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Cannibal: An animal that feeds on the flesh of its own species. (New Oxford American Dictionary)
Rat: A rodent that resembles a large mouse, typically having a pointed snout and a long, sparsely haired tail. Some kinds have become cosmopolitan and are sometimes responsible for transmitting diseases. (New Oxford American Dictionary)
Rat King: A mass of rats who have become entangled by their tails and move about as a single, eldritch being.
Rat King Cannibal: The newest profane ruler of New York City’s underground network of tunnels and sewers.
That’s right, you heard it here first: New York’s rats have become cannibals, and they’re engaged in a ranging turf war. Without the steady supply of food scraps abandoned on subway platforms and sidewalks by humans, the City’s rats are experiencing a famine. The rat food supply has become so constrained that they’re resorted to eating each other, and competing gangs—led I can only imagine by rat king warlords—are engaged in a violent turf war.
As subway, sewer and restaurant rats run low on food, they’re seeking out oases of food—residential garbage piles—and the rats that already dwell there are fighting for their ancestral homeland. And it turns out, when they’re pushed to the brink, rats will eat each other (we can also observe this phenomenon in the Trump Whitehouse).
This is how urban rodentologist Bobby Corrigan described the breakdown of the rat way of life to NBC News:
“A restaurant all of a sudden closes now, which has happened by the thousands in not just New York City but coast to coast and around the world, and those rats that were living by that restaurant, some place nearby, and perhaps for decades having generations of rats that depended on that restaurant food, well, life is no longer working for them, and they only have a couple of choices.”
Corrigan draws a direct parallel to human history, so we’ve got that going for us:
“It's just like we've seen in the history of mankind, where people try to take over lands, and they come in with militaries and armies and fight to the death, literally, for who's going to conquer that land. And that's what happens with rats. A new 'army' of rats come in, and whichever army has the strongest rats is going to conquer that area.”
The fighting is in the streets. Today on a run, I saw not one, but three rats squashed flat by cars in the middle of the road. And sure, it’s not the first time that I’ve seen a pulverized rat on the streets of Brooklyn, but three in less than an hour is way above normal. If I had to hazard a guess, they were fleeing battle and forgot to look both ways. One of these poor creatures died by the local firehouse, and the fire fighters appeared to have drawn straws for who had to dispose of it. One of the cadets lost and had to wield a shovel while receiving a barrage of advice from his crew mates.
Yet perhaps we should feel badly for the rats. They are a quintessentially urban species—just like people—and while they’re disease vectors and vermin, they also serve as a sort of natural garbage disposal, consuming refuse that is left behind and predating upon other unwanted creatures. Obviously, I wouldn’t want one in my home, and I’m certainly not going to start feeding them (although I am quite certain someone in New York City is doing that at this very moment), but I do feel a certain kindred spirit with the urban rat.
May the coronavirus pass quickly, and may the rat king rise once more!
Today’s Film: Escape from New York (1981)
I am a huge science fiction fan, and this week we’ll be talking about some of my favorite films in the genre. Science fiction allows us to imagine different futures and play out contemporary struggles against a fictional backdrop. They can be escapist, terrifying, or utopian. Indeed, science fiction is at the very core of film. Arguably the first fully formed narrative film drama was 1902’s A Trip to the Moon directed by Georges Méliès. I’ll also return to the genre again in a few weeks time.
Escapism is in high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, so what better place to start an exploration of science fiction the silver screen than with John Carpenter’s 1981 post-apocalyptic classic, Escape from New York. It is a terrifying yet oddly comical vision of New York in 1997, after Manhattan’s been walled up and turned into a super max prison. Kurt Russell plays Snake Plissken, an eyepatch wearing former Green Beret who tried to rob the Federal Reserve.
When Air Force One is highjacked, the President of the United States—who just happens to be flying with the secrets of nuclear fusion contained in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist—ejects in an escape pod and lands in New York. The military cuts a deal with Snake: Get the president out alive in 24 hours, and you’ll get your record expunged. Snake is dropped into the city and things go wrong from the get go. Turns out, New York’s not the easiest place to find someone, even on a good day. Indeed, the movie is a fairly good approximation of the worst imaginable version of New York, even though most of it was filmed in a burned-out section of East St. Louis. (One scene, at Liberty Island, was shot on location in New York, and it was actually the first production to ever gain access to Lady Liberty’s home.)
The film is a 99 minute romp through prison NYC, and Snake faces off against all manner of goons, warlords, street gangs and mole people. As he fights his way deeper into the underbelly of the city, his allies and enemies alike get stranger and stranger. There’s a great scene in an empty Madison Square Garden. One of the great characters is a charming cabbie—a true New Yorker—who’s still on the job despite everything that’s happened in the Big Apple. Snake even has an emotional arc, of sorts, as he reconciles with what it means to be helping the government that convicted him. If you want to know if Snake saves the president… well, you’ll have to watch the movie.
Escape from New York is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, iTunes store and other platforms.
Reading List:
It’s the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The Times has a great profile of Denis Hayes, who came up with the idea to begin with.
I think the title of this satyrical piece over at McSweeney’s pretty much explains what it’s about: In 2016 I Voted for the Candidate Who Bragged About His Penis Size and Look Where the Country Is Now.
Benjamin Reeves is an award-winning screenwriter, journalist and media consultant based in Brooklyn, New York. Follow him on Twitter @bpreeves or write to him at breeves.writer@gmail.com.