll get the Camaro back on the road.

  Except for new gray hairs sticking out of his beard, a shaky left arm and a winky left eye, there was no evidence that Uncle Brucker ever had a stroke.

  8

  Uncle Brucker never gave out his phone number and he never advertised. He didn’t have to. Got a rat problem? All you have to do was ask somebody, it’ll get back to my Uncle.

  Saturday morning Mrs. Hobbs from South First Street left a message on the phone. There was a ugly rat caught in the crawlspace under her kitchen. Two days ago her husband crawled in after it, but he got stuck under the floor boards and he can’t get out.

  We drove out to Mrs. Hobbs’ house on South First. I held Uncle Brucker’s rifle and he pulled on his leather gloves and got down on his knees and crawled under the house. Moving quietly like a swamp snake, he sneaked up on the rat while it was sleeping and strangled it with its own tail.

  Then he crawled over to Mr. Hobbs and offered him a cigarette. Uncle Brucker lit one up too. They smoked and who knows what they talked about down there. Uncle Brucker kept two cigarettes for himself and gave Mr. Hobbs the rest of the pack, and then he crawled out from under the house.

  “He ain’t cummin’ out yet, dumplin’,” Uncle Brucker told Mrs. Hobbs. “I’m just tellin’ ya what he told me.”

  “How’s he gettin’ along down there?” she asked.

  Uncle Brucker looked to the house, shrugged his shoulders and smiled a little.

  “No complaints,” he said.

  Mrs. Hobbs had a wardrobe made up of primary colors. Today she wore a bright yellow apron, blue pants, and green shoes.

  From South First Street we drove to Parville and checked the traps along Jack’s Creek, then from Parville we drove over to Grimley. It was a busy day for the Rat Killer, a bad day for rats.

  Uncle Brucker couldn’t deal with credit cards, and please don’t write a check. He accepted cash for his service, but he’d much rather trade for a toaster oven or a coffee maker.

  He’d take almost anything in exchange. He said he made out better this way. He drove a hard bargain and he always got what he wanted. If you want them dead, give a toaster or microwave. Don’t give him cash.

  Today a retired fireman from Grimley gave him a half-empty bottle of Vodka and a two-finger bowling ball. He took the Vodka and the bowling ball. “If you want ‘em dead, give me the blender,” he said and he bartered for an alarm clock as well. The woman on Holmes Street baked him a delicious banana cake. She still owed him a toaster from last time. On second thought, he’d rather take the grill.

  We parked on a dirt road outside town and I waited while he drank the vodka. Uncle Brucker said it was OK, so I gave the bowling ball to a little kid on a bicycle. By the time we got back to town we had finished off the banana cake and he drank the Vodka.

  Wherever the Rat Killer went he attracted a crowd. Neighbors came over to congratulate him for a job well done, old friends stopped by to say hello. Cute little kids and shy old ladies asked for his autograph.

  At 48 Crown Street a short man with a bad leg limped over to my Uncle and shook his hand. I couldn’t keep my eyes off his daughter.

  She was hot! Her jet back hair went all the way down to her waist, cut straight across, and her eyes were dark and slinky. I’d seen her before but I never talked to her. She was a junior in the Catholic high school up on the heights, same grade as me.

  I moved a little closer while her father and my Uncle talked, and closer still until I stood next to her. My legs got wobbly, ready to fold, and my heart jumped out of my chest and danced along the sidewalk.

  I never felt like this before—so good and so bad, hot and cold at the same time.

  Then she turned and I looked into her eyes.

  And that’s when I fell in love.

  “I know you. You’re Walt,” she said.

  “I know who you are. Your name’s Renata. Cool name.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sounds like it goes with ya,” I said.

  “I seen you around.”

  “I seen you after school at High Mary’s. I drive up to the heights all the time. You wear those plaid skirts.”

  “You got to or else you ain’t Catholic.”

  “You want to go for a ride sometime, get a slice?” I asked her.

  “You ain’t got a license.”

  “But I got wheels.”

  “What kinda wheels?”

  “Take your pick. I got the Eagle and a old Camaro I’m fixin’ up. I got a Monte Carlo I might fix up too—but that’s a maybe. My Camaro ain’t here with me or I’d say let’s go. That car is fast.”

  “It ain’t fast like Cooter’s Cougar,” she said.

  “What car is?” I said.

  Cooter’s Cougar had the reputation. It was the car everybody’s trying to catch up to, the fastest and coolest car in Bowen county. Chris Christopher couldn’t get ahead of it with his GTI, and Fire-bird Fran ate his dust with a soup spoon.

  The Cougar had blacked-out windows. Nobody knew what Cooter looked like because you couldn’t see in and he never got out. When the headlights flash on a Friday night you know Cooter’s Cougar is on the prowl.

  Meanwhile, my Uncle was talking to the man with the bad leg, Renata’s father.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” he said. “I fought beside you durin’ the Second Uprisin’. Just a face in the crowd, I guess. I was there when they give you that fancy Medal for killin’ all them rats. You still got that Medal?”

  “He sure does,” I said. “Sits on a shelf in the livin’ room where everybody can see it.”

  “On the shelf, you say?”

  “It’s on display. Original dust.”

  “That so? That Medal might be worth somethin’ to the right person—if you’re interested in sellin’.”

  “Not for sale,” said Uncle Brucker.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Then why’d you ask?”

  “People change their minds. Nuthin’s permanent. Medal ain’t worth a nickel up there on that shelf, I’ll say that. The right person would pay you top dollar. Change your mind, I could be that person. Dusty Medal like that’s hard to find.”

  Uncle Brucker grabbed my arm and rushed me off to the car before I could say goodbye to Renata.

  “Now listen here,” said Uncle Brucker, so angry he sounded like my father. “You tell that bastard where the Medal is, you might as well wrap it up and give it to him. Don’t tell nobody nuthin’ about us. Keep your big mouth shut. You hear me?”

  “My mouth ain’t so big.”

  “Just keep it shut.”

  “Gotta to eat, don’t I? Can’t shut it all the time or I’ll starve.”

  “And stay away from that girl. She ain’t your type.”

  9

  I don’t care what they say, a shined-up car not only looks good, it runs better too. And the more you shine it up, the faster it goes.

  Sunday I woke up early and shined-up the Eagle with the spray wax I keep in the trunk. Uncle Brucker had a tough time getting out of bed so I had extra time and cleaned up the dash while I waited for him. We had a lot of calls to answer and mucho rats to kill.

  Finally he came outside. He stood at the screen door with a beer in his hand and watched me for a while. Then he went inside and came out with another one.

  When he walked over to the car he had a serious look on his face like he was pitching in the World Series.

  He tossed me the car keys but I missed them and I had to dig them out of the seat.

  “You’re dri
vin’ until I say you ain’t,” he said, and I slid over behind the wheel and took off. “Easy, make a right at the corner.”

  I love to drive. Started at fourteen driving the Eagle around the back yard, then last year when I turned fifteen Uncle Brucker let me take it to the streets.

  I made a right on Meridian Avenue and then took the back way out of town. I had the Eagle up to seventy going west on 94. Passed a Lincoln Town Car easy and then a Mercedes diesel moping in the left lane. Nobody was in front of me for a long stretch and I took it up to eighty. Uncle Brucker made me slow down to sixty-five when the front end shook. After the rearview mirror fell to the floor, it was fifty-five again.

  “Epoxy will fix that,” I said, and I kicked the mirror under the seat away from the pedal.

  Soon we were in the foothills. We went up and up a twisty road that had a double yellow line all the way. Tall pines grew on both sides of the road and scrub bushes grew out of the rocks. I drove across a rocky stream where icicles hung leftover from Christmas.

  I had never been up here before, high up in the foothills where the air is cold all day and the wind comes on strong at night. I kept the Eagle mostly in third gear, took the turns in second.

  The Eagle ate up the road.

  Somewhere on the road, Uncle Brucker started to talk. Fast at first, like a sideshow pitchman, because he had so many thoughts bunched up inside for so long. Then as he cleared his mind, he slowed down, like a lecturer on a summer tour.

  “There’s things I gotta tell you, Walt, important things, and they’re all true. Some things you’ll understand right away. Others might take a while. Don’t be alarmed if it comes to you the long way, it’s just a slow truth cummin’ around is all.

  “A long, long time ago, before evolution started, life was different here on Earth,” he explained. “These were the Rat Ages when rats had big brains and humans had little tiny brains. For hunreds, maybe thousands of years, big brain rats ran the show. But we have no way a knowin’ how long cause rats don’t keep track a time. In those days humans lived in holes in the ground and rats lived in fancy garden apartments. Look around you, for every human thing there was a rat thing. Rats drove ratmobiles around town, watched rat-toons on TV. There were rich rat kings and genius rat scientists and fat rat politicians too.

  “Cause at that time the meanest ruled. You remember the dinosaurs? Mean tyrants ruled the earth until a big Asteroid crashed and turned day into night. The dinosaurs died off, wonderin’ where the sun went. But rats love the night, hate the day. The rats came out of their holes and cheered when the sun disappeared. ‘Te-ta-Asteroid!’ they cried. ‘Thank you Asteroid! Te-ta! Thank you for hittin’ the earth!’

  “Rats bein’ next in line for meanness, they slipped right into the Rulin’ Seat and started runnin’ things in the meanest way. When things get bleak and can’t get any worse, the rats come out, and then things get worse.”

  Uncle Brucker went on about the Rat Ages, and he took me away. After a while I was no longer riding with him in the Eagle. I was back in the Rat Ages, floating up high with the clouds. Everything shrunk back to how it was ten thousand years ago, and Uncle Brucker’s words came together for real down below. Rat kings conquering. Rat hordes crawling out of garden apartments and marching to the ends of the earth. I had a clear view of the Rat Ages as I floated up above, quiet as a blimp.

  Everything was piling up, everything my Uncle had taught me about rats since the first time I ran away from home. Floating and listening and thinking and words coming alive. It happened all at once. There was a lot going on, a lot to figure out, and it weighed me down. And then I wasn’t floating any more, and I was back in the front seat of the Eagle with my Uncle Brucker.

  “How did the Rat Ages end?” he said. “Why did the rats disappear? Well that’s the question, innit? Some say their own meanness did ‘em in. Others say a whole lotta little asteroids hit ‘em right on their heads. Another theory is the Rulin’ rats liked eatin’ lead, sprinkled it on their meals like it was salt. All we know is they vanished into another dimension and they’ve been hangin’ out there ever since.”

  “That’ll make you sick and crazy, eatin’ lead.”

  “Yes, but they can write with their noses. Some say that’s the earliest indication we have of the Rat Ages, and I agree. Crazed nose writins from the sick minds a rats.”

  “And now they’re waitin’ in the next dimension, prayin’ for the Asteroid to come back,” I said. “So’s things will get bleak again and they’ll get back in the Rulin’ Seat.”

  “Rats are impatient creatures who live for revenge. And what’s the worst thing you can do to a human? What’s the last thing a man would want to be? I can’t prove it right now but I got reasons to suspect they got a way of turnin’ people into rats. Nobody knows how they do it. All we know is it’s been goin’ on for years. Started long ago durin’ the crazy days of the Black Plague. You can read about it in the Medieval Times.

  “Walt, I’m sendin’ you a warnin’. That man we talked to yesterday, he wanted to buy my Medal, I don’t trust him. And his daughter—-one day they’re gonna wake up and they won’t be in bed, they’ll be in the bottom of a rat hole and they won’t know the difference. You’re headin’ for trouble, Walt, if you keep movin’ in her direction. Promise me, you can look but don’t touch.”

  On the way down the twisty road I thought real hard about what Uncle Brucker said.

  People turning rat . . . poisoning their genes. It was a small part of a big story. I worked on it as I drove. About 10 miles down the road I put it all together.

  “Holy shit, Unc!” I said. “If there’s people turnin’ into rats . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “And there’s no turnin’ back . . .”

  “Keep goin’.”

  “And there’s more and more of ‘em every day.”

  “You’re gettin’ there.”

  “Someday you’re gonna have a whole world a rats!”

  “Now you see what’s goin’ on. They’re movin’ in on us, Walt, takin’ over the planet. Once they get evolution back where they want it, it’ll be the Rat Ages all over again. And this time they’re gonna make damn sure humans never get back into the Rulin’ Seat. The government asked me to keep an eye on ‘em, and for years I been helpin’ out. But I can’t do it alone no more. There’s too many of ‘em out there. I’ve been lookin’ around for a right hand man to help me out. What do ya say, Walt?”

  “I’ll help you out, Unc. I’ll be your right hand man.”

  “Thanks, Walt. I was hopin’ you’d say yes. We can’t stop ‘em, but we can keep track of ‘em.”

  “How can you tell who they are? Who’s gonna turn and who ain’t?” I asked him.

  “Well that’s the next step, innit? Easy, make a right at the corner.”

  10

  On the way home we stopped for burgers in Conklin. I was beat from all the driving, but I could drive to Alaska if I had a cheese-burger, a chocolate shake, and a medium twister fry.

  “In every town they got their hangouts, but there ain’t no town like Conklin,” Uncle Brucker said.

  We ate at a rundown burger place called Rex’s in the old part of town. The broken sign hung low on one side. Any lower, it will hit the top of the door. A couple of nails in the right place will solve the problem, but nobody took out the ladder and climbed up and fixed it.

  I pulled into the lot and drove to the drive-up.

  “Remember what we’re lookin’ for?” he asked.

  “We’re looking for the Three Key Steps to Identification,” I told him.

  “That’s right. What we’re doin’ is trickin’ ‘em into revealin’ themselves.”

  On the road down from the lookout at Modak, he explained the Three Key Steps to Identification.

  Step 1. Cognistension. You find someone you think might be turning rat, your natural reflex is to turn your head and look at them. What you have to do is observe that natural reflex. Make note of it be
cause it‘ll point you in the right direction. At this time you might feel a little anxious. Don’t worry, that’s normal. That’s Step 1, and that’s called Cognis-TEN-sion.

  Step 2. Transposition. So now you think you’ve Identified a suspect but you won’t know for sure until Transposition occurs. The longer you look at them the more they look like rats. That’s their inner self showing through, and that’s called Transposition. You transpose the vision of a rat over their faces. Step 2, Trans-po-SIT-ion.

  Step 3. Genomorphism. The complete manifestation of these rat traits in a physical way. But that don’t happen till later. It takes a long time to get going but then it happens overnight. And that’s Step 3, Geno-MORPH-ism.

  People with rat genes know when they’re noticed, especially after Genomorphism occurs. They got an extra rat sense about that. Sometimes when they know they’re noticed, they tend to walk away and disappear into a crowd. That’s called Stridation. But that’s not a step, and it doesn’t have a number. It’s just a thing they do when they’re turning rat.

  “Can somebody turn mouse?” I asked him.

  “Mice ain’t my line,” he said.

  At last the food came and we took it from the girl at the window. Those twisters are delicious. We smelled them before we got them. Uncle Brucker opened the bag and ate the big ones while I found a place to park.

  Right off something made me turn my head and got me looking: the girl at the drive-up window. And it got me suspicious. Her streaky brown hair had bangs over her eyes, and she put on hide-behind make-up that covered her face.

  She dropped a quarter in my palm and pressed it down with her thumb. The look in her eye said, “You don’t fool me, pal. I know who you are.”

  “The girl at the drive-up, she’s one.”