my cousin's friend's borrowed car
red, rustic, shotty in ways
but somehow able to burst off the line
in a rumbling
myself, the aspiring screenplayist,
must take those awkward nonsensical scenes
across town -
i have twenty minutes
i seize the keys (in a retro manner
if at all possible) and open
the creaking door, sink in to the
uneven seats, hear the engine (almost as old
as me) putter itself in shaking
the shifter is stuck, my hand strains
to pull it back into "drive"
but it jerks and falls to the road
all in all the drive is smooth:
i am rushed but the traffic is none
i know the way like the back of my hand
which is now white from grasping the wheel to hard
i find the place, the final resting place
of my silly lines, and pump my foot
far too hard into the break
and my scenes go thumping onto the floor
strewn with wrappers - candy and fast food -
and bottles - water, soda, thick sports drinks -
and now my pages
so i panik and begin to gather them
one falls beside the passenger seat
and i cannot reach it;
so i open the door the try to slide
my toowide fingers down the slit
and as soon as the door creaks open
i hear a nestling under my pages -
i look down to see a black streak
jumping out of the window
i jump back in my seat,
the springs jostling as my body
waves about in cheap foam and cotton
my hands are now on my mouth
i lean over, look out the door
to find that the black streak
of anything, really,
was a massive smooth black rat
his eyes were red and his teeth gleaming
next to the rust of the door
he looked up at me, with piercingness
on his face
then bolted away
and i, in some halted breath
leaned forward
to pick up my pages
later:
an attic (strange because i don't
have an attic) filled with my family's
superfluous things:
baby Navarro things
Mama and Papa Navarro things
things bound in gold (strange because
my family is so much more silver)
looking around, marveling at such things
my head turns a corner
deep and dark, speaking of which -
he is there!
that blackness again!
i see not his gleaming eyes
but instead the slivers of his fleshy tail
and the scurrying of his legs on the floorboards
i jump again
my father (seemingly from nowhere)
drops a trap on the floor
(fake plastic cheese works too well)
scurrying toward then
CRACK!
i have never seen a neck snap
and even then i still have not
my father picks up his prize
more valuable than the silverless gold
and holds it by its tale
(i think back to stories at my great-grandfather's funeral)
he throws it back on the floor
("dad, why?!")
and it rushes over to me
and i (not thinking) pick it up in my left hand -
my good hand - by its tail
and with the grace of a falling cat
it bends itself backwards
and tears its teeth into my arm's flesh
later my room
but not that room the other room
and the shining metal box
on my floor
i wait above my bed
stealth and quiet are all i have
and that metal box
of course
from under my bed i feel it
scurrying again
(i thought it was dead!)
and it leaped out and took on that box
head on.
it leapt in, metal blades chomping down
on his giant nose,
its thick neck and burning eyes
a squeal, a cry, noises ungodly
then silence
silence is my cue to look
silence is my sign of clarity
i lean over that metal box
and take my eyes and still
somehow still
the blackness moves
then i awake
to the sounds of Atticus scratching on my door
and i panicked because
what more is a cat
than a more civilized rat?
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