I like to drive through the neighborhoods I used to live in and check in with my history. Most recently, Uptown. The corner of 25th and Bryant, a stately duplex on a tree-lined block.
The Uptown house rarely calls me. But something was in my head this day, something small, furry and insistent. Chewing through the toilet-paper tube of my consciousness, suckling at the suspended drip-bottle of recollection, running endlessly on the exercise wheel of my mind.
Rewind fourteen years. I was living in Stevens Court. Money was tight. My little Amanda was two years old and just beginning to realize the concept of “things.”
“Can I have that?” she’d say, pointing at the bike a child was riding through the park. “No,” I’d say. “But you can ride on my shoulders!”
“You don’t have anything I can pedal.” Amanda was nobody’s dummy. It went on that way for a time. At the dollar store, “No.” At the grocery store, “No.” It was a world of “No.” She and I were sick of it.
There was a pet store nearby. Browsing there was Amanda’s favorite treat. One day after a million no’s, in the pet store, she held up the funniest little animal I ever saw. A Siberian hamster. It looked just like a Siberian husky dog, only it was four inches long. They were expensive. Fifty bucks apiece. Amanda held a squirming fuzzball to her lips. It kissed her. She laughed delightedly, and was powerless to resist.
“Can I have this little guy?” God help me. I had my rent money in cash in my pocket. Her eyes held such wild hope.
“Yes.” The look on her face. The sun itself has never shone brighter.
When I screw up, I like to screw up big. I dropped two hundred dollars on two hamsters and the James J. Hill House of hamster tanks. I’d figure out what to tell the landlord later.
Fast-forward six months. Our fortunes improved. We were moving to our stately duplex in Uptown. I had a handsome live-in boyfriend named Ken, comedy work, and a sense that maybe things would work out.
On moving day, as boxes and furniture were hauled in a steady stream into the house, a friend lugged in the hamster tank. “Where should I put these guys?” I wanted them out of my daughter’s reach until we got settled. The duplex boasted a formal dining room with a very wide plate rail ringing the room near the ceiling. I pointed to a corner of the plate rail. “Put them up there.” I didn’t think they would fall. In fact, once they were up there, I didn’t think about them at all.
Fast forward two weeks. Ken, Amanda, and I were enjoying breakfast in the dining room. Amanda asked, “Mommy? Where are my hamsters?” Ken and I choked, goggled at each other over our coffee mugs, but said nothing. She asked again, and I did the only thing I could think to do. I lied.
“Honey, remember when we moved in here? Your hamsters told me that they didn’t want to move to a new place. They said they wanted to go back to the store to live with their aunts and uncles and cousins. So I took them back.”
It took awhile for her to speak. When she did, she looked me in the eye and her voice quavered. “I guess I wish you would have told me.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I should have.”
She let out a hot gasp and looked away. But not before I saw another look I’ll never forget. She knew I was lying. My lie painted a Disney world of talking hamsters and watchful mothers that she was already too wise to believe in. Like I said, she’s nobody’s dummy. I hustled her to the neighbors’ and paced the floor with my boyfriend.
“You do it,” I said, “I can’t look.” He dragged a chair over to the plate rail. His eyes widened in horror. He jumped down, covering his mouth in a gag. They weren’t both dead.
I shrieked, “Kill it!” I was in a state; I mean what was I going to do? Allow my baby to harbor a cannibal hamster? Ken’s eyes rolled in revulsion. “Kill it? The thing is mad as hell. I don’t want to touch it!” My mind was racing. “Put the oven mitt on, grab it, and throw it against the wall!”
Ken looked at me, thunderstruck. Our relationship lasted for years after that moment. To this day, I’m not sure why. At that moment, he knew the black depths of my heart.
Shielding our hands with oven mitts, we took the tank off the rail. The rodent was indeed furious, charging the walls in a palsied hamster slam dance. We carried the tank to the alley, tipped it over, and sprang back as fast as we could. It shot out down the alley, ravenous for flesh.
Free, in Uptown.
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