Rats by Robert Sullivan

Author:Robert Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-05-07T16:00:00+00:00

THE ALLEY WAS ALIVE WITH rats that evening—rats streaking down the walls, from side to side, rats squabbling and screeching, rats eating trash. There were rats feeding on the Chinese-food side and rats feeding on the Irish-bar-food side. Rats were pulling themselves up through the holes in Edens Alley's cobblestones and racing around the corner and coming down the sidewalk. Watching the skitterings and the rat-happy spasms, I saw a nighttime symphony of movement, a chorus of disgustingness. From a rat's perspective, the alley was food-filled, maybe stress-free. I made a mental note to reestimate the population at some point—it seemed to have increased significantly.

With the baited trap in hand, I took a few steps into the alley. Immediately, I turned around and took a few steps back out. Then I collected my thoughts and tried walking into the alley once more, this time with Dave and Matt covering me—it felt good to have some backup, to have visitors in the alley. A few rats quickly scampered off as a result of our presence, but we were still and relatively quiet and many more rats stayed; several of the rats that were deep in the garbage bags continued foraging, as if we weren't even there. The rats who were en route from food to nest or vice versa returned to their nests for a few minutes but then resumed what appeared to be an abbreviated feeding pattern, which was roughly the same pattern only slightly more cautious. The rats seemed to be working around us.

I had some trouble rigging my safety release rope, the jury-rigged affair that I hoped would protect me when and if I caught one of the many rats scurrying around. I was kneeling on the ground in the rat alley, watching for rats around me in a paranoid fashion, and, as a result, spent a lot of time fumbling with my pocketknife. I was getting nervous about the whole thing—worrying about the flow of rats, worrying about jail, about death: rats can sometimes symbolize anxiety, for me, fear of the worst. Matt once again kindly suggested I relax. I looked up at Dave, who was smiling somewhat anxiously. I kept working, eventually choosing to place the trap at the highest part of the alley, a position that seemed to me at once out of view of the passersby on the streets and precisely in the course of the rats that were coming from Edens Alley down into the two trash areas to feed. I had seen a healthy amount of rat traffic along the wall, and in placing the trap in this path, I felt like a trained pest control technician, which, of course, I am not.

With my hands smelling like peanut buttery sardines (and with a savage urge to try one of the Vienna sausages), I left the alley and felt a surge of satisfaction. We all stood out in the street, near John DeLury Plaza, and looked into the alley with binoculars.

Ah, the excitement,

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