Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer

by Leslie Peter Wulff

  She left them in plain sight on her office desk. I looked in when I walked past. Manny looked in too, and Bones gave me a report between classes. Charlee came with me when the bell rang. I figured I’d sneak in and snatch them with Charlee on the lookout, but the janitor locked up early and Mrs. Molasco went home for the day.

  The next day the whole school knew Mrs. Molasco took my sunglasses. She displayed them as an example all day on her desk.

  Everybody talked about it in the classrooms and in the cafeteria. Kids I didn’t know said hi and good luck and gave me the thumbs-up when they passed me in the hall.

  Someone said I phoned Mrs. Molasco at her home yesterday after school, and I disguised my voice and said I was a District Judge. The kid is correct in this matter and I advised her to return the sunglasses immediately, I told her. Don’t fool with the law.

  Somebody else said I had presented her with an Ultimatum, then I gave her a Deadline. Word spread there was going to be a Showdown: Walt Thompson vs Mrs. Molasco. Principal’s office. Two forty-five.

  They were Identifiers, not cheating glasses, and she had to return them to the rightful owner. If she doesn’t give them back to me by two forty-five I’ll walk down the hall past the auditorium, turn at the cafeteria, take a drink from the water fountain outside the teacher’s room and march into her office and take them back.

  And I’ll give her a big chunk of my mind.

  At two forty-five Manny and Leroy walked with me to the office. I went in and stood at her desk while she talked on the phone. Manny and Leroy waited outside in the hall. Bones looked in. Charlee stood off to the side behind the door.

  She blew a kiss through the air. Good luck, Walt! Good luck!

  More kids wandered down the hall. The crowd grew quickly. The bus drivers stuck around for a while, wondering what’s going on, and they started up and drove the empty school busses back without finding out.

  I wasn’t nervous. I was angry and mad. I went from angry to mad and back to angry again. When you’re wrong there’s reason to be nervous. Make sure you’re right, you got nothing to be nervous about.

  Mrs. Molasco looked mean from a distance. Close-up she’s not mean like you’d expect. She wore her brown hair short and she put on a lot of make-up. She saw the world through dark spooky eyes. Up close she’s more spooky than mean.

  “Those are my glasses,” I said when she hung up. “I apologize for bringin’ ‘em to school. It won’t happen again and I’d appreciate it if you give ‘em back.”

  “You can’t have them back. They’re my glasses now.” She made it sound like a bible quote.

  “They ain’t cheatin’ glasses,” I said.

  “Ain’t?” she said.

  “They are not.”

  “Then what’s so special about them?”

  “Nuthin’,” I said.

  “Nuthin? Is that how we teach you to speak?”

  “No. I learned that on my own.”

  The phone rang again. She put my glasses in her desk and answered.

  While she talked on the phone I snooped around the office. College degrees, certificates and awards in expensive frames covered the walls above the jungle plants. The degrees proved she was smart. The certificates and awards attested to her greatness.

  A calendar hung behind her desk. Under that calendar another calendar stuck out. I took it off the wall and checked it out.

  It was the strangest calendar I ever saw. It was all screwed up. Everyday was Thursday. There was no other day except Thursday. Every week had seven Thursdays. I didn’t think about it much, it must be a joke or a mistake.

  Mrs. Molasco spoke into the phone. The kids in the hall got bored and walked out the front entrance, and their opinion of me went down a few notches. That kid Walt made them wait for nothing. They missed the bus, and now they had to walk all the way home because of me.

  Outside in the hall I told Charlee what went on between me and the Principal.

  She pressed her mouth tight and serious as she listened. And her eyes got squinty when she’s thinking real hard. She didn’t like what she heard. Charlee is smart. Her mind has a lot of footnotes. She knows right from wrong, and she’s smart enough to know what Mrs. Molasco did was wrong.

  She walked right into the Principal’s office. Mrs. Molasco looked up from her desk and smiled. Armed with the truth, Charlee let her have it. She talked and Mrs. Molasco listened, and Mrs. Molasco spoke and Charlee listened, and Charlee took her stand and talked clearly and made her point, much like her excellent report on Vesuvius and Pompeii.

  Charlee won her over, and she came out of the office with my Identifiers in her hand.

  Charlee made an important point that Mrs. Molasco could not counter. The class was not taking a test the day she looked in. We were reviewing last week’s test. How can you cheat on a test that’s not a test?

  18

  When Uncle Brucker came home that night, I told him what happened at school. There’s things I don’t like him knowing, but I never keep any secrets.

  I told him everything: I went against his advice and took the sunglasses to school and Mrs. Molasco took them from me and Charlee convinced her to give them back.

  After an I-told-you-so about wearing the glasses to school, and a you-don’t-listen about sneaking a peek in the classroom, and another I-told-you-so about being an asshole who doesn’t listen in general, I came to the part about the hidden calendar I found on the wall in the Principal’s office, and he put the I-told-you-so’s and you-don’t-listens to rest.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “I said it must be some mistake,” I said. “That damn calendar. Every day is Thursday.”

  “No, sir. That ain’t no mistake,” he informed me. “What you saw is a Rat Calendar. Every day’s the same to rats, and that day is Thursday. Your Principal knew you didn’t cheat with those glasses and that’s not why she took ‘em. She took ‘em cause she don’t want you lookin’ in her direction. And then what would you see? Keep it to yourself, Walt. It’s between you and me and her. Listen to me from time to time. Don’t take your Identifiers to school no more and put her name on the list.”

  19

  For dinner I fired up two big bass Uncle Brucker caught on Sunday. He said it was damn fine cooking, but don’t ask me how it tasted. I can’t tell you because I couldn’t get my mind off Renata, her long black hair and those slinky eyes.

  Later we took out the poker deck and I lost three in a row to the Rat Killer. My mind just wasn’t on poker. Uncle Brucker didn’t say anything but I’m sure he knew what I was thinking about all along.

  One last game. He had shuffled the cards and was ready to deal when we heard a strange knock at the back door.

  Scratch-Scratch Knock! Scratch Knock-Knock!

  “You hear that, Unc?”

  “I got ears.”

  Scratch-Scratch Knock! Scratch Knock-Knock!

  Now it was at the front door.

  “That ain’t no ordinary knock,” I said.

  Whenever Uncle Brucker had to do anything he hated, he got mad and threw something, usually whatever was in his hand at the time. This time he stood up and threw the deck of cards down on the table and the cards shot all over the kitchen floor.

  “Don’t tell me I got to wrestle that goddam rat now!” he said. One evening years ago Uncle Brucker came home from a long day out hunting and setting traps. A huge South American grizzly rat was standing in the driveway. He looked mean and he looked hungry, and he blocked my Uncle’s path.

  “Ha-cun-da! ” he said. Rat talk for let’s wrestle.

  You see, what’s fair is fair, even to a rat. And the rats didn’t think it fair that the Rat Killer can go around shooting them up with a .22 when they have no way of shooting a rifle or even loading it up.

  The rat had come to challenge Uncle Brucker to a wrestling match.

  Uncle Brucker didn’t care much for wrestling but he wasn’t about to let a rat get ahead of him on fairness. So he too
k off his hunting jacket and hung it on a stubby bush.

  “Ha-cun-da! ” cried Uncle Brucker.

  Don’t think it’s easy, wrestling rats. Rats love to wrestle and will never pass up a challenge any time of day or night. Rats have sharp teeth. Rats have claws that’ll rip you apart. They have no pity and they don’t play by the rules. Rats know moves men don’t know, lots of sneaky ones. Besides, it’s all in the balance, and rats got lots of balance. I’ll tell you right now my Uncle lost the first round. A seventy, eighty pound grizzly on top of you, snapping at the jugular, an inch from your throat. Uncle Brucker was fighting for his life. His life! The next round could have gone either way, but he got his balance back with a punch move and he pinned the rat down.

  Then they were even.

  Uncle Brucker didn’t see the Wrestling Rat again for many months.

  Then he woke up one Sunday morning and looked out the window.

  And who was standing in the driveway?

  The Wrestling Rat. He had come to challenge Uncle Brucker to another wrestling match.

  Uncle Brucker figured he’d better get in the mood for wrestling real quick. Now he knows he always has to be in the mood.

  Every so often that damn rat comes to town, scratch-knocking for a fight. It’s been going on that way for years. My Uncle wins a round, the Wrestling Rat wins the next.

  If Uncle Brucker can’t wrestle because he’s sick or injured, or if he just doesn’t show up, the Wrestling Rat would win by default, which means automatically.

  Scratch-Scratch Knock! Scratch Knock-Knock!

  Uncle Brucker sat for a while and drank a can of Boomers. He found a lighter in his shirt pocket and he lit a cigarette, smoked it so quick the ash didn’t fall off. Then he finished the beer and wiped his mouth on his left sleeve the way he always wipes his mouth. He really didn’t want to go out there and wrestle that damn rat. It was never an easy match for him. Uncle Brucker was only five foot six. How big was that big South American grizzly?

  Scratch-Scratch Knock! Scratch Knock-Knock!

  “You don’t gotta wrestle him at all,” I told him. “I’ll fight him for you any time. I ain’t scared a no rat, I ain’t.”

  “Thanks, Walt, but you know I gotta go.”

  “I know.”

  “And I gotta go it alone.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Me and nobody else,” he said.

  “I know, I know.”

  “And I know you know why.”

  “Cause it ain’t just a human and a rat, is it?” I said. “It’s bigger than that. If you lose it’s like all humans lose. It would mean rats are better than humans, so you got to wrestle and you can’t lose.”

  Uncle Brucker told me I might be called upon to continue the tradition some day. If he died or the Wrestling Rat died, a relative can be brought in to continue the match. Or if he got injured and couldn’t wrestle any more, then the tradition will pass down and it will be my turn to wrestle the Wrestling Rat. Me and nobody else. Uncle Brucker pushed open the back door. He knew I wanted to go with him, and he looked sad when he turned and said, “Sorry, Walt. This is between me and the Wrestlin’ Rat. No spectators allowed.”

  Out on the back porch he rolled up his sleeves. He looked up at the night sky. The clouds were breaking up and it had cooled off. A thunder storm was heading our way but it never got here. It was a good night for wrestling, all in all.

  “Ha-cun-da! ” he said, and he leaped off the porch into the night.

  When he came home hours later I was asleep on the couch. I woke up when the screen door slammed. He stumbled around the kitchen for a while, bumped into the table, knocked over a chair. He managed to get a beer out of the refrigerator and sit down at the kitchen table.

  It was a tough match. He was exhausted. An half-empty can of beer rolled off the table and spilled on the floor. I got off the couch and straightened the chair and picked up the can. He was red-eyed from drinking and he smelled from wrestling, or maybe the other way around.

  “Well? Did you win, Unc?”

  “Course I did. I always win, and he always wins the next round. Even match.”

  It was almost one o’clock.

  “What took you so long?” I asked him.

  “Sometimes we go for a drink is all.” And he popped open another one and drank it slowly. Last beer of the night.

  20

  Every day was a busy day for me and my Uncle. He lost a lot of time when he was stuck in the hospital and he thought he’d never catch up. Six days a week, Monday through Saturday, from eight in the morning until six at night, he went out on the road answering calls. I helped him any way I could.

  In the evenings after school we took out the government forms and went over the infected list. The list must be neat and straight. Everything must be up to date. The government could call any time so it better be ready.

  Uncle Brucker’s revitalizing stroke still gave him some trouble with the little things, like tying his shoe laces and using a pen or a pencil. Nobody could make sense out of what he wrote, so that job went to me.

  I also made out the weekly schedule, which wasn’t easy.

  Sometimes he picked me up after school and I went out tracking with him. On the weekends I was his right hand man all day. Everything piled up at the end of the week and this Saturday we were in trouble. We had nine house calls to make, a dozen traps to check. The Ram is due for an oil change, and somebody has to go food shopping if we want dinner.

  Uncle Brucker and I got up at seven a.m. and I made eggs and cheese toast for breakfast. To save time we split up the morning. After breakfast I drove the Ram down to Schnells Hardware and I picked up an oil filter and four quarts of 10/40 for the Ram. When I got home I removed the filter and let the oil run out, then screwed on the new filter. I tighten it by hand. Uncle Brucker said it don’t matter much so I never use a wrench.

  Meanwhile my Uncle drove the Eagle to South First Street for a follow up on Mr. Hobbs. Nothing had changed. Mrs. Hobbs had learned to adjust and he was still under the house. The Rat Killer crawled in and checked up on the situation and they talked about whatever they talked about.

  Then he set off to check the traps out on Jack’s Creek.

  After I changed the oil in the Ram, I drove down to Food Saver with sixty dollars and change I took from the cup in the kitchen cabinet. On the way home from Food Saver I made a right and cruised up the Heights, then down into town past Tuskies, on the lookout. Where was Renata? I hadn’t seen her in a week. Then I thought I saw her in the back of a Camry, and I followed it around for a while, staying two cars back to be sure she didn’t see me. The Camry pulled over. A girl got out. She had long dark hair and she was cool, but she didn’t add up to Renata.

  Did I mention my Uncle was scheduled to give a lecture on Rat Talk at the VFW in Wrentham?

  21

  Rat Talk came easy to Uncle Brucker. He had the ability since he was a child. In fact, he may have been born with it. No one realized it was Rat Talk way back then, but it turned out to be Rat Talk all along.

  When he was an infant, he kept saying “Ca-’ta-ka” to Grandma Thompson and she didn’t know what he meant. Later she found out he was speaking Rat for “I want milk.” Ca means “I like” or “I want.” Ta-ka is “milk.” Ca-’ta-ka, “I want milk.”

  What he was trying to figure out as an adult, he had been speaking all along since he was a kid.

  Rats don’t have a language like we do where there’s a different word for everything, but they do have a way of getting themselves understood. Uncle Brucker got a head start on the subject when he was younger because of his natural abilities. Add that together with his aptitude and you’ll call him an expert, which means he had a hell of a lot to say.

  So he booked a couple VFWs and a town hall, one roadhouse, the Elk’s Club and the rec center in Parville, and this Saturday it was the VFW in Wrentham, which was more than an hour away.

  Uncle Brucker understood that lecturing was educ
ational for the audience and lecturer as well. The audience learned about Rat Talk from the lecturer and the lecturer learned about human nature from the audience. He learned that some people were always so impatient, no matter how good the lecture. Others could fall asleep anywhere, anytime. And nobody wanted to be the last person out the door. He had a good reputation as a lecturer and once he was interviewed on a local TV station, but that was because he reported a brush fire and remained on the scene.

  I helped him out when I could. He taught me how to speak rat and I caught on quickly. I gave him what he wanted but I couldn’t give him what he needed.

  What he really needed was an assistant, a lovely lady assistant, about so tall, with red hair. First choice: Dotty the waitress at Mink’s Downtown Diner, of course. She wouldn’t have to wear fancy clothes, but fancy clothes sure would look nice with her red hair. She could arrange his lecture notes and stand by his side demonstrating good posture. She’d hand out the autograph sheets. He’d be sure to let her know how much he appreciated her, how much he needed her.

  After the lecture, dinner and dessert, they’d open a fresh deck at the roadhouse. Any game she wanted to play.

  He’d prefer somebody fluent in rat talk, but Dotty would do. He’d already taught her a few words at the diner. She caught on without even trying. And with his help she could learn all four hundred eighty-seven words in the rat vocabulary.

  Di-ch’-ch-ka means “I love you.” Literally, “You are my sex meal.”

  He never had anybody like that, ever. It could have been Dotty.

  North through Bowen County, west to Awkwood and Bay Leak by the Bridge. Up the east side of the bridge, down the west side right into the sunset. Mist steamed off the bay and climbed up the bridge all the way to the top. Supersize waterdrops collected on the ironwork, but not one drop fell on me and my Uncle. The sun sparkled the water at no extra charge.