the mouse

late in the evenings, i have a ritual.
this ritual usually involves food. i'm a foodie. i love really, truly getting to spend time with my food. enjoying it one-on-one, with the dim light of the kitchen bulb that hovers over the sink, the toasty remnants of heat escaping the oven and warming the little room, and the smell of something delicious in front of me. usually i accompany dinner with a good book and a cup of licorice root tea. aaahhhh, heaven.
until i hear the squeaks.
they started a while ago, faint and barely noticeable. and there wouldn't be a noise to accompany it, just a slight squeak, as if someone's old gate hinges were swaying stiffly in the evening breeze, as if the pegs in the wooden chair i'm sitting on rub against their drilled wooden sockets as i shift my weight left, right, forward, between bites of crusty toasted bread and bubbling melted cheese.
but they're just a bit too persistent. a bit too frequent.
it must be a mouse.
not being a mouse-killer, i decide that it's time to bust out the humane traps and see just what kind of little critter we can catch with them.

nothing. weeks and weeks of nothing. the squeaks in the kitchen continue, but the food in the traps is left untouched. and we're left to ponder this, wonder if we're wrong, wonder if some malfunctioning mechanical device has taken up a mind of it's own to start periodically squeaking in our kitchen in the late evenings.
months prior, i had discovered that something had been scuttling about in my room, ripping out chunks of stuffing from my favorite old floppy plush dog to make a nest with his innards. furious, i ripped my room apart, cleaned every cranny, but could never find the damned rodent responsible. the traps had been laid out then, and still did nothing. every night i listened for the fuzzy roommate to appear, and every night he evaded me. yet something was chewing into my stuffed animals. i was not pleased.
after the clean-up, however, they found nothing interesting in my room. i guess they took up new quarters in their toastier, more stomach-pleasing abode. and then the kitchen walls start to squeak.

the squeak begins to become bolder. night after night, a small scuffling, sniffling percussion starts to accompany the high-pitched melody, and the symphony of mouse noises starts to gain persistence.
one night, my father pulls me towards the back of the house as i arrive home from work.
"look, look what fell into our bathtub! i've been trying to figure out what the noise that wake me up last night was. chek it out!" he exclaims, pointing to the large hot-tub-style bath in the master bathroom.
in the tub, shivering, frantic and terrified, is the hugest goddamn mouse i have ever seen. it's a hair short of being a rat, with too pointy of a noise and too stumpy of a body to be mistaken for it's oversized and mostly hated cousin. it's a mouse, alright. but it's friggin' gigantic. this thing wouldn't be able to stuff itself into our mousetraps if it went on the atkins diet. it's beastly large.
now here is the moment i discover that mice can talk. well, not so much talk. they can't articulate words, and they can't really do much more that squeak at you in the most voluminous manner, but boy, can they get their point across. this mouse sees me hovering over the edge or our deep-sunk tub and becomes frantic, leaping two feet up the sides, scrabbling against the smooth plastic trying to claw its way out. and when it can't, it turns to face us directly, looks into our eyes and shrieks.
this shriek carries a specific message. never have i heard "stay the fuck away from me!" conveyed so clearly and with such clear purpose. animals growl, howl, yell, bark, hiss, and many other things that give an indicator of their feelings towards us. but nothing quite like this little mouse. it's as if this thing's had the words in its head but not on its tongue, and somehow gets it across anyway. there's a clear terror and yet, a defiant refusal to curl up into a ball and close its eyes regardless of this terror. it will fight. it will claw its way up any surface just to get away from us because it hates us, oh so much. its hatred is blaring and fierce and bundled up in a three inch ball of fuzz with teeth and claws.
my father throws a towel at it, scoops it up in his hand and quickly disperses it in the backyard before i can shout "wait!"
"what the hell did you do that for, dad? now it's just going to go right back into the house!"
"nah, no it won't - it's just gonna run away. it's scared."
i shake my head vehemently.
"mmmmnope. look where it bolted for. straight under the house. you should've taken it to the field down the street." i sigh as the little tail whips underneath the backyard deck. the squeaking will continue in the kitchen.
my father shrugs, kicks the dirt off his shoes and heads back into the house. "as long as it's not thumping around in my bathtub."

a week passes, and the ritual continues - i heat up a pot of soup, make myself a mean hot toddy and settle down to finish off boneshaker by cherie priest. the kitchen light is dim, and i'm completely immersed in my book.
and then i hear the strangest noise.
this is not a squeak. it could be closely related to a squeak, but it sounds like wet rubber on rubber, a sound that air sounds like when escaping from puffed up cheeks between the teeth. it and the scuttling, pitter-patter of little feet are dashing about the kitchen. and it's loud.
really loud.
i can't take it anymore.
the sound is so obvious that there's no way i can't trace it, from behind the oven to the little drawer where we keep the rice, to behind the fridge and then back again. i pull the drawer out from its resting place between the oven and fridge, and peek behind both. i see nothing.
but the sound is there. loud and insistent and right. freaking. next to me. and it has to stop. i must make it stop.
with both hands i crimp my finger down on the edge of the front two burners and pull. the oven scoots back a solid two feet. i see a brief flash of something dashing for the space behind the fridge, so i attempt to do the same with it.
the fridge doesn't budge. i unplug it, brace one foot again the wall, grab the inside corner and heave. the fridge begins to wiggle free at an angle, and finally i'm presented with the entire wall behind our kitchen appliances.
it. is. disgusting.
clumps and clusters of stuffing from god knows what, asbestos fluff and fiberglass insulation plus some downy cottony whatever from wherever, are piled in a corner, yellowed from mouse piss and old age. the entire back wall is littered with mouse poop, thick with the stuff and almost black. the area between the counter and fridge is nearly as bad, with years of little crumbs of food that have been dropped during cooking caked to the sides, and eventually falling to the floor to mingle with the rodent shit and old gummy god-only-knows-what. i nearly gag and retch. instead, i holler for my dad to wake up from his afternoon nap and get the hand broom.
with a kerchief tied around my nose and mouth, i'm busy sweeping up any trace of shit and fluff and food that's been left behind our oven and fridge, even getting out a chisel at one point to scrape the gunk away from the floor and walls. a small hole in the corner behind the fridge tells me our mouse has been able to run from our kitchen to the water heater closet to the living room heating grate. a fine mouse super-highway. i try to get everything, tossing each stinking dustpan-full into a large paper bag that i try to keep as far away from me as possible.
and then the noise starts again. the not-squeak. the wet-rubber chuff-chuff-chuff of a rodent's oversized cheek pouches. right next to me.
the mouse is sitting on gas pipe to the oven, watching me, staring at my back. probably eyeing my frizzy hair and pondering the nesting capabilities it contains. it is cheeky and curious, but with a glint of the same hesitant fear it shrieked at me from the bathtub. and it's just as fat and impossibly huge for a mouse as before, and the gas pipe shudders under its weight.
i immediately go for it with my hand broom, swatting at the gas line - which probably isn't a good idea - and missing, as the mouse darts away through the door and our of the house.
that's that, i think, and continue cleaning up the mess.

a re-ordered and neat kitchen plus a shower later, i'm back with my book and me re-heated meal. and i'll be plucked as a pheasant if the noise doesn't start again. right back there behind the oven.
for the love of god. i just want to eat in peace.
this time, i'm thinking to myself, this time there's no quarter. this time there will be no holds barred. this time it's war between me and the little fuzzy sack of hantavirus scootching its oversized tail around behind my fridge. back to the oven i go, pulling it from the wall. back to the drawer and the fridge. the noise increases its pace and volume and i move about all the kitchen appliances, but the mouse is not behind them.
no, but the noise has shifted. now it's coming from the left of the oven. from the kitchen counter.
ooooh, i gotcha now, you little bastard.
"what's all the commotion?" my dad calls from the computer room, although i'm pretty sure he has guessed by now.
"i'm gonna get this fucker! i'm gonna get him for good!" i holler back, answering but not really answering him.
with a towel in hand, i'm standing on the kitchen counter, trying to trap this little thing. from behind the spice rack, to the knife block, then cowering behind the toaster, it dashes back and forth as i swipe at it with a towel. i'm strategically placing mason jars and bottle of oil and spices in its way to try to keep it from escaping the maze of kitchen utensils and flavoring options we've built on the countertop. and finally, i put down an empty jar. sideways.
the funny little noise continues, and has now gained a hollow, reverberating quality to it. i tip the jar upright and look inside. and there, cowering in the corner, is a fat and frightened mouse.
my heart sinks as i realize the noise is increasing in pace. the mouse isn't just chuff-chuff-chuffing. this mouse, i realize, is whimpering. it very nearly sounds like it is crying. shivering and pressed again the wall of the jar, i have never seen a creature more pathetic. and it's crying because of me.
well shit.
i cover the top of the jar with a towel and take the mouse back to the same tub it had fallen in, releasing it inside. by now, this mouse must hate bathtubs. it must loathe them with every fiber of its being because as soon as i let it inside, i flies our of the jar and shrieks with the same heaven-shaking fury it had shrieked with before. back arched, facing me squarely and ears pressed against its head, it yells as only an angry mouse can yell, the defiant "fuck you! don't you freaking get close to me!" that it had yelled the other night, in the very same corner of the tub.
i stare at this mouse hard for a second. it's not fucking around. this mouse means serious business. and it makes me wonder why, with how much it runs from us, it keeps returning to our particular house.
i head to the kitchen, slice off a piece of nectarine and fill an old hummus container with water. when i head back to the tub, i huck a towel over the pissed off rodent as i put the food and container down. lord knows it'd probably leap at my face as i bend over to give it food and water.
back in the kitchen, i nibble the rest of the nectarine and ponder what to do.
this must be a mama mouse. the constant returning, the frequent panicking noises that we hear regardless of whether or not it's near us. this is one saddened, terrified mouse. and it keeps coming back. maybe there are little mouselets in the wall. and i can't have them die in there. our kitchen would reek of dead and rotting rodents. besides, this sad and smelly (did i mention how badly this thing stunk?) rodent would have its little heart broken if we took it away from its babies.
but the babies would make babies. which would make more babies. which would shit more behind our fridge. and they'll live and die in our walls anyway, and our house would stink regardless. no. babies or not, this goddamn mouse has got to go.
"daaaaad," i pad my way from the kitchen to the computer room, rubbing my toes, sticky from the countertop, on the carpet. i don't really realize i'm doing this until i reach his computer room, then absently do it again. i should really wash the counter after me and the mouse rubbing our feet all over it. "daaaaaad, i caught the mouse. i put it back in the tub."
my dad looks at me, exasperated.
"take it to lighthouse field then," he says, and turns back to the computer. i open my mouth to tell him i'd rather chew glass than to watch the furious fuzzball yell at me again, but then the front door opens.
nikita, my rather cynical and deep-voiced russian man-thing, walks into the room and i'm immediately relieved. nikita is a problem-solver. a go-getter. besides being incredibly handsome, he also doesn't let his good looks get in the way of his productivity. nikita gets shit done.
and right now, a lot of things need doing.
"what happened to your kitchen?" he raises an eyebrow and stares at me, sweaty and in my pajamas and a sports bra, standing between my dad's computer room and a wrecked kitchen.
"mouse happened. help me move things back." and he does, pushing everything into its proper place as i huff and puff alongside him, until the kitchen is back in order.
after we do this, the three of us crowd into the back bathroom to watch our charge as he alternates between shrieking and nibbling the slice of nectarine.
"here, i'll get him," my father finally decides. "you'll just get bit."
i'm about to tell him that a fat load of good he'll do when he's more liable to get bitten than i am, when he heaves himself onto the edge of the tub, towel in hands, reaching and chasing the desperately frenzied mouse around the bottom of the tub with him outstretched hand. nikita and i hover nervously, watching his toes come off of the ground as he does this, when finally he catches the squirming little bundle and holds the towel closed with both hands.
"take him to lighthouse field," nikita suggests. "you can get him a good distance form the house, and it's not like mice don't live there already."
"yeah, yeah, somebody open the door." my dad's already darting for the front door, holding the towel far away from him as if the actual cloth itself will come alive and bite him. nikita rushes forward to open it, and the front gate, and we both watch as my dad hobbles like a zombie with his arms outstretched in front of him for the field down the block from our house.
"you hungry? let's go out for dinner," nikita says, and i realize that my ritual meal has long since been put behind me, and i'm famished. i head upstairs to change, grateful to get out of my pajamas, and even more grateful to hear my dad come back from his jaunt down the street to the field. i brush my hair, slap on some extra deodorant, and am just putting my socks on as i hear someone curse downstairs.
"what?" i call down the stairs, and follow my words down them quickly with a sock in my hand.
nikita is in the corner with a flashlight, poking his head into the shoe rack. my father is heartily chuckling in the other corner of the living room. "what's so funny?"
"you won't believe who just came back," my dad replies, trying to stifle his laughter and failing.
nikita points at the shoe rack he just had his head in, and starts to laugh as well.
i'm in disbelief. there is no way. my dad just came home, i've been upstairs for all of half an hour. and that little fuzzy whiff of reeking odor has already scurried its way into our living room?!
"dinner. let's go," nikita is waiting with the front door open. i cast one last look at the shoe rack, and i feel overcome with a sense of annoyance and exasperation.
but at least, i think to myself as we walk out the door to nikita's car, i can have this one dinner in peace.