The Killer Instinct

We went to Rat Island to kill, but it was not rats we were after.  I was ten years old, as was my companion John.  The island lay in the Bronx River just north of the Botanical Gardens in the vast and verdant Bronx Park.  It was accessed by a fallen tree trunk and held a dangerous allure.  How it got its name we did not know.  It wasn’t an official name but was known to all the boys in the neighborhood, whispered like a ghost story in the night. Some said the rats were the size of fat cats and c...