My eldest brother and I were out for dinner this week when a rat hopped right up on the bar where we happened to be sitting, just a few feet away. It took a little look at us, then hurried off back under the bar and out of sight.
The place was nearly empty, so no one else noticed. I let the bartender know and he told the manager, who made his way over in the kind of hurried walk a kid does when they’ve been told not to run.
After my brother pointed out where the rat had gotten to, the manager pulled back a promotional board leaned against the wall, then immediately jumped away. “Scared the shit out of me!” he said, as the four of us watched the intruder scurry up a corner wall and into the rafters. Probably laughing, telling his pals he made this guy jump.
Our beers were comped for the trouble, which was something. Our silence shouted.
That same night I returned home and plopped down onto the couch to watch a little TV before bed, only to hear something scratching around right above me. I sat up. Rats were on the mind obviously, and besides, I’m always paranoid that a family of them will take up in the walls or ceiling of our house and settle down. Untold numbers, spreading poop and disease inches from us, the eventual stench being apparent to our guests at first, months before we realize.
Rats are everywhere in a big city, sighted or not. I went to my local donut shop recently and found it closed by the health department. The official notice on the door quoted a breach of the health code, with a long identifying number. I googled it. It read, simply: The premises of each food facility shall be kept free of vermin.
Eight years after being captured, amateur video footage of a rat dragging a slice of pizza through the New York subway is still a popular online meme. Now the little bastards want LA’s donuts, too. And my beer.
But the commotion on our roof that night sounded larger than a rat and too clumsy for one of the neighborhood cats, which frequently make themselves at home anywhere outside our place. One’s even taken to shitting on the eave outside our daughter’s bedroom window.
I went out into the full-moon light to investigate the noise. As I did, the scurrying moved from the house to the trees by the carport. Nothing jumped at me, thankfully. To be safe I turned on my cell phone flashlight. At that moment, from right above me, the unmistakable, masked eyes of a raccoon peered down cooly. As if to say, Yeah?! Then disappeared as it walked away.
It’s that time of year. The weather warms up and all the sneaky animals of the city - the rats, the raccoons, the skunks, and so on - seem to think; Screw this! Who needs shelter? Let’s go see what the two-legged weirdos are up to now.
It can be a little frightening to be confronted by so many creatures in an urban landscape, carefully designed to exclude them.
In Los Angeles it’s common to be absent-mindedly driving down the road when without warning, BAM, the stench of skunk engulfs your car. I go into a panic when it does, not sure whether to open the windows to air it out, or keep them closed so more stink won’t come in. By the time I start breathing again and open the window, the smell’s normally gone. Maybe it’s my southern hemisphere upbringing, but I’ve never gotten used to skunk.
Horror stories of dogs, and even houses, doused in the acrid musk of skunk spray (and the near-impossibilty of fully cleansing it), haven’t helped. If a skunk approached me on the street and said, “Give me your wallet!”, I’d hand it over in a heartbeat.
As the world warms and we careen toward a very possible kind of eternal summer, things may only get worse. We’ve really screwed things up for the animals. The news is suddenly filled with stories of orcas fighting back. Even an otter that steals surfboards.
Animals are everywhere in the heat, flushed out, strutting around like men with barreled bodies visiting beach towns and deciding they no longer need shirts. It’s a healthy reminder that when it comes down to it, for all our alleged braininess, humans are outnumbered on earth. Easily.
Alfred Hitchcock understood. It’s what makes his film The Birds so damned effective. I love that movie. I’ve even driven round Bodega Bay, taking in the key locations. The idea of animals turning on us one day, with murderous intent, haunts me more than ever.
Every now and then I round the corner on our street to be confronted by so many stout, wax-black crows, perched on the telephone wires and hopping along the ground, I have to tell myself; Play it cool, Toby. Mind your own business and we’ll get through this.
So far, so good. But it’s wise not to turn your back. The world is warming and nature is laughing at us already. Certainly the rats are, cheeky bastards. I’m sure of it.