Two Rats
by Cecilia Baader

I would never have thought about her again, except that as usual, life conspired against me. Typically it's stupid things, like today -- I was staring at the 'Vermin Control' sign in the subway when one of my better students, a sweet thing who's always beaming at me from the front row, tapped me on the elbow. She was on her way home, she said, and she wished it wasn't so hot. "It's two rats," I said, and she agreed, even though she didn't understand. "I don't like rats," she offered, and so I told her they were nasty, sweaty creatures. We fell into that awkward teacher/student-outside-of-the-classroom silence until she broke it some minutes later with, "I hate snakes more. They're slimy."

"Yes," I agreed, gratefully. "Definitely." But then I thought about the rats again, and shook my head. "No. It's rats."

She grinned. "You crazy. Nobody's afraid of rats." When she got off at her stop, she sent me one last pitying look before the doors closed. I couldn't help myself: for the rest of the day, I was thinking about rats. Two rats, to be precise.

A hundred years ago, or maybe just ten, I met Heather. Now, I won't say that I was friends with Heather, or even that I spoke to her much (I wouldn't, would I), but two rats originated with Heather, the swing queen of Champaign County.

But of course, any story that's about Heather really isn't about Heather at all. It's about somebody else entirely.

Throughout college, I worked at a summer camp in central Illinois named after a dead Indian chief -- Chief Shaw-Waw-Nas-See, if you can believe that -- the kind of place where you built fires, acquired a nickname, and sang goofy songs. The bugs were everywhere: in our beds, in our shoes, in our food, but I loved every moment of it, city girl that I was.

It didn't hurt that I met him that first summer. He was the Nature guy; I was the counselor who helped him out at activities. When he'd lead hikes, I'd carry up the rear to make sure no campers escaped. I didn't mind the rear; Wranglers looked best from behind.

He taught me things, like how to make rope out of the leaves of cat tails, animal track molds from plaster of paris, and lye soap from lard and crayons. Sometimes, if I was lucky, we'd hike up to Chief Shaw's grave and he'd tell stories about the Potawatomi. He knew everything about the Potawatomi: he was writing his history thesis on the causes of the Fort Dearborn Massacre or something like that. We, um, had a lot to talk about up on that bluff near the lonely grave marker of the dead Indian chief who wasn't really buried there because his bones burned in the Chicago fire after the grave robbers swiped them out of the log cabin that had been built on the shores of Rock Creek so that he could always see the sun. The dead Potawatomi chief, that is, not my nature boy.

Sometimes we'd dance. (My nature boy and I, not the dead Potawatomi chief and I.) Usually, I had to ask him. Sometime between when he taught me the two-step and the Boot Scoot and the Cotton-Eyed Joe, I stopped hating country music. Once he tried to teach me to swing and leap and flip, but I was certain he'd drop me. Because no man wanted to dance with a fat girl with a broken leg, I did my best to avoid letting my feet leave the ground.

When the summer ended, we went back to our respective schools. He would call me every so often because he was bored: all he had to do that fall was finish his thesis and deliver furniture. He came to town for the Garth concert and discovered this bar that played country every Thursday and Friday. During the following weeks, he would drive the ninety miles to my university (which, by the way, was better than his), and we'd go to Bradley's Country bar almost every Thursday night. Fridays, too. Sometimes.

I bought boots. Beige, with fringe. Fringe seemed necessary at the time.

You're wondering where Heather comes into all of this. In the most obvious way, of course: after about two months of this semi-regular basis-ing, he decided to move to Champaign. I was certain this meant Something. I called my friends and asked what it meant. They were sure it meant Something, too. I called other friends, just to be sure, but everyone knew that it was Something.

What it actually meant was that he could go to Bradley's without me, and one night, he met a girl named Heather (everyone knew Heather) who wore Wranglers just as tight as his (but she looked like a polish sausage). She was too short and had bad waitress hair, but if you spent enough time watching her on the dance floor, you'd be hard pressed to figure out when her feet touched the ground. I could swear sometimes she flew.

And so he danced with her. And when they'd come off the dance floor, Heather would fan herself with her hand and say, "Hoo." (She actually said "Hoo.") "Hoo. It's hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock."

Apparently, he found that attractive.



So time goes the way that time goes. I watched them and I waited for him to remember that he liked earth-bound girls, but of course he never did. Long after I stopped hoping, he dumped Heather and married her best friend (I didn't get an invitation), and I (mostly) forgot about them. Except, that is, for one thing: every so often, there comes around a two rats kind of day that kicks me in the gut, and this was one of them.

Two rats. And I don't much like snakes, either.

Originally published in Gator Springs Gazette