We Happy Few (Short Story) Read online

We Happy Few

  by Jill Shultz

  Copyright 2013 Jill Shultz

  Cover illustration Copyright 2013 Erika Harper

  Other titles by Jill Shultz: Angel on the Ropes

  Table of Contents

  We Happy Few (short story)

  About the Author

  We Happy Few

  ON THE BAR, a rat sits on a magazine ad of a moonlit Maui beach, his tail a scaly rope draped over the necks of the supernaturally beautiful couple in the photograph. Could be us. Lilith’s scrawl in her signature purple Sharpie presses into the white sand as if written with a stick.

  “Might as well go to Hell,” I mutter. I nudge the rat aside and meticulously tear the ad out of the magazine.

  Done my time in close to two dozen cities whose nightlife had all the charm of tarted-up tweenies. Survivable? Sure. It’s easier to maintain a nocturnal lifestyle in Nowheresville these days, when you can buy so much online. But see, I drank beer in Fraunces Tavern when the Sons of Liberty skulked in to brew their trouble. Even then New York was too alive to be confined by daylight. By the time I returned during the Gilded Age, the city was unstoppable. My second exile was a bitch, and that was long before I learned to take egg foo young con arroz y frijoles and all the city’s other cultural crossbreeds for granted.

  That all changed a few years ago.

  I wish to God it hadn’t, because now, just the thought of moving makes me go blank for a second, dead—truly dead, not technically dead.

  I reach down next to the wine glasses to draw out a wire frame bin. A rat lifts her head from the blue velvet lining and yawns, flashing buck teeth the color of curry. I scowl as I place the escapee next to the others and sing them all back to sleep. Lilith, the bar’s front man, clatters a cocktail tray onto the stack. She winks, glad I answered her call for help so quickly. Her smile fades when she sees me slide the bin into place.

  “No prob,” I say, hoping to make her feel better. Ninety-two years of voice lessons have not helped her sing on key. Diniel usually charms the rats to sleep for her, but he’s late.

  “The Piper’s here,” Lilith warns.

  I scowl, then try to hide my nervousness by crumpling the magazine ad for a three-point toss into the recycling bin.

  “You’re going to win, Jack.”

  Franchisee of the Year gets to choose his next assignment. Hence Lilith’s glossy suggestions—she thinks I’ll take her along to manage my new club. I would, if that were the plan.

  Lilith tugs her black lace corset north and east. “You’re the best rat-catcher in the city after the Piper, which means you’re really number one, since he’s too busy running the national chain to go out on calls.”

  I manage the Manhattan franchise of The Pied Pipers, and have always placed in the top three. This year, I’ve got to win. My thirty-year rotation is up.

  And I can’t leave.

  There’s no magical interdiction, but there might as well be. It’s like this: the Piper makes his vampires move so no one notices we don’t age. Break that rule and you wake up drunk on the Bowery at sunrise, ankles cuffed, nose already burning.

  My workaround? I’m laying a trail of gold for the Piper, beginning at this bar. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The club was inspired by my hero, the greatest rat-catcher of all time: Jack Black, Queen Victoria’s official rat destroyer. I’m not kidding. Never met him—we were already in America by the time he was born—but what a character! He once melted down all his wife’s pans and poured the iron into molds formed from real rats, and wore those life-size iron rats like cabochons on a shoulder belt over his coat to advertise his business. That belt drew a crowd to rival the Piper. Once they heard Jack’s story, they either fainted or hired him. Now that’s what I call an entrepreneur. Anyway, Jack Black sold the rats he collected as pets (if they could be passed off as fancies) or to the rat pits. I give mine a few days of Club Med and then the gentlest death possible, but like my namesake, I get paid twice for the same rat. What could be more appealing than double-dipping to the greedy Piper?

  Unfortunately, last month’s anorexic receipts have me worried about staking my future on the club’s success. This plan is big, and some nights I’m not so sure the Piper is ready to let his little boy lead. I flash Lilith an anemic smile and scurry down the hall to the supply room to restock, glad I don’t have to sell the idea tonight. A good month could make all the difference.

  As I push open the door, the rats freeze and sniff the air. I chirp, mimicking their ultrasonic giggle; at 55 kHz, it’s way beyond human hearing, even too high-pitched for dogs. They relax. I pick a male off the toy ladder and tickle the nape of his neck, their favorite spot. He playfully nips my finger as I put him on my shoulder. Over his sandalwood scent, I pick up notes of asphalt, dirt, and General Tso’s chicken. Lucky guy.

  The colony I collected from Donald Trump’s construction site last night has taken over the PVC sculpture in the center of the room. Maybe I should run a special, offer them as a premium vintage? Right now, we’re the only humanitarian club, but it won’t be long before the other vamp bars start offering rats to customers who don’t want to feed on humans.

  In the back of the supply room, a couple of young rats hang from a cherry-red parrot swing while others play soccer with a racquetball. A heavily pregnant rat runs across the tightrope to the jungle gym, tail acting like a balance pole. I sing a few notes of my ultrasonic lullaby. All around me, rats snuggle into wood shavings.

  I harvest a few dozen. As soon as I shut the door behind me, I change the melody and sing the ones in my basket into a deep sleep, walking slowly past walls paneled in oak rescued from an old tavern.

  At our best table, the Piper’s leaning on his knee in an overstuffed Victorian club chair, gazing anxiously upon the streets of TriBeCa. An inviting pool of light falls onto the empty chair next to him. Despite the sullen heat, he’s wearing a sports coat that won’t button unless he sucks in his breath, and a gleaming rat lapel pin. Must be waiting for a big client. I’m proud he’s meeting him at my club.

  I fan the rats out on a silver tray and bring them over.

  We could pass for father and son, the Pied Piper and me, both blessed with easily forgotten faces. His is craggy, ageless. Mine invites women to tousle my hair. Innocently. I was only twelve when the Piper turned me. Really sucks when you’re nearly seven hundred and fifty years old and your best dating prospects are pedophiles.

  “Good evening, boss,” I say, setting the tray in front of him. “On the house.”

  “Thank you, Jack. Could I have a glass of Cabernet for Dorie?”

  Damn, she’s here. What’s he doing dressed like this for her?

  I smile and nod, checking the side rooms for Dorie as I return to the bar. Two lanky vamps are having a cat stare down in the mid-century modern suite. Laughter rolls out of the New Orleans parlor, crowded with flouncy vamps.

  My fangs threaten to pop out when I return to the boss’s table and see Dorie, but I swallow and mumble a greeting as I place the wine in front of her.

  Dorie was turned at the right age. She has a Weimaraner’s startling gray eyes and acres of strawberry blonde hair parted down the center, rippling to her midriff like Botticelli’s Venus. Her beauty won’t always be fashionable, of course. Styles change. For now, though, she’s It.

  What a waste. All that beauty and not enough spirit to make something of it. I’d probably coach her, if she wasn’t playing the Piper. I mean, damn, if I wore a bandolier of gold rats and nothing else, I still wouldn’t turn as many heads as she can. Of course, she walks around practically naked, dressed in a skim coat of red latex like half of the new vamps in the room. The others are in leather. Latex or leather: it’s the
law. No choice there for Dorie, because she’s an animal rights activist. I hope she’s wearing a bikini bottom or had the decency to grab one of the towels we keep near the entrance. Talk about gross.

  The Piper gestures me to join them. “Dorie, this is Jack Black.” He smiles proudly at me, and I straighten. “In addition to owning this club, he’s one of the best Pipers in the country.”

  She sips her wine. I can smell her disgust, like burnt coffee.

  “He’s in the running to win Franchise of the Year.”

  “Is that so?” she murmurs.

  He prattles about his selection process, his grin stretching wider and wider, nearly patting me on the head. For once I don’t feel the urge to duck because I imagine him smiling like that, leaning back in his office chair as I explain my plan. Instead of banking the prize bonus, I’ll use the money to develop a sub-franchising model for humanitarian bars. He rubs his thumbnail over his lower lip, recognizing a classic case of vertical integration, with the main business providing the product marketed by the subsidiary. He smiles a little and holds out his palm, asking what I want, and I say, just a small cut. He nods. Taller now, I cross my legs casually, say we should run it out of his existing headquarters, citing the logistical benefits. I’ll stay in Manhattan; it’ll be easier.

  Though if he insists, I’ll move to Brooklyn.

  Damn it, I’ll even move to Queens—or if he’s feeling cruel, the Island.

  The Piper coughs. He turns away from both of us. Dorie tilts her chin, giving me the cool stare of a celebrity measuring my visibility.

  The Piper takes a sip, clears his throat. Then he leans towards me and whispers, “There’s an extra reward for the winner this year. A month-long, all expenses paid trip to Hameln.”

  He still uses the German pronunciation. I wonder if he considers himself German or American. Probably doesn’t give it much thought. Give me a bank and I’m home, he says.

  Never been that easy for me.

  “Hamelin,” I repeat softly.

  Something stirs in my belly. For a moment I’m lost in images of Hamelin’s wooden Weser Renaissance buildings, their facades subdivided with ram’s-horn scrollwork, pinnacled gables, and crazy hand-carved ornaments all picked out in different colors. Always wanted to see those buildings in person. I haven’t been back since 1284—

  My palms suddenly become sweaty. I wipe them on my trousers. My parents were confident they could outwit the Piper, too. That’s why I haven’t been back since 1284, when the Piper lured us kids out of Hamelin into a cave in Köppen Hill, then through the mountain to Transylvania. Where he turned us, as revenge against our parents, who refused to pay him after he charmed all of the town’s rats into the Weser River.

  As you’d imagine, Count Dracula flipped when he found 130 illegal vamps on his doorstep. The negotiation didn’t go well for the Piper. He had to give up most of the vamps and promise that none of his remaining children would ever visit the Count’s territory, which stretched all the way from Romania through Germany. Sixty-five years later, we fled Europe. Lean times, those.

  The Piper grins like a little kid. “I just signed a treaty with the new Count. Two of us can go back each year. You know the town pays an official Pied Piper now?”

  No, really? I smile tightly. He’s repeated this rant so often he can wrap it up in a nanosecond and still have time for a Bronx cheer.

  “The guy’s not even a licensed pest control operator, he’s a storyteller who performs my tale weekly in front of the Rattenfängerhaus.” He grumbles.

  This “rat-catcher’s house” is a fake, too, built in 1603, more than three hundred years after we left. It’s beautiful, I admit, but not as much of a show-stopper as the Weser Renaissance buildings. Their lavish style is the second major tourist attraction in Hamelin. God help me if they ever become the first.

  “That town is still making money off me.”

  Course, if they hadn’t turned his story into a legend, he wouldn’t have made his millions here, promising a service “so good, so unnoticeable, you’ll think it’s magic.” That motto works like a charm on building supervisors at prestigious addresses. They’ll do anything to keep residents from finding out they have a rat problem.

  The Piper picks a sleeping rat off the tray and twists its neck. Dorie jerks back in her chair. He sinks his fangs into its heart and drinks. Her face pales.

  “You want one?” he asks her, making the motion of cervical dislocation.

  He meant that courteously, because Dorie is too squeamish to snap a rat’s spine. She flashes me a look of pure hatred, deciding to blame the purveyor instead of her meal ticket. I’m pissed, too, because no one needs to do that to be sure my rats die humanely. Rats don’t wake up after I’ve sung them to sleep. I am better than barbiturates. When is he going to see that? My throat burns, as if someone tossed a bucket of acid at its side and plugged the drain. Each time I try to swallow, the heat sloshes up and down.

  I say I need to help Lilith at the bar and walk away.

  The rest of the night scuffles past as I charm customers and rats. At 4 A.M., when we’re getting ready to close, the Piper waves me back to his table.

  “Dorie wants to see the operation.”

  I take them behind the bar and show them how to tap beer. Dorie takes out her cell and shoots a photo of the Piper with a foamy mustache. They kid around for a few minutes.

  “Where do you keep the rats?” asks Dorie.

  The Piper grabs her arm before I can say one word and marches toward the supply room. I follow in his wake.

  “These rats are lucky to have such a good home,” he says.

  As soon as the Piper pushes the door open, I catch the whiff and start scanning, a smile frozen on my face. There. Behind the jungle gym. She’s frozen with her rump up in the air and her tail deflected to the right. Jeezus. A big male mounts her while a dozen others crowd around them. In less than a minute, she hops forward to dislodge him and boxes the nearest male to push the group back, but another is already on her, his spine arching as he thrusts, forepaws lifting off her back.

  “Been a while since I’ve seen that,” the Piper says softly, as the fifth male mates with her in so many minutes. He grabs Dorie’s cell and takes a picture. “They’ll keep at it for two or three hours,” he tells her. He smiles.

  A very masculine smile.

  Dorie stares at him, open-mouthed. I echo the Piper’s smirk. Before she can figure out which complaint to lodge first, the female escapes into the nest box. The males mill around the entrance, whiskers sweeping across the rough wooden side.

  “Outta luck, guys,” says Dorie with obvious relief.

  “Typical bunny-hugger,” I say under my breath.

  Dorie stiffens. My fangs pop out in response. I smell the musk of rising testosterone in the rats and inhale deeply. The Piper turns his shoulder to shield her. I ignore him. Behind me, a rat gnashes his teeth. Dorie’s eyes widen. A laugh that tastes sweet and sour like trouble gurgles in my throat. I ignore that, too.

  “Try to imagine them with nice furry tails,” I say, leaning close to her. “Isn’t that better?”

  “Don’t you know when to shut up?” the Piper says. “Sweetheart, don’t worry about him.”

  I stumble backwards in surprise. Before he started dating her, the Piper liked to grouse with his rat-catcher buddies about how animal rights activists are only interested in protecting cute critters and ones that communicate like humans. They’d trot out the latest horror stories. Halfway through the conversation the Piper would say, “You can bet your franchise that 80% of them have never sat silently for an hour observing actual animals at work. But they’re sure quick to tell us how to do our jobs right.” If I wasn’t lucky enough to escape at that point, he’d elbow me and say, “Jack here is an animal welfare activist, but he’s okay. Well informed and realistic.”

  Well-informed, realistic, and stupid beyond belief. He must actually care about her. Acid washes up my throat again. I mumble an apolo
gy and start counting the punch marks in the Piper’s shoes to keep quiet, which ain’t easy.

  Like I said, stupid.

  Dorie turns to the shelf unit. Her muffled exclamation makes me look up. A rat slurps coffee out of a mug. Dorie’s holding her hand over her mouth and nose. The Piper chuckles and takes another picture.

  The female in heat reappears and is instantly rushed.

  “I always tell the recruits, if they’re not eating, they’re having sex.” The Piper chuckles again. “Not a bad life.” He snaps a shot of a rat running across his shiny black wing tips.

  “Stop them,” Dorie squeaks, squeezing his arm.

  The Piper starts explaining how female rats benefit from gang rape, because males who have copulated with them are less likely to commit infanticide.

  Dorie thumps him on the chest. “That’s not natural. It’s a perversion caused by human interference.”

  Her screeching upsets the rats. One male starts chasing another across the room, trying to bite his rump. I hustle the vamps back into the hallway.

  Now she’s babbling about how the whole set-up of my club is unethical. Vamps should feed off humans, not kill rats.

  Pink splotches appear on the Piper’s cheeks. He yanks her toward the club’s exit.

  In thirteen hours, I will remember that I left the door to the supply room open.