Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer

by Leslie Peter Wulff

  He rolled up the garage door and backed out the Subaru, and Raylene came inside and got me and I looked for it, and Raylene looked for it. I know what he’s like when he loses track of things, and now Raylene’s finding out. You don’t want to be within a mile of him until he gets it back.

  We searched all over the floor and behind the work bench, and he drove down to Schnells and bought a new spark plug wrench.

  Next weekend it was the drill bit. He took it out when he screwed on the door panel of an Altima. My father was supposed to be the Man In Control.

  Losing the plug wrench made him short-tempered and hotheaded. And now the #8 drill bit was missing too. Every weekend something disappears. He couldn’t take it any more. The plug wrench started a fire in his head. The drill bit fanned the flames. A wildfire blew in my direction and a pumper, a hook and ladder, and a monsoon couldn’t put it out.

  He didn’t need liquor to get ornery. He started out ornery every day. And you couldn’t reason with him. He listened only to what played out inside his ornery head.

  Across the breakfast table Friday morning, he put the eye on me. He had one silver earring in his left ear and a wrinkled county work shirt on his back. Stick-up wax in his hair. He put a new blade in his razor and a Band-Aid on his chin.

  He drank from his coffee mug with his eye on me, and all during breakfast he eyed me. He didn’t say one word after I passed him the sugar. How did he get the scrambled eggs on his fork? Beats me, he never looked down at his plate.

  He was certain I took his tools. Most likely I hid them somewhere in the garage, but they could be in the basement. He said I did it to get back at him, just to fuck him up. I had the motivation but he lacked the proof. Someday when he figures it out I’ll get what I deserve.

  He doesn’t need my help when it comes to losing things. He lost the plug wrench and misplaced the drill bit on his own. If he ever stops bossing me around, I might show him where he put them.

  Finally he said, “I’m workin’ on a theory,” like it’s headline news. “It’s called the theory of the missin’ tools.”

  “You work that out all by yourself?”

  “It’s my theory.”

  “Sounds like the same old theory’s been stuck here for a while. You better jack it up, old man. That theory’s got a flat.”

  “You coulda hocked ‘em down at Schnells. Coulda sold ‘em cheap on the street.”

  “That a different theory?” I asked him.

  “All part of the same theory,” he said.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall. 7:30. Time to go to work. He got up from his chair and went to the door. I sat at the table with the bowl of corn flakes.

  “I ain’t dealin’ with you no more,” he said with his back to me. “It ain’t worth it. I ain’t talkin’ to you and I ain’t listenin’ no more either. I don’t talk to thieves, crooks, and liars. Startin’ now.”

  “Now ain’t soon enough for me,” I said as he walked out.

  It went on and on between my father and me, war without end. It wasn’t just the plug wrench and the drill bit that set him off, it was that plus everything else.

  After breakfast I got my pack and walked down to the school bus stop, but I didn’t get on the bus. JJ waited at the stop and his twin brother TJ was with him. They watched me cross the street at the corner. JJ turned to TJ and pointed at me.

  “School’s in that direction,” he yelled my way.

  Instead of going to the high school, I went the other direction through the woods, crossed the stream behind the strip mall, and went straight to my Uncle’s house.

  From now on I don’t live with my father anymore. I made up my mind on the way over. He can’t make me stay and he can’t stop me from going. I’m moving into the old house.

  From this day on it’s me and my Uncle. I never asked him if it was OK. I never even thought about asking. I had run away so many times it was my second home. Now it moved up to first.

  My new first home was more than a mile closer to the high school than the old one. Monday I’ll walk to school, but today I’m taking off. It’s moving day.

  But when I got to the old house, my Uncle wasn’t home. The Eagle was in the driveway, the Ram parked out back. If the cars are here, he should be here. Where is my Uncle? I sat outside on the porch and watched the school busses come down the hill and head back to the lot on the other side of town.

  Reed Weir drove up in his Nissan a while later. Reed was my Uncle’s good friend and a good fisherman. They went fishing for bass and brookies on Sundays.

  Today he wore a suit jacket and tie and polished brown shoes, and he combed his hair back neat for a change.

  “I guess you ain’t goin’ fishin’,” I said.

  He couldn’t get my father on his cell phone, so he stopped off at the high school first and then he drove out here.

  “Your Uncle is at Mercy in Dexter,” Reed said. “They took him in last night. He phoned me from the hospital early this mornin’. He didn’t sound too good. We better get over there and bring him a beer.”

  5

  They put Uncle Brucker in the hospital bed because he had a stroke, his second stroke in three years. The first stroke left him with seventy percent use of his left arm. The second stroke wasn’t as bad, but now part of his right side was damaged too.

  While he was in the hospital recovering from the first stroke he caught pneumonia and the doctors made him stay two extra weeks. At the end of the first extra week he became weak and delirious. His appetite disappeared. He lost thirteen pounds altogether because he didn’t feel like eating a damn thing. His temperature shot up to 102, then 103, then 103 and 1/2. He just wanted to get out of there and go back home and get better.

  Last night he pulled the tubes out of his arm and made a break for it. Two orderlies found him in the basement trying to climb through a tiny window behind the soda machine. The orderlies dragged him to his room and strapped him to the bed They were big men, six-two, six-three. He didn’t have a chance.

  Uncle Brucker hated the hospital. He hated the tall orderlies and the strap-on beds. He hated the big-seat hospital toilets, the bad-tasting water, the smiling doctors, the tubes that go in and out. There isn’t one thing he liked about the hospital except Nurse Marnell, who was his dream fuck.

  Reed took a beer out of his pocket and stashed it under the bed blanket. He pulled two more cans from under his jacket and rolled them under the bed. In the trunk of his Nissan, Reed saved a six-pack and a Chivas for the next fishing trip, but right now half a six is all my Uncle would get.

  Reed got back in his Nissan and drove off to work, and I moved the chair close to my Uncle.

  “You got the pen, Walt?” His voice was small.

  “I got a pad too.”

  “Good boy. Now write this down. I, Brucker Thompson, bein’ of sound mind though I look like crap and feel like shit, bequeath the house and all my belongin’s to you, Walt. That includes my power tools, my coin collection, the Heritage Mugs, and my War Medal and everythin’ I took in trade. Keep the mugs upside down so the rats don’t get in ‘em, and whatever you do, don’t dust off my Medal.”

  Sunken into the hospital bed, buried under the sheets. Tubes going in his arms. Bags of fluid hanging by the side of his bed.

  Uncle Brucker’s left eyelid sneaked shut, then his right eyelid shut. The color had drained from his face and now he was yellow, but I guess that’s a color too. His bent nose got bigger since the stroke. Purple veins popped out on his nose and all over his forehead, having a big party at the temples.

  “I don’t know nuthin’ about dyin’,” he said.

  Eyes closed, he was quiet for the longest minute and he looked like he was dead, really dead.

  “No, you ain’t dyin’! Tell me you ain’t dyin’,” I said.

  Then something inside him connected and his chest went up and down in a deep breath, and his eyes popped open and he looked around like he was seeing the world for the first time. And he smil
ed. Not much of a smile, but it qualified.

  “You’re right, Walt. I ain’t dyin’,” he said. “When you’re dyin’ you know about it. Right now I only know about livin’. I had a feelin’ is all, and that shows you feelin’ ain’t knowin’. What did I say?”

  “Feelin’ ain’t knowin’.”

  “That’s right! Maybe I ain’t thinkin’ straight, but it’s better than no thinkin’ at all.” Then he saw someone coming down the hall. “There’s doctors cummin’! Quick, Walt, hide the beer and gimme that glass a water!”

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Hide the beer and pass the glass!”

  I got the glass of water from the table and he took it with both hands. He drank it quickly, spilling it on his beard. His eyes slid toward the door. The two doctors came down the hall, one door, two doors closer.

  “Hello, doctors!” said Uncle Brucker. The doctors looked in. He held the glass with one hand as they walked past the room. With the other hand, he tipped an imaginary top hat.

  “Lookin’ healthy, feelin’ fine, sippin’ a glass a water,” he said.

  And he drank some more.

  “Why were we waitin’?” I asked when the doctors had gone.

  “For health reasons,” he whispered. “A person looks his healthiest when he’s sippin’ a drink and especially healthy when he’s sip-pin’ a drink a water. You figure it takes about a minute a drinkin’ to be sure you look entirely healthy. Every time a doctor walks by I’m lookin’ healthy drinkin’ water. I keep lookin’ healthy, they gotta let me outta here. They gotta.”

  He was breathing softly now.

  And I was starving. On the bedside table I found half a baloney and cheese left over from lunch. I ate it in four bites even though it was on whole wheat.

  Visiting hours end at ten. It was already nine thirty-five. I planned to stick around until the last minute, but Keith Weir came to pick me up early and I had to leave at nine forty-five.

  6

  Two days later. I backed the Ram out of the driveway at three-thirty after I got home from school. Avoiding 94, I took the back roads all way to Dexter and parked in the lot under the hospital.

  Now it’s nine fifteen. I’m sitting on the floor in a hiding spot behind the door in my Uncle’s room. All the other visitors had gone home and the hospital was quiet. There was only me.

  Somebody put coins in the soda machine in the basement. The can of soda slid down and hit the tray with a bang I heard all the way upstairs. Soon Nurse Marnell came around to check. She looked in but she couldn’t see me in my well-chosen hiding spot. Her perfume smelled up the room.

  “You’re like a son to me,” Uncle Brucker said when the nurse went away.

  He felt much better today. His temperature was down, way down. And no tubes.

  “I wish you were my dad,” I said.

  “It ain’t somethin’ you can choose,” he said.

  “I don’t see him cummin’ around here. Do you?”

  “That’s between me and him.”

  “It’s my mother I hate more.”

  “Don’t hate nobody or you’ll end up hatin’ yourself.”

  “Quiet!” Uncle Brucker put a finger to his lips. “Footsteps coming down the hall! Gimme that glass a water, son, and get outta sight. Looks like another one cummin’.”

  I had it all planned out.

  Soon I’ll get up and check the hall. If it’s empty we’ll sneak out of the room, and we won’t take the elevator, we’ll take the stairs down to the basement and go through the underground lot.

  I’ll put his clothes in a pillow case and pack the beer and cigarettes in with it, and I’ll throw it in the back of the Ram. I’ll help him into the passenger seat. I’ll clip on his seat belt. I’ll get behind the wheel and I’ll drive him home faster than any Mustang and I’ll nurse him back to health better than any nurse.

  He doesn’t need anybody but me, and I don’t need anybody except him. I had made up my mind. I would never let him die.

  “Come on, Unc, we’re goin’ home.”

  7

  Uncle Brucker felt much better after I rescued him from the hospital. The next morning his temperature went down to 100 and he wanted a home-cooked meal. I cooked him a rib eye out back on the charcoal grill. I boiled a whole can of peas. I cut up the steak into little chunks and he fed himself left-handed. He sucked up half a can of Boomers through a straw and said, “I ain’t wastin’ half a Boomers.” Then he sucked up the other half. I gave him a soup spoon for the peas.

  Later that week he got sick from leftover pneumonia and his temperature went up to 102 again. Keith Weir offered to take him to the hospital, but my Uncle refused to go back there and lie in another tie-down hospital bed. He fought the idea for a week while his leftover pneumonia went away and his temperature went back to normal.

  During the next two weeks his health improved tremendously. For his breakfast I mixed two multi-vitamin cereals, Cheerios and Total. “Gimme three,” he said, and next morning I added Wheaties. His appetite came back strong and he put on eight pounds. Bit by bit his body took back what the stoke carried away. Feeling came back first to his left side, then his right side. Then feeling turned into strength.

  But I thought he should be careful. Don’t move too fast. Rest, sleep in the hammock, go fishing. And lay off the rats!

  He took my advice and slept out back in the hammock for one hour every afternoon. He refused to lift anything heavier than a six-pack. He went fishing on Sunday with Keith and Reed Weir and he came back with two big bass and color in his cheeks. He loved to fish, and he bought an expensive reel and fancy tackle. Three more bass and a couple of brookies. The color stayed in his cheeks.

  In two weeks he had regained all his energy plus reserve energy for doing extra things such as painting the exterior of the house. That was all he thought about. Painting the house. Finally he had the energy. With my help, he’d get it done. He felt good, very good, and that made me feel good too. He felt good enough to start the job immediately. Get him a roller pan, he had the rollers, we’ll finish the job in no time.

  He felt so good he swore his vital organs worked better since he had the stroke.

  “A jolt like that sends a warnin’ to your body and gets the whole system workin’ again,” he told me. “That’ll teach those lazy orgins. Most orgins are capable of doin’ a far better job. But after a while they get bored with pumpin’ and digestin’ and filterin’. It’s borin’ routine stuff. A stroke tells ‘em how it’s gotta be. Wise-up you lazy orgins! Do your job! That’s what happened to me. That was a revitalizin’ stroke, Walt. Coupla revitalizin’ strokes and you can really accomplish somethin’.”

  After dinner he moved to the living room and sat in the recliner and turned on the TV. It was 7:30, time for Cole’s Law starring Rad Kielly as detective Boyd Cole.

  I don’t like that dumb cop show, but Uncle Brucker thought it was TV at its best. It was his favorite but it was on the bottom of my list. Baseball players can’t act, to begin with. Washed-up baseball players like Rad Kielly can’t play ball and they can’t act. Uncle Brucker was always trying to get me to watch a great episode of Cole’s Law.

  “Have a seat. This is a great show,” he said.

  “Sure it is,” I said.

  “You got some problem with great shows?”

  “Everybody likes a great show, but this ain’t it,” I told him.

  “There’s nobody watches it don’t think it’s great.”

  “What about me? I don’t count?” I said.

  “Maybe you ain’t watchin’ it close enough.”

  “I ain’t gonna put my head through the screen,” I told him.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe I’ve done enough watchin’ and I don’t like what I’m seein’.”

  “That’s a mighty big maybe.”

  “No biggeran yours,” I said.

  “How do you know? You ain’t measured it,” he said.

  A few mi
nutes later during a commercial he noticed an ad on the back of a circular that came in the mail.

  “Hey, they got off-white!” he said.

  Next day we drove down to Schnells Hardware and bought three gallons of exterior off-white for the price of two and a discount roller pan, and I put it in the basement. He had somewhere in the basement a couple of hardly-used rollers that Bill Voght gave him. He was serious about painting the exterior and he thought about painting the dining room, but we had to move all the furniture out first. And where the hell did he put those damn rollers? No hurry, but he wanted to get the job done. Sit down, have a beer. The house ain’t going nowhere. Exterior first, interior maybe in the fall.

  One night before I fell asleep, Uncle Brucker came into the bedroom and said he owed it all to me.

  “It was you who recovered me, Walt, and you did a damn fine job. To you. He sat on the bed and raised his can of Boomers and drank the whole thing. “That’s a full toast,” he said and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  He kept his War Medal in the middle of the high shelf in the living room. The War Medal was the one thing he cared about. You could throw out the TV, his rat rifle and everything else. He never cleaned the Medal or dusted it off since he got it because war isn’t clean or neat. It was presented to him for one particular battle but in the dust was a history of all that happened over the years.

  I’d been staying at the old house since he came home from the hospital, so I guess you can say I moved in.

  It was all OK with my father. Raylene moved in with him and he kept the garage door closed, and he was glad to get rid of me.

  He drove past the old house once or twice. Once I was out back at home plate with a bat in my hands. Leroy threw a speedo and I whacked it over his head. When I saw the Malibu coming I quit and hid behind the barn until Bones gave me the all-clear. See ya next time, dad.

  But there was no next time.

  My father never drove by again. Raylene moved in with a guy named Chuck in Neidersville, and her younger sister Crispy stepped in. He wanted to buy a gas station and set up a repair shop. I never found out what happened to my mother. She left when I was eight. My father said he wouldn’t know, how would he know? He wouldn’t tell me anyway. I took off on my father and my mother took off on me.