The Rat King

Today, when Daisy and I were chasing an errant wasp through the house, I got a little bummed thinking about a black lab I used to own named Gabby.

Gabby was a fantastic dog. Probably the smartest, most sensitive dog I've ever owned. She never caused any trouble and was quick to learn new tricks and loved her frisbee. We had moved into a fixer-upper in a neighborhood in Memphis called Cooper-Young. The house was a mess, but I sank a bunch of time and money into it and turned it into a quaint little cottage with hardwood floors and unique molding.

The rest of the neighborhood was a mix of run down rental shacks and houses much like mine that had been restored. On one side, I had a doctor living in a restored Victorian, but on the other side I had a mother and son team that owned seven dogs in a three bedroom crack shack. With all of their dogs, they couldn't afford to pay their utilities, so they ran a generator in one room with a fan in the window to exhaust the fumes. Unfortunately, the generator room was directly across from my bedroom and I got to lay awake at night listening to the damn thing run. The only consolation that I would get was in the middle of the winter. Sometimes I would wake up early in the morning while it was still dark, to the sounds of the generator running out of gas. That earned me a chuckle because I knew that one of the inbred pair had to get up and refill the thing with gas or wake up freezing because they had no juice for their space heaters.

Eventually, mom and son moved out. I peaked in the windows and thought "glad that isn't my house to clean up!!" Little did I know that once the people and dogs moved out, the rats and fleas no longer had a food source. Thus began The Great Vermin Migration. We battled fleas for a couple of months, but the rats hung on for quite a while. Now I grew up in the suburbs and was used to the little field mice coming into the house when it got really cold, but I was not prepared for the hordes of cat sized rats that invaded my home. I tried traps for awhile, but I guess the rodents just giggled as they dragged that traps off with the bait still in them. I switched to poison, which was a pain, because not only did I have to keep it away from the dog, but the damn vengeful rat that ate it would crawl into a wall and die, leaving the stench of dead animal permeating the house. When we had visitors, I would pull them aside and tell them "The misses is lactose intolerant, please ignore the smell."

Gabby became quite the rat catcher. Of course, she would tear up vinyl flooring and baseboard to get to them, but she was earning her keep and she was proud of each success. Slowly, but surely, the problem began to fade. That is until the King of the Rats made his appearance. Gabby and I were in the kitchen when the big ass bastard bolted out from the dishwasher between Gabby's legs. Gabby and I were both so startled that at first we didn't move, but then the chase began! The dog followed The Rat around the corner into the laundry room. The "laundry" room was a small alcove with the washer on one wall, the dryer on another and the hot water heater in the corner between them. The doomed Rat lifted the edge of the washer, gave me the finger, squeaked "piss off loser" and then ran underneath, dropping the washer behind him. Gabby was irate and was very vocal about it. I grabbed a broom and jumped up on the washer, jabbing the broom behind it hoping to flush the monster out. I think Gabby understood and became very quite, assuming the pounce position to cut the enemy off when it reappeared. So, I'm jabbing away with the broom, cursing the rat's lineage when Gabby starts raising hell again. I turn back to tell her to chill out, I'm on top of it and I notice that she is no longer focused on the washer, but on the space behind me. It was like a Kung Fu movie or something from the Matrix. Everything slowed to a crawl and I slowly turned to my left to face the water heater. As I made my turn, my eyes became entranced by the beady, snarling image of The Rat King sitting on my hot water heater inches from my face. Time stopped. Mexican rat stand off. The Rat King made his move, lunging for my face. I quickly flipped the broom and caught the bastard in mid air, laying the smack down on the fucker with the working end of the broom. The Rat King sailed over my shoulder and Gabby leapt to snag him in mid flight. I didn't know rats could scream. Gabby chomped once and then dropped the rat's nasty ass at my feet, deader than......well, dead. Final resting place? Garbage can. Gabby got two treats that night.

Gabby moved north several years later, shortly after my divorce. I still miss the dog.