California and the Rat War

Earlier today, "Circus," the exterminator, asked me if it is really worth dealing with rats the size of cantaloupes in order to live in Topanga. "Yes," I said, "this place reminds me that I am in California."

"But California is everywhere," he replied. "Even in New Hampshire, there is California."

I decided not to get into some existential discussion with a man carrying a Manhattan Project sized amount of deadly rat poison and besides, did not really care what was in New Hampshire nor why I would go there to see California. "Is your name really Circus?" I asked.
"They used to call me Captain Kool-Aid in college," he said.

I saw a small type of semi-truck yesterday morning- I'm not sure what the specific model of the truck was, but it was about the size of a $29.99 U-haul. On the side of the truck was an advertisement for the company the truck belonged to, "California Water Damage." Below the company name was a large picture of a woman, looking quite preturbed on one end of a couch, and her man, looking equally preturbed on the other side. The couch was sinking down into a rising flood of water, one side teetering on total furniture extinction. The woman, although dressed in a pair of slacks and pink blouse, was wearing a snorkel and fins. She had a dialogue bubble coming out of her ear that read "Honey, are you still sleeping?"

I stared at this portrait for a good five minutes wondering what the fuck it could possibly mean. I gave up. This is exactly how I felt when Circus told me that they used to call him Captain Kool-Aid in college. I wondered if perhaps he took a lot of acid and turned himself into some type of one man circus, juggling electric bananas above everyone's heads, riding a unicycle up a woman's face, splitting apples with an axe and spitting out the seeds with the velocity of machine gun bullets. I liked him a little more.

"Yeah, I had a rodent clean-up yesterday. Had to clean up a bunch of rat shit," he told me. He rubbed the whiskers on his chin, and shook out his shaggy hair.

Circus sprayed my house with deodorizer that smelled like champagne raisins and explained that the pungent scent of decaying rats mummifying in my ceiling would dissipate over the next few days. "The heat really speeds up the process," he said, "but makes the whole place smell like shit."

When he had finished, I walked him outside. He saw some aphids on my rose bushes, raised his can of poison and said, "I can take care of those right now." I declined his offer.

I stood in the driveway and watched Circus struggle with the manual transmission on his beaten pickup truck, attempting to reverse up the sharp incline just outside my home. He looked around at the tall oak and eucalyptus trees in the canyon, his clutch burning up, his truck rumbling and sputtering, and rolled down his window. "California?" he yelled to me.
"California," I replied.
"New Hampshire," he said. "Fuck it."

I waved goodbye to him like a close but distant friend as he sped down the canyon. I looked back up at the trees, thought of the coastline a few miles down the highway, my feet dangling over the edge of a continent, the Bear Republic, pure naked freedom in a gold rush land, and took a deep breath. California, goddammit. I want to live like California is supposed to feel.

Rat War Day 6

Andy's legs began to buckle. I couldn't see his face because it was between two boards in my ceiling, seeing something that must have been horrendous. I know it must have been horrendous because his body went limp, his chin sliced open against a wooden plank, and he crumbled in a 210 pound mass of skin and bones at my feet. Then the rat shit began raining down. I slapped him a couple of times through his thick red beard. He said, "dude." I called an exterminator a few minutes later. Andy has seen enough. Poor kid. I hope he doesn't wind up in some veteran's hospital, his teeth yellowing, spitting at the nurses and scratching his scrotum underneath a thin gown.

He's starting to come around now, sipping a beer, shaking his head. "Dude," he repeats.
"What was it like up there?" I ask.
He finishes the rest of his beer and chucks it near a bag of recyclables, missing by about seven feet. "Rats," he says. "I hate rats."
I can hear the sound of another can of beer popping in the near distance. I put my arm around him and help him outside for some air. I hope the flies don't lay eggs in his chin. I wouldn't want to stick my head in there and take whatever was inside, out.

Rat War

I am in the middle of a rat war. So far, there have been two casualties. One rat hobbled out of the hole underneath my house 3 days ago, groaning and twitching from poison and lay down in the leaves, perhaps to die where it was born, carefree in nature. I dropped a thirty pound boulder on its head. The second died a poison death in which I can only imagine his stomach and intestines must have popped open, the insides dripping down the 2 x 4's inside of my wall. Its hot death scent of excreted bowels and rotting skin has attracted an army of flies. I have killed, as of 8pm 7/5/11, approximately 53 winged enemies. Still, I can see no end in sight. A third rat has begun scratching, pulling, shitting, and gnawing at the wooden boards above my small hallway. A few feet away, the chirping squeals of it's two children remind me that enemies never die; they are just reborn. I've called in reinforcements. A man called "Andy." He has two young children at home. He drinks High Life during his work, building things for people, or tearing them down. Tomorrow evening, we plan to lift up a few of the wooden boards, to establish visual contact with the intruders and prepare a necessary attack. I have given my comrade strict instructions to keep his mouth closed. We are preparing for the worst-- An army of giant canyon rats whose gnawing addictions know no boundaries, where even my ear lobes and nostrils are not safe from their jaws. Like some strange rodent brimstone armageddon, I fear rat shit is about to fall from the sky. Babylon lives inside my home. It must fall.

Notes from a Moleskine

-french dream 11/7/06

prostitutes in parking lot off at 8
two women kissing in the mud
a japanese couple shot with bb guns bleed
large yellow cadillac driving thin streets demolishes bicycles and cafe tables.




-7/3/11
I can't believe I haven't turned this into a 200,000 word detective/erotica novel.