My Son, the Rat King

For weeks, I have been plagued by what I believe to be a giant rat; a rat king of sorts who lives in the back alley of my apartment. It all began several months ago, when I moved in. Every few days or so, I would exit my apartment via the back door, holding a thirty-gallon plastic bag of garbage. I would make the short journey down my back stairs, across my patio and all the way to where our back gate stands on the side of our garage. I would open the door and reach around to the space between the garage door and the gate, lift the lid of one of the black, chest-high garbage bins, and toss away my refuse.

Now, at this point I am left to assume that a small rat, a fresh newly born rat, was sleeping in the bottom of the bin. When I let my garbage tumble down into the pile accumulating at the bottom, this young rat must have flicked open his small black eyes, whipped around his gray fleshy tail, and scurried about the bin to avoid being crushed. As I slammed shut the lid, closed the gate to my alley, and journeyed back to my house, the baby rat must have wrinkled his pink little nose at the sensation, furrowing his snout, and ruffling his wiry whiskers. A regal feast he smelled, unlike any pleasure he had yet experienced. The rat made quick work of the thin trash bag with his sharp rodent teeth and dove head first into a mountainous food paradise. His tiny mouth lathered with saliva, his greedy clawed fingers sampling dish after dish. 

For the first course, the rat chose a succulent piece of rotisserie chicken on a bed of egg shells. Next, he devoured a robust banana peel with a delicate clam chowder white sauce and a side of stale tortilla chips. The dishes began to flow now, each course only growing his appetite. Fresh green bean casserole stuffed into a Milky Way wrapper, bread crusts still wet with tuna tar-tar and mayonnaise, a pickle smothered in marinara and garnished with pencil shavings. The rat’s heart beat faster and faster. Six pieces of candy corn, a handful of apple peel. An apricot pit, some sausage grease. Mouthful after mouthful, the rat hardly slowed to taste anymore. Ketchup packets, mussel shells, crinkled napkin, yogurt cup. Coffee grounds, oatmeal scraps, lager dregs, asparagus stalks. And finally, at the very bottom of the pile, the rat found a piece of triple-créme, mushroom-infused, French-imported, brie cheese. He cried a soft whimper that echoed about his great hall and sighed with heavenly satisfaction.

With his appetite quenched, and my garbage pile significantly reduced, the rat fell into a deep sleep, and began to grow. Every few days, it was the same. I would deliver my trash to his bin, and he would eat and grow and eat and grow, and it reached the point where the rat knew my smell, my face, the sound of my steps, and he would run in excited circles at the bottom of his bin every time I approached. They say that rats are very smart; they say they can work out complex mazes and even problem solve little puzzle-rooms for treats. Well this rat was no exception. He knew me and knew that I was supplying his sustenance, and while I was oblivious to his residence in my garbage bin, it was as if I had sired a son. A rat-son who had grown to an enormous size, now bigger than any rat ought to be. He loved me and cherished our brief moments together and I, oblivious as I was, continued to feed him, so he thought I loved him too.

For months, I unknowingly nursed this rat through his infant-hood and into his adolescence, and as our one-sided relationship grew, so did his grotesque size. As a child, this rat was larger than any full-grown rat on my block, but now in his teens, he was of a like size with any prowling street cat that might have wished to dine on him before his morbid transformation. And with this colossal size came a colossal attitude.

With nothing to fear from the other rats, he would leave the warmth of my bin each night to prowl the streets of Chicago. He would scamper up the inside of the bin and patter down the street, looking for trouble. I imagine that trouble was never hard to find in this city, so I pity the rats that stayed out after dark too close to my home. He would find the other rats and pin them to the ground and demand their best food as tribute. If they refused, which they often did, as I suspect rats are very greedy creatures, he would eat them in a single bite. One night, he even went after my neighbor’s small rat-terrier, in a blind frothing rage of jealous hatred at the dog’s loving family and beautiful home. The sounds of their fighting awoke me, and the next morning, the dog was dead.

I pitied the poor rats and my neighbor’s poor dog but most of all I pitied my poor rat-son, a now self-proclaimed king of our block, but in truth, a slimy, no-good bully. It was my fault, truly. If I had only known of his existence, perhaps I could have raised him well and taught him right from wrong. I would have at least done a better job than what he has become. I did not know him when he was eating my garbage, and I did not know him when he killed my neighbor’s dog, but I began to foster suspicions of his existence. First the bodies of small rats in the alleyways, then the garbage collectors that refused to service my block. But what finally made me aware of my son, and is the occurrence by which I am so plagued as of late, has to do with my garbage bins. 

It wasn’t that they were toppled over; it is true that each night my son, the rat king, would topple them in his exit. But every morning upon his return he would push them upright again and tenderly gather each piece of garbage that had tumbled out to place them neatly back inside. There, he would relax, digesting the poor rats he had eaten that night, awaiting my routine visits with intense anticipation, for despite all of his evils and misdeeds, he still fostered a true love for me and for the food I gave him. I was the only father he ever knew.

What has plagued me of late, and what I am left to assume is the result of my rat-son’s actions, is the moving of my garbage bins to block my back gate. Every night that I drop off garbage, they have been pushed in front of my gate, and I have to squeeze past the rank receptacles to throw away my trash. When I come back from class, there they are again, right in front of my gate, and I have to move them once more to get through. Every day it is a battle I face against an unseen foe, where every time I move the trash bins to where I wish them to be, they are returned to where I wish them not: blocking my back gate.

It is my son who is doing this, I am certain of it now. It angers me to no end. With his massive size, the rat king is able to push the garbage bins closer to my back gate, his leathery pink hands braced up against the side wall of the bins, his gray tail, now two feet long, whipping about as he attempts to gain sure footing. Straining, he scrapes the bins along the pavement each night to rest them against the gate. Is it an attempt to help me feed him in the only way that he can, like a dog nuzzling a food dish? Is he trying to be noticed, or to symbolically close the gap between our lives? How can I be angry with intentions as pure as those? But I am. I wish I wasn’t, but I am. Every day that passes grinds down my resolve, and I fantasize cruel and ugly ways to handle my problem. I could throw away a bag of knives, or stop throwing out my garbage at all. I could move the bins to another street and force my son onto someone else. But then I think of that first feast and of how wonderfully innocent my rat son once was, and I pity myself, and I pity my son.

Is this what parenting is like? You are supposed to love your child and provide for them, but how do you do that if you just can’t stomach it? What do you do when your son is a rat? 

I love you son. I’m sorry for the life you live and I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to meet you. I’m sorry for the pain you’ll feel after dinner tonight, but I can’t stand it anymore. Your eyes will go dark, then the fire in your stomach will extinguish, and then you’ll sleep. When you wake, you’ll be able to eat all the food you can imagine. I’m sorry this is the way it had to be. I hope you find some understanding for my actions in your tiny rat heart, made from moldy bread, week-old spaghetti, and triple-créme, mushroom-infused, French-imported brie.