Three Years with the Rat by Jay Hosking

Author:Jay Hosking
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 2016-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

2008

OFFICER 2510 RAPS her knuckles three decisive times against my door. I can see her through my small window, dressed in civilian clothes again, nothing but her tomboyish stance to suggest she’s any sort of authority figure. She looks bored.

I crack the door open but block the entrance with my shoulders. “What kind of a police officer plays club shows with a band?”

“This is the part where you let me in,” she says, “for your own good.”

I consider the state of my apartment and how I must look to her. I pat some of the sawdust off my jeans and clap my hands together to clean them. Oh well. I go back into my apartment but leave the door open for her.

She takes a moment to look around. The large wooden box is reconstructed and sitting in the middle of my freshly emptied living room. No doubt she saw my corner tables and couch outside, sitting at the curb. One panel of the box is missing and so she takes a slow, deliberate look at its interior. Then her attention shifts to the removed panel, the open plastic bag full of bits of broken mirror, and the fine sandpaper I was just using.

“Arts and crafts?” she asks.

“A machine with no mechanisms, I think. Like meditation, only more pretentious.”

She looks to my bandaged arm. “Nobody told me meditation was dangerous.”

“I’m supposed to be leaving soon. Mind if I go change?”

I don’t wait for a reply. In the bedroom I crawl out of my clothes and wish vainly that I could shower off the grit that sticks to the sweat on my neck and causes my scalp to itch. I peel away the tape on the edge of the bandage to look underneath. It’s healing but still ugly. Officer 2510 is likely wandering around my living room and it won’t be long before she finds Buddy.

She shouts from the other room. “I looked into your stolen car trouble.”

“Oh, great,” I say.

“Turns out you never owned a car. At least not with that VIN, and not in this province.”

“That’s what your colleagues told me. You should tell it to my bank account.”

I leave the bedroom, fresh clothes already feeling soiled, and sure enough she’s standing in the kitchen. She sticks her fingertips between the bars on the cage lid, and though Buddy noses at her, he’s sadly uninterested in taking a bite.

“Considering pursuing a career in science?” she asks.

I look at her, unimpressed. She’s wearing a crooked grin that, if the situation were a little different, might be cute.

“I only ask because I got word that somebody broke into your sister’s old lab. John’s lab.” She takes the lid off the cage and scoops up Buddy as if she’s had plenty of practice with rats. Buddy, that traitor, snuggles contentedly into the crook of her arm. That grin of hers again. “Bearded guy, from the tapes. Not that you’re bearded these days. Thing is, he didn’t take anything from the lab, not as far as anyone can tell.

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