Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives. Lauren B. Davis
as expected, but on the other end, not a foot away, was the rat. Calm as a cream-fed cat himself, eyes directly on me. Oscar didn’t even notice. I opened the window to let Oscar in, wondering if the rat planned on jumping in as well, but he stayed put. Oscar scattered in, upsetting a glass left to dry on the drain board. I dove to grab it before it fell to the floor. When I turned back, the rat was gone. I shook my head and looked at Oscar.
“Well, some fine hunter you are, you big hairball.” Oscar looked at me with the same complete lack of interest he always has, unless there’s fish guts involved.
That night, John threw his plate of food over my head where it shattered into a hundred pieces. Said the chops were burned, which was nonsense. He shoved me up against the counter and smeared a dishrag in my face. Told me to clean it up and fix him something decent to eat. By the time I cleaned it up and cooked him some new chops, crying all the while, he’d passed out in the Barca-lounger in front of the TV with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his fist. I put a blanket over him and left him there.
That night I dreamed a swarm of rats were churning under our bed, their tails all tied together in knots.
In the morning I had a big purple bruise on my hip from where I connected with the counter. I had five small, separate storm cloud-coloured bruises on my upper arm. As I fixed John coffee and eggs and didn’t talk to him at all, he came up behind me and, seeing the marks, kissed every one of them and said he was sorry. His damp lips felt so good on my parched skin.
“I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry,” he kept muttering. I could have sworn he shed a tear.
John is a good-looking man. The first time I saw him, coming to buy smoked fish off my Uncle Joe, and me only eighteen at the time, I was a goner. This big old cowboy in the skin-tight jeans was the one for me. Looked just like Clint Eastwood. Auntie Betty said I was crazy to go off and marry some white man. We didn’t know his family stories, didn’t know what kind of past he was hauling around with him. But I didn’t care. My eyes were firmly focused on his round little white man’s butt in those Levi’s.
“I don’t know why you put up with me sometimes,” he said and cradled my face in his big callused hands. He said he was sorry again and took me in his arms right there in the kitchen. I forgave him. You bet I did.
Two days later I was sitting in the kitchen having coffee with my friend Joelle when I look up over her shoulder to the top of the refrigerator and what do I see but my rat pal looking out at me from in between the fat chef cookie jar and the empty plastic ice cube trays.
“I’ll be damned. Joelle, turn around slow and look up on the top of the ‘fridge.”
“What?” she said.
“Up there, look! Look at that damn rat!”
“Rat!” she shrieked. “What rat?”
“There, right there - look at it!”
“What are you talking about? I don’t see no rat.”
“You don’t see him. Right there. That rat?” The rat sat up on his haunches, spit into his paws and gave himself a good old cleaning.
“Where are you looking?”
“There, Goddamn it! Washing his ears!” I pointed frantically.
“I don’t know what you’re smoking, but there is no rat on the refrigerator. You’re giving me the creeps.”
Now there were two of them. Something caught my eye. I looked over by the sink and there was another one.
“You don’t see anything at all strange in this kitchen?” I asked.
“The only strange thing in this kitchen is you.”
When Joelle left, I called over to the rez. I called my Auntie Betty.
“I got rat problems.” I said.
“You got rats,” Auntie Betty said, practical as always, “You got to go out to the field they live in and explain to them you ain’t got no extras to go round but you’ll try and leave them out some of what you can spare if they agree to respect your stores.”
“Ain’t that kind of rat,” I said.
“Well, what kind are they?”
“The kind only I can see. And I been dreaming about them, too.”
“Oh. That kind of rat.” She paused. “I’ll call you back.”
I knew she was going to go pray some and ask her spirits what was going on over at my place. I’m not as good at this direct stuff as she is. I drank two more cups of tea waiting for the phone to ring.
“You got problems in your house, eh?” she said. “You got marriage problems.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He’s got some bad stuff around him. Very dark stuff.”
I didn’t say anything. I remembered the look on his face when he threw the plate.
“He’s got anger twisted up in him, that one. You got to be careful. You know what I mean?”
“What should I do?”
“What you asking me that for? You gonna listen to me? You gonna come back home? You gonna leave that white man?”
I didn’t answer.
“Uh-huh,” Auntie Betty said. “I thought so. OK, now you listen to me. Animals don’t take the time out of their busy day unless they got serious business. You hear me?”
“I hear.”
“You got to listen to them. You got a bad sickness coming into your house. You need to clear things out. I don’t know if it’s too far-gone, but you got to smudge out your house good. You got sweetgrass? You got sage?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, use ‘em. Smoke that house up good, smoke your bed up good. Put a red blanket on the bed.”
“OK.”
“Then you go get these plants and boil ‘em up. Drink the tea.” She named some herbs and plants.
“One thing Nell. One thing I got to ask. Is he hitting you?”
“Naw. Not really.”
“What the hell is ‘not really!’ Either he is, or he ain’t! You better get ready. His anger’s gonna bust out all over you. I’ll do what I can, but I don’t know. You should come home for a while.”
“I can’t. I love him, Auntie.”
“Love! Phooey! Should go back to the old ways! Let your aunties pick you out a good red man. Stay where we can keep an eye on you! You young people! All the same!” She went on for a while, but I didn’t listen much. I knew this part by heart. And besides, I was too busy watching the rats run back and forth from the bedroom to the bathroom.
“Nell? You listening?”
“Yes, Auntie.”
“OK, one last thing. Fat as you are these days, you ain’t gonna be able to dodge him if he comes at you. You offer tobacco to these rats and ask them for a tuft of their hair. You braid it into your hair. That’ll make you nimble like they are. Give you a chance if you need it.”
“I never heard that one before.”
“Yeah, well, it ain’t strictly ours, eh? That one’s from Africa. I learned it from that black nurse works with me midwifing. We trade stuff sometimes. Don’t matter. All the same medicine. You just use it, you hear? Spirit rats or flesh and blood, they’ll give you what you need. They’re here to help.”
“Yes Auntie.”
I promised to call her tomorrow and made her promise not to tell my mother, not to tell my brothers, for what good it would do. I know how gossip passed around out on the rez.