Stragglers

I never liked being alone. Nighttime was the worst. When Mom would press that final bedtime kiss against my forehead, sealing my fate, every step she took tug, tug, tugging the strings of my heart with her. The door would creak as she closed it, sealing me in the suffocatingly silent tomb of my bedroom. I’d hold my breath. Count to ten. Press my ear against the pastel pink wall and listen. Then the fear would melt off me, wax to a flame, as voices filled my head once again. Sometimes Mom called her best friend, Becca, and they’d gossip about their old college professors. Other times she’d put on a scary movie. I’d hear her settle into the couch that lived against our shared wall. She’d gasp, or laugh, tell the characters off for wandering into dark, scary hallways alone. And I don’t know how she knew I was listening, but she always did, because without missing a beat she’d suddenly sing, “The walls have eaaars.” And I’d wriggle down beneath my comforter, feeling her presence deeply, intuitively, on the other side of the wall.

When I first moved to Cornflower Street, I quickly learned the walls didn’t just have ears but also mouths and a powerful set of vocal cords. Laying on the freshly glossed floor, surrounded by skyscrapers of cardboard boxes, I wonder how much someone has to love the sound of their own voice to sing for three hours straight without even stopping for a sip of water. Worse still, they’ve selected a medley of home-brewed jazz songs, complete with minutes-long scat interludes and at least one painful attempt to mimic a saxophone. When my mom’s old Garfield clock chimes midnight from somewhere within a miscellaneous decor box, I decide I’d better save my poor ears and do something about it.

My new place is really a single family home split into two. The upside of that is I have only one neighbor so I know exactly who’s causing the racket.

I scramble over the coffee-stained armchair currently living in the center of the room and press my cheek against the wall.

“Excuse me?” My voice echoes off the bare walls. The singer doesn’t so much as stutter. “I just moved in. It’s been a long day. Maybe you can finish the concert in the morning?” The singer begins to scat. Scat right in my face. I bang my fist against the wall. “Hey!”

The scatting stops. There’s a sort of scratching sound, like paint chips falling within the wall, then a distinctly Brooklyn voice says, “Oy! Fuck off, lady.” And they begin to scat even more triumphantly.

I inhale so sharply I nearly choke on the smell of fresh paint. Blood boiling, no, curdling, I tighten the knot of my bathrobe and slip into the first pair of shoes I can find- my mom’s old pool sandals. I flip-flop right out the front door.

Walking a mile in my mom’s shoes means her words come right back to me. “When you move somewhere new, always introduce yourself to the neighbors. Otherwise you might not like their introductions. Before you were born, Aunt Becca and I lived next to a guy who blended smoothies every night at 3 a.m. I still think I hear bzz, bzz, bzz through the walls sometimes.” She tickled me with every bzz.

The memory stings so I bang my fist against the neighbor’s door until my knuckles hurt too. The night is warm and pierced only by the occasional chirp of crickets somewhere in the long grass of the yard.

“Hello?” I peer through the neighbor’s front window. Their apartment, a mirror of mine, is oddly dark. I expected them to be right up against our shared wall with a karaoke machine but all I can make out is a few blobs of dark furniture. “Anyone home?”

Maybe they holed up in their bedroom, too cowardly to meet all 5 foot 2 of me in person. I’m not about to let this guy become my 3 a.m. smoothie maker.

Clomping down the rickety steps, I trod over the long, itchy grass to the back of the house. If my bedroom’s on the far side of the house, his probably is too. I grimace at a few crudely chewed gaps in the house’s paneling. I’ll have to ask the landlord to seal that up before vermin get in.

As I round the back, I’m surprised to see the bedroom window is dark. I pop up onto my tiptoes to peer through the glass but the inside is just as empty as the living room. Bed fully made. A sheen of dust on the nightstand. “Hello?”

“Hello.”

I jump right out of my flip-flops as the voice comes not from inside but behind me. I spin around, arms raised, to what? Slap him silly with the sleeves of my fuzzy bathrobe? But I’m surprised to see a familiar face.

“Mr. Costello. How are you?”

His eyes are tired, gray beard disheveled. I would feel embarrassed wearing a bathrobe in front of my landlord but he’s in a white tank top and a pair of striped boxers. “I was woken up by somebody banging against my building’s door. So, peachy.”

“Woken up? I thought you lived down the street?”

“Yes, but the tenant asked me to watch their cameras while they’re on vacation. Alarm started beeping, ‘Intruder’, ‘Intruder’. Woke my wife right up. She has insomnia. Melatonin-resistent.”

I feel my face flush. “I’m so sorry. But… the other renter’s on vacation? I only came over here because I heard noises.”

“Mice,” he says definitively. “I’ll bring over traps tomorrow.”

“But I heard jazz. Scatting,” I add in a whisper.

“The quiet round these parts’ll make you hear things, ‘specially if you’re used to the city. Thought you said you wanted a change?”

“I do. It’s just-”

“So I’ll bring traps tomorrow. Goodnight, Miss Vaughn.”

I swallow. “Goodnight.”

On the walk back around the house, I talk myself into a panic. I should’ve asked the landlord to look inside. If the tenant’s not here, somebody must’ve broken in. An expert thief who knows how to avoid cameras… and then sings jazz to announce their arrival. The confusion writhes around my brain and I feel that familiar tug in my heart for a presence that’s far, far away. Alone. Alone. Alone.

When I swing open my apartment door, my eyes go straight to the armchair. I’m not sure why at first, until I realize there’s something perched atop it. A gray, beady-eyed something with a puff of white fluff hanging out of its twitching snout. I scream, a scream that seems to split in two and echo around the room. I grab the nearest weapon-like thing to me, a rogue plunger, and charge at the mouse.

He leaps deftly off the chair and scurries behind a box. I lose a flip flop in my pursuit and nearly faceplate into the credenza. There's rustling in a nearby stack of files. I dive, wielding the plunger like a caveman’s club.

“If you have mice, deal with them quickly. The little buggers will eat your favorite slippers for an appetizer and your social security card for dessert.”

My mother’s words echo in my head as I chase the blur of fur around the apartment. An ancient, animalistic kind of pride bubbles up in me as I realize the mouse’s destination before he arrives- a chewed up little hole beneath the radiator. I kick a box in front of it. The mouse comes to a standstill pinned between the radiator and the wall. I step towards him, plunger raised.

“Oh God, not the plunger.”

I come to a screeching halt. It’s the Brooklyn voice, the same one I heard in the walls, but now it’s here. Exactly where the mouse is standing.

“What?” I whisper, my body going cold.

“I said,” the mouse, the mouse, repeats. “Please don’t do me in with a plunger. Use something sophisticated, like one of those $300 mops. Or a Roomba. How ‘bout a Roomba? Just drop it on top of me. Easier cleanup for you too. Plunger’s just embarrassing.”

“You…” -the words dribble out- “…talk.”

The mouse blinks back at me, whiskers trembling. “You hear me.”

“No…” The air is getting hot and suffocating. The plunger falls somewhere beside me as I shove my hands into my pockets, instinctively coming back up with my phone. “It’s the quiet. Does weird things to your brain. Makes you hear things.” I’m so busy talking I don’t realize what I’m doing. Not until I’ve already scrolled down to the ‘M’ in my contacts, pressed her name, and put the ringing phone against my ear. “It’s late. I’ve had a long day. I’m tired. I always feel a little crazy when I’m alone. It’s the loneliness. It’s-”

“Hi, you’ve reached Ellie Vaughn, tell me a story and I’ll get right back to ya!”

“Oh.” Her voice hits me like a moving truck to the chest. “Oh.” I crumple to the ground, the phone still pressed against my ear but met only with silence. The tears don’t come with the normal throat tightness and eye pinching. They just flow down my cheeks, chin, pool in the fuzzy neck of my bathrobe.

“You good, lady?” the mouse asks, creeping up next to my leg.

“Yeah,” I answer absently. “Yeah, it’s just, I called my mom. Because that’s what I do when things are weird or scary. But… she’s not going to answer.”

“She hate you or something?”

“No. She just…”

“Moved on?”

“Yeah,” I say quietly.

“You know, that happened with my Ma too. Moved on to the city. Said there are better crumbs there. Houses like this but way bigger. You can hop from room to room, eating Chinese one minute and pizza the next. Like a whole buffet in one night.”

“Yeah. I used to live in the city with my mom. It probably would feel like that, if you were a mouse.” The phone beeps. Voicemail over. I lower it to the ground. “You’re a mouse. I’m talking to a mouse.”

“And I’m talking to a lady. This is just as weird for me as it is for you.”

“So you’re not a guy cursed to be a mouse or something? You’re just a mouse?”

“Just a mouse, oy, no need to be rude. I’ve got a lot goin’ for me. Had a real nice nest I was building before you interrupted me.”

I look up, remembering where I first saw him on the armchair. Sure enough, a small hole has been nibbled into the fabric, white stuffing falling like clouds. “Hey! You ate my chair!” The indignation is enough to wake me up again. I slide over to inspect the hole and the mouse follows, naked tail wiggling behind him.

“Yeah, but I took from the bottom of the arm! Whadya need that for? Ma always said we only take what others won’t miss.”

“Well, my mom always said we don’t take what doesn’t belong to us.”

“And who says that chair belongs to you?”

“I paid for it.”

“With what? Your fancy lady money? Case you didn’t notice, mice ain’t exactly allowed to participate in capitalism. I never even had a shot at making this chair mine.”

I narrow my eyes at the creature who crooks his head, almost like a smirk. “How do you know what capitalism is?”

“How do I know what anything is? Look, if it means that much to you I’ll put it back.” With a little hop, he darts away and the magic of the moment fades. I must be having a psychotic breakdown. My therapist said that kind of thing can happen. Thought I was arguing with a mouse and let him scurry right back into the walls.

But before I can give realism much thought, the mouse is back, head held high as he carries a ball of stuffing twice his size. His tiny claws catch in the chair as he scurries up to the hole, prodding the stuffing into place with his snout. “If it’s this little scrap you want, it’s this little scrap you’ll get.”

I scream.

“Jesus Christ, what?”

“You actually can talk.”

“I thought we were past this. Yeah, I talk, I scream, I sing jazz.”

“I heard you earlier. Singing in the walls.”

“Whistle while you work and all. Told you, I’m building a fresh nest in there.”

“I thought it was the neighbor. I went over there and everything. Made a fool of myself in front of the landlord.”

The mouse suddenly goes stiff. His tail beats against the chair.

“What?”

“I don’t wanna talk about that guy. Not now. Not ever. I’ll sing quieter, alright? Hey, maybe you can cry quieter too. Heard you all afternoon. Really killed the vibe. We’re sharing this place, after all, and I was here first.”

The mouse hops off the chair, scurrying back to his corner.

I feel something in my heart go with him. Tug, tug, tugging. A bedroom door, creaking shut.

“Wait.” I scurry after him.

He’s paused by the radiator, tapping his nose against the box, trying to scoot it. “Can you move your stuff out of my front door?”

“I’ll move it. I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s nice to talk to someone, you know? I haven’t… I haven’t had anyone to talk to in awhile. Maybe you can come back. For breakfast. I have cheese. Do you like cheese?”

“That’s a misconception,” he mutters. “Cheese gives us stomach issues.”

“Fine. Seeds then. Seeds are good, right?”

His ears prickle.

“Great. Seeds. And you can bring your friends if you want. I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of you in there.” I tap a finger against the wall. “Hello? Hellooo?”

“Just me.”

“What?”

“It’s just me. That’s why I’m building a new nest. Starting fresh.” His beady eyes don’t meet mine. I know that feeling all too well.

“Fine then. Just you. And just me. We’ll have breakfast together. And you can take whatever you need for the nest. Just try not to poop everywhere.”

“Fine.” His whiskers twitch. “Now can you move your box?”

I slide the box away and watch him slip into the hole. I hear scratching behind the wall, and then scatting. Softer now. I lay down right there, close my eyes, fall asleep with my ear pressed against the wall.

I wake to a knock on the door. I pull myself up, squinting against the sunlight that now streams through the bare windows. Another knock and I’m at the door.

The landlord stands outside, arms full of paper tubes. He’s in a clean T-shirt and jeans. He raises a brow at my bathrobe. “Well, good morning. Thought the jazz singer might’ve got you. Brought you some glue traps.” He holds the paper tubes out to me.

I shake my head. “Oh, I won’t need them.”

“Better take ‘em anyway. I cleared a whole family of mice outta this unit before you arrived. Should’ve killed most of ‘em, but there may be one or two stragglers left.” He must see my face pale because he adds, “Don’t look so sad. They look cute and fluffy but they’re real pests. Eat your slippers and all that. Take the traps.”

“Thanks.” I take the traps and close the door even though I don’t know whether he’s done talking.

My mom’s words come back to me, about the mice eating your slippers and social security card. The absurdity of last night’s conversation washes over me, leaving me hollowed out and lonelier than before. I feel myself reaching for the phone. My heart tugs in that desperate kind of way, looking for the person tugging on the other end, wondering whether they’re even pulling anymore.

I go to the one box I can identify. I placed it carefully on the counter, made sure I carried it myself to not risk damage by movers. I peel off the tape and pull the flaps open.

There it is. Mom’s stuff. Her college degree with her name traced in gold. Her collection of scarves. A few birthday cards I made for her as a kid. I dig through the box, holding each one tightly to my chest, imagining her hands holding these items, holding me.

When I get near the bottom, something strange happens. The papers are torn on the edges. Her favorite pair of slippers is ripped at the seams. My finger traces a jagged hole at the bottom of the box. A mouse-sized hole.

And suddenly it’s like the mouse has burrowed not just through the cardboard but my heart. The room heats up again and with a robotic kind of stiffness I set the glue trap right by the hole in the radiator.

I hear shuffling in the wall later that morning. Then jazz. Then screaming. I watch the glue trap rattle against the wall.

“Oy, my foot’s stuck!” the mouse cries out.

Later, he seems to catch on. “Did I do something wrong? What happened to breakfast?”

And later still, “Please, lady. It’s pulling my fur. It’s stuck in my nose. I can’t move. Just help me out and I can fix it, ok? Remember the stuffing? I put it back, didn’t I?”

I think I mean to help him at first. I only put the trap there in anger. As a lesson. I’ll deal with it in an hour, I tell myself. And when the hour passes, I say I’ll do it tonight. Then tomorrow. My heart hurts and somehow his screams, his cries, his pleas, match the pitch of my ache.

At some point the voice stops. The glue trap goes still. My apartment echoes less now, with most of my things unpacked, but the silence, the silence, still deafens me.

I press my ear up against the wall, but there’s no one on the other side.