The stupidest angel: a heartwarming tale of Christmas terror

routing rats from one chamber to another. Each of the rats had a silver disk about the size of a quarter glued to its back.

    Theo watched as Gabe opened a gate and one of the rats rushed to the center tank and immediately tried to mount its occupant. Gabe picked up a small remote control and hit the button. The attacking rat nearly did a backflip trying to retreat.

    "Ha! That'll teach 'im," Gabe shouted. "The female in the center cage is in estrus."

    The rat backed away tentatively and did some sniffing, then attempted to mount the female again. Gabe hit the button. The male was jolted off of her.

    "Ha! Now do you get it?!" Gabe said maniacally. He looked up from the cages to Theo. "There are electrodes on their testes. The silver disks are batteries and remote receivers. Every time he gets sexually aroused, I'm hitting his little nuts with fifty volts."

    The rat made another attempt and again Gabe hit the button. The rat spazzed its way to the corner of the cage.

    "You stupid shit!" Gabe shouted. "You think they'd learn. I'll hit each of them with the jolt a dozen times today, but when I open the cage tomorrow, they'll all run back in and try to mount her again. You see, you see how we are?"

    "We?"

    "Us. Males. See how we are. We know there's going to be nothing but pain, but we go back again and again."

    Gabe had always been so steady, so calm, so professionally detached, scientifically obsessed, so dependably nerdy – Theo felt as if he were talking to a whole different person, like someone had scrubbed off all the intellect and had exposed the nerves. "Uh, Gabe, I'm not sure that we should equate ourselves with rodents. I mean – "

    "Oh, sure. That's what you say now. But you'll call me and tell me I was right. Something will happen and you'll call. She'll stomp your heart and you'll finish the destruction she starts. Am I right? Am I right?"

    "Uh, I – " Theo was thinking about the graveyard sex followed by the fight he'd had with Molly last night.

    "So I'm going to change the association. Watch this." Gabe stormed over to a bookshelf, threw aside a bunch of professional journals and notebooks until he found what he was looking for. "See. See her." Gabe held up a recent Victoria's Secret catalog. The model on the front was wearing garments spectacularly inadequate in concealing her appeal. She looked as if she just couldn't be happier about it. "Beautiful, right? Amazing, right? Hold that thought." Gabe reached into the pocket of his khakis and pulled out a stainless remote just like the one on the rat table. "Beautiful," he said, and he hit the button.

    The biologist's back arched and he suddenly became six inches taller, all the muscles of his body seeming to flex at once. He convulsed twice, then fell to the floor, the crumpled catalog still in his hand.

    Skinner lapsed into a barking fit. Don't die, Food Guy, my bowl is on the porch and I can't open the door by myself, he was saying. It was the same every time, he was always glad when the Food Guy wasn't actually dead, but the Food Guy's convulsions made him anxious.

    Theo rushed to his friend's aid. Gabe's eyes were rolled back and he twitched a couple of times before he sucked in a deep breath and looked Theo in the eye. "See. You change the association. Won't be long and I'll have that reaction without the electrodes glued to my scrotum."

    "Are you okay?"

    "Oh yeah. It will take hold, I know it. It hasn't worked with the rats yet, but I'm hoping it will before they all die."

    "They're dying of this?"

    "Well, it has to hurt or they'll never learn." Gabe held up his remote again and Theo snatched it out of his hand.

    "Stop it!"

    "I have another set of electrodes and receiver. You want to try it? I've been dying to try it out in the field. We could go to a titty bar."

    Theo helped Gabe to his feet, then set him in a chair facing away from the rat table and pulled a chair around for himself.

    "Gabe, you are out of control. I'm sorry I didn't call."

    "I know you've been busy. It's okay."

    Great, now he has the appropriate Christmas Amnesty reaction, Theo thought. "These rats, the electrodes, all of it, it's just wrong. You're just going to end up with either a bunch of paranoid misogynist males, or a pile of corpses."

    "You make that sound like a bad thing."

    "You got your heart broken. It will heal."

    "She said I was dull."

    "She should see this." Theo gestured around the room.

    "She wasn't interested in my work."

    "You guys