The Rat

Steve Bartholomew

The rat slumbered, but awoke when the door slammed. It was the Man. The rat had not eaten for a while. Actually, it had been about two days, but the rat did not count days or nights. With some hope, it rolled over and peered through a crack in the wall so it could see the room below. It wasn’t the only crack, but it was the one it usually used because it had the best view. The rat could see the Man standing in the middle of the room. He did not have food with him, or at least none that could be smelled. He held a bottle, which he set on the desk next to his laptop. The rat knew about bottles; it neither knew nor cared about laptops. It made a sudden scrabbling sound with its feet, to see what the Man would do. The Man glared at the wall and swore under his breath. He knew the rat was there and probably watching him.

The Man twisted off the cap of his bottle and poured some whisky into a glass, and then swallowed some without water or ice. The rat watched. From time to time, the Man had brought wine. Usually he had spilled some on the floor or on his desk, and the rat had come down after the man was asleep. It had developed a taste for wine, but lately the Man had been drinking only whisky, which the rat did not care for. The Man took a cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number. While waiting for an answer, he spoke to the wall and the rat inside. “One of these days, I’ll buy a shotgun and blast hell out of you,” he said. He had already tried traps and poison bait, but the rat was a highly evolved city creature that knew all those tricks. It liked it best when the Man brought home Chinese food in little cartons, and then passed out before eating it all.

Someone answered the phone and the Man said in a loud voice, “Stu! Randy here. How the hell are you? I hear you’re having a New Year’s party tonight.” He listened for a few seconds, then put the phone down. Then he took another drink. “Screw you too,” he said. The rat made some squealing noises. The Man should have brought food. Randy, the Man, took off one of his shoes and threw it at the wall, where it made a BONK sound. It also made a new tear in the wallpaper. The rat didn’t mind, the Man had done that before. The reason there were cracks in the wall was that Randy paid really cheap rent so he could afford to buy whisky. It was what they called a Piss-in-the-Sink hotel room. He’d been living here since Irene kicked him out, in October. Now here it was, a New Year.

Randy stood up and stumbled, forgetting he wore only one shoe. He took that one off too but decided not to throw it. Maybe he should eat something. Going to the little fridge in the corner he looked inside—there was some stale bread and three cans of beer. Randy had a hot plate, but didn’t do much cooking. Pizza and Chinese food were what he lived on. He found some salami behind the bread, took it out and picked up a knife to slice it. The salami stared at him. Changing his mind, he dropped it with the knife on a small table. Couldn’t leave that stuff out, though, the rats might get it. He shoved the salami back in the fridge, but left the knife, which was still clean and wouldn’t attract anything.

The thought of Irene gave him an idea. Picking up his phone, he punched another number. It rang several times; he was about to hang up, but then heard a click and a sleepy hello.

“Yo, Irene. Guess who. Sure, it’s me. I just called to wish you a very happy New Year. Wha’s wrong with that? Yeah, I’ve had a couple. New Year’s Eve, what you expect? I’m not going to any parties, though. Stu made me pershona non grata after the last one. You know of any other good parties going on? No, guess you wouldn’t. Okay, I’ll let you go, I know you have to get up and go to work at the hospital in the morning. Nurses don’t get holidays, you told me that often enough. Oh, by the way. The child support might be a little late next month. Guess what happened today? Right, you guessed it. I got laid off. Okay, fired. Yeah, again. I’m goin’ to fight it though. Bastards can’t do that to… Yeah, okay, g’night honey. Happy New Year.” He put the phone down.

The rat had been listening. The smell of salami had made it drool. Of course it did not understand the Man’s language, but it knew he was communicating with another of his species. It made another scrabbling sound. The Man looked at the wall and snarled. Several times in the past, the Man had brought females to his room. The rat understood the mating behavior of larger mammals. It had delighted in raising a commotion within the walls as the Man reached his heights of passion. This trick had infuriated the Man and spoiled his fun. After the third or fourth time, he had stopped bringing females to the room. Now the rat moved so he could peer through a different hole.

The Man poured himself another drink and downed most of it. Already the bottle was half empty. He slammed an open palm down on his desk. “Bastards can’t do that to me!” He opened his laptop and switched it on. While waiting for it to boot, he punched another number on his phone. It was answered on the second ring.

“Billy! It’s Randy. How the hell are you? Yeah, I’m staying home too. You watching Times Square, are you? I don’t have a TV. Listen, I know you’ll love this. As one hacker geek to another. You know that outfit I been working for? They fired me today, on New Year’s Eve! I guess they figure this way they don’t have to pay me for the holiday. Well, yeah, I’m taking legal action. Definitely. Know what else I’m gonna do? They don’t know it, but their main server has a back door. I’m gonna hack in and install one nasty virus. I got it from a Ukrainian web site. On company time, no less. Well, who do you think made the back door? They think they’re so fuckin’ smart. When they turn the power on day after tomorrow, the whole company’s going to crash. All hard drives go boom. They’ll lose millions. They don’t know who they’re dealing with, but they will soon… Yeah, sure, I’ll be careful. Hey, even if they figure out who did it to them, they’re gonna need me back to straighten out the mess.” He gave a short bark of a laugh. “Okay, Billy, later.” He put the phone down and turned to his laptop. He got his password right on the second attempt. So he couldn’t be that drunk yet. But he soon would be. One quick drink and he began typing code.

The rat was patient and could wait, but not forever. The Man should bring food. The rat watched him hunched over the laptop, making clicking sounds. The Man muttered to himself. He said, I’ll show the bastards. Who they think they’re dealin’ with, any who? Dandy Randy they calls me. Dandy Randy the Man… And so on. He saw he was making mistakes on the keyboard and had to do some things over. Left out a whole subroutine, had to go back and do it again. Concentrate. The rat waited until the Man was totally focused on his task, and then began to raise a ruckus, squealing, running back and forth, scratching claws on the wall. It knew how to make noise.

The Man stopped, whirled in his chair, took off his second shoe, threw it at the wall. Mothafucka! The rat fell silent. When the Man turned back to his computer he realized he had forgotten his place. He would have to read through the code. He rubbed his eyes; the hex numbers were beginning to blur. His cell phone chirped. He stared vacantly at it for a moment, then picked it up. He didn’t think anyone would be calling to wish him a Happy New Year. “Yeah? Yeah, it’s me, Randy, who’s thish? Oh, Wallace. Did Irene get you to call me? She did, didn’t she? That’s a crock and you know it. I’m fine, no prob. No job, no prob. And no, I’m not goin’ with you to no friggin’ AA meeting. Got that? You can take your meeting and shove it where the sun don’t shine. Yeah? Well, a real Happy Fuckin’ New Year to you too.” He threw the phone down. He was tempted to stamp on it, but restrained himself. He poured another drink. Better turn off the phone at least. Any more distractions, he’d be up all night. What time was it, anyway? On second thought, maybe he’d go to a meeting, after he finished what he was doing and after he finished the bottle. Tonight they’d be having one of those all night AA marathons, in honor of the New Year. By the time he killed this bottle he might be ready for a meeting. He gave another barking laugh. I’ll show the bastards… He was nearly ready. He would look through the code he’d written one more time just to make sure, then he’d log on to the server, have one more drink to celebrate, and press Enter. Two million bucks damage, easy.

The rat waited until the Man was entirely involved again in his task, and then began more noise, this time running straight up the wall and dropping down again with a thud. The Man jumped up and screamed. I hate rats! By now, of course, he was quite drunk, but didn’t know it. Randy was subject to blackouts. If he survived to the next day he would remember little if anything of what he had done. Not the conversations on the phone, not installing a virus, not the rat, nothing. From somewhere outside the room, someone shouted, Pipe down in there! Some folks wanna sleep! Randy ignored that, swearing and searching for a weapon. The rat could not understand the Man’s words, but it understood his rage. It could smell anger and fear as easily as food. It kept on making noise, scrabbling and squealing.

Randy grabbed the knife he’d almost used on the salami. He attacked the wall with it, stabbing and hacking. An idea came to him: slash the wallpaper to ribbons, then set it on fire. Burn the little fucker out. He was beyond rational thought. He stumbled over one of the shoes he’d thrown earlier, fell, and landed on his blade. Suddenly he stopped yelling. He rolled over, pulled the knife out of his body, looked down at the blood. “Son of a bitch,” he said. They were his last words.

The rat was patient. It was in no hurry. Under the Man’s bed there was a hole in the floor, which was the rat’s portal to the Man’s room. Soon it would go there. But there was no rush. The rat knew it had won. From the wall crack, it could see the Man on the floor, and blood spreading everywhere. It looked like the red wine for which the rat had developed a taste. Smelled better, though. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, the rat went down to feed.