Rat’s Amore

I’M A REGULAR GUY, a New Yorker born and bred. If I get up early and beat the traffic I can put in a good five-to-six-hour shift at work, then make it back in time to feed the kids and relax before bed. Maybe—if the room is warm and the mood is right—I’ll enjoy an intimate moment or two in the marital cocoon. Work hard and you’ll get ahead, my parents always told me. But now? None of that seems possible. We all knew things would be bad under the new administration, but none of us expected them to be quite this calamitous. Our right to food, water, shelter is under attack, our very existence as a species in peril. Lethal dangers lurk around every corner, and the government’s goons have swarmed the city. What awaits us when we venture outside is deportation, sterilization, evisceration, extermination. Do they hate us because we’re different? Because we’ve committed the sin of being unlike them? We’re no better than dirt to these people. Well, let me rephrase: We’re no better than dogs. Dirt has given me some of the happiest moments of my life. Dirt is wonderful. Dogs? …