Doctor Rat (16 page)

“I’m too weak to fart, mister, how do you expect me to fall in? Give me back my buzzer…ratty wants his buzzer.”

“Prop that rat up. Right face. Forward march!”

“Oh, I’m having horrible withdrawal. I’m having Cold Mousey.”

“We’ve got to get our own generator and keep it going night and day. Protect it with dogs.”

“The dogs are already in enemy hands, fellow rat. Forget about the dogs.”

“Hey, what’s this? You don’t expect us to crawl down off the Pleasure Terrace, do you?”

“Under cover of darkness, Pleasure Rats. Follow me.”

“‘They found Cold Mousey in an empty bottle Christmas morning.’
Did you ever hear that song?”

“Quiet, you!”

“‘Poor Cold Mousey starved on Christmas morning!’
I’ve
 
got to get out of this bottle…”

That’s the problem with Pleasure Rats—their brains get like jelly, and they don’t know what they’re doing anymore. And these are the forces with which I’ve got to stop a revolution.

“Okay, mister, we’re following you down the pole.”

“Our objective is the Chemical Closet, do you understand?”

“Fuse box first, Jim. I’m not going anywhere without a little buzz.”

“I’ll give you all euphoric injections at the Chemical Closet. They’ll hold you till we resume complete command and restore the buzzers.”

“We’ve got to write to the government for battery-powered buzzers.”

“Wind-up buzzers! Spring-wound. Wear them on your tail and always have your buzz handy.”

“All my teeth just fell out, didn’t they? Did you just see my teeth falling out?”

“You’re dreaming, rat. You’re withdrawing.”

“QUIET IN THE RANKS!”

“Oh, fuck off, mister, I just lost my incisors.”

A motley crew. But it’s the best I can do under the circumstances. Now, off this pole and onto the floor.

“I remember days of love in the Pleasure Dome, times of exquisite delight and glory…”

“Shove that shit-head forward, will you!”

“…when I knew all, when I was Supreme Delight…”

“Off the pole, Jack, and cut the slop!”

“Kick him in the ass, will you, I’m hanging here by my tail!”

“Come on, rats, jump with me into the shadows!”

“…I watched the myriad pleasures pass, full was I…”

“Full of shit. Get going before we get nabbed out here!”

Six, seven, eight strung-out Pleasure Rats to help me conquer the vast enemy force. How can I use them to best advantage?

“There, Pleasure Rats, that doorway over there, do you see it?”

“Where all those troops are standing at attention?”

“That’s it. We’re going to rush them.”

“Rush? Did he say we’ll be getting a rush on?”

“He said they’re Russians. I’m not going against any Russians.”

“I’ll shoot the next rat who speaks!”

“Just make sure you hit the vein, mister, that’s all I ask.”

“All right now, follow me slowly and carefully, underneath this rack of cages…that’s it, keep low…”

We’ve got to get past the Great Exercise Drum, still spinning rapidly, turned by the rebels. On both sides of us the armed patrols are marching, their weapons shining.

“…and often as I basked in the purified lake of uttermost contentment, aware that I was the perfected Godhead…”

“You’re stepping on my tail, fuck-eyes.”

“Hey, I’m getting a little buzz-on, aren’t you? Can you feel it?”

“Hey, wow, it’s happening!”

“Just the beginnings of it, right? Nice tickly feeling?”

“Yes, yes, what’s going on, what’s happening, let’s get it on,
now!
”

“Quiet, you rats!”

“Some kind of—like
static
in the air. I can feel it.”

“It’s from over there, at the Exercise Drum.”

“Yeah, I can feel it now. They’re generating some juice on that thing.”

“Order in the ranks!”

“Up yours, Jim, I’m going to Poppa.”

“Sock it to me, sock it to me!”

“Pleasure centers activated…pleasure centers
on
!”

There they go, my troops, defecting, everyone of them, drooling and rolling around in front of the Exercise Drum. The little sparks of static touch them and drive them wild with ecstasy. They flop and crawl like the mindless addicts they are, and I’m left alone to carry on.

I will not lose heart!

Quickly I race along the aisle, and up this rack of cages, to the topmost cage.

Hello, pussycat. It’s your old friend, Doctor Rat.

His eyes shine in the moonlight. He’d love to make a meal of me. He’s been on a special starvation diet for forty-three days. Not a scrap of food, not a drop of water. His hind legs are dragging a little, but he’s still a match for these rats.

I’ll save the laboratory, with your help, pussycat. I know where the key to your cage is. Up here, on the wall, dangling…if I can turn my tail up there and bring the key down…yes!

And now to insert it in the lock, making no noise, turning the key…the lock springs softly, and I wind my tail around the door handle and pull gently.

“Out you go, my friend. Go on and gobble them up!”

The cat limps out slowly, giving me ample time to withdraw here, to the window sill. He stares down over the dark seething rebel city, where the rats are chanting, the pickled ancestors are glowing, and all the shadows are moving.

What a sight for a starved cat’s eyes!

Rats, rats, rats everywhere! Get ’em, puss!

He leaps off into the darkness. What screeching and crying! Now rebels, now we’ll see about your animal unity!

Bottles crashing, lights breaking, cages rattling, what a sequence. I’m glad the automatic cameras are still grinding, capturing the whole show. The Learned Professor will have quite a surprise when he develops it all. We can use it for our paper on Aggression. Animal unity, my ass!

Ah no, the filthy rats. An armed patrol has just left the Chemical Closet. Three Growth Hormone Rats are crouching along, a hypodermic needle on their backs and a fourth Growth Rat following them, his nose against the plunger. They’ve been in the Stephenson Growth Hormone Box for months now, and each of them’s strong as an ox.

I’ve got to help my pussycat!

Lightly I race along the window sill and silently slip to the dental tray, picking up a long chisel pick. If I can intercept the patrol…

They’re charging the cat from behind. “Watch out, pussycat!”

I leap down in front of the Growth Hormone Squad, brandishing my chisel against the needle point, driving it aside. But these Growth Hormone goons are strong, they regroup instantly and charge again. I lash my chisel, at the same time avoiding the swiping paw of the cat above me. We dash in among his legs, under and over his claws. The needle comes directly at my heart. I strike, crashing it aside and pinning it against the wall…

…oh no!

We’ve given the cat a subcutaneous injection in the abdominal wall!

He trembles and tumbles to the floor and I leap away, out from under his tail and up the doorframe.

“Doctor Rat, you’ve betrayed your people!”

“Yes,” I cry, swinging on the light bulb, “and your mother was fucked under the back porch by a flying squirrel!”

Goddamn inferior strains of sonofabitch bastards, I’ll show them yet—swinging off the end of the bulb and sailing through the air toward the sink.

Sponge here, suitable for crossing the water. Quick, Doctor, paddle!

Using my paws and tail I get the sponge moving, cutting a wide swathe through the waves. Cat stretched out on the floor down there, out like a light. I know the strength of that injection, he’ll be immobile for the whole night.

Rebel flashlights scanning the ceiling, the floor. They’ve lost sight of me, the liverless louts (cf.
Weight of the Extirpated Liver: “…after killing them the liver glycogen content was determined. It was shown there was a definite loss of glycogen, presumably because of the strong emotion felt by the rat during his decapitation.”).

I like that, don’t you? The strong emotion felt by the rat during his decapitation.

I’ll teach you revolutionaries about strong emotion.

M
EMO TO
C
ONGRESS
:
To preserve our billion-dollar basic research program, it has become necessary to send a number of individuals to the ovens. It will take time, of course, but I promise you we’ll keep the microwave turned on around the clock.

D
OCTOR
R
AT

“Come on, Mossy Sloth! You’ll miss the meeting. Every animal will be there!”

Don’t worry, little monkey. I’ll make it. I just have to rest a bit before I go. It doesn’t do any good to go rushing about.

“You’ll never get there, Mossy Sloth. I’m traveling on without you.”

The pleasure of hanging motionless here in the trees can’t be adequately explained to a monkey. He spends half his time on the lookout for jaguars, while I just hang here looking like an ant’s nest. The jaguar never spots me.

Such a lot of animals scurrying along on the ground, all in the same direction. I can hear them rushing below. Everybody always in such a hurry. Don’t they realize what peace of mind can be had, simply by hanging upside down like this, with the light coming through the leaves?

All the sounds blend into each other when you hang this way. You seem to float along on the streaming sounds. The animals are talking about a deep experience they’re going to have at the great meeting. Could it possibly be deeper than the deep relaxation of a three-toed sloth with moss on his back?

“Come on, Mossy! You’ll be the last one!”

Don’t worry about me, little monkey.

He goes off chattering and his voice blends into all the other voices. I suppose I should move along a bit, but it seems a shame to move just now, when all the leaves and all the breezes are singing to me so sweetly.

“Mossy Sloth, you’re the laziest thing I’ve ever seen. You’re the laziest creature alive.”

There’s no point in contradicting them. Actually there’s no way for them to know about the old creature of the mountain called Surpassing Slothfulness. None of the other animals has ever seen him for he’s spent his whole life on the same branch and is completely covered with lichen. A remarkable specimen. Not for a moment would I compare myself with him.

They say he’s remarkably old, having preserved his vitality so carefully. Mother told me of him and said that her mother had told her. He’s been up on that mountain branch for generations, hanging motionless. He had an uncle called Admirable Sloth, whom the hunters shot. Admirable Sloth never moved as the bullet entered him, and he continued to hang there until he’d rotted completely away.

“Shake that sloth out of his tree!”

Easier to lift a mountain, my friend. A sloth cannot be pulled from his branch.

“You terrible sloth! Don’t you know the importance of this meeting?”

I hang here, gazing at the fascinating patterns in the leaves. You see many wonderful little details if you just stare calmly with half-closed eyes. Everything comes together so beautifully, the voices around me all merging again, and the sparkling leaves slowly melting into a warm wonderful pool. There’s no nicer feeling than hanging like this, right on the edge of dreams. We sloths have the technique down to perfection. Other animals fall asleep quickly and miss all the delicate fringes of sleep.

But I flow down toward it slowly as sap on a tree trunk, little by little, savoring all the enchantments that play in the place between waking and sleeping. So many delectable currents pass over you, all the countless charms that rule this realm. No yesterday, no today, no tomorrow, just this happy moment…

“Ai, ai, ai!”

Whose voice is that? It sounds like a sloth who’s been separated from its mother.

“Ai, ai, ai!”

I’d rather not turn my head, I rarely do so, but I suppose I have to. Slowly then, not rushing anything, trying to enjoy all the details along the way, I start to turn. The red berries have swollen, and there’s a new butterfly emerging from his cocoon.

A bunch of old moss and twigs flopping along down the hillside. It must have been dislodged by a racing jaguar.

“Ai, ai, ai!”

Can those be lips within that moss? How could anyone breathe under all that spongy fungus?

“Come on, my boy, stop hanging there with your mouth open. You look like Uncle Admirable two days after he was shot.”

“Surpassing Slothfulness! Is it really you?”

“Slide down your branch, young fellow, and make it snappy. We’ve got a long way to go.”

“Hup—bup—bareeep—four! Hup—bup—bareeep—four!” Here comes the rat-rebel army, drilling around the laboratory floor. I’d better pull my tail in out of sight.

“They cut off our tails with a knife—”

“You’re right!”

“They sucked out our eyes with a pipe—”

“You’re right!”

“Sound off:”

“One two!”

“Sound off:”

“Three four!”

“Cadence count:”

“One two three four—one two—three four!”

“They cut until nothing is left—”

“You’re right!”

“They bleed us till nothing is left—”

“You’re right!”

“Sound off:”

“Norwegian rat piss on you fuckers!”
Oh dear, I got carried away and now I must run, with the entire rebel army on my tail. The good doctor scurrying quickly, surgical picks flying all around him, a rain of rebel spears.

Into the bottles, through the tubes, over the sponges and onto the inclining surgical table—down its smooth shining surface and off the end of it, with rebels sliding after me.

I have no choice. I’ve got to hide in the Killing Box.

I lift the tin lid with my tail and quickly slip inside, pulling the lid down behind me. This is a marvelous scientific apparatus: the rat who enters it is definitely
kaput
, be he a Norwegian resistance rat, a French cellar rat, an English ship rat, or just a plain old Polish sewer rat. Makes no difference, he’s
kaput.