Mice Cube

by Joanne Avallon

It took my husband, John, awhile to figure out what I was doing. He was happy to see me cleaning out the pantry, putting everything in air-tight containers, sweeping the corners and setting humane traps, called “mice cubes,” entirely transparent rectangular plastic boxes with a one-way swing door so a mouse could get in, but not out.

“You know,” he said, “it’s illegal to release wild animals on someone else’s property.”

“Oh, please!” I said, holding the Mice Cube with an annoyed looking mouse in it. “What do you think? She’s going to attack someone?”

“How do you know she’s a she?”

“Just look at her,” I said. “Big brown eyes. Thoughtful expression. Delicate little hands.”

“Mice don’t have hands,” he laughed. “It sounds like you’re describing yourself.” He took my free hand and put it up against his and then closed his fingers around mine, his hands were that much bigger. It had been awhile since he had held my hand so gently and we sunk into the touch together.

We had a debate then, my husband and I. Both lawyers, debating things that didn’t really matter was our way of showing off to each other. When we were younger, a debate meant sex that night.

We resolved to mark the next mouse, release it in the corner of the yard and see if she reappeared inside the house. We employed a shoe box as a marking station. I dumped the mouse from the Mice Cube into the box while John wrangled her into the corner and held it still. With an orange indelible marker, I inked a large “1” down her spine.

“If she reappears,” John said, “I’m getting poison.”

“Even if she looks like me?” I asked. He blanched and put his hand on the small of my back. Mice, I thought, who would have guessed.

Sure enough, within a week, the mouse reappeared. John said poison was the only solution. I argued that we didn’t know if this was just a very agile mouse or represented a mouse trend. We released it together, late at night, by the side door of the YMCA, went home and cuddled on the couch, John’s left hand finding new comfort resting on my belly. The next mouse we caught, a week later, we marked with an orange “2” and he reappeared as well within a few days.

“We could try to find how they’re getting in,” my husband said.

“We could,” I said, “but where do you think this one should go?”

He looked at the mouse closely. “She’s bigger than the others and looks pretty tough. And hungry. They all look hungry.” He rubbed his chin and then announced, “Tony’s Pizza.” We hated Tony’s Pizza. Tony always short-changed kids who came in without an adult even though the place was right next to the high school and all his business was from students. Our kids had lost fifty dollars to him easily over their high school careers.

“Tony’s Pizza it is!” I said and we got our coats and ran to the car, giggling. That night, we made love and whispered quietly about how many mice there were in the world. John did not even pretend we were going to get poison.

It took a few months for the story to appear in the paper about mice with numbers written in orange on their backs appearing all over the City. The Health Department issued a stern warning about mice-borne diseases, but it was too late to stop by then.