Kristin Hersh - Rat Girl

I thought some paintings were very beautiful—places to go—but ultimately, “I don’t get it,” was all I could think to say.

“What don’t you get?” asked Jeff in his studio on a freezing afternoon, as we studied one of his paintings together.

“It’s too quiet,” I said.

“Even the orange?” he asked, surprised.

I stared at the orange, trying to see it as loud. “It just seems hard to make something matter if you don’t yell it.”

“Kristin, whispering matters.”

I looked at him. “Yeah, well, you don’t do that, either.”

Jeff frowned thoughtfully. “Oh yeah.”

It was painters who suggested that I keep this diary in the interim between making noise and artful sublimation. I don’t even know what a diary is, really—a book about now? That means you can’t write the ending first and work backwards, right?

“Don’t worry,” they said. “Painting will come. Just give it time.”

So far, so bad.

Manny’s girlfriend sighed, slowly pushing pizza crusts around in the cardboard pizza box like a little train, the multicolored Christmas lights creating a shifting pattern for her to drive the train through. We all watched the crusts drive around. “I’m just saying, you should keep an open mind. Maybe Napoleon’s still living here. It’s his house, not ours.”

The painters howled. “You guys are idiots!”

Manny pouted, glaring at them. The girl shifted uncomfortably, blowing yellow hair out of her eyes, her pizza train slowing to a halt. “I said maybe… ”

We decided to sit up and listen for ghosts. Staying up all night wasn’t hard for the musicians, who were high, paranoid and scared shitless. Everyone else was bored until the noises began: scratching, shuffling, nothing too scary really, but when we crept into the kitchen as a group, there was nothing there.

“Told you,” Manny hissed.

The mystery was partially solved when the ghost turned out to be a furry, watermelon-sized face jumper that likes cornflakes and is good at hiding. We now have tremendous affection for the Animal, which is easy because it never shows itself. It politely devours whatever it can find and then takes off.

We all act like it’s a magic bear , but the best thing it could be, really, is a raccoon and it’s probably just a cat. Though it might be Taffy, the neighbors’ dog who never comes when called. Our scary neighbors stand in their yard wearing bathrobes and yell “Taffy!” over and over again, but Taffy never shows up. Maybe Taffy lives with us now.

When I give touring bands and lonely kids directions to this place, I always mention the Animal, in case it jumps on their faces. Displaced individuals can be sorta jumpy.

I wish it were here right now, ’cause nobody else is. The more promiscuous and insecure of us have a rule: no sleeping alone at Napoleon’s. A rule I’m breaking tonight. “Taffy?” I call weakly and wait.

Napoleon took his bed with him when he left, so when you stay here, you sleep on the floor, and the floor feels extra hard tonight. Extra hard is extra lonely, for some reason. Like you’re being punished for something you probably did but don’t remember doing.

cartoons

We live in the woods in a communal dwelling, a gigantic barn full of hippies, one of whom tries to write “Be Together” on a parachute that stretches across our ceiling.

He’s pretty stoned, though, so what he actually writes is “Be Togeater,” and no one has a replacement parachute or the money to buy one.

I’m only three years old, so I shouldn’t be able to read it, but my mother, Crane, taught me to read when I was two. I’m sure she regrets having done this, as we lie on the couch together, staring at the ceiling. “I guess he just likes to spell things his own way,” she says.

So we live under that magical sentiment for years, growing our own vegetables, drinking goat’s milk, and feeding the rats who live there togeater with us by hand, because rats are Buddha’s creatures, too.

7:00. Slept almost three hours straight—a personal best. The Christmas lights’re going quietly apeshit in the sunshine, which is cooking the donuts. Reaching into the terrible bag before I can think about what I’m doing, I tear off a maggot-coated hunk and stuff it into Fish Jesus’s bloody maw—whistling in the sun. Should cheer up the next lonely visitor to Napoleon’s guest house, anyway.

I leave, quietly locking the apartment door so as not to wake the thousands of children who live on the first floor, then let my eyes adjust to the dark stairwell, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Animal. Nope. Not unless it’s hiding behind a pile of old carpet at the bottom of the stairs. Then I lift the mat and place the key under it, silently thanking Napoleon for another night of creepy hospitality. On my way out the door, I peer into the pile of dusty carpet, just in case. “Taffy?” I ask it.

Across the street, Taffy’s owner is standing on his front lawn in a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette and holding the morning paper. “Mahnin!” he shouts through his cigarette when I step outside. This means “good morning” in Rhode Island. I smile. He smiles too, takes the cigarette out of his mouth and, spitting on the ground, starts walking toward me.

Oh, crap. I can’t talk to this guy; I’ve tried. I can’t understand a word he says after mahnin. And he looks like a yeti, which makes it hard to listen to what he’s even trying to say. I always just squint and nod, watching his face move until he stops making noise, then back away. Quickly, before he can cross the street, I scramble into my car and start the engine. It sputters. I try again. Taffy’s dad watches. My dumb car. It doesn’t really work, can hardly breathe. “The Silver Bullet,” she’s called, and she is in fact silver, but she’s a fat-ass, logy version of a bullet. This morning, she coughs, wheezes, then suddenly heaves to life. Pulling away from Napoleon’s neighbor, I wave and he waves back, looking sad, his newspaper at his side.

At the first intersection, the car stalls. I whip my head around to see if he’s following me, lumbering along, puffing his cigarette—“ mahnin, mahnin” —his bathrobe blowing in the breeze. No wonder Taffy left. But the street behind me is empty and the Bullet’s engine kicks in again a second later, humming in her distinctive full-throated whine.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I say out loud in my relief. I’m from the South. I believe in politeness, even when it comes to machines. My family left Georgia when I was a kid, a well-mannered little Gomer, and here in Rhode Island I got beaten up for both my Southern accent and my politeness. Damn yankee kids’d never heard the word “ma’am” before.

They tried to beat me up, anyway; I always won those fights. Didn’t clobber anybody, just hit ’em real hard and they fell down. Then I politely helped them up. Damn yankees. I’ve been trying to hide my accent ever since, but I’m still polite.

Speeding is im polite, so I don’t do that. I tear , though… tear down the highway, through blizzards, thunderstorms and blazing sun ’cause I love driving. It’s a perfect world for a shy spaz like me. A shy person likes to be alone, and a spaz can’t sit still, right? So though my car sucks big time, it lets me race around without having to make eye contact with a single human. I take the Silver Bullet very seriously for this reason. And, yes, I talk to my car. She deserves it.