The Ram stalled in neutral and he started her up again. He found a cigarette on the seat and put it between his lips. Midnight gave him a light. I noticed the rust spot on the hood had grown from the size of a potato chip to a pancake. I’ll paint it over when you come back, Unc. Promise.
He said a few words to me in rat talk.
“Gi-’ta-ta-te, Walt.” So long, Walt.
I said a few words to him.
“Gi-tac-’ta, Uncle Brucker.” Adios, Uncle Brucker.
I stood by the barn and watched him back the Ram down the driveway. He waited while a dump truck and a van passed, puffed his cigarette, then he backed onto the road.
At the corner the Ram stalled out again, flooded. Too much gas too soon. The Ram takes time, Unc. Just don’t pump it! He didn’t pump it, and she caught on smooth and powerful. That’s the beauty of a 5.2 with 230 for you.
Out front by the little willow I saw the red Ram flash through the tree line, Uncle Brucker sitting up straight behind the wheel. Then I couldn’t see him anymore, but I heard the engine rev around the bend and up the hill. Then I couldn’t hear him anymore, even when I ran to the far side of the yard.
35
Uncle Brucker fought the rats in two bloody uprisings. He knew their tactics and he knew their strategies, and he had a War Medal to prove it. He understood that rats were fierce fighters who learned from their mistakes and did not give up easily. Win or lose, man or rat, the war took its bloody toll.
When Uncle Brucker arrived at Base Camp, he got the feeling it wouldn’t be easy.
Dark clouds came in low and settled over the Camp. The sun disappeared behind a great curtain of rain. Uncle Brucker and his squad arrived during a downpour. They sloshed across the parking lot to the tents and then the mud started in.
Mud-stuck vehicles at every corner. Blown down tents, tent-poles broken, plastic bags and garbage floating in the street.
They passed young soldiers who looked like they’d been fighting the rats forever and never took a break.
By the time Uncle Brucker located the Command Tent, the mud had taken his left boot and he knew by the faces of the soldiers how tough this war would be.
The Lieutenant in charge observed the squad sign in. He was as skinny as a cadaver, as pale as a corpse, and he had the eyes of a dead man.
“On hold. Next!” was all the Lieutenant would say.
36
Uncle Brucker and his squad joined the army to fight rats, not to sit around on hold in the rec tent. But orders are orders and
Downtown found a table and opened a fresh deck.
Downie cut, shuffled and dealt the cards faster than you could see. She spent her weekends at the casinos in Atlantic City where she ranked as #2 Eastern Division Marathon Poker Champ. One look into her sharp green eyes could make a tall man swoon. She knew she was a looker, and she dealt that card to her advantage.
Duffy brought a box of outdated snacks to share, mostly pretzels and chips. When he wasn’t battling the rats, he was Northeast Snack Rep for EatWell, sales leader three years in a row. He was pumped-up, all the way up. He got his muscles years ago by working out and he kept them by working overtime.
The Doc had no patience for poker or any other card game. With long smooth strokes he cleaned and oiled his rat rifle. The Doc was particular as well as polite.
Ex-Lieutenant Willett cleaned his eyeglasses and held them up to the light once again. He promised his wife he’d change his underwear and socks, every day, dear. She sent him off to war with four 3-packs of boxer shorts and fourteen pairs of gym socks.
Between card games, Uncle Brucker and Midnight practiced important hand signals such as Go That Way, Follow Me, and Rats Ahead.
Rats Ahead you stick two fingers out straight, thumb up.
Wiggle your thumb and it’s Rats All Around.
Uncle Brucker heard the rats had overrun our first line of defense at the reservoir and were marching toward the Galleria. He also heard the opposite: the rats had been routed. They fought with unexpected resilience. But he also heard the rats were cowards who would rather eat than fight. General Hardesty had the entire resources of the Army at his disposal, and the Air Force was ready to help, but he could not turn back the rats.
People were saying our leaders failed us. Soldiers were losing the will to win. Grandmothers wept when their grandchildren enlisted. People were saying rats are better than humans.
Uncle Brucker wasn’t the type of guy who sat on his ass all day. And he paid no attention to rumors. He got up on his feet and found out for himself.
“It don’t look right. It don’t sound right. It don’t smell right to me,” he told his squad. “I might be stickin’ my neck too far out but I’d say chances are pretty damn good there’s a major fuck-up, and I aim to find it and patch it up.”
37
Orders were stay put, but General Hardesty personally told my Uncle to help out whenever he can, so he said goodbye to the men and women of his squad, and he made his way by foot to the other side of Base Camp.
The huge camp spread across two and a half miles. It took him more than an hour to reach the West Gate. On the way, he filled two plastic bags with garbage and dropped them in the dumpster, grabbed a ham and cheese on rye from the mess hall, and stopped twice to pee.
Artillery shells crackled overhead and mortar shells smacked into the hillside. The offensive had stalled along the main road to the reservoir. The rats were organized, swift and bold. Their sneak attacks came from everywhere and out of nowhere. General Hardesty sent his Pointmen out on patrol, but they could not locate where the rats were hiding. The muddy road left no room to maneuver. The tie-up extended all the way back to Base Camp.
With one eye out for the unusual and the other for the overlooked, Uncle Brucker gripped his rifle and made his way down the road.
He killed two tunnel rats in a hidey hole. He shot another hiding behind a walnut tree. When three swamp rats jumped up from behind a rotten log, he was ready. He sighted through his powerful laser scope and shot all three before the first rat hit the ground. At the frontline Observation Post, just south of the reservoir, the incompetent ruled the confused. A fair-haired Colonel argued with another young Colonel over who goes next for coffee. The sergeants argued about everything else, and the war went on.
Uncle Brucker found a pair of binoculars and stepped up to the window.
Where were those damn rats hiding?
A few minutes for scanning plus a few more for consideration. Add two, maybe three more minutes to put it all together, and in less than ten minutes Uncle Brucker had figured it all out.
“Them leaves don’t fit those maple trees,” he told the fair-haired Colonel. The Colonel turned and glared at him. “It’s walnut branches the rats cut for cover and walnuts don’t grow on maple trees.”
Uncle Brucker passed the binoculars to the Colonel. He took them. He didn’t realize who he took them from, and the Rat Killer didn’t tell him.
“So that’s where they’re hidin’—in the trees,” said the Colonel.
“What you need is a soldier who can flush ‘em out and pick ‘em off,” said my Uncle.“He’s gotta be familiar with every kinda tree, and an expert rat tracker who talks rat to boot. Then you’ll get this army rollin’ again,” he said with a smile.
It was a word of advice. To the young Colonel it sounded like orders, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the smile much either.
The outraged colonel puffed up.
“I got news for you, sergeant. That type a soldier ain’t easy to find in this man’s army,” said the puffed-up red-faced young Colonel. “Damn near impossible. You find someone fits the bill, send him my way, and my wife will bake you a cherry pie for thanks. You can share it if you want, or you can eat it all yourself.”
By two o’clock that afternoon, with Uncle Brucker’s help, the army had cleared the rats from the trees.
The armored column pressed forward once again. His work done, Uncle B
rucker could stay no longer. Everyone thanked him for his good advice and helpful assistance. The Colonel shook my Uncle’s hand and smiled like a kid with a carnival prize. Another soldier passed Uncle Brucker a beer on the way out. Stop by the OP any time, the soldier said, and Uncle Brucker left the OP with a cool brew and a warm goodbye.
“Don’t forget about the apple pie,” the Colonel reminded him.
“Didn’t you say cherry?” Uncle Brucker said.
“Most people prefer apple,” the Colonel said.
Another Colonel offered him a lift back to the Command Tent and he accepted. The soldiers came over. Uncle Brucker looked around.
“Where’s the vehicle?”
“I didn’t say vehicle,” said the Colonel. Not the young Colonel, a well-fed Colonel. “I said I’d give you a lift.”
And the grateful soldiers took hold of my Uncle and gently raised him and carried him high above their heads, and that was his lift back to the Command Tent.
After he checked in, he found a dry spot, sat on a wooden crate, and took the envelope from his shirt pocket and read his Special Assignment once again.
It’s a tough and risky assignment, from General Hardesty directly to the Rat Killer, and it went against his convictions, but it was his duty, and he would obey without question.
Sometimes a soldier is asked to do strange things when he’s fighting a war. Things can get even stranger when he’s battling the rats.
Uncle Brucker put his Special Assignment back in the envelope marked Special Assignment and resealed it, and he went outside the tent and tore the envelope into a hundred pieces, as the General instructed. And he tore each piece into a hundred pieces, as the General suggested. Between what the General instructed and what the General suggested, he now had, he guessed, maybe a million pieces.
Special Assignment means High Priority. A High Priority Message must be disposed of immediately, and without further thought he held his hand up and opened his fingers. It was a clumpball of pieces, and a breeze came up and the ball unclumped and the pieces blew over the tents of Base Camp into the sky, and flew off wherever they flew off to.
Later, he lay on his bunk and tried to fall asleep, but he couldn’t sleep and he didn’t say one word to the Doc or Duffy or Midnight for the rest of the day and all evening, not one word.
He was thinking about his Special Assignment.
38
The weather cleared up and General Hardesty attacked the rats from the west. Expecting a sneak attack, the rats fortified the south. But there was no sneak attack down south or anywhere else. Instead of dividing his forces, General Hardesty put all his forces in the west.
The rats were unprepared for this massive attack. Rat defenses collapsed. The Uprising stalled in the swamp fields south of the reservoir. The rats abandoned their outposts and retreated. Rat supplies fell to the roadside, and the Portal was left unguarded. Rat-claimed land overrun, retaken.
After dinner, General Hardesty mingled with the troops. Morale was high and he kept it high with a warm handshake and a happy-ending combat story. From tent to tent, bunk to bunk, he shook the hand of every soldier under his command.
He told combat stories that started out sad, but he had everybody smiling at the end.
One time when he was a lieutenant chased by renegade rats, he tripped on a jackroot and pulled a tendon. Unable to run, Lieutenant Hardesty quickly made a campfire and cooked a roadside stew from a favorite rat recipe. Then he hid in the dark. When the rats stopped at the campfire and ate the tasty stew, he jumped out of the dark and kicked the rats one by one into the fire. Then he ate the stew.
Another time his recon patrol was surrounded in rat territory.
“Lie down, lie down,” he radioed his men. “Sleep, go to sleep.”
Rat vision is based on movement. The rats didn’t notice the sleeping soldiers. When the soldiers woke up the next morning, the miserable rats were gone.
It was a long night of firm handshakes and unforgettable stories, but General Hardesty showed no signs of fatigue. Just after three in the morning he came to the bunk of an old friend. That old friend was my Uncle Brucker.
General Hardesty grabbed my Uncle’s hand and shook it with respect and admiration.
“It’s been a long time, Brucker.”
“It’s been just as long for me, sir.”
“I met this man the day I signed up. I wasn’t even a private then,” General Hardesty let the troops know.
The tired soldiers had stayed up all night, playing cards and waiting for the General.
“How’s every one of you boys?” he asked. “And I mean everyone. How are you? And you? And you?” The General made his way around the tent. “And you? And you? And how are you?” Not one hand was left unshaken.
He was a handsome clean-shaven General with sharp features, always cologned. He had a friendly manner, more like a dad than a General. Many soldiers sneaked around and shook his hand for a second time that night. Finally he was back at Uncle Brucker’s bunk.
“Hey, fella. You’re missing a boot!” General Hardesty noticed.
“The mud got it, sir,” said Uncle Brucker.
The General leaned closer and whispered, “Walk backwards and your boots don’t come off so easy. Follow me, old friend. You learn to backwalk like me, you’ll never lose the other one.”
39
Outside, the two old friends backwalked past the tents, down the hill to the main gate, up the hill again. General Hardesty backwalked with great confident strides, but Uncle Brucker just stumbled along on one shoe. He was quiet for a long stretch as he thought about his Special Assignment.
In the hazy distance the Portal looked like a bridge to nowhere. The entrance ramp rose from the muddy staging area and arched high over the tents, then it cut off in mid air and just hung there. Only it didn’t end, it matched up with a tunnel in the next dimension. Already the troops were assembling for the final offensive. Uncle Brucker watched these brave men climb to the top of the iron ramp and step off into nowhere.
Soon it will be his turn to travel the Nowhere Road.
“There’s no need to worry, my friend, but I do appreciate your support,” said the General as he considered the magnificent camp. He took a deep and satisfying breath. “The sun is back. The rats are on the run. I did some negotiating myself, caught them off guard with an offer and a counter offer. They had no time to read the fine print.”
The morning sun crept up behind the camp, pushing the night out of the sky. Uncle Brucker and General Hardesty had talked until dawn. When the sun hit my Uncle’s back, a weariness overcame him and he felt like he weighed an extra fifty pounds.
But he had a way of shaking off the weariness and the extra weight and anything else that got in his way when he had a Special Assignment.
The two old friends stood outside the General’s quarters.
It was time for General Hardesty to say goodbye.
“You’re a good man for a bad situation, Brucker.”
“I’m even better in a good situation, sir.”
Once again General Hardesty shook my Uncle’s hand. The stars on the General’s collar sparkled with the rising sun, and with a we’ll-meet-again smile he backwalked through the mud.
“Just one last thing, sir.” Uncle Brucker drew his pistol and pointed it at the General. “Stop backwalkin’. You’re under arrest!”
“Me? Under arrest?” The General’s voice was rough and serious in a way Uncle Brucker had never heard before. And his face was hard and mean like something ornery was pressing through. A different General altogether. “Only a General can arrest another General. Sorry, you don’t have the authority.”
“Got a Special Assignment gives me the authority. And you’re still backwalkin’,” said Uncle Brucker.
From the bunk tents and from the mess hall, the soldiers gathered around. General Hardesty under arrest! Had Sergeant Brucker lost his mind?
“Let’s see your orders,” said the General.
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“Now you know I can’t do that, sir. For the assignee’s eye’s only. In this case I’m the assignee.”
“But I just can’t remember authorizing that assignment.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say about that, sir. Except you once told me you need a ten foot brain to remember everythin’.”
“That’s true, considering details.”
“You coulda’ forgot that assignment, cause I don’t see no ten foot brain.”
“Ain’t nobody got a ten foot brain! Now show me those orders or I’m backwalkin’ outta here!”
“No you ain’t! Take one step backward and I’ll shoot!”
General Hardesty’s right hand inched toward the 9mm automatic in his belt holster.
“We got a back story, you and me,” said the General with hesitation. “Let’s take an at ease and fill it in. Second Uprising, Outlet Plaza, back to back at Cookout King. Out of ammo, we beat the rats back with a bag of briquettes and a rotisserie skewer. Then we had dinner at Rita’s Place. Don’t say you weren’t there.”
Steady now, Uncle Brucker aimed his pistol at the General, and in the General’s eyes he saw his own tiny reflection eye and eye.
Uncle Brucker said, “I wasn’t there.”
General Hardesty went for his gun.
In the blink of an eye, Uncle Brucker pulled the trigger.
40
The General lay in bed in the med tent in front of a row of monitors. The monitors flashed and beeped and purple liquids pulsed through tubes that fed into his arms. And a second row of serious monitors lined the wall under the first row. A team of technicians wearing green smocks and blue gloves checked the colorful tubes. Another team in yellow smocks and blue gloves studied those serious monitors.
Tears in his eyes, Uncle Brucker stood quietly beside the General’s bed.
Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer Page 8