Rest in peace, Tar Baby Rat Fetus

[Nanci]

(A short story)


It was early July. I was recovering from a bout of pneumonia that attacked out of nowhere. In the summer, no less. Which prompted some "routine" blood work. Which led to the unexpected discovery of a near-diabetic glucose level. The pneumonia had taken twelve pounds off me, and now, scared straight, it was seriously time to diet and exercise. My most recent physical activity was a grueling trail marathon the Sunday before Memorial Day. It had been a long time since I biked religiously, but I got on BF's old road-tired mountain bike and started riding for my life. I had to drop the princess act if I wished to ride nightly, and ride nightly I must. No more confining my rides to paved trails, safe from bone-crushing, bike-mangling motor vehicles. I bravely took to the rural roads of my country neighborhood.

One evening, venturing further than I ever had before, I rounded a corner into the bike lane. As I passed by, I glimpsed something- some...thing, out of the corner of my eye, and my head nearly twisted off my shoulders as I whipped around for a second look. I'd seen something odd laying on the ground, in that nether-world between the bike lane and the grass, in the sandy area where only the hardiest of weeds grew, where glass and nails collected. What was it? I couldn't tell. It was black, flat black, pitch black, tar black, and about the size of a small kitten or large rat. Completely hairless, it lay in unnatural repose on its back, with arms and legs out-flung. I was past it so quickly I didn't have time to take in all the details, and it occupied my imagination throughout the rest of the ride. When I passed on the opposite side of the road on the way back, I watched for it, but, foreshadowing times to come, I didn't cross for a second look.

Some people go through life with a continual sense of wonder, others are just counting the days. When I got home, I couldn't wait to describe my strange and exotic find to BF, but, predictably, he wasn't interested. My story trailed into nothingness. Whatever the thing was, though, I couldn't stop thinking about this alien creature, striving to come up with a plausible explanation for it, a taxonomic description of it. I anxiously awaited my next ride, and the following evening I rounded the corner with almost unbearable anticipation. I expected the thing to be further down the road of decomposition, putrefication, melting away to nothing like that dog last summer, hit by a car and hidden by the canopy of trees from nature's undertakers, the vultures. Over the weeks, the dog had gradually vanished, dissolved by the harsh Florida summer elements until all that remained was a grease stain on the road. But the mystery thing, it was not there, not there, not there, wait! Twenty feet down the road, resting gently on its back in the long grass, there it lay, unaffected by the weather, untouched by scavengers, unchanged. I tried to examine it as I went by- matte black, hairless, with a long, gently-curled tail and rounded ears, maybe a vaguely pointed snout, not so much cat-like as rat-like. But why didn't it have fur? It seemed almost...unborn. And why was it so completely black? Had it been, could it possibly have been dipped in tar?

Over the course of my next few rides, a set of rules of engagement developed: no stopping to examine it, no going back for a second look, no crossing the road to look again on the way home. I could only gather as much information as one pass would allow. But I never really learned anything beyond my initial observations. By the third or fourth visit, the thing had acquired a descriptive name: Tar Baby Rat Fetus. And now, with a name, it became a fixture of my rides: a landmark, an inanimate animal that I spoke to in passing like the other creatures on my route. "Hi Cowies, Hi Mr. Turtle, Hi Tar Baby Rat Fetus." BF would inquire about my ride, and I would say "Tar Baby Rat Fetus is still there." And it always was, fixed and unchanging, a constant. I introduced it to my new road bike. "Lava, this is Tar Baby Rat Fetus. I don't know what it is, but there it is."

Weeks passed, summer almost turned to fall, and one Sunday evening, BF and I were on our way to dinner at our friends'. As we drove by The Spot, I told him to watch out the window for Tar Baby Rat Fetus. I desperately wanted them to meet. I don't know if he didn't look hard enough, but he couldn't spot it, and neither could I. The next evening, I set off on my ride as usual. Halfway through, something in me shifted- I experienced a sea change. No longer content to merely pass by, I had this urge not only to stop when I came to Tar Baby Rat Fetus, but to take its picture, with my cell phone camera. Imagine my excitement! I felt as though I knew the location of, and was about to establish proof of something fantastic and unbelievable, a legend, like the Loch Ness Monster, or the Abominable Snowman. I rounded the corner, already unclipped, and Fred Flintstone'd to a stop.

But Tar Baby Rat Fetus was not there. There was no longer anything to document. I searched in vain up and down the shoulder of the road. Gone, definitely gone. Where would it go? Where _could_ it go? I didn't think anyone would kidnap it- heck, I was probably the only one who paid it any attention or even noticed it at all. Then it came to me. Saturday, as I rode a triangle of three small towns, I had passed a road clean-up crew, picking up trash from a golf cart. I'd passed them going out, and coming back, then continued past my usual turn, and passed them a third time on my way back home. I waved at them, they waved at me as they weaved through the long grass in the ditch and out to the bike lane, picking up everything that didn't belong. That was it then, Tar Baby Rat Fetus had been tonged up like a piece of trash. Like an empty beer can, a single flattened shoe or an crushed cigarette pack, tossed into the blackness of a slick black garbage bag. Into a black sack, like the black of Tar Baby Rat Fetus' smooth hairless skin, and it was gone, never again to see the light of day. I felt a pang of regret in my heart. I am going to miss you, Tar Baby Rat Fetus! Why hadn't I ever stopped to solve the mystery? I know why. Because I had preferred Tar Baby Rat Fetus to remain an enigma, rather than find a simple explanation for its inscrutable existence. Now it was going to be a mystery forever. Maybe it's better that way.

There's always tomorrow, though. I'll keep my eyes wide open as I round the corner, and maybe, just maybe...