Sitting on my couch, I was sober as a nun, an odd state in which to find myself on Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican holiday that we Americans annexed years ago. I had just eaten a quarter pound of fish tacos when a tiny shadow darted across the floor. As quickly as It came, It vanished. It was the quickest-moving nothing of an object, and I figured my eyes were playing tricks.
But they couldn’t be, because I hadn’t downed my staple liter of margaritas yet. Plus, my girlfriend, Jen, saw It, too.
“Oh, you have a little Chester,” she said.
“Chester?”
“Yeah, that’s your mouse’s name!” she said cheerfully.
Now, I have no sort of patience for people who give animals—especially pests—goofy names. I can kind of see naming a dog, especially if you name it after yourself, because dogs have personalities in that they look sad when you yell at them. But for the most part, only people, places and rock climbs should be given names (not gym routes, though; gym routes aren’t real and therefore shouldn’t be named, and if you disagree with that, then you need to get your head out of your gym’s ass and go outside and do something that will actually help you become better at climbing. Like rock climb on real rocks!)
Anyway. So, I had a mouse … apparently named Chester. This was a lot for me to take in. I stood up and went to my kitchen table, where a bottle of añejo was sitting, and I clung to it like a barnacle to a rock amid an ocean tempest. Then I poured myself two fingers and deftly tossed them down into my guts. Chester … dude … Chester! This was more than I could stand. I could never live with anything named Chester … ever!
But Jen had confirmed that Chester’s terrible and wretched existence was real and not just my brain’s figment. That night, I was restless and paranoid, straining my ears for slightest pitter-patter and upon hearing something, jumping out of bed and wildly swinging a broom around in the darkness. The next morning, I went out to buy some so-called “humane” mousetraps, a decision I made in order to be a considerate, mate-drinking, Jack-Johnson-listening, animal-rights-championing guy in the eyes of my girlfriend (who had developed a certain affinity for cute little Chester … just as long as he remained at a distance). This was the kind of guy I assumed a girl would want to continue dating.
I found the little crevice beneath my kitchen cabinet that appeared to be the portal into Chester World, and I placed the humane traps to either side of the little nook. That night, I made the very difficult decision to not watch Flavor of Love 2 on the TV, and instead sat on my couch in silence, just staring at the kitchen corner and talking to myself in my head. Chester’s mouse nose peeked out and then the furry little nuisance emerged. Finally, some action!
He scurried across the wide-open kitchen floor, as fully exposed and committed as if he were an alpinist climbing beneath a looming serac. He found a crumb, took it in his mouth and darted back toward the corner, disappearing through the impossibly small crack as if it were a black hole that vacuumed him up. He didn’t pay attention to the trap whatsoever!
To hell with the being nice, considerate, humane guy. Instead, both my girlfriend and I would just have to live with the real me—the acidly-crafty, Wagner-listening, mouse murderer. I called Jen that night to tell her that I was done with humane traps, and I was going to get some inhumane traps the following morning.
“But, Chester!” she whinged. I explained to her that women get caught up in emotions and sometimes have trouble seeing the bigger picture and doing what is best for the greater good. Then she hung up.
The next day, I returned to the store and bought the kind of trap that lures the mouse over with the promise of a delicious treat and even allows it to suckle a few nibbles (how wonderfully cruel!) before swiftly guillotining off its head. This is the kind of mousetrap that actually works.
That night, after baiting the trap with a smorgasbord of cheese, I again dimmed the lights, and sat quietly in the darkness, sipping fine single malt in a smug preface the evening’s transpiring gore. Soon Chester—poor, doomed Chester, this tragic figure, this slave to his most base desires for a cheap bite of food—crept out of the nook.
“Hello, Chester,” I whispered, swirling the scotch glass. “Voulez-vous un peu de fromage?”
Curious Chester zipped onto the stage of this arena, my own personal Coliseum, erratically stopping his stride, second, third, fourth guessing himself, only to be helplessly lured onward by the pungent, irresistible cheese. The anticipation of the ensuing brutality was thrilling, as if some primal urgency within me had been awakened from its prolonged slumber.
Tentative Chester craned his neck toward the golden orb of cheese and delicately mined out a nugget from the greater morsel. Prize in mouth, he sprinted away and dove through the eensy hole in the wall.
“Aw, goddamnit!” I said, punching my thigh. The fact that a mouse had outsmarted me pissed me off, but I was determined. I re-set the trap with more cheese, and soon Chester was back for more. Yet the same thing happened: he took the cheese and ran away to pig out in privacy. This continued. Hungry, Ever Emboldened Chester would stroll (yes, he was now strolling!) over to the trap, nibble away at the latest indulgence and return to his hole.
Then Jen came over. I explained to her that this mouse was giftedly evil and devious, and that we might need to resort to even more drastic methods of extermination. She thought I was simply too dumb to set the trap right, so she did it herself. It was a reasonable theory, and I entertained its validity without any objection. We sat on the couch in silence, on tenterhooks to see Chester emerge. Sure enough, the mouse came out and easily took Jen’s bait without tripping the mechanism of death.
“Little bastard!” she said. “OK, fine. Do whatever it takes. Just get him out of here!”
I resorted to higher reasoning—a skill set not yet bequeathed to the evolutionarily inferior Chester. I analyzed all variables: location of the trap, its positioning with respect to the hole in the wall, how the bait was placed on the trap and even what bait would work best. In addition to different types of cheese, I tried honey, peanut butter, almond butter, peanut butter with honey and almond butter with cheese.
Though frustrated because I couldn’t kill this mouse, I began to gain a tremendous respect for Chester as I watched him continually risk his neck for the tiniest bite of food. I imagined this game we were playing was both filling and fulfilling to Chester in a way that I, in my own way, could relate to.
People often question climbers about their motivations for taking risks. Someone once explained to me that if there were never such a thing as water on earth, we would never feel thirsty. Likewise, if there were no mountains, we would never have the hunger to climb them. Heading up on the biggest peaks and baddest cliffs is a lot like taking cheese off a mousetrap: the chances of getting the chop increase the more often you do it. But so what? The act of climbing satiates a hunger in us that would tear us apart if we didn’t have mountains and rock as an outlet.
Bah. Nothing ruins a good mouse story like allegory. Chester was amazing. Perhaps he was the most gifted mouse on earth, the only one able to continue to brave the dangerous journey to the summit and bring back the cheeses of the gods to his mortal mice brethren.
It was getting late, however, and Jen and I were tired of thinking about Chester. I set the trap one last time, turned off the lights and we laid in bed.
Right in that sinking moment as you pass from awake to asleep, I heard the lashing snap of the metal wire, traveling at hundreds of miles per hour, and crushing Chester’s cheese-filled skull into oblivion. Jen squeezed my arm and cried.
“Oh, Chester,” she said.
“At least he died doing what he loved to do,” I said.
Fantastic Mouse story!! ahahaha… i’m still laughing! Compliments! you write very well… you were able to make an ordinary story an engaging story!
Nico, Italy