Find the Rat

An ambitious mobster receives a lowly task, leading to a deadly existential crisis.

I saw people get shot in the head before, but nothing like this. I don’t know what this guy’s skull was made of, but it wasn’t very tough, that’s for sure. Look, we use handguns, okay? Not those nerd school shooter guns. So when you shoot somebody in the head, it’s usually in and out, maybe a little bit of demolition in the back. But this guy - oh, man. It was like watching fireworks explode but the fireworks were just blood and brains getting everywhere, and I mean everywhere.

Me and Frank looked at each other covered head to toe in red. Frank even had a big piece of brain sitting on top of his head, which he didn’t realize and made me think of a joke: Hey, Frank, that piece of brain on top of your head is bigger than your own brain. But I stopped myself from saying that. Frank didn’t have much sense of humor.

“Did you see that?” Frank said.

Another thing I have to tell you about Frank is that he’s a little slow. But he’s also my boss. He’s not high up the ladder, but he’s tied to the higher-ups - he’s the big boss’ nephew. And they want to make him into something big like his uncle. But since he’s slow, they have to give him a lot of practice doing what he needs to do, such as shooting guys in the head and telling the low on the totem pole guys like me to clean it up.

Look, I’m a go-getter. My philosophy is, instead of fighting a system I don’t like, I learn it, I work it, and once I’m in a position of power to change it, I do so in a way that benefits me. That was my plan, anyways (I hadn’t ever actually done that before). So I agreed to working for Frank and saw it as an entry-level position I could excel at, and eventually get to a position that would help me achieve my goals.

“This fucking guy was a rat,” Frank said as he wiped blood out of his eyes and nostrils. “You know what we should do? We should get a big, nasty old rat, kill it, and stuff it in that little thing right there that used to be his head.”

I told Frank that would be a good idea, which would turn out to be the biggest mistake of my mafia career.

Three hours later, at around two in the morning, I was hiding behind a dumpster holding a fishing net, watching like a hawk a block of cheese I placed on the ground for bait. I didn’t know if it would work, but it made sense to me. So that’s what I did.

Three hours I was like this - breathing in so much of that trash smell, I differentiated at least seven different types of rotting food that were in there. The bananas and eggs were easy, but after a while, I could smell chicken, beef, sour cream, and even mustard. I haven’t eaten any of these foods since.

But despite my efforts and patience, no rats came. Maybe they smelled me and stayed away. I once read something about rats being smart and able to figure out traps. I wish Frank knew this. Maybe then he would realize that calling a person a rat by leaving a dead rat inside their blown-apart skull could be construed as a compliment by people who knew about animals.

I thought a lot about Frank while I breathed in the trash fumes. I thought about how he was born into privilege, but lacked the wherewithal to do something good with the blessing. And that was such a waste. Being born into one of the top crime families gives one a vast array of open doors to both illicit and legitimate careers, but you still have to have some skill to navigate the terrain. Frank lacked that skill, and I had no doubt that he would falter in his mafia career and end up a low-end thug who gets handed choice jobs sporadically, forever relying on familial duty.

I, on the other hand, was not born into privilege and I had no connection to the top crime families. But I had drive, ambition, and skill. I understood people and was liked by them. I could handle the terrain. All I needed was a chance to show my talent.

But first, I had to find a rat. And that’s when I heard a squeak.

I looked down and saw a small, gray rat. Its body wasn’t quite the length of a hot dog, but the tail made it look a little bigger. I wasn’t completely sure it was a mouse and not a rat, but there weren’t any other rodents around, so I made a move for it. I swung my net down and scooped the rat up. I was surprised by how easy it was. Just like that! But when I reached for the cord to draw the bag closed, the rat leaped out onto my face.

Its claws were deep into the upper part of both my cheeks and its hairy belly was up against my nose - I could smell the dirty stench of animal and sewage. But maybe worst of all was the incessant squeaking - high-pitched and relentless - battering my ears and providing me with an auditory reminder that I was being attacked by a wild rat.

It would have been easy to just grab it and fling it, but I needed the rat. I didn’t want it to get away. I had to get it off my face, maintain a grasp, and get it in my bag. You see, even in dire moments, I am thinking about how to execute my plans. That’s focus.

I kept trying to pull it off, but now it seemed actually stuck. I thought maybe its claws were stuck in my cheekbone - they definitely felt deep enough. The squeaking got louder. The stench stronger. And then I felt warm liquid trickle down my philtrum and onto the top of my lip. The rat was pissing on my face. Apparently, they urinate when feeling scared or stressed. And this rat must have been terrified because the trickle turned into a waterfall. Rat piss was shooting into my nostrils. I couldn’t breathe. I had to open my mouth. The piss stream strengthened and poured into my mouth. It tasted bitter, hot, and like a mix of soap and garlic. When it got to the back of my mouth, it burned, and my tonsils felt like they were boiling. I had no choice but to swallow, and I felt germs and bacteria infiltrate my stomach and the vapors from its powerfully pungent odor seep into my lungs.

I gagged and coughed as the rat piss kept coming. How did this rat get such a large bladder? I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get this thing off of me. I grabbed it by its tail and flung it as hard as I could against the dumpster, hoping I would kill it (like I said, I always think about the task at hand).

And would you believe it? It was dead! I threw it so hard that it must have gotten knocked out and died. I always had a pretty good arm. I could have played baseball, but I had other career options in mind. Anyways, I picked up the rat, put it in a plastic bag, and tied it shut. My face was covered in deep, bleeding scratches, with rat piss and whatever other germs were on that thing seeping into my wounds, and that strong piss smell would take a lot of soap to diminish, but I felt good. I completed the task. One more step closer to my dreams of mafia supremacy.

Moments later, I arrived at the house of the guy we killed. Frank was waiting, watching TV and drinking the dead man’s whiskey. I walked in and he spit out the Old Granddad when he saw my face.

“What did you do? Try to eat the rat’s pussy?” he said, laughing so hard at his own joke, he had to sit down and pour himself another.

“Not quite,” I said. “But it wasn’t easy. He did fight back.

By this time, he smelled the rat piss all over me. He covered his nose with his tatted-up forearm.

“Jesus! What’s that smell?”

“You ever tried to catch a rat?” I said.

His demeanor quickly changed from happy drunk to quiet sociopath. He was both, and by now I could tell which one by the way he tilted his head - upwards for happy drunk, down and forward for quiet sociopath.

Looking at me with his forehead pushed forward and upward, he said: “I ain’t never tried to catch no rat because I don’t have to do that kinda shit. Don’t ever talk to me like that again or else I will do the same to you as I did to that sonofabitch over there.”

I looked over at the man, his head nothing but a pathetic puddle of blood and bone. That head had once had experiences, emotions, and thoughts. Now it was nothing but a holding place for a dead rat so that some moron could impress his uncle. Can you imagine that? You lived your whole life - maybe you were a good person, maybe a bad person, maybe you were happy or maybe miserable - whatever you were, it didn’t matter because now your obliterated head is going to be a placeholder for a dead rat so some moron can score a few points with his uncle.

But I had to stay focused. I had to remember my task and why I do this. I had to. I had to.

“Let me see the rat,” he said.

I opened the bag and showed him. He reached in and pulled it out like it was a can of beans. He held it by its tail and looked it up and down.

“You couldn’t find a bigger one? They might think we put a mouse on the guy and be confused about what kinda message we’re sending.”

“I couldn’t find a bigger one,” I said. “I think rats hibernate this time of year.”

Frank nodded like he was learning something. But what I said wasn’t true. Rats don’t hibernate at any time of year. Frank was just stupid.

“I didn’t realize that,” he said. “But maybe this sends an even bigger message. Rats might be hibernating, but we still got one. Oooooh, that’s so fucking bad ass!”

He placed the rat on the man’s former head. He stepped back to get a good look, like he was analyzing a painting.

“I don’t know, man. It’s missing something,” he said.

He scratched his chin and sighed as he thought. And then the faintest of light bulbs must have turned on inside his weak, futile brain.

“It’s too clean!” he said, actually pointing his finger upward in his pathetic aha moment. “Take the rat outside and dirty it up. We can’t put a clean rat on this guy’s head. They’ll think we bought it at a pet store, and how lame would that be? Dirty it up and bring it back in here. And holy shit do you stink, you know that?”

I bent down to pick the rat up. But I didn’t pick it up. I looked at it up close and felt a sympathy I had never felt before. Not just for the rat, not just for the man with the blown-off head, but for everyone, all of us, even Frank. We were all suffering symbols of something we will never know. Representations beyond our comprehension, cursing us to life sentences of anxiety fueled by irrationality. Frank killed the man and I killed the rat, but there was no sense to any of it. We had reasons, but they didn’t make sense. Nothing did. Nothing I had been doing, nothing I had been hoping for, nothing I imagined was meaningful had ever really made any sense. Maybe the only thing that made sense was the punishing odor of rat piss all over my face - something I deserved for forcing the rat into the ridiculous violence of human interaction.

Or maybe I was just angry at Frank for telling me to go dirty up a rat because that was my last feeling before I took out my gun and shot him in the head. His head blew apart just like the other guy. Maybe something in the bullets? I had no idea. But when I turned Frank over to look at the back of his head, it was just as I suspected - he had a very small brain. There was hardly any brain debris anywhere.

I left and took the rat with me.