Featured Fiction

• Out Of The Bronx

  Brad Felver

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  We hunted the rats because we were so poor.

  Years later, and I can still see them bolting out from that dumpster at the end of the alley, dozens of rats, squealing and scurrying. They’re on fire. Roman and I are watching from the fire escape four stories up, these burning rats darting all over the place and yelping. “Burn harder, you rat-fucks!” Roman screams. He has this deranged look in his eyes, like a boxer who just got knocked out and is coming-to. It’s dark out, so it’s almost pretty, all these burning rats scampering in every direction, like a meteor shower in the alley, and I almost say so but I decide not to. Instead, we just watch, open-mouthed, two young kids in awe of this cosmic power we’ve just unleashed.

  The rats came from this pub on the garden level, which our landlord owned. We called him Old Irish because he had this thick brogue which sounded like a different language. Dad said that his skin was so pale it smelled like potatoes. That was Dad’s one joke, which he told whenever Old Irish knocked on the door and said he had to raise the rent again. His pub served a Guinness and black pudding breakfast, that’s it, and Old Irish made it all on site every morning, and so every afternoon, right before he closed up the kitchen, he tossed out a trash bag full of leftovers into the alley, a mixture of congealed blood, torn casings, and suet drippings, which is like Oreo cheesecake for rats. Old Irish didn’t live in the building, so it wasn’t his rat problem.

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