The Exterminator

What is magic anyhow? A terrific sunset? A baby's smile? Seeing someone you love after a month or an eternity of absence? Sure, but how about real magic, like supernatural stuff that couldn't actually happen? Maybe even involving the color black....

I know I would not believe this story if someone told it to me. I'd probably smile and politely hide my skepticism, or make a joke. In spite of my vivid memories that seem so real, it might be easier to just decide that I was dreaming. But there were two of us, and we remember exactly the same dream.

This was in the late 1970s, more than 20 years ago. Arlene had finished her two year appointment teaching at Dartmouth and was now an assistant professor of math at Boston University. She also had some research connections with the Sidney Farber Cancer Center, and she used to appear regularly as the statisticial consultant on papers about clinical trials of proposed cancer treatments. She was as much a workaholic then as she is today, and used to put in middle-of-the-night hours at the Center. I'm not entirely sure why she did that; one reason was needing the computer, and it was always available at those hours. But mostly it was just her way.

I used to visit her often on weekends, and I was as crazy for her then as I am now. If she had to go to work in an empty laboratory at 1:00 AM, I went too. If she stayed there until 5:00 or 6:00 AM, so did I.

One more thing. Arlene lived in the Back Bay, at the end of the hall on the fourth (top) floor of an old walk-up building. Her apartment was nice, but it did have cockroaches. She kept them at bay with cleanliness, boric acid, and Roach Hotels: "They check in, but they don't check out!" That reminded me of the Bates Motel in the movie Psycho. And of my supposed look-alike, Anthony Perkins. Remember him?

Anyhow, one time there was something new in her flat: those free-loading cockroaches had been joined by some mice. I think she had actually seen them, but I'm not sure. In any case, they left signs of their presence. She told me she was thinking about traps and so on, but hadn't done anything about it yet.

Around midnight or a bit later, after we'd had supper, some games and a nap, she had to go to work at the cancer center. Me too, of course. It wasn't exactly what I would have choosen for a Saturday night, but since Sidney Farber was where Arlene was going it beat all the available alternatives. So we got ready and opened the door to leave.

Standing just outside in the hall was was an elegant, totally black, cat. He wasn't a bit surprised to see us, and gave the impression he thought he was expected. As soon as Arlene opened the door, in he came. He walked calmly and confidently, as if he belonged. She had never seen him before.

We looked at each other. "Well, why not?" we thought. We left him some water, or maybe it was milk, shut the door, and went off to work.

That is, she worked, analyzing data from the latest experiments using Minitab and SASS on the Center's time-shared computer system. I read, and wandered around the empty halls, and maybe slept a little in her office, a converted hospital room. About 5:00 AM Sunday morning she finished and we left. It was winter and the city was still in darkness as we walked back to her apartment.

Fourth floor. End of the hall. Key in the lock. The door opened, and there was the cat. He walked out as quietly as he'd entered, and set off down the hall gently waving his tail. We went in and looked around. All was as before, although maybe a little less water in the dish. Nothing else had changed.

Except ... There was no sight or sign of a mouse in that apartment ever again as long as Arlene lived there. And she never found a trace of any black cat inhabiting her building at 56 Queensberry Street, Boston, Mass.

It's all true. I swear. Do you think I could make up something like this?

-- John Lamperti

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