Trap (9781476793177) (5 page)

Still, these were the days of hunger and desperation, even for a rat, as the city was locked in one of its coldest winters in fifty years. Protein was hard to come by. He needed to eat.

Nearly a foot of fresh snow had fallen since morning and he felt exposed in the dim glow of the street lights illuminating the street beyond the alley entrance. Instinct told him to run back into the shadows beyond the reach of the light. Still, he hesitated, then reached a paw through the mesh on the side closest to the meat. But the prize remained just beyond the range of an outstretched claw.

Frustrated, the rat pulled its foreleg out and then scratched absentmindedly behind his ear. Sitting back on his haunches, he licked his front paws and smoothed his whiskers like some ancient Chinese philosopher contemplating a philosophical question. But there was only one answer: he couldn't reach the meat from any point outside of the cage; if he wanted it, he'd have to go inside.

The risk was too great. The rat turned away, then stopped. Wasn't he the winner of a thousand territorial fights and another thousand to determine who would have the right to mate and pass his DNA on to countless other generations of urban rats? He wanted that meat, and by God he was going to get it.

The rat stalked toward the entrance of the cage. He stepped gingerly inside, jumpy with the smell of metal and man all around him, but his hunger was now insatiable. His stomach gurgled and he salivated. He was only inches to salvation from starvation in winter and the possibility of living for one more glorious summer.

Then he was standing above the metal plate on which the meat rested. The smell of the morsel filled his nostrils and removed all fear. He placed a paw on the metal and then reached forward with the other.

The metal plate shifted, and he knew in that moment that he was caught. Still, he abandoned his prize and flung himself backward in an attempt to escape. He almost made it, too. Instinctively, he stuck his paw beneath the spring-loaded door as it slammed into place and yanked up. But the lock had already set and his effort was in vain.

However, there wasn't time to think through his predicament. He whirled at the sound of another animal in the alley. The shadow of a man fell over the cage and trapped animal. The man reached down for the handle but reflexively pulled his hand back when the rat leaped, snarling and with bared fangs.

The man chuckled. “Oh, you're a nasty one,” he said, smiling as he leaned over to study the rat. “Ooooh, and big. It's going to be fun to do you.”

The rat backed away from the face of the man. He showed his long, yellow incisors and held his front paws up like a grappler, ready to escape if he could or fight if he must.

The man wasn't going to allow either. He picked up the cage, grunting slightly in surprise at the unexpected weight of the creature. Chortling, he placed the cage on top of a Dumpster, very pleased with his catch. Sometimes he got an alley cat, which were always fun, or the occasional squirrel when he pursued his “hobby” in Central Park. But there was nothing like a good rat. They were so smart and knew what was coming, yet even afraid they were ferocious and that added to his excitement.

With the cage on top of the Dumpster, the man was face-to-face with the rodent. They looked for a moment in each other's eyes—the dark brown of the man, the red of the rat. Then the rat hissed and flung himself at the man's face, causing him to flinch again.

The man was so preoccupied that he almost missed the soft voices and footfalls in the snow from the alley's entrance thirty feet away. He shrank back behind the Dumpster and peeked around the corner as two New York cops walked past, their breath escaping in clouds from their mouths into the frigid air.

The man's heart pounded. He liked to think of himself as tough, but in reality he was a coward. That's what made him dangerous—to rats and anyone else—a type of cowardice that made him angry with self-loathing and hatred for anyone he perceived as “looking down” on him. He shivered with fear and cold and set the cage back down in the snow behind the Dumpster, so he couldn't be seen from the street if the cops came back. It was early evening, though already dark, and so cold that the sidewalks in that part of East Harlem were nearly deserted as people hunkered down.

He stamped his feet to warm them up. The shoes he wore weren't the best for snow. He loved cherry red, high-top Chuck Taylor “old school” basketball shoes; loved them so much that he had nearly a dozen pairs so that if one pair wore out, he always had a new pair to replace them. Red, always red, like the anger that burned inside of him. Red like fire.

The man pulled a plastic water bottle from the backpack he'd stashed next to the Dumpster, opened the valve, and pointed it at the rat. He squeezed and a stream of liquid shot from the opening and doused the rat, which responded with outraged squeals. Backing as far into a corner of the cage as possible, the rat shook itself and wiped at the noxious liquid with its paws. But the man continued to spray him until he was soaking wet.

When the bottle was empty, the man stood and placed it in the Dumpster. He looked down at the rodent, which was panting in fear and quivering with rage as it watched him. “You think you're so tough,” the man sneered. He pulled out a box of wooden matches and carefully removed one before squatting in front of the case. Showing the rat the match, he then lit it, the smell of sulfur momentarily replacing the stench of gasoline. “Let's see how you handle this.”

Sensing the approach of death, the rat rushed at the man, knowing that he'd never achieve his goal. As such he made it even easier for the tossed match to reach him and ignite the fuel that soaked his fur. The rat shrieked as he exploded into a ball of fire and began leaping about the cage, screeching almost human-like and rolling over to try to reach the snow.

The pain grew so great that at first he didn't see the man get down on his hands and knees to watch the suffering. When the rat noticed, he rushed up to the side of the cage, extending his paws as if trying to reach the man while biting savagely and futilely at the wire.

“Yesssss,” the man hissed with pleasure. “Burn, baby, burn! Oh, it hurts so good.” He felt the urge in his loins as each moment of the rodent's torment increased his sexual enjoyment of the spectacle.

The rat died like that, pressed against the side of the cage; still trying to get at his tormentor. Sighing with regret that it was over so soon, the man chuckled to himself.
Good show
, he thought. It was even better than that puppy he'd taken from a little girl one evening last summer and then set on fire in the park.
Rats are always good. Only one thing better
.

The last thought brought a pleasant shiver that coursed its way through his body like a stimulant. He gasped as he recalled each exquisite moment of horror he'd inflicted. The terror on people's faces. The screams. The cries for help. And before that . . . the fear in the intended victim's eyes when she realized what was about to happen. Sighing, he shook his head sadly.
Such a rare treat
. And only under orders, so he had to settle for animals in between “missions.”

Pulling his thoughts away from the reverie, the man picked up the cage and tripped the lever to open the door. He shook the cage until the black, still smoldering carcass fell out onto the snow. Stepping around the dead rodent so as to avoid getting any smudges on his red high-tops, the man then walked quickly to the alley entrance. There he looked both ways before stepping out on the sidewalk and scurrying away, the cage dangling from his hand.

“Hey you!” a man's voice called out from the shadows across the street.

He froze. He'd been careless. He'd looked both ways up and down the sidewalk, but he hadn't noticed the two cops had crossed and were standing on the other side behind a parked car.

The man considered running, but he'd never been much of an athlete and knew that they'd catch him.
Besides,
he reminded himself,
you've rehearsed this a thousand times . . . just in case
.

“Yes, sir?” he called out to the cops who were walking across the street toward him. His voice quavered and he hoped they would think it was just the cold. “What can I do for you?”

“Cold night to be out,” said one of the uniformed officers, a large man with a scarf wrapped around his face.

“Yes, sir,” the man replied. He held up the cage. “We have rats in my mother's apartment,” he said. “Borrowed a cage from a friend.”

“Got rats in my place, too,” the other cop, a short man, said. “But they eventually wise up about the cage and won't go near it. Get a cat.”

“I like cats,” the young man replied, “but Mother's allergic to cat hair. So I can't have one.”

“Well, hope you get 'em with your cage,” the second cop said. “Have a good night.”

“Thank you. I'm sure I will . . . get them, I mean.”

As the cops turned away and began walking off in the direction they'd come earlier, the man heard the big one snicker. “ ‘We have rats in Mother's house,' ” he said, mimicking him. “And Jesus, Joseph, and Mary . . . you see his face?”

“Yeah, what a freak. And wearing cherry red Chuck Taylors in weather like this; his feet had to be freezing,” he heard the shorter cop reply before their voices faded.

The young man stood still for a moment, clenching his fists. Even the fucking cops thought they were better than him. It's part of what made him want to burn things. He imagined running up to the cops and squirting them with gasoline like he had the rat.
Then it would be burn baby burn,
he thought happily.

However, he was powerless to act on his fantasy, so he walked off in the opposite direction. Because of the cold he hadn't gone too far from his home that night and arrived outside the run-down East Harlem walk-up where he and his mother had moved after leaving Brooklyn several years earlier. He looked up at the second floor, to the window of his mother's bedroom, and was disappointed to see that a light was still on. She's up.
She's going to want to talk. I don't want to talk to her.
He considered waiting until she went to sleep, but as the cop had noted to his partner, his high-tops were soaked and he couldn't feel his feet anymore they were so cold.

He climbed the steps to the landing and pulled four keys on a ring from his pants pocket. There was a strong piece of string attached to the ring and the other end tied to a belt loop so that he wouldn't lose them. One of the keys he inserted into the door lock and another he used to turn the deadbolt to let himself into the building.

The other two keys were for the locks leading to their rooms on the second floor. He unlocked those and turning the knob as quietly as he could he entered the apartment. Muffled voices from down the hallway meant his mother was watching television. Removing his coat and hanging it on a peg next to the door, he crept toward his bedroom, hoping she might not hear him.

“Son?” his mother's voice called out. “Is that you? Come see your mother.”

The young man hung his head. There was no escaping it. As he walked down the hallway to her room, he hoped that she was watching something she liked so that the conversation would be short.

“To the moon, Alice,” the fat man on the television screen bellowed just as he opened the door to her room.
Good,
he thought,
she loves old reruns of
The Honeymooners.
She won't want to talk long
.

His mother was propped up on pillows on her bed. She smiled when he entered the room, and stubbed out her cigarette butt in an overflowing ashtray. She held out her arms. “There's my sweet boy,” she cooed. “Come give your mother a hug.”

Dutifully he walked over and submitted to her embrace and the kiss on his cheek. “How come you're not asleep, Mother?” he asked.

“I was waiting for my baby boy to come home. You know I can't rest when you're out there. There's bad people out there; it's not safe.”

“I was out applying for a job,” he said. “But you go to sleep now. I'm cold and going to go change my clothes.”

“Did you get a job? No? That's okay, you'll find something when the time is right. But you go on and change; you're going to catch your death out there in those basketball shoes; we need to get you some winter boots. And baby, there's a chicken pot pie for you in the oven.”

“Thanks, I'm hungry,” he said and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “You need to stop smoking in bed.”

The young man left the room and went out to the kitchen, where he located the pot pie, which he took to his room. He walked over to his desk—actually an old wooden door set across cinder blocks—and sat down to remove his wet shoes and socks. Standing, he took the shoes over to where a half-dozen other pairs of cherry red Chuck Taylor basketball shoes were lined up at the foot of his twin bed according to the age and condition of each pair—oldest to newest. He placed the wet pair in their proper spot and then returned to his desk, wondering if he could talk his mother into a new pair as the oldest was looking a bit frayed.

Thinking about his mother, he wondered if other people felt the same way about theirs. On one hand, she was one of the few people who ever treated him nicely and never acted like she was better than him. That was saying a lot as he didn't really have any friends, and his one sexual relationship was all about physical release and domination and nothing to do with love or tenderness. On the other hand, he didn't really feel love or tenderness toward his mother either—or anybody else for that matter—and thought of her more as a possession, someone whose attentions he tolerated because it made his life easier.

The young man then turned to the one possession he treasured as much as his collection of shoes—his laptop computer. Reaching for and moving the mouse, he smiled slightly as the computer hummed and the screen sprang to life with the photograph of a burning building from a newspaper article.