Rat Pack
“You gotta love livin’, baby.” –Frank Sinatra
“A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit.” – Sarah Jessica Parker
“I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being–one of many ways–and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.”? Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
***
My friend Syl and I were in the parking lot of Jiggers Pub when a rat ran out from beneath a dumpster.
Syl jumped then made this gagging noise. She slapped the dashboard.
“Jesus Christ,” she said, and tightened her seatbelt like that would keep her safe from the tiny rodent outside.
“Aw look, it’s cute,” I said, and Syl looked at me like I already had the Plague or Hantavirus or Rat Bite Fever, which is different from Cat Scratch Fever, made famous byTed Nugent, though I wish both on Ted Nugent for his love of killing and his creepy politics.
Fuck you, Ted Nugent.
Why are you still here when Dolly Parton is not?
Everything in this world feels unfair.
Everything in this world right now feels wrong.
Ted Nugent living and Dolly not.
That, most of all.
***
“I really have the American Dream licked.” – Ted Nugent
“You don’t even have to believe in anything to be good to people. You should just know you should be a good human being.” – Dolly Parton
***
I want to be a good human being.
I want to be good.
But being a human being and being good sometimes feels impossible.
We humans are not a good species.
Sorry and so.
***
Rats get blamed for a lot of misery in the world, which is, of course, a thing, but it seems sad, one species maligned and blamed for so much death.
The most deadly creature and greatest danger to humans, by the way, aside from humans, is the mosquito.
Here’s the ranking:
Mosquitoes, then humans, then snakes, dogs (our best friends–seriously?), freshwater snails (don’t let that slow glide fool you), something called assassin bugs, tsetse flies, scorpions, tapeworms, crocodiles, elephants, hippopotamuses, lions, then deer (probably because of ticks, which should have their own category).
Rats don’t even make the top ten.
***
Rats, though, are well-positioned to survive a human-initiated apocalypse, which is coming soon, says the news, says everyone.
See AI.
See that human-rat Elon Musk and his love of Mars.
See all the billionaires building bunkers, where they will hole up underground, counting their billions, like some creepy Rumplestiltskins waiting for some servant to spin straw into more and more gold into eternity.
Those bunkers probably have jacuzzis. Those bunkers probably have silk sheets and fresh spring water imported from an endangered spring somewhere in Fiji. Those bunkers probably have stashes of caviar and champagne and all the beautiful delicious things that the earth those billionaires laid waste to once offered.
The billionaires have probably hired masseuses to accompany them into eternity. What would eternity be without pedicures? Without Botox? Without Swedish deep tissue massage?
One billionaire I know, who gained her billions by investing in Disney and football, those old-time religions, just spent $250,000 on a facelift that she can show off in her apocalypse bunker.
You will look lovely underground, darling, especially with all that ambient light.
Fresh sushi, though, will be a problem.
Fish Wife canned sardines will only go so far.
***
Rats find their ways into the most unlikely places. And the likely ones.
The likelihood of rats invading billionaire apocalypse bunkers?
The likelihood of rats hitching a ride to Mars?
The likelihood of rats rooting around in Elon Musk’s underwear drawer?
I’m sorry, dear rats, for what you’ll endure there.
The likelihood of billionaires, once they run out of caviar, turning to rats as a prime source of protein?
The likelihood of rats turning to billionaires as their prime source of protein?
I know which team I’m rooting for.
I’m sorry billionaires taste so bad.
***
Back at Jiggers Pub, I tried to tell my friend that rats aren’t the real villains here. I tried to tell her rats are smart, trainable–unlike billionaires and politicians and so on.
I brought up Flowers for Algernon, that lovely book about intelligence in all species and the importance of empathy and so on.
“Never read it,” Syl said, “but okay.”
She tightened her seatbelt more.
She tightened her seatbelt more.
***
Imagine the seatbelts on a flight to Mars. Imagine feeling secure in the knowledge that you’ll survive, outlast, endure.
Imagine the turbulence.
Please, let there be that most of all.
***
I’m sorry to out you, Jiggers Pub. But yes, more rats followed. A pack of rats, a rat pack streamed from beneath that dumpster across from my beloved Jiggers Pub, where the waitresses and bartenders always seem like friends and the pours are generous and the hot dogs are the best ever.
The rats, pink nosed, mink-coated, fleet-footed, raced to a nearby sewer pipe, like it was put there exclusively for rat use, like the pipe meant party time, a kind of instant Habit Trail, those things designed for hamsters, that more acceptable rodent.
It’s funny the way humans sort things by cuteness, wildness, or tameness.
A rat can be cute, but it’s wild, unpredictable. A hamster is cute and seems tame, but will bite a finger off, given the chance.
Guinea pigs, though. They’re cool. Little potatoes on legs, all that snuffing around, content in their cages.
Fluffy. Dim-witted looking. Acceptable and not a threat.
All of them, though, fit for experimenting. All of them, disposable.
Disposable.
That.
***
My friend Syl and I do catering gigs for rich people as a side job. Sometimes the rich people call us by name. Sometimes they call us the help. Most times, they just motion with a wave of their soft hands–a refill of a wine glass, something that needs to be taken from their sights, something that offends, something that needs to vanish.
One time we worked for a rich Indian family who lived in a pink mansion that looked like a birthday cake. The wife wouldn’t let us wear shoes. The husband wouldn’t look at us at all.
The wife raised her hand to slap me when I spilled some water on a tablecloth. Then she remembered, maybe, that slapping wasn’t an option here in the United States, at least for that moment.
Or maybe she sized me up and realized I’d slap back.
Mostly, as long as we worker-humans are good at our jobs and the rich people are happy, the rich people who hire us see us as pets, I think.
They consider us mostly trainable.
They consider us, because of our need and lack of billions, most likely to lick a hand and not bite.
Sit. Stay. Serve.
Good rodent. Good.
***
The woman who almost slapped me?
Her check bounced.
She wrote another one.
That one bounced, too.
Eventually she wrote a check that did not bounce.
She didn’t leave a tip.
***
Years back, fast-food engineers built massive human Habit Trails for kids at McDonalds, where one time my son got up into the highest tube and wouldn’t come down.
A story or two below, I waved my arms. I cajoled. I promised things.
An extra Happy Meal. A visit to Toys R Us.
My son was immoveable.
“No way,” he yelled from his perch, where, apparently, he planned to spend the rest of his years overseeing the patrons of this Monroeville McDonalds, kind of like Zeus, but without the thunderbolts.
My husband, 300-plus pounds, a former football player, had to go up and coax our strong-willed son down and almost got stuck himself.
From below, I cheered my best cheerleader cheer while double-salting my fries, which were gorgeously hot and which I ate like popcorn as I watched the drama unfold.
I’d been a majorette back in high school and not a cheerleader and so my cheer was limited to something like, “Go Bananas B-A-N-A-N-A-S,” which was not very effective.
I was also in love with those fries, which I learned later were genetically engineered to be more enticing than heroin, which meant worrying over my son’s and husband’s safety became this blurry thing, given the perfume additive-ness of McDonald’s hypnotic fries.
We are such a cheap date, all of us worker-people, really.
***
When the billionaires move to Mars, they’ll be crafting food that seems like food but isn’t.
Of course there are plans–Habitrail-like systems to grow plants, vegetables. Habitrail-like systems for humans, maybe the worst humans ever, to co-exist in a space not meant for sharing.
But seriously, billionaires. Have you never seen a movie about how all this ends?
I can’t imagine billionaires sharing.
First, there’s that.
Dear billionaires: what do you think money can buy when aliens decide to use you as manure (see “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”)?
What do you think might happen when the potatoes you’re counting on fail? (See “The Martian,” see the Irish Potato Famine.)
Don’t get me started on all the movies that warned about what happens to humanity when the robots rule. (Dear Arnold Swartzenegger, you promised you’d be back. First as a threat. Then as hope. Which is it?)
Sweet everything.
Do you think there will be tasty McDonald’s fries on Mars?
And, if so, who is bringing the ketchup?
Who will consider sharing ranch dressing?
***
The rats back at Jiggers Pub?
They rallied under the dumpster. I wished them well, because why not?
Lately I don’t want to hurt any living thing. I take flies out of my house cupped in my hands and set them free. I am not even afraid of spiders anymore. I want us all to live, to go on living, despite how things look right now, despite every sign pointing to the end of things.
As for the billionaires, I keep hearing James Cagney, that old-time movie star, saying, “You dirty rats.” Though he never actually said that.
What he said in the movie “Taxi” was this: “Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door.”
By all accounts, James Cagney was a sweetheart. He stayed married to his wife for 64 years until his death. He was gentle and a good friend. He didn’t, however, bear injustice. He was known as the great “againster,” for standing up for what was right and for his refusal to be pushed around by rich studio executives.
I wonder what he’d think now about all the madness of the world, where there is so much to stand against.
***
“You dirty double-crossing rats.” – forever James Cagney.
Lori Jakiela is the author of nine books, most recently The Things You Can’t Remember Become the Things You Can’t Forget (Roadside 2026). Her work has been widely published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Brevity, Pittsburgh Magazine, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Chicago Tribune and more. Her awards include The Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University, The City of Asylum-Pittsburgh Prize, The Wicked Woman Prize from Brickhouse Books, and more. She lives in Trafford, Pennsylvania, and teaches writing at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Her author website is http://lorijakiela.net.
