Less Than Human Read Free Page B

making pickups for the bookies.
    When times were really tough, he sold his body to men with a taste for young boys, his defiant smile a bandage far too small to cover the hurt when he endured their cold sweaty hands, when they threw their money at his feet, when they roared away in cars that smelled of new leather and spent passion… to their big fine homes… where the rats never came in the night.
    The city fought sleep, tossing and turning fitfully, a shadow troubled by fevered neon dreams. Sounds leaked from the apartments he passed: an argument between a man and a woman, a snatch of Latino melody, a child laughing, an old woman praying, someone crying. Always someone crying.
    Night music his mama had called it, a lullaby made by souls in torment.
    When he used to ask her what she meant, she would always brush the hair from over his eyes and hold him close without answering. Without conscious thought, he brushed the hair from his eyes.
    He pushed the painful thoughts aside. Time to get a move on. The night had managed to find him far from home. He hated the night, because the rats came then and they might try to get into the apartment. His dad was there alone. He picked up the pace, his footsteps throwing lonely echoes down the alley—pat pat pat—increasing to a run as he weaved around an overturned garbage can.
    At first he didn't see the rats. He plowed into them before he realized what they were, and they lazily abandoned the contents of the can, only to return like a swarm of blowflies disturbed on a summer day. Fear kicked Joey in the gut, driving the breath from his body. He did his best to make himself part of the wall when the biggest rat he'd ever seen crawled out holding a gobbet of something bloody.
    The thing was a monster, a twisted crippled mass of scar tissue with fur the color of pissed-on snow. Joey watched it drag its bloated body up onto a fire escape and hobble along as it tried to flee with its prize. But the smaller rats were quicker. They were waiting at the other end.
    Drawn by the smell of blood, they crept across the swaying span. The sheer weight of them caused the rusted metal to groan in protest. Their hunger drove them, made them edge nearer the bared fangs, their eyes wet with equal portions of need and fear as they sidled up to death.
    They hesitated, working up their courage. And then, like a single-minded organism that knew a part must die so the whole might live, they lunged forward.
    The white monster killed five.
    It caught them by the throat and flung their wriggling bodies from the fire escape like a child digging through a drawer in search of a missing sock. One bounced off the wall by Joey and he recoiled from the wetness that splattered his face.
    Anger overcame fear.
    "You want something to eat? I got something right here. How about a little metal pizza, you fuckers!" He scooped up a garbage-can lid and flung it in a flat, vicious arc.
    A squeal of agony died beneath the clang of metal and the white rat's hindquarters were almost severed in two. It should have died right there, but instead it began a frenzied dance, around and around, its body held together by a piece of skin no bigger than a string, leaking wet black stains onto the pavement.
    What happened next was inevitable. Joey had seen it many times before—the writhing bodies descended, a magician's scarf fluttering in the night.
    "Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!" Disgust was in his voice as he broke into an impromptu impression of a carnival barker. "We're only doing one show tonight, so you'd better get your tickets quick." He scanned the imaginary crowd, getting into the part. "How much, you ask? It's a steal. One thin dime—yes, sir, that's right, ten cents gets you in." He ripped an invisible ticket, his eyes never leaving the rats.
    "Watch close now. It's showtime!"
    He swept an arm outward and the scarf of flesh parted on cue. Not a trace of the injured rat remained. The other five were gone, too.
    "Rat