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 snuggling legs 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 congealed to comfort after a long day of sorting light from multitudinous sources that must be parsed and resolved.  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, closed my eyes, and resigned myself to the sleep of the innocent.

That was ten of the clock.  At eleven-thirty eyelids popped up—nothing to see—but much to hear.  There it was—that scrabbling rasp 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 had 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 cheddar 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 covers, slithered into slippers, and tiptoed into kitchen where moonlight illuminated a yawning 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 crashed, leaped, thrust, and thundered in what must be described as wrath.  How could I sleep with all that going on in the adjoining room?  The thing to do was to remove the problem.  I bundled into my trusty barn coat, the one I had used many times before to hustle horses into their proper behavior and placement, if not attitude.

It was at the witching hour that I rolled my accommodating little trash container out the front door, yet book bedecked, and set it still aquiver on my front porch, there to await the dawning.  Mr. Sun cleared the horizon 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 cold, and headed out the front door, not having even polished teeth.  By then the wild thing must surely have been dead as a proverbial doornail, I chuckled with anticipatory glee and 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 icy dawn.  I lifted the lid and peeked in.  Nothing stirred.  There was just a wrinkly lump of shredded white polyethylene garbage bag at the bottom. Nudging the container resuscitated a ball of fur and claws and whipping tail, lurching from under the plastic and looking to attack whosoever had given it so inhospitable a berth.  But I, too, was up for the fight.  I slammed the lid shut, restacked the books, and went inside to telephone Maintenance.

A previous era would have presented The Lone Ranger astride his trusty horse Silver, but in 2020 it was Dan the Maintenance Man who came to the rescue soon after my frantic call for backup.  Satisfying himself that what we had was indeed 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 by my illegal installation of a bidet.  My unauthorized plumbing had rendered even friendly Dan an adversary.  I held my breath, but he didn’t seem to notice.  Then with almost three gallons of water we proceeded to do what must be done, but I hesitated.  Consider the rat.  It too was a mammal, a cousin of my own lineage.  It might even be a she rat, with babes awaiting her return.  It wasn’t her fault that she was born a rodent.  Even a rat must eat and keep warm.

But empathy aside I assured myself, we must exterminate this rat.  They carry disease.  We already have Coronavirus, and don’t need Plague to keep it company.  Dan the Man was good, but he had only two hands.  He needed four.  One held the can still while he jousted, keeping the creature at bay 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 and submerged while we held a respectful silence.  Even a rat deserves a prayerful leave-taking.

A hole in the bottom, where the clever mechanism’s rod passed through plastic to allow a foot to raise lid for incoming discards, allowed water level to gradually recede like a dam’s lock that slowly lowers everything to proper level.  In unison we breathed relieved sighs as all our four eyes peered into the evacuated vessel.  There at the bottom, in a peaceful sleep of repose, lay the rat.  It had been all about attitude.  Without the furious mood elevation of rage, he was like any napping child, full of gentility and sweetness.  While last night’s fear had enlarged my perception of the creature to terrifying proportions, this altered reality presented nothing but a small furry body at peace.  I breathed a silent prayer: Please forgive me.  If we meet again in some future life, I’ll be the rat—you be the avenger.