There are no kittens in Hell.
3:45 P.M. on a Wednesday
Ding-dong.
I scoop up Woody and when I open the front door, two little boys, I’d guess around 8 or 9 years old, are looking up at me.
“Hey, I’m Carter. This is Matt. We’re your neighbors.”
“Well, hello there. Nice to meet you, “ I say. Woody squirms in my arms.
“Can we pet your dog?”
“Sure.” I put Woody down and they pet him gently.
“He’s cool,” says Matt.
“I think so, thanks,” I say.
“We have a dog. A Boston terrier,” Carter says.
“She’s black and white,” says Matt, rubbing Woody’s back. “She looks like a cow.”
“She doesn’t look like a cow,” scoffs Carter.
“Well, I’m sure you love her very much,” I say.
“Yeah, she’s cool,” says Carter.
“My Mom won’t let me have a dog,” says Matt, stroking Woody’s back with little feather fingers. “Maybe she’d let me have half a dog, like Woody.”
“He’s small, but I guarantee you, he’s a whole dog,” I say. “But, hey, you never know, your Mom may change her mind someday.”
“Doubt it,” says Matt.
“Well, you can come play with Woody whenever you want to,” I say.
“‘Kay!” they say.
*
Ding-Dong.
The next day: 3: 40 p.m. sharp.
I scoop up Woody and swing open the door.
“We found a cat,” says Carter.
“Yeah, and she has kittens,” says Matt.
“They look like little tigers and all they do is squeak,” adds Carter.
“Aw. Does she belong to one of your friends?” I ask, lowering Woody to the floor for his petting. He leans back with his butt up in the air. Attack mode.
“Oh, you want to play?” asks Matt, and starts shaking his sleeve. Woody growls softly and does a wheelie. He loves this.
“No, Silly. She lives up in the cemetery.”
“Really,” I say.
“Yeah, and she’s really nice,” adds Matt, “but we think she’s sick.”
“Yeah, she’s like, hungry all the time,” says Carter. “She likes potato chips,” he says proudly.
“And chocolate milk,” adds Matt, prouder.
“Oo. I don’t know if you should give her chocolate milk. “Hold on.” I ran into the kitchen and filled one of Woody’s little plastic bowls with milk.
“Why don’t you see if she likes this?”
“Okay!” says Matt, psyched.
“I can carry it!” Carter says.
“No, let me!” cries Matt.
“You both can carry it,” I say gently.
They each held onto opposite sides of the bowl and carried it awkwardly down the front walk.
“But be careful crossing the street,” I call after them.
Woody and I watched them carry the bowl together, all the way up to the old cemetery, hidden on top of the hill where our street ends.
The next day it poured, and the day after that. Woody and I looked out the window for them at 3:45, then again at 4:00. “Maybe tomorrow,” I said, and he cocked his head to one side the way dogs do, as if to say, “Why?”
*
3:20 p.m.
The following day.
Ding-dong-Bang-Bang-Bang.
I scoop up Woody, who is kicking with glee, and open the door. Nobody.
“Over here!” I hear a loud whisper. Carter.
The boys stood on the driveway and pointed to a petite, malnourished cat that was obviously nursing, who paced around them. “Mew,” she said, and looked at me with the most beautiful aqua green eyes I have ever seen, even on a cat.
“Where are her kittens?” I ask and deposit Woody safely back inside – for now, at least.
“They’re gone,” says Carter. I slowly walked over to the cat. She timidly approached me but quickly ran back to the boys.
“We think they washed away in the rain,” says Matt. As if agreeing, the little cat mewed again and approached my outstretched hand. “She’s so skinny,” I say and then, “Hold on.”
I ran inside and came back out with a paper plate topped with tuna.
She inhaled it.
“Mom says I can’t have the cat,” Carter says, stroking her back. She kept eating, and glancing up at me, petrified, in between mouthfuls. “My Mom’s allergicked,” says Matt.
*
Ding-dong.
3:30 pm, next day.
I open the door. It’s the cat.
“Just in time,” I say, even though I hear the boys laughing in the bushes. “I was just about to open a can of tuna. Won’t you join us?”
*
“Hell smells like mouse dung.”
Opened the silverware drawer this morning to make some breakfast and was very unpleasantly surprised by the sight of M-O-U-S-E droppings.
At first I didn’t know what they were – had no idea, in fact, or maybe it was just some deep-seated denial kicking in. I even – oh God!- picked one up and examined it, rationalizing: ‘Must be charred remnants of last night’s barbeque’ – and thought of ways to blame David for the mess. (I am a mouse turd).
But then I saw more. And more and more and more of them as I rummaged through the utensils we eat off of, for crying out loud, laying in some rodent’s toilet.
I’m not sure what hit me the hardest: the actual realization that these were, indeed, mouse turds (oh God it better not be something bigger and furrier I am going to a hotel right now with the dog oh God) or the fact that I picked one of them up with my bare hands and almost – gulp – tasted it, in fact.
Like lightning, I slapped on the ol’ Rubbermaid’s – so quickly, in fact, that my sweaty palms made it nearly impossible to pull them all the way on. Hastily I dumped some baking soda down my wrists and yanked them on. Which did wonders for the little nicks on my knuckles from gardening this past weekend, since baking soda is basically salt. Yay.
The will to survive was my morphine, though, and I went to work: I threw handfuls of silverware in the dishwasher along with the turd-tainted silverware holder. Gingerly I opened the cabinet door to retrieve the dishwasher soap, and flooded with relief when I saw not a kernel o’ crap in sight. Figures. Even the mice are smarter than humans and pets and won’t go near all those toxic cleaners we keep under there.
With Trojan hands, I carried the veggie peel bag out to the compost house Martha showed me how to make. I eyed that with suspicion – even Martha told us, if not properly filled, “It could attract vermin.” I threw the peels on top and shivered.
“Mew.”
“Why, hello, Kitty,” I cooed, and then, “C’mon, Kitty, do your thing. There’s a mouse – oh God I hope it’s not a rat – and you can have it for lunch!”
Ew.
“C’mon, I know you can do it. Go for it!”
“Mew,” she said sweetly, and rubbed against my leg. Not the snarl for blood I was hoping for.
The Jones’ cat is too fat to catch anything besides fleas, so that’s out.
I sprinkled baking soda on the carpets and vacuumed everything in sight, as Woody looked on with a curious cock to his little white head. “No mouse droppings for you!” I admonished gently, though I know even the dog wouldn’t try to eat mouse turds like his mama almost did.
Satisfied that at least it wouldn’t smell like a mouse was here, I punched in David’s cell phone number, still with rubber hands and not very easy to do.
“Yeah!” That’s contractor speak for, “Hello?” in case you were wondering.
“It’s me. We have a [shiver] mouse.”
To someone else David says, “I don’t know, put it down over there, Ben. I’ll be right there. What? Well, what do you want me to do? I’m in Raleigh, working.”
“There are turds on the silverware. I’m washing everything in sight as we speak. The dog is frightened. I cannot cope with a mouse in this house. What should I doooooo?”
“Wait. A mouse, huh?”
“Yes? Hello? M-o-u-s-e,” I sang hysterically.
“Hmph. Must be getting in through the dishwasher.”
Respiration: ceasefire.
“What.” I have visions of rodent flotsam caught in the riptide of the dishwasher, where every dish, pot, and piece of silverware we own is at the moment. “I’m calling an exterminator,” I choke.
Wait a minute. It’s all coming back to me now: Night before last, sitting and drawing in front of the TV. It was a blur, out of the corner of my eye. Disappeared under the bookcase. Woody barked. David bitched, because he was trying to sleep. That was it. The gray blur. Oh God, it’s been here for two days – or more – in my house at night while I sleep, probably frolicking with venomous filthy paws with Woody while I am fast asleep. Noooooooooo.
“I’m not paying their fees for putting a trap down. I can do that myself.”
I am reaching into the dishwasher for a sparkling clean dish and pull it and it is caked with mouse fur….
“Yeah. ‘kay,” I say, and hang up. With shaky rubber fingers, I thumb through the phone book and….
*
“You don’t understand. I have a phobia of bugs and rodents. It goes way back…”
Bill the Bug Guy chuckles a little and nods, “Yeah. Everybody does.” I heard the part he didn’t say:” ‘specially the lil’women of the household,” but I didn’t care. He was right.
“No,” I said, searching for his eyes, “you don’t understand. The fur – agh, I mean hair – on the back of my neck stands up so high it looks like I’m wearing a ponytail. I cannot function when I know – even suspect – that there are bugs and/or mice around the house. If there are bugs outside I stay in. If there are bugs inside, I leave. Vanish. Kaput.”
“Well, I’m sure your husband will be happy with our service, then,” he says. I didn’t want to tell him we aren’t married yet – haven’t had the time what with all this moving going on, and plus, that little fact doesn’t go over well here in the Bible belt. And I needed Bill. Today. Now.
“By the way, you sure it was mouse?”
“It was either that or the fastest moving lint ball I’ve ever seen!” I shrieked.
He thought this was hilarious. I did not.
“It was small, gray?” he asked, clipboard poised, feet apart, probably to balance the enormous vermin-tool belt he wore.
I nodded quickly. “Whiskers, beady little eyes. Tail,” I added with a yelp.
“Sounds like you got yourself a field mouse. Some people call it a ‘house mouse.’”
“Not this ‘house mouse’,” I said.
He thought this just as funny. I was starting to dislike Bill the Bug Man.
I led him into the kitchen and pointed accusingly at the lower drawer of the stove. “I found…droppings.”
“Small, hard-?”
“- looks like barbeque? Yessss.” Don’t laugh, just kill.
He laughed anyway and went to work.
He pulled out my heartshaped muffin tin and rattled it: perfect cup holders for Shitting Mickey dung.
I threw it out.
He held up my little corncob pan and shook that. I dragged the garbage can over to him and said, “Please.”
“You’re not going to throw these out, are you?”
“There is no way on God’s green earth I will ever eat anything that comes out of those pans again.”
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“So what’s the plan? What are you going to do?”
He pulled a triangular shaped black box out of his wonder belt and said, “Bait ‘er.”
I didn’t like that he called Shitting Mickey a “her.” Like sinking ships and hurricanes and aircraft that drop bombs.
“Her?” I gulp.
“Sure. It’s probably a female. She’s been searching for food for her babies.”
Gag-choke-gulp. “There’s more than one?”
“Noah had two of everything on the ark!” he said, cheerfully.
After an entire diatribe on the toxicity of mouse crap, Bill the Bug Guy left, a couple of strategically placed black boxes in his wake. He even braved The Black Hole – the back half of the house, and told me, “You gotta do something with that. That’s a rodent magnet in itself.”
Gee, thanks, Bill.
*
Later that night:
“C’mere, Kitty Kitty Kitty…. I have some TUNA for you! Here, Kittykittykittykittyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
David is in the kitchen vacuuming the drawers of any poop I might have missed before the dry heaves made me stop. I am on the front porch with a soggy paper plate of premium tuna fish, searching for the cat, who is quickly becoming ours, while intermittently shouting hyperventilating instructions at David.
“Don’t forget the skinny cabinet next to the-!”
Rrrring.
“Get the phone!” he yells from under the sink.
“Hello!” I shout into the receiver.
My sister.
“Oh, hi, Jen. Look-we-have-a-mouse-gotta-go.”
“Oh –Jesus-I’ll-let-you-go-call-me-later-or-whenever-it’s-gone!”
Click.
This fact affects her as if by some telepathic fear of Mouse that bonds our psyches. I know she will be checking her own cupboards with increasing alarm all evening.
I ran back into the kitchen just as David is pulling the now empty stove drawer off its track and out completely, revealing an absolute smattering of feces beneath it.
“Jesus!” he exclaimed. I made the sign of the cross or flailed my arms or something and, I guess, started speaking in tongues because he turned to me and scowled, “Why don’t you go watch TV or something?”
Rrring.
“Hello?” A choked whisper from YoursTruly.
“Hi, Honey. What’s wrong?” Mommy.
“Mom…we…-”
“What, honey? What is it?”
“-hhhave a mmmou-“
“Oh, Mother of God! Okay, okay, stay calm you’ll be fine is David there I’ll call you this weekend don’t worry call an exterminator and go to a hotel-“
Oddly, her hysteria calms me.
“Mom. David is here. The exterminator set traps. It’s under control,” I say, that last part shaking a bit.
I hear my mother cup the receiver and say to my grandmother, “No, Ma, she’s fine. Really. Everything’s fine. It’s a M-O-U-” I hear my grandmother shouting some very fast Italian words. “No, David’s with her. She’ll be fine.” And then back to me, “Okay, so David’s there?”
“Yes, Ma, he’s –“
David yells from what sounds like the inside of the stove, “Where the hell are the paper towels?”
“Oh, Ma, I gotta go, he’s cleaning it up –“
“Cleaning what up?” my mother shrieks, and then my grandmother starts yelling a torrent of Italian prayers and …
“Do you want me to clean this up or what?” David is yelling from the kitchen. Woody barks at him.
“’kay, Mom, gotta go, really,”
Sound of skull on stove.
David: “SHIT!”
“Mom, I’ll call you this weekend.”
“Okay, okay, oh. Your grandmother’s all upset. Ma, calm down. We’ll say a prayer to St. Jude, don’t worry, you’ll be fine-“
David: “C’monnnnnn!’
Me: “Okay, love you, gotta go, bye.” Click.
St. Jude, by the way, is the patron saint of hopeless cases.
*
I call it RAD: Rodent Affective Disorder.
“Rat”, “mouse” and “snake” were dirty words in my house and those of my relatives. If any word of “that kind” was essential to the telling of any story, it was never, ever to be spoken, but spelled out in soundless, exaggerated letters.
It’s hereditary. It can blossom into the more severe form: ARAD (Amphibian and Rodent Affective Disorder) or the more severe AARAD (Aviary, Amphibian and Rodent Disorder). I an aunt with that one. All I can remember of a family trip to the Reptile House in Sea World was my aunt with large black sunglasses on being led around by the elbow by my uncle, like a blind person and, all that moaning … it was u-g-l-y. And my mother: the mere sound of my parakeet’s flapping wings could send her into a maniacal departure right out the front door.
Reminds me of the original trauma, years and years ago….
Queens, NY
1969
“Mommy, I thought Mickey Mouse was black,” my little sister says.
“He is, honey,” Mom says, as she tucks the pink satin edge of my favorite blanket under my chin in the bed next to my sister’s.
“No, he’s not,” says my sister, from under her favorite blanket.
“Yes he is, Honey.” Mom reassures her tenderly.
“Well, then, why is that mouse gray?” Jen sits up in bed and points a dimpled little finger to a spot about a yard away from where Mom is standing.
There could have – should have – been a springboard under Mom’s feet. But of course there wasn’t. Like tiny mothers who lift automobiles off their children; like the resurrection itself, Mom was suddenly possessed of some otherworldly power that catapulted her up to my bed … WITHOUT BENDING HER KNEES.
Years later when we were teenagers, Jen and I watched The Bionic Woman do the same thing. Jen pointed at the screen and said, “Look. Mom with the mouse.”
“Ooooo! Look! He’s soooo cute!” Jen squealed.
Mom was doing the Riverdance around the foot of my bed.
“Hey, don’t step on me, Ma!” I whined.
“Neil! Neeeeeeeeilllllllllll!” Mom moans. I never heard her sound like that.
“I’m getting car sick,” I say, holding my mouth.
I hear Dad’s Marine Corps footsteps coming down the hallway. “What.” He ordered.
My mother, still weakly marching at the foot of my bed, points to the old iron radiator near my bed with one hand, touching her cheek with the other.
My father, after saying a very fatherly, “Shit,” grabs a go-go boot from the floor and launches into an arm flying staccato seizure of sorts, as did my mother, all to no avail.
“Don’t hurt him, Daddy!” Jen cries. “Let him live in the boot with Mother Huvvard!”
“You - mean – ‘Mother - Hubbard’, “ I say, holding on.
“Mother Huvvard needs a pet mouse to eat the scraps!”
“And she doesn’t live in a boot,” I say, my voice bouncing.
“Why can’t she?’ Jen cries.
“Because … everybody knows mice aren’t allowed to live in boots.”
Jen grabs her sand pail and hands it to my dad. “Here, Daddy. Maybe Mickey would like to live in here.”
My older brother George appears at the doorway, holding a View master. “What’s the problem?” he asks. Even at seven he was cool.
“Your mother – shit! – saw a f—mouse!” Dad growls.
“I want a ride, too!” Jen cries and hops onto my bouncing bed with my mother and me.
George shakes his head and saunters over to the radiator. “See? This wouldn’t be a problem if you had just let me get the snake I wanted.”
My mother moans a word I never heard her say before.
“Or the kitten I wanted!” I say.
“Like Tom and Jerry!” says Jen.
George puts his View master down, takes the pail and traps the mouse.
“Don’t hurt him!” screams Jen. My mother is in a slow, exhausted march. “I don’t feel good,” I say. My father throws his hands up and leaves. “I’ll bring him outside,” George sighs.
“Where are you going with Mickey?” Jen says, running after him.
“Back to Hollywood where he belongs.” George says and sets Mickey free.
***
We named our new cat Rebecca, who, like Woody, was a character on the old sitcom, Cheers. If you’ve ever been a fan of the show, you know Rebecca was more easygoing than Diane - dark-haired, a bit obnoxious, certainly misunderstood – and wickedly funny.
That’s our girl.
3:45 P.M. on a Wednesday
Ding-dong.
I scoop up Woody and when I open the front door, two little boys, I’d guess around 8 or 9 years old, are looking up at me.
“Hey, I’m Carter. This is Matt. We’re your neighbors.”
“Well, hello there. Nice to meet you, “ I say. Woody squirms in my arms.
“Can we pet your dog?”
“Sure.” I put Woody down and they pet him gently.
“He’s cool,” says Matt.
“I think so, thanks,” I say.
“We have a dog. A Boston terrier,” Carter says.
“She’s black and white,” says Matt, rubbing Woody’s back. “She looks like a cow.”
“She doesn’t look like a cow,” scoffs Carter.
“Well, I’m sure you love her very much,” I say.
“Yeah, she’s cool,” says Carter.
“My Mom won’t let me have a dog,” says Matt, stroking Woody’s back with little feather fingers. “Maybe she’d let me have half a dog, like Woody.”
“He’s small, but I guarantee you, he’s a whole dog,” I say. “But, hey, you never know, your Mom may change her mind someday.”
“Doubt it,” says Matt.
“Well, you can come play with Woody whenever you want to,” I say.
“‘Kay!” they say.
*
Ding-Dong.
The next day: 3: 40 p.m. sharp.
I scoop up Woody and swing open the door.
“We found a cat,” says Carter.
“Yeah, and she has kittens,” says Matt.
“They look like little tigers and all they do is squeak,” adds Carter.
“Aw. Does she belong to one of your friends?” I ask, lowering Woody to the floor for his petting. He leans back with his butt up in the air. Attack mode.
“Oh, you want to play?” asks Matt, and starts shaking his sleeve. Woody growls softly and does a wheelie. He loves this.
“No, Silly. She lives up in the cemetery.”
“Really,” I say.
“Yeah, and she’s really nice,” adds Matt, “but we think she’s sick.”
“Yeah, she’s like, hungry all the time,” says Carter. “She likes potato chips,” he says proudly.
“And chocolate milk,” adds Matt, prouder.
“Oo. I don’t know if you should give her chocolate milk. “Hold on.” I ran into the kitchen and filled one of Woody’s little plastic bowls with milk.
“Why don’t you see if she likes this?”
“Okay!” says Matt, psyched.
“I can carry it!” Carter says.
“No, let me!” cries Matt.
“You both can carry it,” I say gently.
They each held onto opposite sides of the bowl and carried it awkwardly down the front walk.
“But be careful crossing the street,” I call after them.
Woody and I watched them carry the bowl together, all the way up to the old cemetery, hidden on top of the hill where our street ends.
The next day it poured, and the day after that. Woody and I looked out the window for them at 3:45, then again at 4:00. “Maybe tomorrow,” I said, and he cocked his head to one side the way dogs do, as if to say, “Why?”
*
3:20 p.m.
The following day.
Ding-dong-Bang-Bang-Bang.
I scoop up Woody, who is kicking with glee, and open the door. Nobody.
“Over here!” I hear a loud whisper. Carter.
The boys stood on the driveway and pointed to a petite, malnourished cat that was obviously nursing, who paced around them. “Mew,” she said, and looked at me with the most beautiful aqua green eyes I have ever seen, even on a cat.
“Where are her kittens?” I ask and deposit Woody safely back inside – for now, at least.
“They’re gone,” says Carter. I slowly walked over to the cat. She timidly approached me but quickly ran back to the boys.
“We think they washed away in the rain,” says Matt. As if agreeing, the little cat mewed again and approached my outstretched hand. “She’s so skinny,” I say and then, “Hold on.”
I ran inside and came back out with a paper plate topped with tuna.
She inhaled it.
“Mom says I can’t have the cat,” Carter says, stroking her back. She kept eating, and glancing up at me, petrified, in between mouthfuls. “My Mom’s allergicked,” says Matt.
*
Ding-dong.
3:30 pm, next day.
I open the door. It’s the cat.
“Just in time,” I say, even though I hear the boys laughing in the bushes. “I was just about to open a can of tuna. Won’t you join us?”
*
“Hell smells like mouse dung.”
Opened the silverware drawer this morning to make some breakfast and was very unpleasantly surprised by the sight of M-O-U-S-E droppings.
At first I didn’t know what they were – had no idea, in fact, or maybe it was just some deep-seated denial kicking in. I even – oh God!- picked one up and examined it, rationalizing: ‘Must be charred remnants of last night’s barbeque’ – and thought of ways to blame David for the mess. (I am a mouse turd).
But then I saw more. And more and more and more of them as I rummaged through the utensils we eat off of, for crying out loud, laying in some rodent’s toilet.
I’m not sure what hit me the hardest: the actual realization that these were, indeed, mouse turds (oh God it better not be something bigger and furrier I am going to a hotel right now with the dog oh God) or the fact that I picked one of them up with my bare hands and almost – gulp – tasted it, in fact.
Like lightning, I slapped on the ol’ Rubbermaid’s – so quickly, in fact, that my sweaty palms made it nearly impossible to pull them all the way on. Hastily I dumped some baking soda down my wrists and yanked them on. Which did wonders for the little nicks on my knuckles from gardening this past weekend, since baking soda is basically salt. Yay.
The will to survive was my morphine, though, and I went to work: I threw handfuls of silverware in the dishwasher along with the turd-tainted silverware holder. Gingerly I opened the cabinet door to retrieve the dishwasher soap, and flooded with relief when I saw not a kernel o’ crap in sight. Figures. Even the mice are smarter than humans and pets and won’t go near all those toxic cleaners we keep under there.
With Trojan hands, I carried the veggie peel bag out to the compost house Martha showed me how to make. I eyed that with suspicion – even Martha told us, if not properly filled, “It could attract vermin.” I threw the peels on top and shivered.
“Mew.”
“Why, hello, Kitty,” I cooed, and then, “C’mon, Kitty, do your thing. There’s a mouse – oh God I hope it’s not a rat – and you can have it for lunch!”
Ew.
“C’mon, I know you can do it. Go for it!”
“Mew,” she said sweetly, and rubbed against my leg. Not the snarl for blood I was hoping for.
The Jones’ cat is too fat to catch anything besides fleas, so that’s out.
I sprinkled baking soda on the carpets and vacuumed everything in sight, as Woody looked on with a curious cock to his little white head. “No mouse droppings for you!” I admonished gently, though I know even the dog wouldn’t try to eat mouse turds like his mama almost did.
Satisfied that at least it wouldn’t smell like a mouse was here, I punched in David’s cell phone number, still with rubber hands and not very easy to do.
“Yeah!” That’s contractor speak for, “Hello?” in case you were wondering.
“It’s me. We have a [shiver] mouse.”
To someone else David says, “I don’t know, put it down over there, Ben. I’ll be right there. What? Well, what do you want me to do? I’m in Raleigh, working.”
“There are turds on the silverware. I’m washing everything in sight as we speak. The dog is frightened. I cannot cope with a mouse in this house. What should I doooooo?”
“Wait. A mouse, huh?”
“Yes? Hello? M-o-u-s-e,” I sang hysterically.
“Hmph. Must be getting in through the dishwasher.”
Respiration: ceasefire.
“What.” I have visions of rodent flotsam caught in the riptide of the dishwasher, where every dish, pot, and piece of silverware we own is at the moment. “I’m calling an exterminator,” I choke.
Wait a minute. It’s all coming back to me now: Night before last, sitting and drawing in front of the TV. It was a blur, out of the corner of my eye. Disappeared under the bookcase. Woody barked. David bitched, because he was trying to sleep. That was it. The gray blur. Oh God, it’s been here for two days – or more – in my house at night while I sleep, probably frolicking with venomous filthy paws with Woody while I am fast asleep. Noooooooooo.
“I’m not paying their fees for putting a trap down. I can do that myself.”
I am reaching into the dishwasher for a sparkling clean dish and pull it and it is caked with mouse fur….
“Yeah. ‘kay,” I say, and hang up. With shaky rubber fingers, I thumb through the phone book and….
*
“You don’t understand. I have a phobia of bugs and rodents. It goes way back…”
Bill the Bug Guy chuckles a little and nods, “Yeah. Everybody does.” I heard the part he didn’t say:” ‘specially the lil’women of the household,” but I didn’t care. He was right.
“No,” I said, searching for his eyes, “you don’t understand. The fur – agh, I mean hair – on the back of my neck stands up so high it looks like I’m wearing a ponytail. I cannot function when I know – even suspect – that there are bugs and/or mice around the house. If there are bugs outside I stay in. If there are bugs inside, I leave. Vanish. Kaput.”
“Well, I’m sure your husband will be happy with our service, then,” he says. I didn’t want to tell him we aren’t married yet – haven’t had the time what with all this moving going on, and plus, that little fact doesn’t go over well here in the Bible belt. And I needed Bill. Today. Now.
“By the way, you sure it was mouse?”
“It was either that or the fastest moving lint ball I’ve ever seen!” I shrieked.
He thought this was hilarious. I did not.
“It was small, gray?” he asked, clipboard poised, feet apart, probably to balance the enormous vermin-tool belt he wore.
I nodded quickly. “Whiskers, beady little eyes. Tail,” I added with a yelp.
“Sounds like you got yourself a field mouse. Some people call it a ‘house mouse.’”
“Not this ‘house mouse’,” I said.
He thought this just as funny. I was starting to dislike Bill the Bug Man.
I led him into the kitchen and pointed accusingly at the lower drawer of the stove. “I found…droppings.”
“Small, hard-?”
“- looks like barbeque? Yessss.” Don’t laugh, just kill.
He laughed anyway and went to work.
He pulled out my heartshaped muffin tin and rattled it: perfect cup holders for Shitting Mickey dung.
I threw it out.
He held up my little corncob pan and shook that. I dragged the garbage can over to him and said, “Please.”
“You’re not going to throw these out, are you?”
“There is no way on God’s green earth I will ever eat anything that comes out of those pans again.”
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“So what’s the plan? What are you going to do?”
He pulled a triangular shaped black box out of his wonder belt and said, “Bait ‘er.”
I didn’t like that he called Shitting Mickey a “her.” Like sinking ships and hurricanes and aircraft that drop bombs.
“Her?” I gulp.
“Sure. It’s probably a female. She’s been searching for food for her babies.”
Gag-choke-gulp. “There’s more than one?”
“Noah had two of everything on the ark!” he said, cheerfully.
After an entire diatribe on the toxicity of mouse crap, Bill the Bug Guy left, a couple of strategically placed black boxes in his wake. He even braved The Black Hole – the back half of the house, and told me, “You gotta do something with that. That’s a rodent magnet in itself.”
Gee, thanks, Bill.
*
Later that night:
“C’mere, Kitty Kitty Kitty…. I have some TUNA for you! Here, Kittykittykittykittyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
David is in the kitchen vacuuming the drawers of any poop I might have missed before the dry heaves made me stop. I am on the front porch with a soggy paper plate of premium tuna fish, searching for the cat, who is quickly becoming ours, while intermittently shouting hyperventilating instructions at David.
“Don’t forget the skinny cabinet next to the-!”
Rrrring.
“Get the phone!” he yells from under the sink.
“Hello!” I shout into the receiver.
My sister.
“Oh, hi, Jen. Look-we-have-a-mouse-gotta-go.”
“Oh –Jesus-I’ll-let-you-go-call-me-later-or-whenever-it’s-gone!”
Click.
This fact affects her as if by some telepathic fear of Mouse that bonds our psyches. I know she will be checking her own cupboards with increasing alarm all evening.
I ran back into the kitchen just as David is pulling the now empty stove drawer off its track and out completely, revealing an absolute smattering of feces beneath it.
“Jesus!” he exclaimed. I made the sign of the cross or flailed my arms or something and, I guess, started speaking in tongues because he turned to me and scowled, “Why don’t you go watch TV or something?”
Rrring.
“Hello?” A choked whisper from YoursTruly.
“Hi, Honey. What’s wrong?” Mommy.
“Mom…we…-”
“What, honey? What is it?”
“-hhhave a mmmou-“
“Oh, Mother of God! Okay, okay, stay calm you’ll be fine is David there I’ll call you this weekend don’t worry call an exterminator and go to a hotel-“
Oddly, her hysteria calms me.
“Mom. David is here. The exterminator set traps. It’s under control,” I say, that last part shaking a bit.
I hear my mother cup the receiver and say to my grandmother, “No, Ma, she’s fine. Really. Everything’s fine. It’s a M-O-U-” I hear my grandmother shouting some very fast Italian words. “No, David’s with her. She’ll be fine.” And then back to me, “Okay, so David’s there?”
“Yes, Ma, he’s –“
David yells from what sounds like the inside of the stove, “Where the hell are the paper towels?”
“Oh, Ma, I gotta go, he’s cleaning it up –“
“Cleaning what up?” my mother shrieks, and then my grandmother starts yelling a torrent of Italian prayers and …
“Do you want me to clean this up or what?” David is yelling from the kitchen. Woody barks at him.
“’kay, Mom, gotta go, really,”
Sound of skull on stove.
David: “SHIT!”
“Mom, I’ll call you this weekend.”
“Okay, okay, oh. Your grandmother’s all upset. Ma, calm down. We’ll say a prayer to St. Jude, don’t worry, you’ll be fine-“
David: “C’monnnnnn!’
Me: “Okay, love you, gotta go, bye.” Click.
St. Jude, by the way, is the patron saint of hopeless cases.
*
I call it RAD: Rodent Affective Disorder.
“Rat”, “mouse” and “snake” were dirty words in my house and those of my relatives. If any word of “that kind” was essential to the telling of any story, it was never, ever to be spoken, but spelled out in soundless, exaggerated letters.
It’s hereditary. It can blossom into the more severe form: ARAD (Amphibian and Rodent Affective Disorder) or the more severe AARAD (Aviary, Amphibian and Rodent Disorder). I an aunt with that one. All I can remember of a family trip to the Reptile House in Sea World was my aunt with large black sunglasses on being led around by the elbow by my uncle, like a blind person and, all that moaning … it was u-g-l-y. And my mother: the mere sound of my parakeet’s flapping wings could send her into a maniacal departure right out the front door.
Reminds me of the original trauma, years and years ago….
Queens, NY
1969
“Mommy, I thought Mickey Mouse was black,” my little sister says.
“He is, honey,” Mom says, as she tucks the pink satin edge of my favorite blanket under my chin in the bed next to my sister’s.
“No, he’s not,” says my sister, from under her favorite blanket.
“Yes he is, Honey.” Mom reassures her tenderly.
“Well, then, why is that mouse gray?” Jen sits up in bed and points a dimpled little finger to a spot about a yard away from where Mom is standing.
There could have – should have – been a springboard under Mom’s feet. But of course there wasn’t. Like tiny mothers who lift automobiles off their children; like the resurrection itself, Mom was suddenly possessed of some otherworldly power that catapulted her up to my bed … WITHOUT BENDING HER KNEES.
Years later when we were teenagers, Jen and I watched The Bionic Woman do the same thing. Jen pointed at the screen and said, “Look. Mom with the mouse.”
“Ooooo! Look! He’s soooo cute!” Jen squealed.
Mom was doing the Riverdance around the foot of my bed.
“Hey, don’t step on me, Ma!” I whined.
“Neil! Neeeeeeeeilllllllllll!” Mom moans. I never heard her sound like that.
“I’m getting car sick,” I say, holding my mouth.
I hear Dad’s Marine Corps footsteps coming down the hallway. “What.” He ordered.
My mother, still weakly marching at the foot of my bed, points to the old iron radiator near my bed with one hand, touching her cheek with the other.
My father, after saying a very fatherly, “Shit,” grabs a go-go boot from the floor and launches into an arm flying staccato seizure of sorts, as did my mother, all to no avail.
“Don’t hurt him, Daddy!” Jen cries. “Let him live in the boot with Mother Huvvard!”
“You - mean – ‘Mother - Hubbard’, “ I say, holding on.
“Mother Huvvard needs a pet mouse to eat the scraps!”
“And she doesn’t live in a boot,” I say, my voice bouncing.
“Why can’t she?’ Jen cries.
“Because … everybody knows mice aren’t allowed to live in boots.”
Jen grabs her sand pail and hands it to my dad. “Here, Daddy. Maybe Mickey would like to live in here.”
My older brother George appears at the doorway, holding a View master. “What’s the problem?” he asks. Even at seven he was cool.
“Your mother – shit! – saw a f—mouse!” Dad growls.
“I want a ride, too!” Jen cries and hops onto my bouncing bed with my mother and me.
George shakes his head and saunters over to the radiator. “See? This wouldn’t be a problem if you had just let me get the snake I wanted.”
My mother moans a word I never heard her say before.
“Or the kitten I wanted!” I say.
“Like Tom and Jerry!” says Jen.
George puts his View master down, takes the pail and traps the mouse.
“Don’t hurt him!” screams Jen. My mother is in a slow, exhausted march. “I don’t feel good,” I say. My father throws his hands up and leaves. “I’ll bring him outside,” George sighs.
“Where are you going with Mickey?” Jen says, running after him.
“Back to Hollywood where he belongs.” George says and sets Mickey free.
***
We named our new cat Rebecca, who, like Woody, was a character on the old sitcom, Cheers. If you’ve ever been a fan of the show, you know Rebecca was more easygoing than Diane - dark-haired, a bit obnoxious, certainly misunderstood – and wickedly funny.
That’s our girl.
