RATS

It all began with the rat wars. Early last fall I had a call from my neighbor up the road inviting me to come over to her house to meet with her and another neighbor about a situation with rats at the house of my friend Laura who lived across the street from them. Now, I don't know much about rats -- I think I've seen one or two in my life, but they didn't sound like something I'd want running around my yard. I'd heard about rats in New York City when I used to teach there -- rats bigger than cats. The purpose of the meeting was to talk gently with Laura about "her" rat problem and offer help. Believing that to be the case, I went. Please keep in mind that there had recently been quite a bit of renovation in the neighborhood. Rats had been displaced.

We met in the leader's living room. I'll have to give her a name -- Goneral might suit (think one of King Lear's evil daughters). I didn't know her very well, having only spoken with her twice before; once when she almost set fire to the woods behind her house, and the other time when she kindly came to tell me there was a young moose ambling through my driveway. I had no reason to doubt her intentions. I listened to her story about how she and her husband had seen rats over on Laura's property, and how they feared the rats would make their way over to their house. (The question is, where did the rats originate?)

I have to tell you a little bit about Laura. She moved into the neighborhood shortly before I did. She had bought a little bungalow that had seen better days. The previous owner had rented it to a string of drug addicts and other riff raff who had trashed the place big time. There was dog shit everywhere.

Some years ago, Laura had gone through a rather seamy divorce that was well-publicized as she and her husband were well-known in the general area. She ended up destitute. Of a good family and well-educated in private schools, she found herself living hand to mouth on disability. She had owned a well-run kennel, raising prize-winning Irish terriers. She has retained her beneficent outlook on the natural world with an innocence of mind that is dangerous to the self in these times. She is an advocate of peace and environmental responsibility which she pursues with a naive faith. Unfortunately, she is not well-organized in her thinking, whether as a result of the divorce and foreclosure trauma or due to an inborn proclivity.

She has broken the law. She once stole a sandwich giving the reason that she was hungry, ignoring alternatives she might have chosen, saying she's too proud. She also tends to drive unregistered cars. It used to be the Maine way from times she remembers, but it's dangerous to cling to it now. She views the world around her with kindness, wondering why it has used her so ill.

She lives in her little house, wanting peace with her neighbors, generous with her time and her meager possessions, and making a home for the few dogs she has left and around whom her life centers. She chose to live independently in order to provide a home for the dogs although she has disabilities that make this difficult. She does what she can to get along. You or I might not always agree with her methods, but she manages to stay mostly within the law and does nothing seriously illegal. Nothing that would hurt anyone. Limping along with bad knees and bad feet, occasionally gasping with the asthma that plagues her, she struggles on.

When I moved into the neighborhood, she befriended first my daughter Sarah who was here ahead of me, and then me. She was one of the two people who stopped by to say hello -- welcome to the neighborhood. When I was renovating my house, I gave her various appliances that I was getting rid of to help her out with her own efforts to improve her house. I occasionally invited her to dinner. I like to cook for people, and we had many interesting conversations. We would often watch a movie -- by sharing my passion for movies, I found it rekindled an interest from her early years. I was amazed to find how knowledgeable she was about the movie world -- much more so than I was. She was far from ignorant. We often disagreed but the discussions were lively, not hostile. I must also confess that I sometimes dictated advice on her life from my safe vantage point.

Getting back to the day of the rats -- Goneral, the other lady, and I agreed to go together to present our offer of help in cleaning up Laura's yard and shed, and her woodpile which was a haven for rats. We knocked on her back door several times before she came out. She looked at the other two, then at me, suspicion and dismay clouding her face. Goneral was the spokesperson. She explained our mission in what I now perceive as a condescending tone. Laura was visibly upset, rejecting the help, assuring us that she was handling the situation through natural means, and politely expressing appreciation for our concern. She looked at me as at a Judas. I felt like a Judas. Goneral persisted in her offering, giving more rationalizations and becoming more adament that Laura should accept. I jumped in trying to soften things from the direction they were headed. At this point, Laura began crying and stumbled back into her house.

The three of us -- Goneral, Madame X and Judas -- looked at each other. We retreated to Goneral's driveway to discuss the follow-up. Goneral had given Laura a week to clean up the yard at which point she said we would return to check her progress. We decided to wait the week and see what happened. I was already feeling very uncomfortable after Laura's reaction.

The next morning I received a phone call from Goneral. She was upset due to the fact that while cleaning out trash from under her front porch, she found rat holes and evidence of rats. She was calling to inform me that she had called the Town Office to organize a meeting that evening of residents of our road to deal with "Laura's rat problem" and wanted me to attend. I said I would but asked if she had notified Laura of the meeting. She had not, stating that she was afraid to tell her. It was starting to smell like witch hunt. Shades of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." I informed Goneral that I would call Laura and tell her as she had a right to know and to be present. Goneral hastily ended the conversation.

When I called Laura, she was tearful and hurt. She said Goneral had called her and caustically thanked her for sending her her rats! I told Laura about the meeting that night and she was even more upset. I calmed her and told her I would go with her. She had another friend who would also accompany us so she would be flanked against hostility. Laura went on to tell me what she was doing about the rats. It seems there was an owl -- notorious enemy of rats -- hanging out around her woodpile. This would be a natural solution as opposed to poison and vicious traps proposed by Goneral.

I spent some time on the internet researching rat control, and made copies of a lot of materials that I dropped off to Goneral and the other neighbor. Owls were prominently mentioned as a viable method of rat control.

That evening, Laura and Marian -- her other friend -- met at my house and we proceeded to the Town Offices. The other neighbors were gathering and Goneral was there with her husband. The meeting was being run by a Selectwoman and the attendees took their seats quietly.

Goneral presented her case. Several other neighbors spoke up, asking questions pertaining to what to do if they saw rats on their property. No one was unduly concerned or upset, and no one was blaming Laura -- except Goneral. When it was Laura's turn to speak, Marian and I edged in closer to support her. I had a pad ready to write notes to shove under her nose -- which I did a few times, culminating in STOP! On the whole, Laura presented herself very well, relating her own efforts so far and her intentions. She expressed appreciation for Goneral's concern but stated she did not see that it was necessary to have called this meeting. When she started to get defensive, I wrote STOP.

At the conclusion of the meeting the neighbors were quietly filing out, Goneral rushed to the Selectwoman's side and engaged her in urgent conversation, and Goneral's husband came up to Laura. He took her hand in both of his and apologized. He promised to bring back some expensive tools he had borrowed. Still flanking Laura, the three of us left and returned to my house for the post mortem.

It was clear that the other neighbors had no interest in a witch hunt but that Goneral was intent on it. However, the Town subsequently offered some help to Laura in filling the existing rat holes, and any advice she might feel she needed.

That should have been the end of it. Someone from the Town did bring something to fill the rat holes, and also discovered some problems that Laura was having with heating her house. The Town assisted in obtaining a better heating system for her. Things should have improved.

But Goneral and her husband sat in their house, staring across the street at what they seemed to perceive as the root of all their problems, and hatched their next plot. For some reason, they decided that this peaceable creature, who wanted only to live in harmony with her neighbors, was a danger to them. It seems they woke up one morning and decided, "Let's get a PFA!" That is a legal protection from abuse. They somehow managed to convince a judge that Laura was a dangerous threat to their lives and safety.

Laura was upset at this action, as well she might be. She called me, tearful. I told her to ignore Goneral and her husband, and not fall into any traps they might lay. I told her to think of them as the worms they were. She promised to try that approach. It worked for awhile, but they would watch her from their porch or from behind their curtains while she worked in her yard. She took to talking loudly to herself for them to overhear. She tried to think of them as worms.

The winter came and wore on. It was a hard winter -- enough to try anyone's patience and resolve. Goneral wore on Laura's nerves. I was safely insulated in my house and didn't see what went on. I only heard from Laura from time to time when she came for a dinner and a movie.

I was often annoyed with Laura for her inability to approach her problems in a more effective way, and was in one of these phases when I returned home from my nursing job at midnight one night and saw car lights up the road in front of her house. Maybe I should have driven up there to look for myself, but I turned in to my driveway and went on about my business. It had been a busy shift and I was tired.

I heard nothing from Laura for several days, then a man came to buy some garden equipment I was selling. Laura had placed the ad for me and I mentioned her. The man then told me that he knew her -- had known her for 20 years. He said she "didn't get it then and apparently doesn't get it now." He had seen the notice of her arrest in the local newspaper!

The next day I called Richard, our other neighbor who sometimes helped Laura out with the dogs, and asked if he had heard anything. He told me about the arrest and that most of the charges were false. One was that her car was on Goneral's lawn, breaking the PFA. He saw that it was not when he walked up there. (I would have seen it, too, if I had driven up.) There was a bunch of other nonsense as well, the only true accusation being that she was again driving an unregistered vehicle. She had been allowed one call to him in order to ask him to care for the dogs.

I cannot say how I saw Laura a couple of days later, but I did and she told me more of what happened. Apparently, she was on her way out into the night to help with the search for a missing demented man whose elderly mother she knew. She had been in touch with the police about doing this and received advice on how to proceed. She set out with the intention to help. Unfortunately, her car, not in the best repair, and unregistered, got stuck on the road and wouldn't start up again. Foolish creature that she was, she called Goneral to help her. The reason she did this was that a short time before, Goneral's little dog had run onto Laura's property and Goneral's husband was agitated on the road not knowing what to do. Laura had given him permission to retrieve his dog -- more than once (why wasn't the dog on a leash?) She, in her naive way, thought they might return the favor. Instead they called the police and reported (falsely) that she was on their lawn.

The responding officer was a young fellow not long out of officer training. He would show this dangerous woman not to meddle with the law -- this woman on disability, with bad knees, who walked with difficulty. He accused her of throwing a dangerous missile at him -- a tangerine. According to what Laura told me, he threw her to the ground and handcuffed her. She showed me her bruises. He carted her off to jail.

There she remains. It's been a couple of weeks. Richard is trying as best he can to care for the dogs. We don't hear directly from Laura. She told me she has thought of putting the dogs to sleep, then herself if the alternative is to lose them. I believe her.

All this has arisen because Goneral's nose was out of joint after losing the rat wars. This is her revenge on Laura as the scapegoat for her own humiliation at the meeting at the Town Office. She has caused pain and suffering, and possibly cost the lives of the dogs for whom Laura sacrificed her own well-being. If Laura makes good her plan to end her life, at whose door will it lie? No man is an island. Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls -- it tolls for thee. John Donne

Oh, yes. Laura has told me that Goneral and her husband have stated that they have bought guns since they fear for their lives!