of mice and men

            This is not my story.  It is Michael’s story.  But I like it so I’m telling it as I remember hearing it. 

            There was a time when Michael was a bartender at a fancy restaurant in New Orleans.  During his shift, he was often sent to the far corners of the restaurant where other people didn’t go.  Once while searching for a jar of olives in the wine cellar, he heard a terrible sound.  He rounded a corner to discover a mouse stuck on a shelf, its bottom glued fast to a trap.  It was screaming in a mousey way, struggling helplessly to free itself. Now if any of you have ever encountered a mouse in a glue trap, it’s a pretty terrible sight.  Far from the  quick and grizzly death of a spring trap, the glue trap keeps its victim in a slow, terrible contest until the mouse starves to death.  Michael knew, and the mouse probably knew too, that it would never get out of that trap alive, and the torment would continue- for days.

            Michael contemplated  his options.  The restaurant was set to open in a little under an hour.   It was a restaurant where an exterminator had been hired specifically to kill the mice. And it was a restaurant in New Orleans no less, where men were not expected to care about the fate of its vermin.  Conflicted, Michael grabbed his jar of olives and then lifted the trap and the mouse attached to it out of the basement.  He walked up the stairs into the main floor, and hid them- one end still shrieking, the other end still stuck- next to the trashcan.  Then, he stood nearby and waited. 

            A sous chef darted by on an errand.

             “Hey, man,” said Michael, as casually as he could.  “Do you hear that?”

            “Hear what?”  The chef rounded the corner,  leaving Michael alone.  From behind the trashcan, the mouse squealed its displeasure. 

             Finally, he decided to own up to it and ask the head bartender what to do. 

            “I had the same problem last week,” the man said.  “George told me to cut its head off – start at the back of its neck, where it’ll feel the least pain.   I took my wine key and I pressed it on the neck until the head popped off.  Then I went home and threw up.  You can do that if you want, but I’m never doing it again.”

            Michael looked down at the little mouse.  “I’m not going to do that.”

             “Well,” said the man,  “There is one other way.” 

           

            Michael looked around him.  The restaurant was set to open in half an hour.  He would need help for this.  “Where am I going to find someone to help me save a mouse in the state of Louisiana?”    He surveyed the wait staff.  There was macho Joe and angry Alison.  Behind Alison was Winny, the hippy waitress who never wore a bra. Bingo. He took Winny aside. 

            “I have a situation,” he said, and described his predicament.  “Can you help me?  It means you’re going to be late for work.”

            She thought about it for a second. “Yes.” 

            Michael and Winny huddled in the corner of the parking garage behind the restaurant, staring into a shallow pan of water where mouse and trap and glue and tail remained stuck together.  The mouse had stopped struggling.  It lay meekly, waiting for death.  For a long time, it seemed that nothing was happening.  Then slowly, the glue began to dissolve.  Winny touched her hand to the mouse’s tail and one millimeter at a time, pulled it off the tape. It was free! In a flash, the mouse darted off under the cars and disappeared.  Michael half expected it to turn back and look at its saviors, but it never did, and meanwhile, they were late for work.

            The next time he found a mouse in the basement, Michael didn’t need Winny’s help.  He snuck out the back door with his pan of water alone.  He had the thing submerged and was just about to pull it off the tape when he looked up and saw Bob standing above him.  He was caught. Bob was one of the manliest, dude-est, men-men in town.  It was said that he threatened to shoot people if they crossed him, and he walked around town with a definitive swagger.  He looked them over.

            “You saving that mouse there?”   

            Michael straightened.  “Yep.”

            Bob eyed the pan of water, the crying creature, the young bartender pulling it off the tape.
There was a long moment of silence.   “I guess everything’s got a right to live,” he said finally, and walked away, leaving them alone.