Rat Roundup and Burial

I’ve tried to pinpoint an approximate date for our summer in the mountains living in pristine nature under a starry, starry succession of nights. I only know that I was old enough to go to school. Dad had found us a log cabin close to where he worked cutting timber that looked like it had been firmly shoved under the bottom lip of a mountain. It only had a short canopy of a roof…the entire middle part was rotted out and left open to drizzle and small animals.

Underneath the bit of roof, dad made us a lovely bed out of evergreen branches strategically arranged over a bare metal box spring. Mama would tighten a sheet over the top, and it would be reasonably comfortable for a while. Within a few days, however, mama would start complaining about the dried needles poking through the sheet and into her delicate skin. After the proper amount of pleading and tears, dad would grudgingly bring fresh branches in to replace the old ones.

Some of my inner weaknesses budded out in tender young shoots there only to turn into mighty oak trees later in life. Unpleasant experiences began twisting into dark, insecure beliefs that would haunt me for decades. I also started denying and reorganizing the terror in all kinds of ways in an attempt to feel safe.

At night, after my parents and two brothers were asleep, small animals would crawl over me and park on my chest. We usually had a “flock” of rats at home in Livingston. The size of the flock would vary, but our rat flock was hardy and would never completely die out. They raced around the baseboards in delicious oblivion, neck to tail, leaping high like stallions across the window where I slept. They usually left me alone at home.

I was terrified of rats. None had ever bitten me or dragged me into the shadows to maim and kill me, but I knew it could happen. I just didn’t know when. The not knowing would pull my anxiety into tense knots below the resting animal. I tried not to breathe. I thought they would bite me if they knew I was a live person keeping them warm. Survival depended on self-deception. Horror pounded in my ears while I repeated over and over, “It’s a squirrel…It’s a squirrel…It’s a squirrel.” If I keep my eyes shut, it will be a squirrel, but if I open them, it will be a rat, and a rat will bite me. “It’s a squirrel!”

By the time I arrived at adulthood, I had an enormous, ponderous collection of rats that I had labeled squirrels. And so for this long time, I have been pulling the rats out one at a time to give them a name and a proper burial.

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