Nathaniel's Got the Blues

by David L Heaney

  That evening, Nathaniel tossed and turned in bed as he tried to come to grips with his handling of Jid’s request and the lies it had spawned. Then the music and the words began to come to him, fast and painful.

  Carry round this burden,

  just as heavy as can be.

  Thinkin’ no one else can do it

  near as well as me.

  I got the self-deception blues.

  The self-deception blues.

  Birgit set me straight tonight.

  She said, “You’re too big for your shoes.”

  The burden is a secret.

  I’m the only one who knows.

  And since I kind of like this gig,

  I thought I’d steal the show.

  I got the self-deception blues.

  The self-deception blues.

  Jid said, “Boy, you’re not the one I want.

  It’s Wendel that I choose.”

  Wendel had a growing awareness that the death of Jid had consequences that went beyond simply being left leaderless. The spirit of the Cielo Creek colony was shaken, and the mice twitched with anxiety over their future. He listened thoughtfully to the rumors spread among the colony, of torturous traps being set by the Exterminator, and learned many of the mice were afraid to leave their nests. Some shared tales of how Jid had died, slowly drowning in a pot of scalding hot olive oil the Exterminator had dropped him into. Still others manufactured even more hideous and outlandish stories of his death and the dim prospects for their community’s future. Wendel knew they were a high-strung collection of creatures to begin with, and introducing a traumatic death and an uncertain future into the mix only served to underscore this reality.

  Wendel, however, was an outlier of sorts, seeming to draw energy from the crisis. The more intense the circumstances became, the calmer he grew. In the days before the fire, Wendel had been like the other mice, naive and impulsive and beginning to think about a mate. He had been trying to get to know Pip better but lacked confidence and was afraid of being rejected. But since the fire, everything had changed. There was a sense of urgency to most any task he undertook, including his pursuit of Pip. He was humbled by her bravery and smitten with her looks, which he admitted to himself he could now only vaguely recall. He liked her “can do” spirit and her feisty demeanor. So, even as busy as he was, Wendel decided he would make every effort to spend as much time as possible with Pip, asking her advice about the McCorkles, about moving, about almost everything.

  “Wendel, I have to speak to you.” Pip’s voice conveyed a sense of urgency.

  “What is it?” Wendel answered, unintentionally with a note of impatience. He was awash in a jumble of feelings he could not clearly decipher. Was he grief-stricken, depressed, or angry about Jid’s death? At the same time, he wondered whether he was falling in love with Pip. It was a strange collection of conflicted feelings, because even as he grew increasingly more confident as a leader, he still felt caught by the whirlpool of feelings that spun him every which way, causing him to question his newfound confidence.

  Pip took a deep breath and jumped right in. “Look, I’ll just say it right out loud exactly as I heard it. Wendel, Jid’s dying wish was to see you named as Cielo Creek’s new Jid after his death.” She spat out the words as if the burden of carrying them had simply become too much.

  “What are you talking about? That’s crazy, Pip. The Jid is old and wise and the father of many, many children.”

  “No, it’s true. I heard their conversation, and Nathaniel didn’t know I was there.”

  “Were you spying?”

  “No. You asked me to be there, or have you forgotten?” she responded with a slight edge in her voice. “As I entered the utility room, I heard them speaking with one another and felt I should keep quiet out of respect. But when I heard Jid say he wanted you to be his successor, I decided I’d stay hidden. He asked Nathaniel to promise to tell you and the community that he wished for you to succeed him; he wanted you to lead the community, Wendel.” She took another deep breath, then continued. “So why did I hide? you’re wondering.”

  Wendel cocked his head and looked unseeingly at Pip with what she felt was suspicion.

  “Well, I’ll tell you why! Nathaniel is a rat, Wendel, and I don’t know … I just thought his sudden interest in our colony was … I’m sorry … odd, unusual. Actually, I thought it was suspicious. I just … I just didn’t trust him, and I thought he might demand my silence or, worse, make sure I could never tell anyone, if you get my meaning.”

  Wendel listened quietly, absorbing her words.

  “Jid said your encounter with … well, he didn’t put it this way, but he seemed to feel your personal tragedies had matured you beyond your young age, and the loss of your sight had provided you with new gifts that would serve you well as the new Jid. That was the way he put it. He said your experiences would have broken many, but you … What did he say?” She paused briefly, reaching for the right words she knew she remembered Jid using. “He said you redeemed the experience.”

  “What does that mean? I wonder,” Wendel asked cautiously.

  “Well, he said that you had created something of value from something that was tragic.”

  Wendel repeated the words to himself and then again out loud. “I created something of value from something that was tragic. Huh. Like trading something of lesser value for something of greater value. Mr. Leach said something like that. He said I paid with my sight to acquire my vision.”

  “But, Wendel, that’s not all he said.” Pip spoke enthusiastically, afraid that Wendel was getting side-tracked by things like Mr. Leach’s comments. “He said this would enable you to become a fine colony Jid. He talked as if you were someone really special. And you are. I’ve always known that, Wendel.”

  Wendel sat silently for a while as Pip watched him tipping his head one way then the next, as if weighing up his alternatives.

  Then, speaking to Pip, he said, “Look. He’s become quite attached to the fortunes of Cielo Creek. It was the fire, and that old rat saved my life. It’s created a kind of special bond between us that I hope he’ll never betray. I really believe this is something he and I will need to wrestle with. But my hope is that he will conclude that he should share this information with me. I don’t want him to think that he has simply been caught lying to us all. That will just drive him away from us and leave everyone feeling bad about this whole experience. I don’t want that for him or for us. Let’s wait to see if we can better understand what he’s up to.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Wendel. I didn’t want to damage your friendship. I just wanted to be careful and wanted to be sure Jid’s wishes were carried out.” Pip looked down at the crawl space floor, ashamed, while Wendel gazed sightlessly past her.

  Finally he said, “It seems everyone feels they need to look out for my interests, as if I cannot. We’ll see where all this leads us, won’t we, both of us in our own way?”

  She nodded, “Yeah, we will.”

  Wendel smiled. “Pip, do me a favor. Let’s keep this between us for now.”

  That evening, Wendel was especially aware that the mice of Cielo Creek were on edge because they were hungry but afraid to go up the pipe to where they knew the food to be. As is the case in most every community, Wendel knew there were the fools and nonbelievers who chose to understand the story of Jid’s death in a sticky trap as nothing more than some sort of conspiracy theory designed to frighten them into leaving the McCorkle house for a better place. This was signature Ricketts, he believed, and it conveniently capitalized on the numbers of them who simply did not know what to believe. It fed their fear of straying far from the nest, supported their anxiety about the unfamiliar and new ideas about how mice were capable of choosing to leave what was dangerous and seek out a better life. He concluded he needed to stop thinking about all this and get some sleep. As Wendel and
Pip were preparing for bed late that evening, they were startled awake by a loud SNAP sound.

  “What’s that, Wendel?” Pip asked, now alert and on her feet.

  Wendel cocked his head, focusing his attention on the direction from which the sound had come. “I don’t know.”

  Then another SNAP. Then a weak groan of a mouse in distress.

  Pip and Wendel scrambled from the insulation to the floor of the crawl space, and Pip led Wendel toward the pipe to the floor above them. Before arriving at the pipe, they found Albion and Mebane lying in a pool of their own vomit on the floor of the crawl space and writhing in pain.

  “Ohhh, help us, Wendel. Pip? Please help!”

  “What happened?” Wendel asked. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “Mebane appears to be unconscious, and Albion is quite sick,” Pip explained to Wendel.

  As Albion suffered between fits of retching, he explained that he and others had gotten so hungry they’d gone in search of food. They had avoided the sticky traps, but there were small boxes with food pellets scattered around the crawl space and above. “They tasted fine and seemed safe to eat, but now I’m sure we have eaten poison.”

  “Poison, yes,” Wendel said calmly.

  “Maybe. I never thought … Others also ate …” Albion murmured, a barely discernible whisper, before losing consciousness. He and Mebane lay next to one another.

  Wendel lowered his head close to each of them to determine whether they were still breathing. Neither was. Wendel sighed and bowed his head momentarily before saying, “Let’s go!”

  As they neared the PVC pipe to take them to the floor above, they discovered still others, also gone, foam at their mouths. Puddles of vomit vividly captured just how violently they had suffered before dying.

  As they explored the utility room, Pip seemed to become angrier as Wendel grew more focused and steadier. When they came upon the mousetraps, Pip described the gruesome scene to Wendel, and he was certain these were the source of the loud snap noises they had heard. She explained the device and the small broken body trapped under the steel bar, and Wendel responded, “I know what a mousetrap is and what it can do.” When Pip complained she didn’t understand, Wendel explained how it worked and took advantage of the impulsive and appetite-driven natures of their species.

  “Dumb!” he said, gritting his teeth. “I should have warned everyone about these old but very deadly things. I wasn’t thinking!” Then he looked in Pip’s direction and quietly whispered, “We need to get us all out of here.” Even as he spoke the words, he knew he had no idea where they might find sanctuary.

  As the two returned to the crawl space to contemplate plans for leaving, a rustling noise at the hatch, to the crawl space drew their attention. Pip watched the hatch and squeezing through the crack, Nathaniel appeared, smiling, and announced, “We have food!”

  Pip sneered hard at Nathaniel, which she thought seemed to unnerve him. But Wendel greeted him enthusiastically. “Food! Excellent, Nathaniel! You said ‘we.’ Who exactly are ‘we’?”

  “Them,” he answered, nodding back toward the hatch to the crawl space.

  A torrent of rats poured through the small crack, and Nathaniel initially named them each for Wendel as they came through but quickly seemed to stumble over the names of many and must have thought it best to keep quiet. The last rat, Birgit, was able to get herself halfway through the crack before recognizing that was as far as she was going to get. “Oh dear. Nathaniel! I’m stuck,” she warbled. And indeed she was stuck.

  Pip shook her head with an undisguisable look of contempt but was quickly upbraided by Nathaniel. “That’s my wife, Pip! Don’t be too quick to judge the one who organized the food for the mice of Cielo Creek.”

  Pip hung her head and quietly said, “Sorry, Nate.”

  Wendel snapped into a problem-solving mode, thanking Birgit for the food and explaining their situation, then directing Pip to roust all mice from their hiding places in the rows of insulation above, explaining Nathaniel’s family had brought food.

  Meanwhile, Birgit’s children had managed to pry her loose and help her inside the crawl space. The food remained on the other side of the crawl space door. Nathaniel asked his family to fashion a bucket brigade and get the food inside.

  As the mice began to assemble, Pip explained to the diminishing Cielo Creek community about the enhanced tactics of the Exterminator, which now included poisoning and deadly old-fashioned mousetraps. “Eat only the food that Nathaniel and Birgit have brought. Do not, I repeat, do not go up the pipe or eat pellets from any box. After you have eaten, we have some decisions to make. In the meantime, I want to show our friends what we are up against.”

  “Where is everybody?” Nathaniel whispered to Wendel.

  “I’m about to show you.” Wendel answered loud enough for Birgit and Pip to hear him. “Come with me.”

  He was deadly serious, and soon the visitors understood why. There must have been ten mice who lay dead in the remote sections of the crawl space. Nathaniel’s heart ached, and he had the sickening feeling that he was somehow responsible, although he tried to persuade himself that logically this didn’t make sense. Still, he felt vaguely nauseated at having second-guessed Jid’s wishes.

  “Let’s go up the pipe to have a look around.” The entourage headed up the pipe and were horrified by what they discovered. There were at least four mousetraps that had brutally killed members of the Cielo Creek community.

  “The Exterminator!” Pip exclaimed as she turned to explain to the rats.

  Birgit began to weep, at first quietly, then becoming louder and louder. Soon she was wailing and hyperventilating, and Nathaniel, attempting to comfort her, said, “I know. I know.”

  “No,” she said, “you don’t!” Nathaniel looked hurt. “My foot!” she said. “This is how I lost the better part of my own foot!”

  “Oh no!” Nathaniel said, and he, too, began to weep as he held his wife.

  Pip seemed to visibly soften and cautiously patted Birgit on her back like she was petting an angry dog.

  “I had forgotten,” Nathaniel lamented as he continued whispering apologies in Birgit’s ear.

  “I’m so sorry you had to see this,” Pip offered.

  There were other traps that were still baited and ready to kill.

  “Be careful!” Wendel warned. “Let’s go back down the pipe, and if anything at all looks or seems unusual, steer clear of it.”

  When they returned to the crawl space, the remaining members of Cielo Creek were huddled together, just finishing the food.

  “Did you save something for Wendel?” Pip asked impatiently.

  The mice looked up, embarrassed, but said nothing.

  “I’m fine,” Wendel said.

  “Then I am too,” Pip said defiantly, and moved beside him.

  Wendel called for everyone’s attention and then turned to Nathaniel. “You said you had something you needed to say. Is that right, Nathaniel?”

  Nathaniel did have something to say, although he had not planned on saying it before his own family and the mouse colony. “Well, I had hoped that—”

  “No, please, Nathaniel. You’re a trusted friend of Cielo Creek, and your words are very important to us.” Pip nodded encouragingly even as Nathaniel considered the words of Mr. Leach, who had warned him about taking comfort in the belief that he and Jid had been alone.

  Nathaniel took a deep breath, then began to speak. “Just a short time ago, I lay in bed, depressed and angry about growing old and feeling all used up and worthless. A wise old friend who I had not seen for a long time and I ran into one another and he offered me counsel, urging me to live a life of engagement. He told me to extract from experience the lessons life wants me to learn.” He stopped a moment and laughed gently. “I wasn’t and still am not sure I understand what that means, but I agr
eed and was just going about living my life when I stumbled onto your community, Cielo Creek. I watched the community from a point where I couldn’t be seen.” He hesitated, recognizing this sounded peculiar. “I guess you might say that I was spying on you all.” Nathaniel heard the whispering between some of the mice and immediately regretted having made any reference to spying. “It wasn’t sinister. Really, it wasn’t,” he insisted. “I was curious and honestly fascinated to see all this life and activity within your community. Me? I felt so lifeless, and you all seemed so … full of life.” Tears began to well in Nathaniel’s eyes, which he angrily willed to stop. “Still, I was reluctant … no, afraid to engage with you, until the fire, when I simply acted on instinct. That was when I encountered a badly burned and lost pup named Wendel.”

  Wendel interrupted Nathaniel. “That was when Nathaniel saved my life.”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “That was when we both got these lovely pink patches and Wendel lost his sight,” he said, gesturing to the hairless, burned areas on his face. “As I engaged with Wendel, I found my world beginning to get a bit bigger than the world I had been living in, which consisted of me and my bed and, to some extent, my wife. It was exhilarating! It was the connection that brought me life. It was the experience of being needed that brought me back to life. I rediscovered I could be passionate about something other than me. I know … sound’s boring … pathetic. But I was thrilled that I hadn’t somehow lost that ability in my old age.

  “Then, when Jid was caught in the sticky trap, I stayed with him alone …” He laughed quietly and added, “Or maybe I wasn’t alone. It doesn’t matter, I suppose.” Nathaniel glanced over at Pip, who offered an encouraging smile. “I have never ‘kept watch’ while another creature’s life ended in my presence. I didn’t know what it meant to ‘keep watch.’ But I think I understand it better now. I think keeping watch means ensuring another is free in the final moments of their life to learn its final lessons. But keeping watch, I thought, was also about the life lessons they offer you. All of this led me to believe that there was nothing more important than helping those who suffer. I wanted to keep Jid from suffering but couldn’t … I wanted to protect Wendel from suffering but didn’t … It’s what I wanted to offer my wife and family but haven’t done very well.”