Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer
Page 24
“I’ll pay fifty dollars,” she says.
“The Rat Killer ain’t here,” I said.
“Please?”
Ward Balk called next. He lived in an apartment on Lower Main. The apartment building next door had burned down and forty-one rats moved into his basement. He trapped thirteen, killed seventeen, but eleven got away. Could the Rat Killer come over and teach those rats a lesson? How does ten bucks a rat sound? OK, he’ll go fifteen, but he’ll be damned if he’ll trade another tool set.
The Rat Killer had neglected his business for more than a month. The emergencies piled up. Customers were nervous, and from nervous they became frantic.
Frantic customers sat with open bottles of aspirin on their tables and fingers tapping Redial. A lady with a raspy voice saw a roof rat that resembled her dead husband. Could the Rat Killer come over and catch him? She had a thing or two she wanted to tell that lazy rat. Another man saw three gas station rats drive off in his Mini. Two rats worked the pedals and the third steered the car. Somebody saw the Mini in Dengrove. How does two hundred sound to drive out there and help him get it back?
These people had relied on Uncle Brucker for many years but he couldn’t help them this time. The rats are acting up again. Somebody better stop them or they’ll get out of hand. Trouble has a long tail and crawls around on four feet. Somebody better step up and do what must be done.
The phone rang. It was Mrs. Grooner again. Now two rats are hiding out in her mailbox. The ugly one-ear rat and an uglier nipped-nose rat. And they were doing things she’d rather not talk about.
“One hundred dollars! Each!” she says.
The sun came in through the morning window. Dust floated in the kitchen air. A rectangle of yellow sunlight climbed up the wall and stopped at the photograph of Grandpa and Grandma Thompson. The half-empty can of Boomers stood on the edge of the counter, exactly where Uncle Brucker left it. A breeze blew the squeaky kitchen door halfway open. It stopped mid-squeak. The ceiling light sputtered and the refrigerator went on. Uncle Brucker’s rat rifle leaned up against the wall next to the closet door.
His leather work gloves hung on a nail in the wall behind the door.
The rifle needs a cleaning, but I don’t have time for that now. I better load it up and take an extra box of cartridges with me, don’t forget the leather gloves, and head on out to Raynor Street and exterminate those two ugly rats. Mrs. Grooner has a big house and plenty of money and I won’t let her down.
I’ll work long hours on the weekends, and I’ll make emergency calls after school until I catch up. And I’ll change to a cash-only policy, effective immediately. I’ll rise early and set my traps before I go to school. Charlee will take care of the schedule and go to the supermarket and keep things in order. We’ll move the boxes filled with old magazines off the stairs and put them in the basement and find a broom and clean up the old house. But first we’ll move Uncle Brucker’s big bed into my room and put clean sheets on the mattress and we’ll test it out and test it out some more.
Our birthdays come up in two weeks.
I thought about some of the things my Uncle had taught me: Always wear gloves when handling a rat. Keep your eyes on the rat’s eyes. They look from side to side before they make a move. The German Headlock. The Cherokee Chokehold.
The phone rang. Mrs. Grooner again.
“This is the Rat Killer speakin’,” I said. “You got a rat problem, dumplin’? Talk to me.”
Epilogue
“The Old Impostor and the Skinny Rat”
True Rat Stories From Around The World by Brucker Thompson
At one time rats came from all over Rat Land to visit the Old Impostor. No arrows pointed in his direction and not one road sign marked the way, but every rat knew how to get there.
Take the first alley past the ripped-up railroad tracks, turn right by Boone’s Dock where the wharfies once lived, turn left where the dock house used to be. If you remember what used to be you can figure out what was. The crooked pier where the wrestling ring used to be drifted out to sea a long time ago, and Renovation is the big new word.
Try and find a sleep hole there now, if you can afford it.
But back then, where the old dock light used to be. . . .
He sat all day in a unfolding chair outside a sleep hole where he never slept.
Now listen to this. Every rat knew the Old Impostor was really the Rat Killer. He never said he was and he never said he wasn’t, but they all know the truth. Rats aren’t as dumb as humans say. They’ve got humans fooled most of the time, and humans fool themselves with what’s left.
No one expected him to admit he was the Rat Killer, but every rat wanted to be there when he did. There were no signs that said Rat Killer either. Of course you wouldn’t expect that.
A trim rat who had traveled for a long time from very far away came up to him. The trim rat looked him over and said, “They say you’re the Rat Killer.”
“No, I’m just a really good Impostor.”
“They say the Rat Killer never says he’s the Rat Killer. They say he sits in a chair and catches up on his beauty sleep.”
“What chair?”
“This chair.”
“Who says?”
“Everybody.”
“They’re wrong, then. Every one of ‘em.”
The trim rat who had traveled a very long way ducked down low. The squawky gulls swooped at him, and the look on his face said go away you dumb birds, or something like that. He wished he could jump up high and scatter the gulls away. You couldn’t tell that from his face, you just knew it.
“I don’t see how everybody can be wrong,” he said.
“No, I guess you don’t.”
The old Impostor lived on beer and butts, at least that’s what they say. He bought them with the fortune he made as a wrestler. Beer and cigarettes filled up his sleep hole. That’s why he sat outside in the unfolding chair. Empty cans and butts scattered on the ground all around the hole. Take one as a souvenir.
If you could come over here and look into that hole, see for yourself. Then you’ll know for sure, won’t you? Come closer. Over here. . . . See? It’s empty.
Not one can, not one pack. Not a wrapper nor a butt.
Maybe a long time ago it was true what they say. Maybe a long long time ago he had ten thousand cases of beer and one million cartons of cigarettes, like they say, smuggled in from another dimension and stuffed in that rat hole. Maybe he was a Five-Alarm Fire Chief, too, or a World-Class Stew Chef. There’s no end to maybes.
The skinny rat came by again. Above all, he enjoyed a smoke after a hearty meal. He wanted a smoke but he needed a light. He refused to eat a hearty meal only to be served disappointment for dessert. The Skinny Rat quit eating a while ago. He sure was hungry, but hunger just didn’t stack up against disappointment. Anybody got a light?
The Skinny Rat had something on his mind he never mentioned. The Old Impostor saw something other than what he was looking at. The Skinny Rat thought he knew what the Old Impostor was searching for. The Old Impostor thought he knew what was on the Skinny Rat’s mind. They didn’t know anything for sure.
“No, I don’t got a light,” the Old Impostor told the Skinny Rat.
“I ain’t asked yet,” the Skinny Rat replied.
“But you were gonna . . . I saved you the trouble.”
“I might ask anyway, cause it’s really no trouble.”
“You wouldn’t be so skinny if you didn’t smoke.”
“No, it’s why I’m skinny cause I can’t smoke.”
The Old Impostor ran out of beer a long time ago. Scavenger rats took the empty cans. He smoked his last cigarette. The smoker rats carried the butts away. There go the souvenirs.
Maybe at one time he really did store cigarettes in his sleep hole, and beer, too. But ten thousand cases? One million cartons?
Impossible! That would be one hell of a hole. You need an army of rats to dig a hole so deep, and it would stretch around
the world again and again. It would take more than a lifetime to complete a project so big. But when it’s finished it will be another Great Wonder of the World, no maybes about it. Great Wonder #8, if you put it at the end. Could be any number if you stick it in between.
That Skinny Rat was awfully skinny. The Old Impostor felt bad. Not all the time, on occasion, about his skinniness.
Finally, one day the Old Imposter said, “Light up!”
The Old Impostor struck a match and lit the butt for the Skinny Rat. The Skinny Rat smoked the butt and his smiled faded, and smilelessly he looked to the stars and the moon and wished he had eaten a hearty meal.
“Knock-knock. Who’s there?”
A Sweet Rat asked that question.
“No, no. You got it wrong.” The Old Impostor sat in his chair and shook his head. “First you say ‘Knock-knock,’ then I say ‘Who’s there?’ Got it? Let’s try it again. . . . OK, go!”
“Knock-knock. Who’s there?”
“Forget it.”
“Forget what?”
The Sweet Rat found a stick. She found another stick. She was a happy rat, and she made a pile of sticks at the water’s edge, and she jumped and ran in circles when the waves came in and took the sticks away.
“Think you got enough sticks there, sweetie?” asked the Old Impostor.
A handsome rat dragged a magnificent stick along the edge of Cove Cliff and over the edge and down into the Cove. The rats gathered around. It was a long, beautiful, hard-to-find, one-of-a-kind stick for all to see.
The Sweet Rat walked toward him.
“I’d introduce myself, but I got no name for reference. Nice stick,” she said, and she followed him.
The Old Impostor grew older. He sat in his unfolding chair for so long it was the only place in the world. He could not imagine anywhere else and he didn’t care to be anywhere else. He felt like he’d been here forever, yet he knew it couldn’t be forever because forever has a long ways to go, and it went back a long ways too. He spent the rest of his life where he didn’t want to spend it, but he forgot where that was about the same time he forgot who he was.
The Sweet Rat returned with the beautiful stick or another stick just like it. She threw it on the pile. The street cleaner rats came by and went to work with their curb rakes and gutter shovels, and with street brooms they swept the pile of sticks away.
“Where’s your stick?” asked the Old Impostor of the Sweet Rat.
“You are my stick,” she said.
The Old Impostor never thought life would be like this.
The flying rats flew off in a squall and never came back. The squawky gulls swooped down low and filled their bellies and they had nothing to squawk about. The crooked old pier grew tired of floating around without a reason and sank to the ocean floor. In time the sand crabs repaired the old pier and it floated to the surface. The wharf rats strung the ring ropes, and old Scratch started up the wrestling matches once again.
Eight p.m. Every Thursday.
About the Author
Leslie Peter Wulff lives with his lovely wife Sandy in a small college town in upstate New York. Other than reading great literature and watching great films, he enjoys building stone walls—and taking breaks from building stone walls. All his life he wanted to be a writer. Some years ago he quit his job because of Parkinson’s disease. Now he’s a writer.