C24 Oscar McBain

The rat stared at him for three days. It never said a word. It just sat on its mat and glared at Chauncey with those haunting beady eyes that seemed to drill into his soul. But the rat allowed Chauncey a snort of coke whenever he requested one.

Chauncey had left the pound bag in his briefcase in the trunk. Now the bag lay on the dirt floor, a large plastic baggy with the flap left open and the precious powder spread on the floor. The briefcase sat open on the low table.

The rat worked behind the open lid. There was a checkbook in there. There were spreadsheets. The rat had his wireless laptop sitting next to the briefcase. The rat spent all day searching the Web. He seemed to know what he was doing.

For three days, the rat fed him a tablespoon of water and one baked bean each day. It didn’t matter how often Chauncey appealed to the rat. It didn’t matter how desperate he sounded. The glare on the rat’s face never changed.

Chauncey offered the rat ten thousand dollars, thinking it would be a fortune for this destitute rag. He offered twenty thou- sand. Finally, he offered what he claimed to be his life savings of fifty thousand dollars.

The rat just smiled back and said nothing to each of the offers.

Chauncey’s joints and muscles ached from sleeping on the cold floor. He had a constant migraine and not a drop of saliva in his mouth.

Although the rat had removed the tie from his mouth, Chauncey’s legs were now bound with clothesline. His arms were pinned at his side, the clothesline wrapping around his entire torso.

Chauncey was left to soil himself whenever the need arose.

Duct tape was strapped to his mouth, whenever the rat needed to sleep. Otherwise, the rat would leave for a couple hours a day to bring back things from the outside world.

He came back with a large dishpan and soap. He came back with a bathroom towel and washrag. He came back with rolls of toilette paper. He came back with more ham sandwiches and more cans of baked beans. He took off his clothes. The man was a rail, like something out of Auschwitz.

He sat on the mat looking at himself for a long time in the small mirror inside the silver cigarette case. He began to cry uncontrollably. When he was finished, he filled the large dishpan with water. He used the washrag and soap on himself. He dried himself off with the bathroom towel.

Chauncey closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. He couldn’t stand the sight of it on top of everything else. His mind was slipping away from him. Any thought that he was still in the middle of a coke dream had vanished. This was real!

The rat began eating the ham sandwiches and baked beans. He never looked at Chauncey while he ate. When the rat was finished, it began farting. It farted for five hours. It never opened the door. The smell was worse than the shits the rat was taking in the slop bucket by the door.

Chauncey held his breath, but with only one nostril working, and the other clogged with a cone of dried blood, he couldn’t hold it for very long. His mouth was taped again. His chest started heav- ing so hard when he tried to inhale enough air not to suffocate that the rat came off the mat and tore the duct tape from his mouth. He stood over Chauncey watching him resuscitate. Chauncey looked up at him, helpless.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

The rat went to the line of objects sitting behind his sleeping mat.

Chauncey had watched the rat, again and again, turn from his business at the table and sit there contemplating the odd collection of objects. There was a Frisbee, an umbrella, and a whip, among a lot of other things that seemed to have no use. Sometimes the rat whis- pered to the objects as if he was communicating with them.

But now he reached for the tattered old newspaper and held it in front of Chauncey to read. The newspaper was folded in fourths so there was only one story that Chauncey could actually see.

It was a story from Quincy, Illinois. It showed the photo of a woman with three children gathered around a birthday cake. The headline read: Mother Drives Off Embankment into St. Louis River on Christmas Eve.

It happened during a snowstorm.

It was not clear whether it was an accident or suicide that drove the car into the river. In spite of the weather, other drivers had seen the car go by them at eighty miles an hour. The woman appeared to be in a rage, screaming so loud she could be heard through her win- dows. She was pounding the front windows out with her fist. The driver behind her when she careened into the river said he saw her yank the wheel.

The bodies were recovered two days later. The three children were in the back seat. The car was filled with Christmas gifts. The photo had been recovered in her purse, inside a plastic slip.

Her driver’s license indicated her name: Isabel McBain.

She had an address in San Francisco.

The newspaper requested that anyone with additional informa-

tion should contact the police.

Chauncey gazed at the photo for a long time. The photo looked

familiar. It eluded him for a moment. Then he turned toward the photo of a woman and three children gathered around a birthday cake, hanging on the wall.

Chauncey lowered the paper. “Who’s Isabel McBain?” he asked. “My wife.”

“And the kids?”

“My children.”

“But what does this have to do with me?” Chauncey asked. “You killed them,” Billy said.

“When?”

“On Christmas Eve.”

Chauncey tried to fathom this nutcase.

“So your name is McBain?”

“My name is Billy,” Billy said. “Billy Wild.”

“What happened to McBain?” Chauncey asked.

“You mean Oscar McBain,” Billy said in a threatening way. Chauncey felt his chest collapse. It was like someone had slugged him in the solar plexus. There was a deep primal terror at the core of it, something he had never felt before in his life.

Even in childhood, he was known to boss his parents’ servants around with commands they were frightened to disobey. Their liveli- hoods depended on pleasing the young master’s every whim.

All his life, he had manipulated people with money. All his life, he had manipulated people with sex.

All his life, he had manipulated people with drugs. He always got his way.

But now, for the first time in his life, he realized that he was at the mercy of a derelict. A putrid derelict with a third-grade education. A street mouse he might stamp out with his car. Another crack- head who deserved every bit of misery that came into his life.

“Oscar McBain,” Chauncey found him saying in deference to his captor, indicating that he had never intended to say anything that would displease him.

“You may call me Billy Wild now,” Billy said.

“Thank you,” Chauncey said, genuinely grateful. “May I ask what you want from me?”

“All your money,” Billy Wild said.