I’ve worked in pest control for over 15 years. It’s a thankless job.
I got a call late in the day to go to an old movie theater in Red Hook. The manager said there was a rat infestation. It was after seven, and I had just finished laying some bug bombs up in Greenpoint, but it sounded like it was an emergency so I’d get paid overtime. The only thing keeping me going was knowing that when I clocked out I was gonna see Ethan, my 8 year old. I only had him one weekend a month. He’s been getting into Sea Lions lately. I told him I’d take him to the aquarium. My ex and I aren’t on good speaking terms.
I get to the place; 287 Van Brunt street. The Little Paris Theater. I see the manager, a nebbishy little bald man with glasses named Mr. Horvitz. He was wearing a checkered vest under a tweed jacket, with a little red handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket. His pants matched his vest. He clearly put some thought into what he was wearing. He greets me by both hands and ushers me into the lobby.
“Thank you so much! We’ve been having these issues for weeks, but today it’s finally come to a head.” he said. His palms were sweaty as they clasped my hands, still shaking them. “He’s made some demands.”
“Who’s made demands?” I ask.
“The rat king.” he replies. “He requested a worthy challenger, and you were ranked 5 stars on yelp.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well that’s why you’re here isn’t it? You ARE the exterminator, correct?” Come in, I think you should assess the situation yourself.”
Nothing he was saying made sense to me at the time, but he led me into one of the two screening rooms. At the front of the theater was what looked like a large throne, made of bones. A human skull was perched at the head of the throne. It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at, but then how often do you come across a bone throne? If you know, you know.
Mr. Horvitz raises his hands and yells “I have found another challenger for the king.”
Suddenly, the room started to shake. I hear the sound of thousands of tiny feet stampeding under the aisles. Rats start squeezing out of every corner of the small theater. They were all different sizes, but even the small ones were the size of my son. Some of them had small weapons fashioned out of wood; bats, axes, spikes, maces… some were even wearing wooden body armor. The house lights dim, and a spotlight shines on the screen.
Mr. Horvitz leans over and goes “They’ve learned how to work the switch board.”
One rat unicycles into the center of the screen. He’s wearing a jester’s cap. His eyes are crossed. He pulls out a scroll and tries to read it, but gets a confused expression on his face. He turns it around and realizes it was previously upside down. He clears his throat.
“Oy yay, oy yay! Presenting his majesty, destroyer of humans, devourer of flesh, the honorable rat king!” He cackles maniacally as he unicycles off.
Next came what sounded like thunder striking. The rat king emerges from the ceiling like a drop of sewer water and lands on his stomach, making a giant thud that makes the room shake. He looked like he was the size of the screen. He had large red eyes, and coal black fur with streaks of silver running along his back. A crown of bones was perched on his head. As he stood, he propped himself up with what looked like a ceptor made of an old broom handle, with a pelvic bone fastened to the top of it. He sat on his throne. Some of his subjects pass him a bowl of garbage, which he picks through and shoves in his mouth.
“Who brings tribute for my amusement?” said the Rat King.
“It be I!” said Horvitz. “I have brought the finest 5 star exterminator I could find on yelp. He has claimed to have killed many rats!”
“Easy on the endorsement, pal!” I snap back.
The rats cackled at the claim. The rat king scoffed. “Hahaha, this puny human DARES to challenge me in a fight to the death? I demanded your strongest of the so-called ‘exterminators.’ I’ll eat his bones.”
I chimed in. “Hey I didn’t say I wanted to fight to the death. The job doesn’t usually get that tough.”
A rat subject scurries into the room carrying a brass spittoon. The rat king hocked a loogie so hard you could hear the clink. “You humans have used poison to kill us, lay traps to cut off our tails. You laid down the glue traps that killed my father. He was found lying outside dead right outside our home. He tried to pull himself free and ripped his jaw off. He left behind hundreds of children fatherless. I vowed to get my revenge.”
I knew there was no going back now. The sooner I got this over with, the sooner I got to see the sea lions with Ethan. “I’ll challenge you to the death.” I said.
The rat king chuckled. “Choose your weapon.”
A small rat subject brings out a rolling suitcase. He clicks it open revealing some more weapons carved out of wood. I chose an ax. The rat king chose a mace. More of his rat subjects started to prop a makeshift fighting ring. They strung along the velvet ropes from the lobby across four wooden planks. The first three rows of chairs had already been torn apart to make room for the ring. The rats started filling the seats. Even the balcony was filled to capacity. Every rat was sitting, eating popcorn, candy and garbage. Mr. Horvitz leaned close to me to whisper. “They got very organized very quickly. They ate our projectionist on the first day.” The projector started running, and on the screen was the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic, Bloodsport.
“They love this one.” said Horvitz. “The king throws it on every day.” Horvitz takes out the red handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the sweat dripping from his forehead. “We just got a 35mm print of it that we were going to screen for our ‘Boys Night Out’ series this summer. I don’t know if we’re even going to be in business anymore.” He starts to nervously laugh. “If you don’t survive, I’m writing a stern review on yelp.”
The rat king and I both receive trash can lids to use as shields. The rat jester unicycles back out into the center of the ring. Now he was visibly drunk. He was holding a jug marked “XXX” and was swerving around. “Oy yay, oy yay!” he hiccuped. “Presenting the main event! A fight to the death! In this corner, our beloved king! In that corner, a pathetic human meat sack!”
The jester raises his hands. “Ready??” The king and both lock eyes with each other. I thought “They better pay me overtime for this.” The jester threw his hands down. “Fight!” he hiccuped, and unicycle away.
I had hand to hand combat training when I served in Iraq, but I’d never fought a rat king with wooden weapons while Bloodsport played on the big screen. The two of us squared off.
The rat king lunged forward and swung his mace down towards my head, but I tucked rolled off to the side and hit the ropes. The rats started booing from the balcony. I figured the only chance I’d get was to hit hard at any opening I could get. “Stop running away and fight me!” the king barked. Suddenly I felt my feet were constricted. The king’s long, pink tail was binding my feet together so I couldn’t move. He swung his mace down. I had blocked the mace with my shield, but the two were now stuck together. The king threw aside both weapons, and I was now defenseless. I swung my ax down as hard as I could and cut off his tail to break his tight grip loose. He let out an ear splitting shriek that set the entire theater to go quiet.
“My tail! My precious tail!”
I rolled to the side to grab my shield back. Enraged, the king lunged at me and started thrashing around. “I’ll floss my teeth with your entrails!” he screamed.
His claws scratched the left side of my face. I fell to my knees and grabbed my face in agony. I couldn’t see out of my left eye, but my right eye could see my hand was now covered in blood. The pain was excruciating. The king delivered a swift kick to my ribs and I flew out of the ring. The sidelined rat subjects crowd surfed me back to the ring chanting “The only end is death! The only end is death!” I struggled to get back on my feet. My breathing was more shallow. I kept seeing my son’s face. I kept hearing him tell me facts about sea lions.
The king grabbed his mace and swung down. I dodged, but he still grazed my other arm. I tried to grab my shield but the rats were hiding it. The jester rat was riding his unicycle holding up a sign with “round 2” written on it. The rat king threw away his shield, plucked the jester off his unicycle and bit his head off. Blood poured from his mouth as he was yelling “Shut up! Your stupid antics are breaking my concentration!” I knew this was my opening. I swung my ax and sliced him in the stomach. He let out another shriek. He threw away his mace and grabbed me, trying to squeeze the life out of me. The pain of the cut was too great and he threw me to the side. I picked up his mace, and got close enough to him where I started to swing at him. He kept dodging, but I kept swinging. Each swing came with another sea lion fact. All I could hear was my son’s voice. The enraged rat king lifted his arms in the air, and I saw another opening. I swung at his stomach again.
The rat king fell to his knees. I pulled his own mace out of his stomach, ran behind him and struck him in the head. His crown tumbles off. He went down. The king was dead. Blood spilled all over the floor. The theater filled with squeaks. Mr. Horvitz stood up and started clapping furiously. The rats started chanting again. “The only end is death! The only end is death!”
I stood in the ring looking over the crowd of chanting rants, blood still dripping from my face. I turned around to watch the screen. Van Damme’s was delivering a spinning kick, his face roaring with anger. A rat passes me the blood stained bone crown. I placed it on my head.
I earned my pay.