'YOU DON'T SEE THAT EVERYDAY:' performing rodents attract equal parts affection and revulsion in Harvard Square.

IF YOU'RE DRAWN to minimalist public art, or perhaps just enjoy watching naive tourists gape at bizarre spectacles, you might want to saunter around Harvard Square sometime soon, preferably before a cold spell evacuates the neighborhood's street performers. Because of all the cash-begging artistes usually deployed in Harvard Square - the Natalie Merchant-lilter in front of Peet's Coffee, the guitar-strumming duo by the Gap, the silvery bunny mime in front of Abercrombie & Fitch - the ones who've been racking up the most dropped jaws are a pair of white rats. Not lil' charcoal mice, like the ones that play chicken with the Park Street trains, but darkness-loving, bulgy-eyed, spiny-tailed rats that cause squeamish young women to intone, "Ohmigod, ohmigod, OHMIGOD!"

During a recent performance, a gawking crescent of spectators — the kind usually clustered around collapsed bodies or grisly accident scenes — ogled Bailey’s and Snuggles, two domestic rodents rollicking around the keyboard of a child-sized piano. Below the rats, flapping between the wooden piano’s front legs, a cardboard sign read: the mr. j and furball music show playing for your cheddar.

The " Mr. J " hyped in the placard is the owner of Bailey’s and Snuggles; he’s a 20-year-old Quincy native with a Texas T-shirt and the word porn (with a backwards r) scrawled on the toe of one Nike high-top. Mr. J’s first name is Jim, but he keeps his last name secret, because, he explains nervously, " I can’t give it out. " The sandy-haired Mr. J tells us he’s raised rats for seven years and that his biggest rat weighed over 30 pounds, roughly the size of a three-year-old child. Tugging on the left leg of his bunched up jeans, Mr. J remembers that when that fat rat used to sit on his right shoulder, Mr. J’s body drooped as though he hadn’t drunk a V8.

Mr. J speaks rat. He translated " cheddar " as a rat’s " way of saying money. " When he chased down his animals and they hissed, Mr. J interpreted, " It doesn’t mean any harm. They’re just basically saying, ‘Hey, dude, lay off, I’m busy here.’  "

Two Saturdays ago, around one in the afternoon, a voice in the encircling crowd complained — since this was a " music show " and all — that the wrestling rats weren’t making any noise with the keyboard. The robust Mr. J brushed aside the comment, dismissing his pets’ musical negligence as an indication of overworked exhaustion: " They’re all piano-ed out. Even the biggest stars need a rest. " Later, when one of his pesky furballs tried to scale his sneaker, Mr. J warned: " You don’t want to go in there. My feet will kill you. You will melt like a stick of butter. " And when a fanny-pack-wearing woman patronized Mr. J by asking why-oh-why he brings rats out in public, the tall fellow explained, " It’s more for the little kids than it is for the older people. " Meaning: You just don’t get it.

" I’m enjoying it! " another middle-aged woman, this one gray and wiry, immediately interjected. Meaning: Nasty lady, be quiet! I’m hip to this whole rat-piano scene!

Such fan support tickled Mr. J. " I’m going to open the box. You guys want to see the rest? " And without listening for an answer, Mr. J opened the box, unveiling three more rats — Whiskey, Cipher, and Skippy — that were loping around a banana and four soiled copies of the Metro.

Three ladies ooooooohed and aaaahed as if the hairy rodents were infant pajamas at a baby shower. Two people whispered about feeling like they were in New York City. One woman even waved at the box and squealed, " Hi, kids! "

" You don’t see that every day, " said a man wearing an Indiana Jones hat and brown-tinted glasses that looked like safety goggles.

" Oh, growse! " gasped a young girl climbing up the stairs from the Red Line.

" Yes, they are, " a nearby woman in a long floral dress muttered, waddling away in disgust.

And with that, the feisty hairball named Whiskey jumped out of his corrugated container and darted into the crowd.

Issue Date: August 30 - September 6, 2001