morethanenoughtruth

Having read yet another chapter of Peter Strzok’s tell-all story of the Russia investigation, I was warming to the over-filled hot water bottle at my feet and relaxing into the nights version of flannel pajamas surrounding appendages as they sought consolation of warmth against what was becoming a chill gathering of winter.  I fumbled for the switch that would put out the reading lamp, found it at last, and turned it with a satisfying click.  Dark.  Lovely darkness gathered to comfort after a long day of sorting light from multitudinous sources that presented a continuous barrage of incoming to parse and resolve.  It was a war—a lovely war— but one that must be fought in honor of the light and the radiant seeing of it.  I smiled and resigned myself to sleep.

That was ten o’clock of the hour.  At eleven thirty eyelids popped open—nothing to see, but much to hear.  There it was: that scrabbling noise of claw on crisp something-or-other.  It had been a feature of the deep night since October had brought cold with encroaching winter and sent woodland critters searching for warmer berths.  One must have chosen my kitchen and had eluded my attempts at entrapment.  A trip to Ace Hardware, notwithstanding, my persistent unwelcome guest continued to ravage my larder.  It ignored mousetraps armed with succulent fromage and went on to bigger and better possibilities.  In spite of my warm cocoon, shivers raced down my spine.  Time for action!

I slid from under the covers, slithered into fluffy padded slippers, and tiptoed into the kitchen where moonlight illuminated an open trash receptacle that was shuddering, and not with delight.  It was under attack by some unidentified life form.  Reaching back through my genetic inheritance to my time as hunter-gatherer, I acted.  In two bold leaps I slammed the lid shut.  What luck that it had begun the night ajar, an inadvertent open enticement for possible marauders.  Something thrashed about inside the enclosure, slamming against the lid as I held it closed, reaching for something heavy to keep it shut.  The weightiest thing I could find with only one free hand was Robert Alter’s translation of the first five books of Moses with commentary.  It worked fine.  Adding two more tomes just in case, I stood back and wondered now what? 

There will be no sleep this night, I mused.  The trashcan/book-stack shook as an unidentified body slammed, leaped, thrust upward, and thundered in what must be described as wrath.  How could I sleep with all that going on in the next room?  The thing to do was to remove the problem.  I bundled up in my trusty barn coat, the one I had used many times before to hustle equine Animalia into their proper behavior and placement.

It was at the witching hour that I rolled my accommodating little trashcan out the front door, still book bedecked, and set it, yet aquiver, on my front porch, there to await the dawning.  Mr. Sun came up right on time, but I missed his glorious arrival, so sound asleep was I after having spent all my adrenaline the night before.  At nine o’clock I jumped out of the bed, dressed for arctic encounter, and headed out the front door, not having even washed teeth.  By now the wild thing must surely be dead as a proverbial doornail, I chuckled with anticipatory glee.  I gathered Moses’ books and the other fat tomes that had shared the lonely night with Alter.  The container sat still and silent.  No movement hinted at life having survived the frigid hours that presaged the dawn.  I lifted the lid and peeked in.  Nothing stirred.  There was just a ball of white polyethylene garbage bag at the bottom. Nudging the container netted a ball of fur and claws and whipping tail, lurching from under the plastic and looking to attack whomsoever had given him so inhospitable a night.   But I, too, was up for the fight.  I slammed the lid shut, piled the books back in place, and went inside to call Maintenance.

A previous time would have presented The Lone Ranger on his trusty horse Silver, but in 2020 it was Dan the Maintenance man who came to the rescue not long after my frantic call for backup.  Satisfying himself that what we had was a rat, he went to find a bucket—a big one.  He asked to fill it from my bathtub faucet, a spot that required he pass my illegal installation of a bidet.  I held my breath, and he didn’t seem to notice.  Then with three gallons of water he proceeded to do what must be done.  I empathized with the rat.  It too was a mammal, a cousin of my own lineage.  It might even be a she rat, with babies waiting for her return.  It wasn’t her fault that she was born a rodent and not a primate.  Even a rat must eat and keep warm.

But, philosophy aside, we must kill this rat.  Rats can carry Bubonic plague.  We already have Corona, and don’t need Bubonic to keep it company.  Dan the man was good, but he only had two hands.  He needed four.  One held the can still while he jousted, keeping the creature inside the container.  It fell to me, with my eighty-two year old arms and shoulders to lift and pour the water into the vessel.  Dan kept the critter pinned down and submerged while we kept a respectful silence.  Even a rat deserves a prayerful leave-taking.

A hole in the bottom where the clever mechanism allowed a foot to raise the lid for incoming discards, allowed the water to slowly recede like a lock in a dam that slowly lowers everything to the right level.  We breathed relieved sighs in tandem and peered into the at last empty vessel.  There at the bottom, in a peaceful sleep of repose, lay the rat.  It had been all about attitude.  Without that it was like a napping child, full of gentility and forgiveness.  While last night’s fear had enlarged my perception of the creature to terrifying proportions, this altered reality suggested only a small furry body at peace.  I breathed a silent prayer: If we meet again, I’ll be the rat; you will be the avenger.