Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer

by Leslie Peter Wulff

  Scratch noticed a skinny rat at the far corner of the ring. The rat looked familiar.

  They called him the Inspector. He had worked for the government during the first Uprising, looking for the strange, questioning the unusual, and otherwise snooping around. When he quit his job years later he took his reputation with him. Now he worked for any rat who had a question and the cash to pay for an answer. His expertise: digging up important info. His specialty: hard cases.

  The skinny rat leaned against a ring post under the night sky. He was a smoker with a wet butt dangling from his lip.

  Scratch didn’t trust the skinny Inspector. His sunken eyes just might be hiding from something. Cross out might. Scratch was sure of it!

  Scratch didn’t trust him and he didn’t like him, but that won’t get in the way if money can be made.

  The Inspector wore on his chest a rusty badge that said Inspector. Rats call it a badge—an aluminum pop top with a pull open tab. He tapped it with a ringed claw like it meant something.

  The Inspector came with a reason. He never traveled without one, and he always carried a spare. Today he came with a Special One-Time Offer.

  “A moment of your time is all I ask,” he said with a smile stuck to his face.

  The Inspector did not wait for an invite. He pitched.

  “Every rat’s lookin’ for answers to somethin’ he just can’t figure,” said he. “Might be a little thing puzzlin’ him over and over, or a big ’un just popped up. You go it alone, best of luck to you, my long tail friend. You’ll get no satisfaction and no guarantee from me. Today I’m here on a special basis with a three part offer for one time only. I’ll supply satisfaction and include a no-charge guarantee. Act now, and I’ll throw in inconsistencies, also no charge. Time out to mention it’s a beautiful mornin’.”

  The Inspector paused and sniffed the fresh morning air. Scratch sniffed too. Not bad.

  “You’ve seen the badge. Now take a look at my card,” said the Inspector.

  He pulled a packet of business cards from his pocket pouch and picked one out.

  “Which ’un?”

  The Inspector showed Scratch a card.

  “This ‘un.”

  “Ain’t too fancy, that ‘un.”

  “No need to be fancy when you already got respect,” the Inspector said for sure.

  What the Inspector said was true. Scratch did not know how truthful the Inspector was all-around. He had no way to measure the truth of what the Inspector might say, but Scratch saw the truth of this.

  Once you’ve earned your respect, you don’t need no official name tag, you don’t need a fancy card or flashy badge. When you have respect, don’t proclaim it, or you’ll lose that respect for obvious reasons.

  Scratch never thought of it this way, and with the truth of it all he warmed to the Inspector. Scratch knew that one truth often follows another and carries a sense of what’s fair. The Inspector made more sense than most rats, a lot more.

  Scratch thought seriously about his offer and the things that were bugging him. One hard case came to mind, and that was the Incredible Impostor. Scratch had invested much on an unknown quantity. After a week of figuring he couldn’t figure him out.A tall impostor who doesn’t talk much and never loses a match. What is his secret? Where does this strange rat come from? How did he get those scars on his back?

  “That Special One-Time Offer still available?” he asked the Inspector.

  “If time ain’t run out.”

  “Guaranteed?”

  “Included.”

  “Inconsistencies?”

  “Thrown in.”

  77

  Scratch had a friend named Drag who was a wrestling fan and wanted to meet the Incredible Impostor. Drag made his money in real estate, and he was a very rich rat, far richer than Scratch, but thanks to the Incredible Impostor, Scratch was catching up.

  Drag came to the pier almost every night to view the matches and sniff around with his nose high, and he spent a lot of money on rat juice and in the betting booths.

  He was born with a roving eye, a thick head, and a knack for figuring things out. His right eye saw the world straight-on while his left eye snooped around. When he looked your way, you knew he was sizing you up. And when his roving eye quit snooping and settled down, his thick head had figured you out.

  The night the Incredible Impostor beat Slim Deluxe three times in three separate matches, Drag invited Scratch and the Incredible Impostor to share a delicious stew dinner in his house hole.

  Drag lived in a king’s hole up on Cove Cliff, high above Cliff Cove, in the richest part in Rat Land, and he was not happy.

  Born to a dirt poor family of scavengers, he made up for what they lacked in every way. His great hole had two of everything when only one would do. Two servants in the bedroom. Two waiters at each dirt table. Two gold rings on each claw.

  Still, with all of this, Drag was not happy.

  At dinner the rich rat ate two tasty appetizers and drank two mugs of potent rat juice, and for his entree he gobbled down two bowls of delicious rat stew, and he introduced the Incredible Impostor to his lovely twin wives, Fassola and Latido.

  Fassola and Latido were petite rats of great natural beauty. Their whiskers grew long and their eyelashes curled delicately. Their soft fur glowed like heaven at sunset. They were the most beautiful rats the Incredible Impostor had ever seen, perhaps the most beautiful in all Rat Land.

  And Drag was a proud rat and Drag was a grateful rat, but he was not happy.

  “So they call you the Incredible Impostor,” said Fassola. She too was a wrestling fan.

  “Incredible will do,” he said.

  Scratch noticed his wrestling champ was a little shaky. His fingers tapped on the table and his teeth chattered. Scratch touched the Incredible Impostor’s shoulder and passed a rat cake under the table. The Incredible Impostor broke up the cake and sprinkled it on the ground. He didn’t tell Scratch he was cutting down.

  After dinner Scratch sat at the table and entertained Drag’s beautiful wives with true stories of his life as a wrestling promoter, but it didn’t come off as it should.

  In the middle of one story, Fassola got up from the table and walked off with a hiss and a spit. A few minutes later Latido slapped him in the face and snapped at him and walked out.

  Meanwhile Drag took the Incredible Impostor on a short tour of his storage holes. The tall impostor followed the fat rich rat from hole to spacious hole. No chipped dinner plates or bent silverware in this rat’s hole. Drag filled the storage holes with bins, and he stuffed the bins with beauties.

  With the pride of a fat rat he showed the Incredible Impostor his collection of beauties.

  The Incredible Impostor couldn’t keep track of everything, but here’s what he remembered: one four by four foot bin filled with sea shell beauties collected off the shores of Cliff Cove, another bin filled with corkscrews of many shapes and sizes, a beauty box of stopped watches for the wrist and pocket, twenty-two glass door knobs purpled by the sun, and two sealed decks of Flippo cards never to be opened.

  Drag admired his box of beautiful stopped watches. He had his favorite bins and this was his most favorite. It filled his heart in ways you can’t imagine, so don’t try. Some of his favorites: 4:29, 8:20, 7:19, 2:29, 8:08. He wondered what does it mean? How did these beauties stop, and why?

  Then, two excited messengers appeared out of a small hole and poked the fat rat.

  “Trouble in hole #79, Mr. Drag.”

  Drag left his friend without a goodbye and followed the messengers through the tunnel.

  Not long after, a rat appeared out of the dark and brushed up against the Incredible Impostor. It was Fassola, Drag’s beautiful wife.

  “Come with me, Incredible,” she said. “Quickly, come and see.”

  The Incredible Impostor and Fassola walked through the tunnel to a storage hole of her own.

  Empty boxes lined the walls of the special hole. The boxes once ho
used beautiful plates and cups and saucers. Somehow, somewhere, the plates got smashed. The smashed-up chips made a great heap on the floor of her storage hole.

  This was Fassola’s personal hole, and, like herself, a thing of beauty. Everything here is special. Special boxes meant to hold one thing of many pieces, the wonderful ceramic chips, no two alike, asleep in the heap in the bottom of her hole.

  “Drag says throw the junk out, it’s all broke up. But that’s him, not me. It’s true you can’t keep apart what’s meant to get together. And it’s also true that parts always come back to form a whole. Someday my jumbled-up pile of chips will wake up and go lookin’ for their home boxes. In time the pile will disappear and the plates will be back at home just like before, and it will be like that again, and like that it will stay.”

  Drag’s house hole was the size of a Rocky Mountain cave. Side holes led to bottom holes that fed into tunnels that angled up and over. It was all interconnected. It went on and on forever or close to it. There was much to show his new friend.

  But right now, Drag had a few questions.

  “Look at me, Impostor. What do you see?”

  The Incredible Impostor looked into the pampered face of his rich new friend. Short cut whiskers, curly hair clipped neat. His eye roved around but it couldn’t find a damn thing to focus on. Then it settled back.

  “I see a rat who has two of everythin’. A very content rat,” said the Incredible Impostor.

  “Did you say content?”

  “I say what I see.”

  “Then you ain’t lookin’ at me. You’re lookin’ past me. Look closer and you’ll see just how content I ain’t. Now why would a rat who has everythin’ be discontent? How can this be?”

  “Must be somethin’ buggin’ the hell out of him.”

  “Look closer.”

  “Somethin’ big time he can’t get away from.”

  “Closer.”

  “Can’t look no closer, my eyes are crossin’!”

  “It seems like I’ve got it all, don’t it? I have a king’s hole for my home. I double up meal after meal. I’m twice the rat I used to be! It’s been a long and prosperous road but I missed the turnoff for happiness. The truth is I’ll never be happy; I’ll always be miserable until I kill the human who spared my life.”

  78

  It happened so long ago it should be forgotten, but in all that time it never left Drag’s mind for a minute. And what he couldn’t fit in his thoughts when he was awake, he made room for in his dreams at night. No, Drag will never forget, his memory grew stronger every day, and his dreams brought him new details at night.

  He was a young rat, barely out of his hole when it happened. It had rained for so long the sun was a mystery and clouds were what he knew. Then one day the rain stopped, the clouds spread apart and the sun came through.

  It was a time to feast, a time to dance and rejoice.

  But there was thunder in the air, and all around him lay the dead. His mother, his father, his neighbors and friends. Sixty-three rats total. He tried to nuzzle them awake, for maybe they were sleeping, but their bodies were as cold as his heart was lonely. They were dead, all dead.

  Sometimes it takes a rat a while to understand the obvious, but, give them enough time, they figure it out. The poor little rats had been killed without reason by a bad man with a thunder gun. They called him the Rat Killer.

  And Drag will be his next victim.

  Caught out in the open field, Drag ran from hole to hole. But he found no sanctuary, for the holes were stuffed with the dead. The Rat Killer fired his thunder gun once more and missed. He fired again and missed but not by much. Then a shadow came over Drag. He scratched the dirt in a blind rat panic, but he could not move.

  With his foot on the little rat’s tail, Uncle Brucker looked down the long barrel of his .22 and pulled the trigger. But the gun didn’t fire. He pulled the trigger again. He was out of bullets.

  “You lucky bastard,” he said to the rat under his foot. “Put it on the calendar. Today is your day.”

  He removed his foot from the rat’s tail and the little rat ran off into the field and through the bush.

  And now, years later, he stood next to the Incredible Impostor in his grand hole, and tears came quickly to Drag’s eyes and his nose twitched with the sting of sad memories.

  “Yes, I should have been number sixty-four. I was left out, stepped over, excluded. I’m not the rat I should be, I don’t even know who that rat is. The future ain’t mine and the past belongs to some other rat. Now I’m livin’ in a world where I ain’t supposed to be, doin’ things I ain’t meant to do. The Rat Killer stole a fate from me that should have been mine and gave me one that ain’t.”

  It was a sad story that Drag told, so very sad, filled with tears and sorrow and topped off with hatred.

  After listening to Drag’s sad story, the Incredible Impostor felt a pain in his heart, a great sad pain such as he had never felt before. He hated the Rat Killer almost as much as Drag hated him. He was the sort of creature that makes the entire planet look bad just because he walks upon it.

  “Recently,” said Drag, “I came upon some information that leads me to believe the Rat Killer may have crossed over from his dimension and he’s hidin’ out around here. And if this is true, I’m gonna make sure he ain’t goin’ back. It’s only a matter of time before I catch up to him and make things right. Then I’ll know what happiness is. At last I will be happy.”

  The Incredible Impostor saw the toll it took on Drag, a lifetime of should-have-been’s. There must be something he can do to help the poor rich unhappy rat.

  “Is there anythin’, any way at all I can help get you out of your misery?”

  Drag was overcome by the Incredible Impostor’s heartfelt offer. Most rats are stingy and rarely gave so much of themselves, but Drag knew from the start that the Incredible Impostor was no ordinary rat. In fact, he was no rat at all.

  When someone looks down his gun barrel at you, ready to pull the trigger, it’s a sight you will never forget. Drag recognized the Rat Killer the moment he saw him in the wrestling ring.

  “How nice of you to ask.” Drag faltered. “But I already got my plans laid out.”

  Drag didn’t quite understand why, but he was having second thoughts. Now that he finally met the man he wanted to kill, he wasn’t sure that he should go through with it.

  There was a tear in Drag’s eye and he didn’t know how it got there. One lonely tear, stuck in his eye, and it wouldn’t slide. But one tear cannot wash away a life of misery. Drag didn’t come this far to let a tear talk him out of his lifelong quest.

  In the end he decided to proceed with his original plan.

  “On Thursday night after the match I will finally kill the man who saved my life. But that Thursday isn’t here yet. Until then,” he took out the deck of cards he carried in his pouch, “join me in a pleasant game of Flippo.”

  79

  Scratch left the ring early Thursday morning and went back home to count his money. Game over, the Incredible Impostor shed his wrestling suit. He said goodbye to the promoter and walked to the ring ropes where he greeted his faithful stick-around fans. The sweet rat with no name stuck around.

  A rat spoke from the dark of the ring.

  “Yo, Impostor!”

  The Inspector stepped forward into the glow of the dock light. A wet butt stuck to his lips.

  “Hello,” he said. “I said hello.”

  “I heard you the second time,” said the Incredible Impostor.

  “A quick response would spare your ears some listenin’ time.”

  “Other than givin’ out small advice about the unimportant, is the Inspector here for a particular reason?”

  “Just doin’ my Everyday Job, of course, and meantime I’m doin’ my Meantime Job. My Everyday is all about lookin’ for the Strange and questionin’ the Unusual, and in the Meantime I do anythin’ I want. Usually I separate the two, except today I’m doublin’ up fo
r an important reason.”

  “Why? More money this way?”

  “No. Sore feet.”

  The Inspector rambled on. It was slick talk meant to confuse while he circled around and went straight to the point. He had a way of rambling the information out of you and you didn’t know you gave it up.

  The Incredible Impostor was a particularly hard case. It was like trying to get money from an empty hidey-hole. The Inspector had never encountered a rat like this before. He tried and tried but he just couldn’t break through.

  The Inspector took some time-out to sniff the air and relax, but when he started up again something seemed to crack inside his head, and through the crack, a Realization came into his mind.

  It was a Realization powerful yet simple, something he knew but he didn’t know he knew it. If the Incredible Impostor is the only rat the Inspector couldn’t open up, the reason just might be because he isn’t a rat at all.

  The Incredible Impostor is no impostor. He is the real thing. And the Inspector realized why his technique could never work. He was using a rat’s key to unlock a human’s door.

  The Inspector turned and walked along the pier. The Incredible Impostor walked off in the other direction. The Inspector was heading to a bar hole past the rail tracks and a meeting with Scratch. He had a lot to discuss with Scratch, and it was not all good. But the Inspector was skilled in making good out of a bad situation. Sometimes bad is good.

  The Inspector walked slowly like a rat whose troubles had fallen off Cove Cliff and scattered into the ocean. It was a good feeling and he wanted to keep it forever.

  As he walked he noticed his reflection in a mirror in a shop window, and he hated his hair. He found a fishbone comb in his pouch and combed a lick down but he couldn’t get it right. He combed that lick again and he still he couldn’t get it right, but now he didn’t mind.

  80

  Scratch slurped up three lick-off plates of top shelf juice. The Inspector also had three, top shelf. Buy two more and I’ll charge you for four, offered the wet nose barkeep. The Inspector had the cash and Scratch ordered two more drinks.