Rats!!! -Christine McDonald
Leviticus 11:29 “And these are unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm on the ground: the mole rat, the mouse, the great lizard of any kind…”
The fact is, those years just ran together. Often, I didn’t even know the date until I was arrested again and asked what the date was—or even what year it was. I remember police officers over the years sometimes driving by and yelling, “Hey, Ellie, do you know it’s Thanksgiving?” or “Hey, it’s Christmas!” Otherwise, I would have had no clue at all. I gauged the time of day by the traffic, by the tricks’ cars, by the “set,” but was otherwise unaware of time. Funny, huh?
Anyway, that night in the abandominium, I remember the pain as I woke up screaming, in fighting mode. I thought I was about to be raped, attacked, or robbed. I knew there could be one or many attackers. If we prostitutes fell asleep in the street, on a sidewalk, in the park, or in an abandoned building like this one, we often became victims of rape while we were asleep, totally unaware and unable to wake up, sometimes for two or three days at a time. Often junkies would have their way with us when we were in that state, men who knew we were prostitutes. Somehow they justified the rape to themselves because we were prostitutes and were asleep. Some of us prostitutes would never wake up at all.
But nothing like that was happening this time. As a gleam of light came in through the missing bricks, I saw that my attackers were rats. One of them had bitten my face. I had fallen asleep in mid–chew of the lunch meat. I’m sure the winter months were hard on the rats, too.
Screaming, I squeezed myself through the hole left by the missing bricks. Back on the block, I hastily sneaked into a backyard and found a water spigot. I splashed water on my face, rinsing off the warm blood that was still running down my cheek, cleansing my dirty, blackened hands. I then drank from the cool, clean water.
All the horror seemed to stop for just a moment as my hungry, thirsty, used–up body savored the taste of the water. I often wonder if those people had a clue how many times they may have saved me, and who knows how many others, just by having that spigot there.
Being bitten by rats in my sleep sounds like something out of a horror movie, yet it was a reality of the world in which I lived. As with each nightmarish experience, I somehow survived this too. This was just another one. I shook it off, telling myself that this was just how life was for folks like me. I jumped on a corner, figuring that if I got high, I could shake off the heebie–jeebies from seeing those rats, and all would be well.
Humans and rodents alike seemed like my nemesis. Could there ever be life for someone like me outside of this darkness? Could one ever make it to the shore after being submerged into a life of prostitution? At that time, I dared not entertain such thoughts.
John 4:13-14 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Contact Information:
Christine C. McDonald
636-487-8986
Christine.CryPurple@gmail.com
“Love your neighbor, all of ’em.” -Christine Clarity McDonald
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