RATZ

     It was a sunny spring day of early May in southeast Washington, D.C., which found a young blond-haired Caucasian woman walking down Good Hope Road, wearing a pink sundress as she held the hand of a four year old biracial boy in her left hand.    Her son!    A child she had given birth to, and started off loving very much, but the ridicule she had been forced to suffer through from her family, and friends, in her suburban life over having a child out of wedlock by a Black man had become too much for her, and she had begun to yearn for her old life.    A life she had been living before she had given birth to a bastard child.

     "I go school now, Mommy?"   The little boy inquired. Looking up at his mother with a smile of innocence on his face while his plastic red and blue square lunchbox bumped up against his left leg, as his little feet hurried to keep up with the taller adult.

     "Yes baby.    You go to school."    The mendacious woman responded uncomfortably, with an uneasy smile on her face.    Casting unsure glances at the unfamiliar buildings and homes in their vicinity, looking for something she didn't even know she was looking for, as she did her best to avoid looking down at the innocent face of the little boy.    Her son!

     "What school like, Mommy?"    The inquisitive little boy asked, while wearing a pair of blue jeans shorts, a gray short-sleeved T-shirt, and a pair of white tennis shoes.    Beginning to breathe hard over his exertion at attempting to keep up with the fast pace of his mother as they walked down the unfamiliar street.

     "You're going to love it baby."    The woman uncomfortably replied before she turned down a long, garbage strewn, alley between two abandoned buildings after having found the place she was unconsciously searching for.    "There are going to be a lot of children your age there, and you are going to make lots of friends."

     "I want friends, Mommy.”    The elated little boy told her.   Wrinkling up his nose over the foul smell of detritus, and defecation, which permeated the alley.

     The woman started walking towards one of the large, rusting, garbage dumpsters in the middle of the alley, with a single tear of angst and trepidation beginning to fall from her right eye.    "I need you to stay right here for a few minutes, okay?"

     "Yes Mommy."    The unaware little boy replied with a smile of innocence on his face.    Standing next to the huge steel garbage dumpster while he cast an uncertain look up towards his mother.    "I still go to school, mommy?"

     "Yes baby.    But I have to get something from the store first, and I'll be right back.    So you just stay right here!"    The flagitious woman exclaimed before she turned to walk out of the alley with only a little bit of remorse over what she was getting ready to do to her child's life entering her mind.    Walking out of the alley with the same nonchalant attitude any other person would have, who had just discarded something they no longer wanted.    Having quickly discarded most of her thoughts of her child as she hurried to get back to her affluent lifestyle in the suburbs of Virginia.

     The little boy stood next to the tall dumpster for the next hour as he waited for the return of his mother until he got tired enough to sit down on the urine stained, dirty, concrete as he continued to wait for a mother he would never see again.

     Hours passed the little boy by, and the darkness of night had befallen him, but he continued to wait by the dumpster for his mother without having any sort of understanding that all schools would have been closed by that time.     Doing exactly what she told him to do, so that he would not upset his mother any more than she had been over the last few months.     With his mother getting so mad at him a couple of times, that she had smacked him really hard on the right side of his face, and even after she hurt him he never doubted that his mother loved him.    So he waited for her to return.

     With him having finally gotten hungry enough to open his lunchbox in the darkness of the nine-thirty night, so he could reach for one of the sandwiches his mother packed for him, in his attempt to quiet the rumblings of his tiny stomach, which was when he began to see a large dark brown rodent moving alongside the wall of the abandoned buildings towards him.     Quickly becoming scared after he saw the rodent coming in his direction, which caused him to really want to run out of the alley as fast as his little legs could carry him, but he stayed where his mother left him so she would be able to find him once she returned.

     The little boy began to break off little pieces of his sandwich to throw at the rodent in the hopes that the little bits of food would be enough to keep the rodent away from him, which seemed to work for a short period of time, but after awhile the rodent started to move towards him again.    Coming all of the way over to the little boy and allowed him to continue to feed it after it climbed onto the little boy's leg, and after a short while the little boy had stopped being scared of the rodent.    Even becoming confident enough at one point to start running his fingers through the coarse, spiky, hairs on the animals back, which was when it had begun to rain.    Starting off with a deluge of a downpour which caused the rodent to move from its comfortable position on the little boy's leg and began to start running alongside the wall of the abandoned building in front of the little boy until it had gotten to one of the broken out windows and started screeching towards the little boy. Making the little boy begin to think that the rodent wanted him to follow it.

     "My Mommy come get me."   The little boy said to the rodent while water was falling off of his head as he was still sitting in the puddle of water in his saturated clothes, with the rain continuing to pour down onto his body.     “So I have to stay right here until she comes back."

     The rodent didn’t seem to comprehend what the little boy was saying to it, and had begun to become more insistent by sitting on its haunches while raising its front claws up as it started to screech louder at him than it had been screeching before.

     The little boy was still sitting in the puddle of water as it grew bigger around him when his young mind began to understand he would most likely drown if he continued to stay where he was, so he stood up and followed the rodent into the building.     Crawling through the same broken out window the rodent just used to enter the building, and when the little boy entered the dark, musky, basement he was able to see a whole bunch of destroyed, discarded, furniture scattered throughout the basement after his eyesight adjusted to the darkness. With the rodents and roaches he could see in the enormous room, easily outnumbering the discarded furniture.

     The little boy quickly became alarmed after seeing all of the other rodents in the basement, but after noticing the rodent he had been in the alley with screeching back and forth in its own language with other rodents surrounding it, he began to see some of the other rodents moving away from the rodent he had been outside with as if they had finally come to an agreement of it being okay for the little boy to be in the basement with them.

     After the little boy's eyes adjusted to the darkness of the enormous room, he began to venture deeper inside of it.       Going deeper into the room, and coming across an overturned wooden cabinet he was able to lay down on, using the uncomfortable wooden backside of the cabinet as a bed.     But the little boy was so tired at that point, that he quickly fell asleep without even realizing the huge rodent which had been outside with him, crawling up onto the cabinet and curling up in his arms to fall asleep also.