Dead Rat Walking

Chapter 2-1

CHAPTER TWO

Two Years Ago

It happened at dusk.

The evening sun, a red-hot burning disk wreathed in cirrostratus clouds, sank into the horizon, casting the first night shadows across Dr. Atticus Thurston's office.

The doctor, engrossed in editing a scientific report that he’d been working on all day, raised his head and looked out his window on the 35th floor of the Alsatius Building. He'd lost track of time. The other researchers had gone home and their workstations were stacked with tidy messes of papers. Had they even said goodbye to him? Probably. The waning sunlight in the cavernous skyscraper valleys of downtown was always enough to remind him that it was time to go.

He'd marked all over the article with a pencil that he had worn to a nub but was using anyway because time was too precious to walk across his office to the pencil sharpener that his secretary had bolted to the wall for his convenience. Every minute counted when you faced a looming deadline.

He distinctly remembered that there was something he should have been doing right now. He gazed out the window, trying to jog his memory, but he could only think about rat vibrissae, or whiskers. An albino rat inside a cage, moving them back-and-forth, standing up on its hind legs and sniffing, its whiskers having a bad hair day.

Then his thoughts jammed. He rubbed his temples. His hands were covered in streaks of graphite and eraser scraps. He wiped them on his khaki pants and tried to think, when he became aware of a soft rhythm.

The Newton’s Cradle on his desk. The metal balls clicked against each other—separated, clicked, separated. His wife bought him this pendulum for his birthday. When he first unwrapped it, he pushed it aside in disgust, saying it was too clinical. This was the kind of thing you'd find in a psychiatrist’s office, not a biologist’s. But it added a manmade touch of coldness to a desk that was quite literally covered with rats—taxidermied albino rats pinned to aluminum rods, arms and legs stretched out like Superman’s, with asymmetric, cotton-balled eyes that looked like pus. Their whiskers fanned in all directions. Brushing the back of his hand against the dead rats' vibrissae reminded him of poking oneself with a blade of grass.

And then he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.

Sighing, he picked up the green phone on his desk and cradled the receiver between his head and shoulder as he dialed.

“It's me,” he said in a soft voice. “I'm on the way.”

“I was wondering if the rats had eaten you,” his wife Eva said, cold at first. But then she brightened. “Please tell me you’re almost done with this busy season.”

“As soon as the university pays me, you’ll see so much of me, you’ll wish I was back in the office,” he said.

“We’ll see if getting enough of you is possible,” she said.

“I like where this is going,” he said, laughing and leaning back. “Tell me more.”

On the other end of the phone, a baby cried in the background, and then Atticus felt guilty, thinking of his daughter, probably sitting in a highchair for dinner, food all over her face, strands of blonde hair over her eyes.

Eva deserved a nomination for sainthood. Wouldn’t it have been nice to clock in at seven and be home by five again? Have weekends like a regular person, with Chinese takeout, foot massages on the couch, and maybe even a Cubs game? Why did his daughter crying remind him of normality?

He was married to an amazing woman with infinite patience. At some point, they’d talked about Eva going back to school for culinary arts. She’d missed her calling in life. When that time came, he’d be spending a lot less time doing overtime. No more deals with the city. Just time at home, chasing kids around, dreaming about his other kiddos here in the lab…

“Atticus?”

“I’m here,” he said quickly, shoving some papers into a leather bag. “I’ll be walking out the door in five. I know you’ve got to be starving. What can I pick up on the way home?”

“I wouldn’t stop,” Eva said.

“But it’s Friday. I’ll grab dinner at Mariano’s at least. Something from the salad bar.”

“But haven’t you seen the protesters?”

“Protesters?”

“You know, the only people more disgusted by your life's work than me,” she said. Atticus detected a smirk. “It's on the news. Animal people, apparently.”

“Here we go again.”

“Be careful, Atty. I know they mean well and all, but—”

“It’s fine, babe,” he said, grinning. “If things go south, I can always run to the sewers. The rats know me.”

“Why does part of me think you’re actually serious?”

“I’m one hundred percent joking. I’ve got a heavy leather bag and an umbrella I can use if I need a weapon. I’ll go old lady on anyone who tries to start trouble.”

He told her he loved her and hung up. Then irritation set in as he grabbed his pea coat and Chicago Cubs baseball cap off a coat rack near the office door.

The animal people again. It was always the goddamned animal people.