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I moved in on a Saturday, and the following Sunday, contrary to my landlady’s warnings of the neighborhood, I took a walk to explore Silver Lake.

There is no actual lake. The Woonasquatucket River runs into Olneyville under the Manton Avenue Bridge, elbowing there as if the river itself didn’t want to be in the neighborhood. Chewing wieners from the New York System across the street, I walked leisurely and looked over the bridge’s concrete parapet.

Three rats were sunning themselves on the bank of the shallow brown water. I stopped chewing. I stood staring at the rats, mouth wide open. If they’d been on blankets and playing a boom box the sight could not have been more surreal. Hot dog and chopped beef fell out of my mouth, bounced off the ledge and onto the rocky river’s edge.

The rats whirled as if they’d heard gunfire. All three scrambled after the bouncing wiener They shrieked, "Mine! Mine!" until the largest snatched it from one of the other’s claws and beat the competition away with a series of backhands.

I’m not personifying rat squeals. The three vermin that had been sunning themselves so tranquilly just moments before had shouted "Mine!" and "Claws off, bastard!" and "Gimme gimme!" in demands and challenges rife with obscenities unlike anything I’d heard since grams died.

The winner gave the two losers obscene directions. It stood on its hind legs, turned the chunk over in its hands, picked off an onion and cocked its head up at me. "Lay off the onions, Fuckhead!" it said. It bit the roll of pseudo-meat in half. It chewed thrice and gulped

Coming soon in WTF?! by Pink Narcissus Press