Animal Appetite

said, “with fries.”
    I should have expected the clear, educated voice. After all, he’d gone to Avon Hill. “Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’ll save it for later.”
    “It’ll get cold,” I remarked.
    “I don’t mind. And I’ve just eaten.” He could’ve been referring to lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club. Fixing pale, innocent blue eyes on mine, he said rather intently, “They don’t feed me at home. They threw me out on the street.” Pointing to the backpack, he added, “I was forced to take the essentials with me.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Oscar Fisch blames me for the rats, you see,” Gareth confided. “They’re everywhere in the house these days. One can’t avoid them. They scurry around in the walls. It’s dangerous. They gnaw at the electric wires. Their teeth are sharp.”
    “It’s amazing they don’t electrocute themselves.” I felt as if Lewis Carroll had written the line for me.
    “Oh, but they do!” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The decay is everywhere. They die in the walls. The stench fills every room.” Glancing nervously left and right, he continued in an undertone, “Oscar Fisch knows they’re there. He won’t admit it. So does my mother. But she lets men take advantage of her.” After a pause, he said at normal volume and in a cheerfully matter-of-fact tone, “And rats, too.”
    “Rats,” I echoed.
    Gareth looked slightly alarmed. “You haven’t come about the rats, have you?”
    “Certainly not. I brought you lunch. Remember?” Exactly as he’d done before, he said, “Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’ll save it for later.”
    “I don’t mind at all,” I assured him.
    For a moment, his face went blank. Then his eyes brightened, as if he’d remembered something. “Uncle George bought rat poison,” he informed me.
    The elderly relative of Jack’s? The retired exterminator who’d stupidly supplied Jack with the poison?
    “Your Uncle George?” I asked.
    “George Foley!” Gareth replied. He pointed across the street toward the brick wall of Harvard Yard. “Professor George Foley! My mother is a professor, too. So is Oscar Fisch. Oscar has been granted tenure. My mother has not.” In a bland conversational tone, he remarked, “My mother collects books about mayhem. She interests herself in the topic. It is her chosen field of study.” Once again, he lowered his voice. “Harvard maintains rat colonies for experimental purposes. At night, the rats are loose on the streets. Oscar Fisch knows all about it.”
    “Well,” I said, groping for reality, “the psychology department probably has rats, but I don’t think they use them at the Business School. Isn’t that where Oscar Fisch teaches?”
    Sounding disconcertingly sane, Gareth declared, “Oscar Fisch is a professional survivor. Oscar Fisch is high up in the recovery movement. Oscar Fisch runs groups.”
    He gave me a moment to appreciate the significance of the disclosure. Then he went on. “Jim Jones had groups, too. His groups all went to South America, and everyone drank Kool-Aid. Even the children.” As if reading from a natural-history text, he reported, “Rats are heavily distributed throughout the world.” Citing a reference, he added, “Uncle George says so.”
    Since we seemed to be getting nowhere except deeper into lunacy, I finally took the initiative. “George Foley was a friend of your father’s, wasn’t he?”
    Mistake! Gareth’s eyes blazed. “My father drank rat poison!” he shouted. Veering around to address the passersby, he roared at top volume, “My father drinks rat poison, and it’s better than he deserves, the stinking son of a bitch! His name is John Winter Andrews, and he collects rat poison! And then he drinks it! And he fells down on the floor, and rolls around, and coughs up blood and vomit! And then he never, never DIES!” The muscles in Gareth’s face were so tense that his head seemed to have ballooned. His arms were shaking. Brandishing the unopened bag of food I’d given him, he took a step toward me. Involuntarily, I backed away. Like a dog, he moved toward me. Again, I felt ashamed of seeing him as an animal.
    “Rats!” he shouted, shaking the bag. “Oscar Fisch sent you with RATS!” Hurling the paper bag to the sidewalk, he lumbered toward me.
    I turned tail. Groping in my pocket for the keys to my car, I bolted through the traffic, managed to get across Mass. Ave. without being hit, and ended up leaning on my Bronco for