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Maybe I do come to a decision though. Because the other night I put the Xbox on pause like I have to pee and I go to the kitchen drawer and pull out the longest sharpest knife I can find. “Hey Sam,” I say when I come back, and slash him in the stomach deep as I can. Now Sam’s sitting there bleeding, belching up blood and pouring pools of red from his big soft belly. I pick up my phone and call the guys. “Come quick,” I say, and before you know it they’re all here, about twenty of them, turning the music up loud and shimmying this way and that and pulling IPAs from the fridge one by one. “Where the fuck did you find this thing?” they’re asking, happy as can be. Meanwhile Sam’s twitching on the floor and sucking air in big gasps, staring at me in a way that I think can only mean “Why?.” Then the gang decides it’s time to run up and down on a dying animal. They need to show how much they hate him, they say, how loathsome he is, how disgusting, and they’re patting and licking and kissing Sam’s fur, sloshing around in his blood and telling him how much kinder they are than he’ll ever be. They’re glad he’s almost dead. They’ll be even gladder in a few hours when they shove his corpse to the street for the city to clean up and for tinier rats to gnaw on for eleven months to come. “We only have so many days on this earth,” I tell Sam, holding his paw, and when the choking ends and the gurgling stops I close his eyes. I don’t know if that helps things, if a rat cares there’s someone with him at the end. I do know that I feel a sudden surge of light inside me. After all, I’ve given the guys this great time and I’m happy about it. I’m happy about my terrific friends who stomp and jump and know whose side they’re on, man or rat. Once they toss Sam to the street they stagger back to my place to share blunts. Except one of them, a guy named Charlie, swoops to the empty spot by the Xbox and toggles to Mortal Kombat. He’s fixed on the screen nearly-unblinking like he wants to psych the game out. He doesn’t want my weed, doesn’t sway to the music thumping quietly in the apartment. He’s a warrior, this Charlie, he knows what he wants. He knows what to do. He’s ready to play.
