“Transposition is a thing of the past,” the Professor explained and the Elders drank. “It can take years, and still there’s no guarantee of Genomorphism. It’s a dull, worn-out idea. It ain’t even a notion. Here at the Rat Factory we’re workin’ on a shiny new idea, the rat cake! Every human has a bit of rat inside him. The rat cake helps the inner rat break out. It’s packed with super-nutrients that build the rat up, combined with a sharp astringent that shrinks the human down. Eat one, they’re gonna want another—-and another, and another. Just two cakes will start the inner rat growing. Eat six cakes, you’ll get sixty percent rat in three days. Humans can’t resist because they’re lazy and they got no fortitude. Give the rat inside him a chance, it’ll take over. Load the rat cakes in vending machines or ship ‘em off to supermarkets and put them on the shelves. In a few months we’ll be back in the Rulin’ Seat. Humans are done for! The future is ours. That’s the notion. You get the idea. It’s all packed together in the rat cake.”
When the Professor had finished, he jumped with excitement. When the Elders looked his way, he calmed himself down. He sniffed the air and straightened his tail, and with his nose pointed straight ahead he went to the storage hole where Uncle Brucker was hiding.
Uncle Brucker slid back deeper into the hole. He pushed a box of cakes toward the entrance. The Professor reached inside and grabbed a cup cake and held it up for the Elders to see.
And Uncle Brucker saw it too.
So that’s what he was eating! Rat cakes. And how many had he stuffed down his throat? Two? Four? Six? It doesn’t matter. He discovered what the rats were working on, and that’s what matters.
He held a cake in his hand, a perfect little cake, so round and sweet, with raisin cheeks and peanut eyes. But he didn’t eat it, he squeezed the sneaky rat cake to a pulp. The raisins came loose and the peanut eyes popped out. He figured the raisins and nuts were safe to eat, so he picked up a few, held them in his hand and popped them in his mouth.
“The nutrients are in the raisins. The astringent is in the nuts,” the Professor explained.
Uncle Brucker spit out a mouthful.
Now he was in a tough position, about as tough as it can get. Any-body else would watch his life crumble with that cake. He’d give up and surrender to the rats then and there. But not my Uncle. He doesn’t panic when things get tough. He has strength as well as fortitude.
Fortitude!
What the Professor said about fortitude riled him. What does a rat know about fortitude? What rats got, humans got more of, and that includes fortitude. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. With each breath fortitude filled his chest and flowed through his body, filling him up with I Can Do’s. Now he had a whole chestful of fortitude—just like the man he admired most, General Hardesty.
The Elders toasted the Professor. They toasted the Professor again. The Professor had examples to show the Elders and he was an impatient rat. He wanted to jump on the Elder’s backs and nip some sense into them but he knew better. Instead, he jumped a little gray work rat who crawled near him. The rat squealed and tried to get away. The Professor came down hard with his big claws and the Elders watched. In seconds he ripped and chewed and gnawed that rat to the bone.
The Elders plugged up their rat pouches and turned to the Professor.
“Bring the humans out!” cried the Professor.
“This way, humans,” said Midnight.
The four squad members came out of the shadows. They walked slowly with their hands tied behind their backs. A woman stepped into the light of a poke hole. Her face was black with dirt and part of her ear had been nibbled off. Her left eye was swollen and closed. She had developed a severe facial tick.
Example number one: Downtown.
“Only two cakes, and you can see the brightness on her face,” the Professor explained. “Gone is the dumb human look, replaced by that sharp rat look. Humans have fragile brains, unlike rats, because they don’t eat enough stew. Next!”
Example number two: Duffy. Face wet with tears. Ankles nipped and bleeding. His right arm twitched uncontrollably. His left arm hung like a dead thing waiting for the funeral. Example number three: Ex-Lieutenant Willett. Number four: the Doc. Twitching, shaking, crumbling remnants of themselves.
“And now, finally,” said the Professor with a grin of satisfaction, “the man you’ve been waiting for, the man we all hate. Bring out the Rat Killer!”
59
The Elders drank the rat juice and waited. They waited and drank some more. The Professor crawled into the hole and came back with a sad look on his face. The Rat Killer could not be found.
It had been a fine visit with the Professor. The Elders had much to be pleased about. Only one thing displeased them, and they forgot what it was. No matter, their pouches were low on juice and they were anxious to go home to their sleep holes.
One Elder burped, a second peed in the drain ditch while the third burped and farted. Ha! Ha! He laughed. More farts. Keep laughing, Uncle Brucker said to himself. Keep laughing, you miserable rat! You’ll get yours. And Uncle Brucker chuckled to himself, for he realized what was happening down below. . . .
Duffy’s left eyebrow twitched. Ex-Lieutenant Willett blinked. The Doc tapped his foot, and then he winked at Ex-Lieutenant Willett. A tremor ran down Downie’s left arm and ended in a thumbs up. A twitch from Duffy, another from Downie, and now the Doc was tap tap tapping his foot!
It was all a code, a secret code!
Tap, Doc, tap!
Twitch, Duffy, twitch!
As the Elders drank, the squad made its move.
It wasn’t easy, there was so little left of what they were. An arm here, a leg there. But put them all together, they made one hell of a soldier.
With one hand Duffy untied Ex-Lieutenant Willett. Then Ex-Lieutenant Willett set the Doc free. Duffy put his arm around the Doc and steadied him. The Doc put his arm around Ex-Lieutenant Willett.
“This way!” Midnight cried, and forward they charged.
The work rats dropped their boxes and scattered into their holes.
The Professor turned and ran, but he tripped on a root and fell on his face and cracked his glasses. Midnight caught up to him and stepped on his tail. The Professor scratched at the dirt but could not get away. The Elders didn’t realize what was happening until after they drank up and re-plugged their pouches. And when they saw the four humans all hooked together, they still didn’t know what to do. Should they run or should they drink? They looked to each other for an answer. A quick drink will help them decide.
Before the Elders drank, Duffy stumbled and the Ex-Lieutenant lost his grip. The Doc put his arms around them, held them tight. But it was too much for them. They took one more step and tumbled forward. It was all they could manage. A few feet and they had worn themselves out. As they fell, they turned to Uncle Brucker, and he realized they did it all for him.
They had planned his escape! First they had scattered the rats, now they were showing him the way out!
“Crawl, Sergeant. . . ,” Downie started the sentence, and the Doc finished it, “. . . Brucker. Crawl!”
“Which way?”
“This way,” the Doc said, and Downie pointed. “Center hole, left side!” said Midnight.
60
Uncle Brucker took a long, deep breath and gathered up a heap of fortitude, and he crawled through the center hole, left side.
He dug into the dirt with his fingers and pushed forward with his toes. He crawled past sleeping rats and hoarding holes stuffed with shiny things. He saw piles of jewelry and old stopped watches and shined-up silver dollars stored in the richest of rat holes.
He crawled past dead soldiers holed-up and forgotten since the first Uprising, and he heard the moaning of the dead. The earthly moans have echoed through the rat holes for many dark years. And they waited to be heard by someone, anyone, from their own dimension. That someone turned out to be my Uncle Brucker. Now they can finally rest.
He crawled
passed boxes of fresh rat cakes, addressed to: NY City, Atlanta, Washington DC, ready to be shipped out. He used up a lot of fortitude fast, and it’s not easy to get back. By the time he got to the entrance hole he was pretty much out of fortitude, and his mind drifted away. He didn’t realize it, but he was starting to feel the effect of all those rat cakes.
As it turned out, Midnight sent him through an old alley hole that angled upward to the heart of Rat City. He wiped the dirt from his eyes and poked his head out of the hole.
But something was wrong. No, everything was wrong! The back alleys, store fronts, light poles, everything was crooked! He wiped his eyes again but it didn’t straighten things out because in Rat Land nothing stands up straight. Everything is crooked.
The rats sang and danced and humped in dark alleys. A six-rat band playing patched-up instruments jammed in the corner. A drunken wharf rat plucked a sour note on an electric guitar. The musicians saw Uncle Brucker crawl out of the hole, and they came over.
A mean-looking dandy rat stood in front of him. It was dead-rat quiet.
Uncle Brucker knew he better think up something fast, or it will be over for him. But he had trouble thinking. Then when he tried to talk, it was hard to get the words out, his throat was so dry.
So he said the only thing he could say, “Ka-ta-che.” Good morning, dandy rat.
“Ka-ta ch’ta-to.” Good morning to you, Impostor, the dandy rat replied.
Because that’s what they thought my Uncle was, a damn good impostor. The rats had never encountered a real human in their dimension, but they sure were used to impostors. What human could talk rat, anyway? He was a tall impostor.
The band played on. The rats humped and danced and danced and humped, but it lasted only for a little while. One hour until dawn, the night is nearly done, and the rats were plenty tired.
The dandy rat waltzed around his sleep hole. He didn’t look so mean when he danced. He kicked some dirt out of his hole, then he went inside for the day.
Uncle Brucker felt he should get out of the hole and dance with them, but his back ached from sleeping in the dirt and his legs ached from crawling. One or the other, he would have joined in.
Instead, he wandered off into Rat Land.
61
Gone. Missing. Stolen. Disappeared.
Call it what you want, but words won’t help me find it. Uncle Brucker’s War Medal is gone, and I better find it and bring it back.
Someone who was at the party Saturday knows the answer. The Medal didn’t crawl off on its own. Somebody gave it a lift and nobody’s talking about it. I phoned everybody I invited to the party and others who just showed up, and I scheduled a meeting at the Old House. Wednesday evening. Eight o’clock.
I will never give up. I won’t stop until I find it.
As a symbolic gesture, I decided to give up lunch until I get the Medal back.
Charlee, JJ, Ida Lena, Lee May, Bethany, Manny, Bones, Leroy, Arnie, Bunky and Phil attended the meeting. I made everybody sign in.
Only one person other than Vernie Verna didn’t show up, and he was my main suspect: Kip.
We assembled in the kitchen where I had prepared a demonstration.
The demonstration involved a hammer and an apple. I put a carving board on the table and placed the apple on the board. I held the hammer in my right hand.
“I find who took it, this is what I’ll do to his head.”
Then I smashed the apple with the hammer and the apple splattered all over the kitchen and everyone at the meeting.
“See that?” I asked.
Everybody saw it.
“Bunky, you see that?”
“Sure, I saw it.”
“Any questions?”
“Just one. Do aliens get pimples?” he asked.
Ida Lena and Bones stuck around after Charlee and everybody else left. Ida Lena and Bones had something to talk over.
Ida Lena said, “We just want to say we’re sorry what happened to the Medal and we had nuthin’ to do with it anyway. We know what it means to you and your Uncle. And we hope it never happens again.”
“Thank you, thank you. That’s a real big help,” I said.
“What you should do,” Ida Lena told me, “is hire a cleanin’ service. They find lots of stuff. You can bet they’ll find that Medal if it’s still here, and if they don’t you know it ain’t.”
“A cleaning service?” I said.
“That’s my advice,” Ida Lena said.
Advice. I get advice. Like advice will get off its fat ass and find that Medal for me.
“There’s more,” said Ida Lena on the way out. “Renata told me to tell you she’s sorry too. She’s real sorry and she wants to see you at Tuskies after the meeting.”
62
It didn’t take long to drive down to Tuskies. I combed my hair, brushed my teeth, put on my best Nikes and started up the Eagle. I took the shortcut at Holmes, made a right on Center, and I was downtown in eleven minutes.
I couldn’t wait to see Renata again, her long dark hair, those slinky eyes. I had a lot to think about but my mind always came back to her.
I parked across the street from Tuskies, Identifiers on. I figured I’d do some identifying before it got dark. The glasses slipped down on my nose, so I bent the plastic around my ears and they were fine.
There she is, all in black. She stood in front of Tuskies with her girlfriends. When she saw me in the Eagle she said goodbye to them, and they all looked my way as she walked across the street.
Then it happened again. My Identifiers fogged up!
I wiped them off but it didn’t work because the fog was under the glass. I wore them in the afternoon and all evening. Maybe I wore them out. I threw them in the glove compartment before she got any closer.
“You took off your cool glasses,” she said when she got in the car. “How come?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Don’t wanna be too cool, I guess.”
“My father don’t like me hangin’ out with you,” she said. “He says say goodbye and get over it.”
“My Uncle says you ain’t my type at all.”
“What do you think?”
“What do they know?” I said.
“Kiss me,” she said.
63
We cruised around for a while, taking the back streets to avoid the cop cars. But it was a night of empty streets and the cops were not around. I turned right onto Main and drove down Center and back to Meridian again.
All this time I said about three words to Renata. She did all the talking. She told me about her favorite pop star, Lyca, and got me interested. Lyca was an Idol. Renata had all her records except the first two but she’ll get them. I never heard of Lyca and I never heard her sing but she was Renata’s favorite and that was good enough for me.
I thought about the missing War Medal and I had a wrestling match with myself. In one corner I had this superhot girl I couldn’t get my mind off. In the other corner was my Uncle’s War Medal and I was all tied-up inside about that.
Renata is smart, very smart. She spoke like every word cost a million dollars. She knew a lot and she had lots of opinions. I just like the way she talks.
“Everybody’s got their own opinion,” she said. “But if you ask me it’s all in the planets. Planets line up in a row, you got it made. Study the planets, you can figure out anythin’. When I get to college I’m thinkin’ I’ll major maybe in Jupiter.”
We drove up to the Heights and she showed me her house on Crown, a brown house on a corner with big bushes out front and a circular driveway.
We had wasted enough time and I wanted to get back to the house. She said she would stay for a while. On the by-pass back to town I took the Eagle up to 75.
“So what’s the problem?” Renata asked.
“What problem?”
“Somethin’s goin’ on. You’re like an itch waitin’ for a scratch,” she said.
I told her about my Uncle’s missing Medal, and she said she didn�
�t hear anything about it, she’ll keep an ear out.
“We goin’ back now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think maybe not,” she said.
“You said you want to go back to the house.”
“I do.”
“So what are we waitin’ for?”
Someone in the rear seat said, “We gotta be home by ten.”
“Who are you?”
“Dwight meet Walt, Walt meet Dwight. He’s my brother,” Renata said.
“Half-brother,” said Dwight.
“When did he get in?”
“I don’t know, he gets in.”
Dwight sat behind me in the dark. He was the brother she got when her mother re-married. He was a year and a half younger. I tilted the rearview down but I couldn’t see much back there. He wore a baseball cap and he had a high voice and he was bigger than you think.
“What kinda car is this?” he asked me.
“This is an Eagle,” I said.
“Never heard of an Eagle before.”
“They don’t make ‘em no more,” I said.
“Those blinkin’ lights come with it?”
“No, I screwed them in the dash myself.”
“Looks like they come with the car,” he said.
I wanted to take Renata back to the house but Dwight insisted they had to be home by ten, so I dropped them off.
When Dwight got out he said, “Hire a cleaning service.”
64
I saw Kip driving alone on Center Street and I followed him to Mid-City Lanes. He parked his little Mazda 3 in the lot. I parked the Eagle on the street where he couldn’t see me. I watched him get out and when he walked across the lot I came up behind him.
He heard me and turned around. I socked him in the jaw first thing and tried to get him in a headlock, but that didn’t work and he tripped me and knocked me down on the concrete but I flipped him and now I had him face down with my knee on his back.
“Time out! Time out!” Kip said. “Let me up, will ya? I ain’t fightin’ you no more.”
Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer Page 12
