Rats

by Paul Teodo & Tom Myers

A rat scurried through the alley. 

“Wait,” Jimmy whispered, his hand on the Chooch’s shoulder. “Not yet.” 

The rat stopped to sniff an overflowing garbage can. “Now!” Jimmy’s whisper louder, more decisive.  “Take the shot!” He poked the Chooch and pointed at the arrogant rodent, raising its head, daring them.

“It’s your turn,” Chooch said, holding the Glock tightly, eyeing his prey.

“Take the shot!”

Chooch’s face twitched, a tiny drop of sweat suspended from the tip of his hooked red nose. “It’s your turn.” His high pitched voice exposing his fear.

“I took the last one. Do it.”

“But you missed.” 

“Take… the fucking… shot.” Jimmy rhythmically tapping the barrel, the pistol unsteady in the Chooch’s shaking hand. 

Chooch took an unconfident aim.

“Squeeze, don’t pull.” Jimmy was an expert.

Chooch closed his eyes.

The roar blasted off the dripping brick walls lining the alley, echoing down the dark urban canyon, the recoil electric, shooting up the Chooch’s arm.

“Jesus.” Chooch shook his head and squeezed his fingers trying to sooth the pain in both his screaming ears and tender shoulder. 

“You missed,” Jimmy said like a critical father.

“How can you tell?”

“The fucking rat is laughing at you.”

“Rats don’t laugh Jimmy.”

“They do Chooch, and he’s laughing his ass off at you.”

“I can’t see him.” Chooch said, head down, gun at his side. “Is he really laughin’, Jimmy?”

“Let’s get outa here.” Jimmy snatched the pistol from his friend’s hand and stuffed it in his pocket.

The two walked in silence. Putrid smelling garbage cans lining their path. 

“So whatayou gonna do?” Chooch, yelled, cramming a finger in his ear, still shaking his head.

“I don’t know.”

“Me too.” Chooch’s digit seemed to be searching for an off switch to halt the incessant ringing.

“Good, we’ll be stupid together, shootin’ rats in an alley til the cops come and take us away.”

“C’mon, Jimmy. You did good in school.  Whataya gonna do?”

Jimmy shoved his hand deep in his pocket, cognizant of the loaded pistol still hot from Chooch’s miss.

“Maybe a cop,” Jimmy said.

“You’d be a good one. You like guns.”

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. His back tightened. “Yeah, I like guns.”

The two walked on. Intermittently,  gravel crunched beneath their worn leather boots and muddy  puddles splashed, the only sounds breaking the echoing silence between them. 

Chooch couldn’t take the quiet. “Me, I’m thinkin’ about workin’ on a train.”

Jimmy kept walking.

“Yeah, maybe a train,” Chooch said again.

Jimmy picked up the pace.

Chooch froze, one foot in a puddle. “Jesus, Jimmy.”

“What?” Jimmy came to a halt, looking up to floor five or six, transfixed by the image of laundry fluttering in the evening breeze suspended from an open window.

“You!” Chooch’s voice rose.

“What me?” Jimmy asked, his hand still in his pocket.

“Look at me! I’m talkin’. It’s important!”

Jimmy turned to the Chooch. “What, Leonard. What do you want?”

“You don’t call me Leonard!”

Jimmy sighed.

“I fuckin’ talk, Jimmy, and you don’t’ say nothin’!” 

“A mechanic? Fixin’ ‘em?” Jimmy said.

“What?” Chooch was now confused.

“You said a train. You said you were thinkin’ of working on a train. So, what…? You gonna fix ‘em? Drive ‘em?... Ride em’?”

“You were listenin’?” Chooch was like a little kid who’d just got his old man to look up from the paper.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ heard you!” Jimmy yelled.

“Now you’re mad.” Chooch said, recoiling like a pouty child.

“I ain’t mad. Whataya gonna do on a train?”

“You really wanna know?”

“Yeah, Really Chooch.”

 Chooch smiled like a proud little kid who’d just walloped his first homer.

Jimmy looked at the Chooch waiting for more.

The two stood in the alley facing each other. Chooch with a stupid smile spread across his face and Jimmy trying to be patient.

“Then what, for Christ sake!” Jimmy finally screamed.

“I wanna be one of those guys with the hats and the puncher.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You get on the train and the guy with the hat and the puncher comes up to you…”

“A conductor,” Jimmy interrupted. 

“Yeah, that’s it. A condoctor.”

“A conductor, Chooch, not a condoctor.”

“Yeah one a them guys.”

                                                                                  ***

“Yeah?” Jimmy hated phones.

“Jimmy, that you?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“What’d you do with the piece?”

“What piece?”

“The Glock,” Chooch whispered, “for the rats.”

“What’s wrong Chooch?”

“There’s a guy.”

“What guy?”

“He’s got it in for me.”

“What’d you do Chooch?”

“Nothin’, I swear on my mother’s grave.”

“Your mother ain’t dead.”

“You know what I mean.”

“What’d you do?”

“Not on the phone.”

Jimmy had no argument there. He hated phones and if Chooch was in a jam he shouldn’t be yappin’ about it on the phone.

“Where you at?” Jimmy whispered back.

“79th Street.”

“And what?”

“And what?” Chooch’s voice trailed off.

“79th and what Chooch!” Jimmy boomed. “I need to know 79th and what, for Christ sake!”

“Don’t get mad Jimmy.”

“Chooch, look around. Street signs.  Somethin’.”

Chooch’s voice lowered. “I can see the sign.”

“Good, what’s it say?”

 “Stony, Jimmy. 79th and Stony.”

“By the Avalon?”

“Yeah, the big movie show.”

“Gimme 20 minutes.” 

“You bringin’ it Jimmy?”

“What Chooch?”

“The Glock.”

                                                                                  ***

Jimmy worried about Chooch. They’d hung out since first grade in Sister Joan’s class. Chooch was always put in the front of the room. Nobody on either side of him. Like he had a disease. He’d drift off in his head a lot, and then “bam” ask a question that had nothing to do with what was going on. The Sister had patience. She’d repeat things and make the class wait while stuff sunk in. The rest of the kids, especially the guys, would lay it on him. Teasing him, playing tricks, stealing his stuff.

That’s how he got his name. “The Chooch.” Dummy, stupid, retarded. Jimmy tried to stick up for him. But he had his own problems. His old man hit the sauce hard, and his mother even harder. His father bounced around jobs like those hard blue hand balls the Russians smacked at the wall in the park. His mother worked two jobs. One was good, and one was bad. The good one, she said, was good because people left her alone.

She stood at the belt that whizzed by her and about ten other women stuffing popcorn into big cans. The bad one, was cleaning toilets at the Avalon on 79th. She told Jimmy stories about the place that made him want to puke right on the spot. Popcorn all over the floor, in the sink, and crammed into the shitter. And mom’s job was to clean it up and make it sparkle for the assholes to come in and do it all over again. That’s why Jimmy always aimed good,  flushed twice, and picked up after himself.

                                                                                ***

“Chooch, you OK?” Chooch was fidgiting under the stop light at the corner.

“You got it Jimmy?”

“What Chooch?”

“The Glock.”

“What’s goin’ on Chooch?”

“He did it again.”

“Who did what again?”

“Frankie.”

“What’d Frankie do?”

“It started with him callin’ me names.”

“Chooch, we talked about that. Some guys are assholes. They call people names. You gotta forget about it.”

“He didn’t stop.”

“Yeah some people are really big assholes.”

“So, I made him stop.”

Jimmy paused. He took a breath. His voice lowered.  “What’d you do Chooch?”

“A brick.”

“What’d you do with the brick?”

“It was heavy.”

“What did you do with the brick, Chooch?”

“He made fun a me. Called me them names. You know. Other guys in the car were laughin’ too.”

“What car?”

“He got one. A new one.”

“Frankie got a car?”

“Yeah, red with them white tires. And a really loud radio.”

“Chooch, what’d did you do with the brick?”

“They were hangin’ their heads outa the window and makin’ noises Jimmy.”

“What’d you do?”

“I threw it.”

“The brick?”

“They were yellin’, Jimmy!”

“You threw the brick at Frankie’s car?”

“Yeah, and it busted.”

“What busted?”

“The window thing.”

“You busted out the window on Frankie’s new car?”

Tears welled in Chooch’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to bust it bad!” 

“Jesus, Chooch.”

“And he said I was a dead fuck! Then I ran really fast.”

                                                                            ***

Frankie Statz was an asshole. He proved it every day. He’d pick on anything or anyone he thought was weak. He got his rocks off on that kinda shit and made sure his buddies got the word out that he was a tough guy, telling stories about him kicking somebody’s ass at least once a week. Jimmy didn’t know anybody who’d Frankie’d ever taken down, except for weak guys like Chooch, or girls.

                                                                           ***

Jimmy heard the thumping music before the fire-engine red  ‘57 Chevy turned the corner. Born to be Wild blasting from its speakers.

 “Lookin’ for adventure, head out on the highway…”

Frankie Statz at the wheel, a cigarette dangling from one hand, and a pair of metal knuckles wrapped around the other. And 3 guys hanging out the windows like monkeys. One looked as goofy as the Chooch and the other two looked like hangers-on who coulda been the puppets on Kookla, Fran, and Ollie.

Frankie spotted Jimmy and the Chooch. He pointed, his finger protruding from the metal wrapped around his fist, sped up, then screeched to a halt. The windshield a maze of crushed crystals. Frankie exited the car. His misfit posse stayed in, waiting for his instructions.

“Hey retard.”

The Chooch winced. He whispered to Jimmy. “You got that Glock?”

“Frankie,” Jimmy said, “nice ride.”

“Fuck you Jimmy.” Frankie took a step closer.

“You got it?” A dark wet spot spread across the front of the Chooch’s pants. 

Jimmy felt the cold steel pressed against his leg.

“Back off Frankie.”

“It’s not your beef.”

“It is now.”

“Look at my windshield. That retarded fuck…”

And  Frankie made his move, charging hard at the two.  Chooch turned to run, stumbling to the ground.  Jimmy stood, unmoving.  Frankie kept coming. Jimmy dug into his pants, and pulled out the pistol. The Glock’s silver barrel shone brightly in the afternoon sun. 

Frankie stopped dead. “What the fuck?  What’s this.”

“The end,” Jimmy said. He aimed the gun at Frankie’s head. He squeezed, didn’t “pull”, the trigger, just like he’d told the Chooch to do.

The blast roared over Steppenwolf blaring from the Chevy.

Frankie dropped to the ground.

“You killed him Jimmy! Shot him dead!” Chooch pointed at Frankie crumpled on the ground.

Jimmy walked slowly towards the body. The Glock, smoking, still in his hand.

He bent over Frankie pressing the barrel of the pistol into Frankie’s temple.

“The end, right Frankie?” Jimmy said, his voice low, calm.

Frankie opened an eye. “You mother….”

“Think about it Frankie. The end, right? It’s over. I don’t miss twice.”

Frankie, cowering on the street,  blinking his agreement.

                                                                                 ***

“Jimmy, we gonna shoot rats today?”

Jimmy put his arm around his friend. “Not today Chooch.”  He voice echoed in the alley. “We’ve done enough of that for now.”

Chooch pointed to the open windows, laundry still fluttering in the breeze.  “That’s pretty, with the wind and the sun.”

“Yeah Chooch. Beautiful.”

 “A Condoctor, Jimmy, that’s what I wanna be.”