Upper West Side Story

Featured contributor: Hayes S.

Kermita Kermita. She reminds me of an Upper Westside story.

She was the third pup of her liter, a runt whom no one expected to survive. It was her mother’s second litter, having eked out a living in the trash alleys of 103rd St. Soon after her birth her mother passed away during the winter of 2007, leaving poor Kermita to live a life as an orphan. One day during a foraging street in the subway, she met a rat named Rico, who took pity on her and took her in.

Rico lived fast and dangerous, the leader of his gang, “the 95th St Rodents”, who controlled a majority of the dropped crumbs and sour milk market. During a turf war with the East-side Stooges, Rico was killed during a fly-by dropping. An internal power struggle resulted, in which jealous rivals turned Kermita out to the streets, where she was forced to become a rodent of the night just to make ends meet.

During one of her nocturnal encounters, she met young Kermit (purely coincidental), a brown-furred, street-wise vagabond, who took pity on poor Kermitta and took her, literally and figuratively, into his nest, in a wall cavity of a Morningside flat. He showed her that subtlety, stealth and smarts would always win out over bravado and strength.

Kermit ran a rice racket, and drove a rice rocket, and through his secret network of tunnels was able to store enough food to survive the harsh winters. Kermita was content for awhile. Kermit showed her a life she never could have dreamed of, where stale cheese, crumbled wheat thins and spinach roots were abundant as well as the freedom to flaunt her excrement all over the cookware of her host benefactors.

One night, Kermit didn’t come home. She searched everywhere, waited and waited, and one day found one of his whiskers trapped between the floorboards of his favorite haunt. He was never coming home. It was then when Kermita decided to venture out on her own, to the house that Kermit had always warned her against… the lair of the evil Turk.

The legend of the Turk was a familiar one: he was over 5’ tall, so ugly as to freeze a mouse into stone, with fire belching out both ends like the hound of Hades. He guarded a treasure that gave its bearer the power of life and death itself! Having lost everything, she decided to risk her life to bring back the ones she loved.

The lair was empty when she entered, though the Turk’s stench was so pungent it made her eyes water. Looking around, she discovered it deserted, but then was attracted by a solitary saltine sitting in the crevice by the food box. Another step in and it was too late. The evil Turk had anticipated her visit and she now found herself paws deep in a gooey adhesive.

The Turk emerged from the shadows to find poor vulnerable Kermita struggling to free herself from her prison- he planned to force her to drink the nectar of the snake with which his breathe already reeked, and then ravage her (she was less worried about this one; as legend had it, his genitalia was undersized even for mouse standards). Another figure emerged behind him, and it occurred to Kermita that the Turk was simply a slave to this higher being. The being was reasonable and wise, and simply wanted his cookware not to be defecated upon. With a blur of light and a snap of his fingers, Kermita found herself reunited with all her loved ones- her mother, Rico, and most of all, the love of her life, Kermit.