My Life as a Rat

II (#litres_trial_promo)

“Praying for Violet” (#litres_trial_promo)

Exile (#litres_trial_promo)

Sleepwalker (#litres_trial_promo)

The Iceberg (#litres_trial_promo)

Turnip Face (#litres_trial_promo)

Sisters (#litres_trial_promo)

“Mr. Sandman Bring Me a Dream” (#litres_trial_promo)

“Dirty Girl” (#litres_trial_promo)

The Stalker: 1997 (#litres_trial_promo)

“You Are Not Wanted” (#litres_trial_promo)

Dirty Girl (#litres_trial_promo)

“Violet, Goodbye!” (#litres_trial_promo)

III (#litres_trial_promo)

The Scar (#litres_trial_promo)

The Burrow (#litres_trial_promo)

Valentine (#litres_trial_promo)

Keeping Myself Alive (#litres_trial_promo)

Off the Books (#litres_trial_promo)

Rat, Waiting (#litres_trial_promo)

Sorrowful Virgin (#litres_trial_promo)

Damned Little Dog (#litres_trial_promo)

Tongue (#litres_trial_promo)

Uncanny (#litres_trial_promo)

First Aid (#litres_trial_promo)

“Maxed-Out” (#litres_trial_promo)

The Misunderstanding (#litres_trial_promo)

The Return (#litres_trial_promo)

In My Mother’s Garden (#litres_trial_promo)

Forgiveness (#litres_trial_promo)

The Guilty Sister (#litres_trial_promo)

Howard Street (#litres_trial_promo)

Home (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Novels by Joyce Carol Oates (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

I (#ulink_be6d331c-fcc1-519e-813d-c0192e9178cc)

The Rat (#ulink_b9f66cb9-53ae-586c-bcd8-fb2ac1c3ca03)

Go away. Go to hell—rat!

You don’t get another chance to rat on anybody.

It’s true, you will not be given another chance.

There is just the one chance, the first.

The Omen:November 2, 1991 (#ulink_173b7f7a-e147-5875-afff-966a3494512f)

THIS, I WOULD REMEMBER: SMELLY DARK WATER IN THE RIVER near shore, the color of rotted eggplant, we’d seen on the way to school that morning and stopped to stare at.

On the Lock Street Bridge. Crossing on the pedestrian walkway. And there, directly below, the thunderous river (a deep cobalt-blue on clear days, metallic-gray on cloudy days) seemed to have changed color near shore and was purplish-dark, smelling of something like motor oil, roiling and surging as if it was alive like snakes, giant writhing snakes, you didn’t want to look but could not look away.

My sister Katie nudged me crinkling her nose against the smell. “C’mon, Vi’let! Let’s get out of here.”

I was leaning over the railing, staring down. Trying to see—were those actually snakes? Twenty-, thirty-foot-long snakes? Their scales were a winking deep-purple sheen. The sight was so terrifying, I’d begun to shiver convulsively. The odor was making me nauseated, and dizzy.

As far as we could see upstream the oily-purple water came in surges near shore while elsewhere the river was the color of stone, choppy and thunderous—the Niagara River rushing to the Falls seven miles to the north.

We ran from the walkway. Didn’t look back to see if the giant snakes were pursuing us.