“You and I need to have a little discussion,” I say to the mouse I hold in a hand towel. “Maybe you had free reign before I moved in, but as you can see, things have changed.” I lift the mouse, so we are looking at each other. Only its gray-furred head is visible, ears lying flat, with two black eyes that seem to watch me.
The problem with mice is that you can’t really domesticate them. A potty-trained mouse doesn’t exist! You can get them to return for food, but they’ll indiscriminately drop turds and urinate everywhere, even while eating. I’ve known guys who said they trained mice by creating a nesting sock. Others used psychotropic drugs to fry mouse brains, which is plenty cruel but far less so than breaking their hind legs or chopping off tails.
One day while in the day room I asked the guy known to mutilate mice why he did it.
“I get tired of chasin’ ’em around so I clip off their back paws with fingernail clippers, or break the legs,” he replied, as if sharing the most normal solution in the world. “An’ when they pee they use their tails to spread it around. With the tail gone they get lost!” He also related how he’d break their front teeth with fingernail clippers to stop them from biting. Horrifying? I thought so, but that hardly compares with the glee he expressed over skinning a mouse. “It looked like it had a gray cape . . .”
Jeff, another guy I ran into periodically, trained mice (or said he did). His stories about the little unicycle “Mandy” would ride were hilarious. “Both my mice use rope-lines to navigate my cell on command,” he assured me. I thought it all extraordinary and far-fetched, but there was no reason to crush his fantasies!
The most common mouse catcher (keeper and supposed trainer) would place them in a peanut butter jar to run and roll around in. Over the years I’ve seen some elaborate dwellings constructed of water bottles or jars linked together.
None of those practices interest me. I usually give an eviction notice and a grace period to “Get out!” After that, any mouse trapped in my sealed off cell gets caught and dunked. Much like the one I continue looking at in the hand towel. It’s not full grown, perhaps a teenager — or whatever the mousey equivalent is. Squirming, it tries to duck away from me. I feel its little heartbeat and each rapid breath it takes.
“Still tired?” I’ve been pacing, so I stop near my cell door and look out while softening my grip. The mouse burrows into darkness. Unfolding the hand towel a bit, I see that the mouse’s fur is still wet from the nearly half-hour-long swim in my toilet. “I’m not going to kill you. You got a free bath and an education. Make sure to tell your friends to stay out of my cell. All my food is in bags and tied up out of reach.” I reposition my hand, opening the towel fully to see its face again. Still shivering, its muzzle quivers, whiskers twitch, and its eyes squint. “Sneaking in here makes no sense. I hope we understand each other.”
Closing the towel, I resume pacing and hold the mouse long enough for its heartbeat to slow and fur to dry. Hopefully it learned a lesson.
Maybe it’s an overcompensating, empathic reaction to being incarcerated that encourages me to preserve as much life as possible. As I’m responsible for the death of two people, that may be true. Whatever the case, I struggle to justify the convenience of killing a mouse (or even a roach) when I can easily “shoo” them out. I think about how I’ve acted out of convenience in the past, and how my thoughts have evolved. We live in a world of possibilities, and it is important to slow things down and consider alternatives. The more I’ve chosen to do so, not assuming I knew the right answer or solution initially, the fewer regrets I’ve been forced to live with.
I return to my cell door, bend down and pull rolled up magazines out of the way. When I set the towel down, the mouse notices the exit and scurries away.
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