Prometheus 6

One day when I was nine or ten, my friend Keith said, "Let's go see the crazy lady."

Crazy lady? CRAZY lady? I know of no such thing in this neighborhood. But Keith led the way and yes, there was indeed an honest-ta-Gawd crazy lady squatting in the upper floor of an abandoned building. Sweetheart, but batshit crazy as far as I could tell.

Around 3 pm, toward the end of our visit...in fact it precipitated that end...she went to the store. Came back with a loaf of Wonder Bread. She took that loaf to a rear window. We followed her. She opened the window. We looked out.

There, behind the building, was this seething mass of rats. The Crazy Lady was all, "here you are babies" as she tossed slices into an ocean of fur. I had never seen so many rats in one place. Seems she fed them a loaf of Wonder Bread every day at 3:00. I was like, "Why?" and she said "Rats are God's creatures too. They need love too."

For me, Hell will consist of a room full of rats. I never saw the original "Willard" movie. And I'm sure I've told this story before, but it's why I find Steven Shaw's Take a Rat to Dinner singularly unconvincing.