Rats Saw God Read Free

seen the light at the end of the tunnel, but only one stretch of pavement beckoned without respite—the one leading away from home.
    Another thirty minutes passed.
    Needing inspiration, I opened the dictionary, determined to begin my story with whatever word my finger landed on. I flipped to the middle and stabbed a page.
    Oviparous: adj. Producing eggs that hatch outside the body.
    Definitely time to give up. Reaching behind my Mac to switch it off, I remembered what DeMouy said before I left his office: Write about what I know. I’ve been told that a hundred times before. Sky said I needed to tattoo it to my right hand, so I would remember it every time I picked up a pen. “Science fiction,” he would say, “is the only genre open to you imaginationalists”—a term he used to define the school of writing he said I was pioneering. If anyone knew I wouldn’t have the stomach to write about spacemen, it was Sky.
    Luke “Sky” Waters was the teacher of the creative writing elective I took the year before in Houston. In a way, Sky was more responsible than the astronaut for my relocation to California. He was Dub’s teacher, too.
    Sky had also maintained that all “true” writers had had their hearts broken. According to Sky’s definition, I could become a writer now. My heart had been run through frappe, puree, and liquefy on a love blender. Dub had seen to that. Maybe I did have a topic capable of delivering me from summer school. I hoped DeMouy would appreciate what I was about to do. In order to bypass summer school, I was set to open wounds that had never really healed.
    I began to type.

    When Mom and the astronaut called Sarah and me into our Cocoa Beach, Florida (see I Dream of Jeannie ), dining room to tell us they were getting a divorce, I admit I was shocked. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but the warning signs had been such a part of the status quo. I don’t remember them ever being affectionate. Fights were a rarity, though had Mom gotten her way, I’m sure there would have been more. Peace prevailed outwardly because the astronaut was concerned about public appearances and would concede anything to avoid a confrontation in front of strangers. From my bedroom, I once eavesdropped on a battle royale. By pressing my ear to the air duct, I could hear them arguing about my future in Little League baseball. Mom fought hard to get me out of a third season of humiliation. The astronaut thought the experience would teach me important lessons about “stick-to-itiveness,” teamwork, and self-confidence.
    â€œAlan,” she yelled at him, “you can’t turn him into you.”
    But his mind was made up, and the two hadn’t exactly set up their marriage as a democracy. I spent my third and final year of Little League alternating between right field (the least skill-intensive position and frequent spaz-repository) and the bench. Hearing Bobby Patton, our shortstop and cleanup hitter, beg the coach to bench me in an important game taught me volumes about self-confidence and teamwork.
    Sarah, twelve at the time of the divorce conference, patted her father on the back (Mom actually did all the speaking. Alan was there to simulate a united front), andtold him everything would work out for the best. I don’t understand why her empathy was wasted on that barely animate statue.
    The astronaut and I moved to Houston a few weeks after the divorce was final, but only forty-eight hours before my first day of high school. Houston was home base of NASA, and I had lived there before, back when he was still reveling in the celebrity he scored for doing the slow-motion moon hop, but I was too young to remember much about it. Besides, learning about Houston proper would have done little to prepare me for life in the tony suburb of Clear Lake, where we actually settled.
    Most of the children of NASA lived in the area. The only black kid at Grace High