Someday you might start admitting there’s something wrong with you and just never stop. It might be years before you figure it out, or resolve it, or just let it go. You are a rat in a trap, at the mercy of your own suspicions, until that night or some other night.
The rat clearly had diarrhea. Gavney grimaced at the long brown streak on the cloth at the bottom of the cage. In his hand, the rat squirmed a little, as if worried about the judgement to be passed on its indelicacy. He brought his other hand over to soothe it, stroke its fur. No, no, its okay. It’s okay. The rat’s fur was warm and smooth.
At the other end of the small apartment, the radio coughed and gave two sharp barks. “It’s the top of the hour,” said the announcer, “and time for current affairs, with The Dog is Angry! As always with your host Dick Diaeresis, and Bootsy the dog!” Another two barks from Bootsy, and right into the theme music and the swell of applause from the studio audience.
There was spare bedding in the cupboard. Gavney pulled the soiled bedding from the cage, the rat still in his other hand, and looked around for some place to put it. “Thank you, thank you,” said the host Dick Diaeresis, his voice projecting from the radio with gentle authority. “So good to be with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen, so very good. Isn’t that right, Bootsy?”
Silence, and muffled giggling from the audience. Gavney spotted an empty laundry bag lying half-in, half-out of the closet. He’d been planning to reuse it for his own clothes but this was something of an emergency, so he shrugged and yanked it free with the hand that didn’t have the rat in it. The rat, unclear on the whole maneuver, struggled a little more.
“You’re a little quiet tonight, Bootsy,” said Dick, and the audience hooted with laughter. “Does this bode well for tonight’s guest?” With a series of one-handed jerks, Gavney got the bag open and the bedding put away. He kicked the bag back into the closet, gave the rat a quick stroke for comfort, and grabbed the clean bedding from the cupboard. “Ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming Esther Fine!”
Polite applause filled the tiny apartment as Gavney fitted the new bedding into the cage, again one-handed, then set the rat gently into the center of it. The rat looked around, as if verifying that it was free to do as it wished, then made for a fold in the cloth and tucked itself underneath, out of sight.
There was a little glass food dish beside the cage. This was the source of all the trouble, as it turned out. Normally the dish contained the rat’s daily allotment of pellets, but Gavney had wanted to mix things up a little.
“No more squash,” said Gavney to the rat.
The rat did not emerge from its hiding place, but the fabric rustled a little.
He had to admit that this sounded a little extreme in his own ears. He’d been giving the rat squash every day, but even if he had overfed the rat on squash and caused its diarrhea, he felt unjustified in withholding the squash forever. Besides, he had a ton of the stuff in the fridge. What else was he supposed to do with it?
In the background, the show was rolling along and Dick was in fine form. “When the allegations came out, you know, about the junior member? Didn’t you have a few things to say about that?”
“I’ll bet she heard it on the news like we all did,” said Esther, to a faint chorus of titters. “No prizes for last place, dear.”
If there really was a surplus of squash, Gavney reasoned, then maybe what he needed was another rat. He could even leave some of it out to encourage another rat to emerge. They were out there; he was certain of it, on this night or some other night.
There was a sharp bark from the radio, then a torrent of laughter and applause. “Oh no!” said Dick, with a gentle chuckle. “Esther, I’m afraid you’ve upset Bootsy. And so early in the program!”
Gavney wondered where he should leave the squash. Leaving it by the cage wasn’t a good idea. He didn’t want the rat to see it and think it was being punished. If he left it in a closet, he might forget it and find a nasty surprise someday. At last, he left it in an empty corner of the apartment and went to bed.
It wasn’t a terrible idea, or shouldn’t have been. Having a rat wasn’t what was wrong with Gavney, so having two rats wasn’t going to make things any worse.
“Good stuff, Gavneigh,” said the old man, holding the squash at one end and gnawing on the other. “Nice of you to leave it for me.” The old man was Gavney’s roommate. He had shown up at some point in one corner of the apartment, sitting in a plush plaid chair. I brought it with me, he had said of the chair, and nothing more. Gavney had let the old man stay so he could claim another housing allowance and pocket the difference. Now the old man was taking surplus squash.
To be fair, Gavney hadn’t seen him take it. In fact, he had never seen the old man leave the chair at all. Neither had the old man ever expressed a fondness for squash, but there he was. Gavney had to wonder if the surplus might turn into a deficit. Maybe he should forget about the other rat?
From the cage, the rat squeaked, on that night or some other night. Gavney went over to make sure the rat wasn’t experiencing diarrhea again.
“It’s all right, Beckley,” said the old man. “It’s the same fool as always. Don’t let him give you any shit.” He might have been talking to himself. His name might have been Beckley. Gavney didn’t know and hadn’t asked.
He found the rat in the corner of the cage and eased it up and out, then poked at the bedding. It was largely clean, with a few little turds at the edges. They appeared firm and normal. He eased the rat back down.
“See, Beckley,” said the old man, with gentle warmth, “what did I tell you?”
“Is your name Beckley?” said Gavney.
The old man looked around in confusion, a contemptuous sort of confusion. “Who are you talking at, Gavneigh?”
“You. Is Beckley your name?”
“Is Beckley your name?” said the old man in a mocking tone. “No, you dork dipshit. That’s the rat’s name. The rat’s name is Beckley.”
“What?” said Gavney. “No it isn’t. I didn’t name him that.”
“You didn’t name him at all.” The old man pointed a finger at Gavney’s chest. “Why did you never give him a name, Gavneigh? The smallest and the greatest gift that one soul can give another, and you withheld it? Why? What would it have cost you? Or do you simply lack imagination?”
Gavney was genuinely shocked. The rat had always been the rat: nameless, but cared for. “We’re friends,” said Gavney. “Just him and me. He doesn’t need a name.”
“That’s some weak shit, Gavneigh, but it doesn’t matter. While you’re busy not loving him, Beckley and I are just sitting there, watching it all go by.” The old man lifted his hands into the air. “I built a world. A world just for Beckley and me. We’re on the streetcorner, under an umbrella, laughing at all the fools rushing by in the rain.”
It was an odd but appealing image, and in that moment, Gavney wanted nothing more than to be a part of it. “What about me?”
“Oh, Gavneigh,” said the old man, and now he sounded grave and gentle, “it’s nothing personal. It isn’t personal at all. There are those who sit under umbrellas, and there are fools who rush by in the rain. And you, Gavneigh, are a soaking wet fool. It doesn’t make you a bad person, unless you let it. But there’s not going to be an umbrella for you. I am sorry. I truly am.”
The guest on The Dog is Angry was a tedious dullard named Gaffjan or something like that with a bug up his ass about something that he wouldn’t explain. He refused to take a side or a position or a stance. Dick was doing his best to keep it moving but sounded increasingly desperate and Bootsy didn’t bark once and it wasn’t clear if she had just fallen asleep. The audience stirred and coughed.
“You can just buy a rat,” said the old man.
“I don’t want to.”
“You might as well. You’re never going to get another.”
“It’s cheating.”
“You bought Beckley.”
“That’s not his name,” said Gavney, “and I didn’t buy him.”
“Beckley says you did. You bought him with squash.”
Gavney decided to put his foot down, on that night or some other night. “That’s not his name.”
“Beckley and I forgive you, Gavney.” The old man had resumed his saintly demeanor. “In the world I’ve created, nothing is nameless and no one is unloved. And Beckley and I are there. Sitting under my umbrella, just the two of us. But I don’t mean to imply that there’s no place for you in the world. You’re out there in the rain. Somewhere.”
“It’s not clear,” said the dork dipshit on the radio, “if the committee has the city’s best interests at heart. It’s not clear at all.” Oh, shut up, Gaffjan. Shut up. Shut up, for all our sakes. Shut up.
“I have a world,” said Gavney, causing the old man to look up from the squash he was shoving into his face. His chair was still in the same place, its back against the wall beside the cabinet where all of the towels and linens were. Gavney wondered if he had ever tried moving the chair to any other wall, or even to the middle of the little apartment. “I have one.”
“Yeah,” said the old man with a sneer, “the one where you’re eating shit in the rain.”
“Maybe I am. It isn’t clear if I am. It isn’t clear at all.”
“It’s pretty clear from where Beckley and I are sitting.”
Gavney glanced over at the cage to make sure that its resident was still there. The rat was pressing its nose against the glass and twitching a little. It seemed to be watching the exchange.
“That,” said Gavney, “isn’t me.”
“Who isn’t?”
“The person you’re seeing.”
“The only way you’d know if it wasn’t you is if it was you, Gavneigh.” The old man leaned to one side and farted loudly before shoving the squash back into his mouth.
Later, Gavney lay in bed looking out of his apartment window. It was raining on that night or some other night. The drops flashed through the streetlight glow and vanished onto the sidewalk. There was a man out there, or multiple similiar-looking men. The man, or men, had run past twice as if looking for an address that he, or they, couldn’t find.
Gavney watched him, or them, run past for a third time and turned away from the window. The rat was watching him from its cage. “Beckley,” said Gavney, “I think there may not be anything wrong with me.”
“That isn’t my name,” said the rat. Its voice was oddly rich and warm, like that Dick Diaeresis from the radio.
The old man said nothing. He might not have been there at all.
“Gavneigh,” said the old man, “have you ever noticed that everything turns to poop? Even poop turns into other kinds of poop. Do you ever think about that when you’re making poop? What kind of poop are you going to become?” He winked and shoved an entire squash into his mouth, then bit it in half.
Gavney said nothing. He sat facing the old man, waiting.
The old man went on. “Beckley and I have been having extensive conversations.” He waved the half-eaten squash like a baton. “Difficult negotiations. Many stipulations have been made. But we have come to believe that there may be a solution, Gavneigh, on this night or some other night.”
“A solution,” said Gavney, putting no special emphasis on the words in any way.
“A path toward the umbrella.” The old man inclined his head and gestured with a graceful hand, as if he were a king granting some unthinkable boon to a witless peasant.
“The umbrella.”
“Yes,” said the old man, “even under it, as if you were not merely one of those fools running past it in the rain.”
“Beckley agreed to this?”
“He did, though I had to agree to some pretty punishing concessions. You will be required to up the squash allowance to a level to be separately negotiated. In addition, clean bedding will be supplied on a regular schedule to be separately negotiated, and not only when someone has shit themselves.”
Gavney glanced over at the rat. It was pretending to nap under a fold in the bedding. He could tell it was listening because it was shaking a little.
“Furthermore,” said the old man, but Gavney cut him off by sticking a finger in the air.
“I’ll think about it,” said Gavney, and let the old man’s surprise warm him.
The guest on The Dog is Angry was an incoherent lunatic who shouted over his own introduction. Gavney was finding it difficult to follow the conversation. Bootsy seemed to have been frightened into silence. Even Dick sounded a little subdued.
“Well,” he said, “I think we’ve fully examined the off-season tax, and maybe we could move on to the question of housing allowances.”
“STRANGE MEN IN THE WALLS!” shouted the lunatic. “LET THEM IN!”
“He makes a lot of sense,” said the old man. “I think I’ll vote him for committee chair next season. What do you think, Beckley?”
“He’s not standing for office,” said Gavney.
“You’re such a goddamn cynic, Gavneigh.” The old man grabbed another squash and stuck it in his mouth, his wrinkled lips gripping it like an absurdly long green cigar. His whiskers twitched as he mimed sucking on it. “It’s no wonder talks have stalled. One can’t negotiate the future with a cynic.”
“In the walls, eh?” Dick’s chuckle was doing it’s best. “What do they want, these strange men?”
“EAT THE SQUASH! EAT ALL THE SQUASH! THEY GET ALL THE SQUASH!”
“Sensible,” said the old man, “absolutely sensible. You don’t get that kind of plain-spoken common sense anymore.”
Gavney wasn’t listening all that much. His attention was focused on the rat, which wasn’t hiding in the bedding anymore. It had come out of the fold and was looking at him, just as it had when it had spoken to him, on that night or some other night. It was speaking now.
“Had enough of this asshole, Gavney?” said the voice from the radio, the rich and friendly.
Gavney nodded, still uncertain if the rat could understand him.
“I can take care of that for you.”
“I just wanted another friend,” said Gavney. “I wasn’t trying to replace you. I just wanted more.”
“The way of the world, isn’t it?” There was a smile in the voice, a rueful smile. “I don’t blame you, buddy. It’s just shit luck. Now you just let me take care of that.”
“Okay.” Gavney stood up. His face felt wet.
The old man roared in sudden fury. “NO THIRD PARTIES! NO ARBITRATION!”
Gavney ignored him and walked to the cage. Behind him, the sounds of ripping cloth and straining wood rose in volume, but he did not turn around. He reached into the cage, wrapped a fist around the rat, and lifted him out. For a moment Gavney held his friend in the air, let the warmth comfort him. When the danger behind him could no longer be ignored, he opened his fist and let the rat fall.
“YOU DON’T DESERVE UMBRELLAS, GAVNEIGH!”
A fierce barking sounded from the radio, each bark angrier than the last. The audience gasped, as if it had been holding its breath for far too long.
“Well,” said Dick Diaeresis in something like relief, “what do you know?”
By morning, Gavney had cleaned up most of the mess. The bits of wood and cloth were swept up and bagged, along with all the rotted bits of half-eaten squash. There was still a big hole in the wall just behind the place where the chair had been, and Gavney would have to tell the landlady about it but it wasn’t his fault, was it? Something got in. What could you do?
He considered leaving a hunk of squash in the empty cage, but finally decided against it. He wasn’t completely certain what he might attract, and it would never be the same as what he had lost.
There was little food left in the apartment. The rain from last night hadn’t let up yet and he had no umbrella, but he decided to go out anyway. He flinched and bent against the onslaught of raindrops as he hurried down the sidewalk. As he approached a streetcorner he steeled himself, but there was no one waiting there to mock him, on this day or any other day.
What was wrong with me? There was a distant thought that wasn’t quite a memory. An impression? He couldn’t remember. The rain was gentle and he slowly straightened to let it caress his face.