Mouse Died Today
Mouse died today.
Who could have known.
But sometimes, many times, it happens this way. You get a call out of the blue. Hello? Hello? Palmer’s dead. Palmer who? Palmer Fish. Someone’s alive in the morning, someone you may have even forgotten existed, and then they’re dead.
I didn’t know what to do. Who to call. What to report. How to dispose of the body.
I thought maybe I should call Siobhan. Siobhan bought mouse. When she left the apartment, she left mouse. We never even named mouse. After a time, it just felt natural. Did you feed mouse today? Is there enough water in mouse’s bowl? Where is mouse hiding now?
Siobhan left last Thanksgiving.
With Thanksgiving dinner still hot on the table.
No one we called had come to dinner. No one had RSVP’d.
It was a disaster, Siobhan said. How could I be so unmoved?
The turkey had finally come out just right. The zucchini and sour cream casserole wasn’t soggy like usual. We had each other. Why couldn’t we just be thankful for that? I said.
Siobhan left with just her purse and a David Bowie album.
She never came back for her other things.
Not even mouse.
And now mouse was dead.
I called Palmer Fish.
It was odd, and maybe not very nice, that I had used Palmer Fish as an example of a dead man you might have forgotten existed. But what comes to mind comes to mind.
Palmer Fish answered on the fifth ring. He said, “I’m in the middle of something. Can you make it quick?”
“Oh,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you.”
“But you just called.”
Palmer Fish, a big man, was breathing heavily. He may have just come in from a jog. Or maybe just picking up the phone was an effort these days.
“Mouse is dead,” I said.
“What’s that?” Palmer Fish said. “Mouse?”
“Siobhan’s mouse,” I said.
“She had a mouse?”
It was obviously news to him.
“I think maybe it was a heart attack,” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It wasn’t old age.”
“You never know.”
It was true, I guess. With trees you could count rings, but with mice?
Palmer Fish said, “What can I help you with, Donovan?” Palmer Fish was a chemist by training, though these days I heard he’d been DJing in clubs where everything was pitch black except for the glow-in-the-dark blue paint the dancers wore. Palmer Fish stood on a daïs of sorts, spinning vinyl maniacally.
“I don’t know what to do with the body,” I said.
“You don’t know what to do with a mouse?” Palmer Fish said. It sounded like a travesty. Like everyone buried mice every day and knew just what to do. Everyone but me.
As we spoke, mouse was lying on his side on a bed of fresh Romaine lettuce I’d put there as an afternoon snack. To a passerby, he could have been napping. His hind paws were stretched just so, as if in reverie. His eyes were closed.
“Do you even bury mice?” I said.
“How much does it weigh?” Palmer Fish said.
“An ounce?” I said.
“That mouse does not weigh an ounce,” Palmer Fish said. “Don’t you have an ingredients scale you could use?”
It was true, maybe Siobhan had left one behind. But I wasn’t putting a dead mouse on a kitchen appliance, not even mouse.
“She must have taken it,” I lied.
I waited for Palmer Fish to suggest otherwise, because maybe he knew something I didn’t. But Palmer Fish wasn’t going to fall into that trap. He said he needed to check something.
“Right,” he said a moment later. “Was your mouse obese?”
What an odd question, I thought. The kind of post-mortem chemical analysis you would expect from a man who’d never cried in a movie theater in his life. “Mouse was average,” I said.
“Ok,” Palmer Fish said. “We’re talking between four and six ounces then. That’s what it says. If that’s the case, I’d just flush him.”
I thought I must have not heard right, that Palmer Fish had said “fold him” or “feel him.” But he was adamant. “Flush him,” he said. “You don’t have a yard. You’re not paying for a casket.”
“Where would I find a casket?” I said.
“That’s what I mean. Flush him, Donovan, he’ll fit down the pipes. I googled it.”
I stayed in the apartment for the rest of the afternoon, questioning my diagnosis of death. Had I jumped to conclusions? Palmer Fish never suggested I take mouse’s pulse. For obvious reasons. I wouldn’t know how, etc. But there were other ways to detect the breath of life.
Twice I thought I saw the white hairs on mouse’s chin stir, but both times I’d just walked by his cage. It was probably only the wind of my passing.
In retrospect, Thanksgiving dinner was probably only the tip of the iceberg of Siobhan’s leaving. Palmer Fish had always been a good downstairs neighbor. He was big but he moved with grace, even delicacy for a man his size. He wasn’t on a career path but he had a stable income. He wore a beard well.
Palmer Fish was handy, too. Those evenings I was late coming home from drinks with the boys and Palmer Fish was still there fixing a bad filter on the dishwasher I knew nothing about, they added up now.
Also, Siobhan began to dress different.
Also, she began to kiss different. She started using the dreaded phrase “career path” at about this time, which is probably why I use it now. I should have seen it coming frankly.
The first thing they did as a couple was install a plant outside their apartment downstairs, possibly to differentiate their union from ours. I had never liked or seen the need for apartment plants. It was semi-tropical, not a Ficus or a snake plant. A difficult plant to grow in an apartment hallway, I’d say.
Still, it bloomed effortlessly. The yellow spots on its leaves widened.
Soon they bought a bigger pot. A tub really.
In a month, it nearly reached the door lintel.
I googled “flush dead mouse toilet.”
I googled “bury dead mouse potted plant.”
I googled “ex’s deceased mouse disposal.”
I googled “what is career path.”
I googled “how to be handy video.”
I googled “fiancée living downstairs with neighbor.”
I googled “fiancée living downstairs with neighbor video.”
I googled and googled and googled and googled and googled and googled.
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