leon, where have you gone?
shortly before i left college i adopted a baby rat. a friend had one that i liked, and she was helping a friend find homes for a bunch of babies, so i decided to adopt one. as a baby, he was adorable. i named him leon.
shortly after i adopted leon i moved to the city, into a house with a bunch of roommates and several cats. as leon grew he became less cute and more unnerving, as he jumped continuously against the lid of the cage, trying to get out. gone was the cute little guy who would crawl around, and i was now in possession of a seemingly neurotic one that wasn't that fun to play with.
he clearly wanted the freedom to move about, which i couldn't give him because of the cats, so i went back to my friend who gave him to me and asked if she knew anyone who wanted him.
fortunately, she did! a mutual friend who still lived in the college town was happy to take him. truth be told, it was a relief. i took a trip back and gave him to craig, who promised to take good care of him.
i didn't give much thought to leon after that until a few months later, when my friend told me leon had taken an adventure. when i asked what she meant i heard a story i wasn't prepared for.
one craig took his orange VW bus for a drive in the country and took leon with him. he was on acid at the time, and during the drive was talking with leon. leon apparently told him that he needed to go - he needed to be free. naturally, craig listened, pulled over on the side of the country road, opened the door, and freed leon, watching him disappear into the night. into a field. into the elements he'd never lived in.
i don't know that much about rats, so i don't know if his sheltered life gave him a disadvantage when it came to protecting and fending for himself in the wild, or if it is something that he would know instinctively. what i do know is that a rat would be high prey for a number of creatures in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere.
obviously, i never learned what happened to leon. i'm sure his adventure was at least initially quite exciting and full of interesting things to smell, explore, and eat. i'm guessing it kind of went downhill from there.
i relayed the story to friends back in the city. one was in a band and wrote a song about leon, entitled, "leon, where have you gone?"