Roof Rats

Originally published in Revolution John Magazine

At Robert’s house on a Thursday night, Ben the French Canadian, watched Cops and laughed at the crack head’s gaping toothless mouth and bleeding eye socket, a gift from the responding officer.

Above, in the attic, Ben heard scratching and tiny steps. “Those goddamn rats again,” Ben said out loud to himself. The way he said, “rats,” with his slight French accent was usually mocked by Robert and the rest of their typically half-drunk, half-high friends. Ben put his cigarette out on a newspaper lying open on the coffee table. He’d promised to stop ashing on the floor and cramming the spent butts between the once blue, turned mostly black couch cushions.

I’ll tell Robert, he thought, that the rats are still up there. Ben lived with Robert for three years before moving in with his girlfriend, Bridgette, the best friend of Robert’s ex-girlfriend. Ben kept his key and visited a few times a week after work, even if neither Robert nor the new roommate, Jeff, were home. Night’s darkness outlined the tattered and stained maroon flat sheet hanging over the window, held up by tacks. On the wall behind Ben’s head was a large purple streak, left behind by a thrown wine glass. Holes and gashes dotted the walls down the hallway into the kitchen. Ben relaxed in the squalor of his old house and smoked cigarettes freely, which was not allowed at Bridgette’s house.

Ben laughed out loud again, showing his sharp brown teeth and sending a tiny drop of spittle to his khakis, as a second officer entered the frame and pressed her knee onto the neck of the unruly perpetrator, allowing the other officer to get the handcuffs on. A little boy stood on the porch of the trailer in the background. He wore only a long white t-shirt, which hung to his knees. The now handcuffed man yelled to the child, “It’s alright baby. It’s alright,” before being lowered into the cruiser.

The rat exterminator had come two days before and sealed the rats into the attic. He’d covered the entry points with small pieces of malleable sheet metal that the rats’ teeth weren’t strong enough to penetrate. Ben didn’t know the rats were trapped in there with poison covered in peanut butter.

The show went to commercial and from above, Ben heard a rat crying out: A rhythmic pulse of pain, followed by scratches that got fainter and fainter. Ben muted the TV and listened until the cries gave way to silence. He looked upward, then shrugged his shoulders.

“Won’t the rats rot after they die?” Robert had asked the exterminator.

“Naw, you won’t need to worry ’bout that. We got a strong desiccant in our poison, so it’ll dry ’em out, turn ’em to dust.”

“Will we breath that in?” Robert asked, looking up at the vent in the ceiling. The exterminator thought for a second and handed Robert the invoice.

“Naw.”

Another rat released more poisoned cries from above. Cops came back on. An officer was in pursuit of a possible stolen vehicle. Ben turned the volume up as loud as it could go and lit another cigarette.