By the time we got back to the meeting place at the water fountain, Catfish was jumping out of his skin. “Well, take your pretty time, ladies! Don’t mind old Carl. He’s just the chauffeur. He don’t matter. Carl’s got nothing better to do than wait all day on a couple of sightseers.”
He hadn’t waited all day, but I bit my tongue. We jumped into the car and he drove away. What happened next defies explanation.
“Where’s the doughnut head?” I asked, seeing his new best friend was gone. But he didn’t answer.
Catfish reached between his legs under the seat and pulled out a big gray pistol. A real metal one. He was driving with one hand and waving that gun around with the other. I was quite speechless. Did he not respect my mother’s history? I turned to Mother, expecting her to be falling apart, but she hadn’t seen the gun. She was staring out the car window at billboards, gone off in that world of hers.
I looked back at the gun. First real one I had ever been close to, not counting the one that killed my father when I was inside my mother. I couldn’t have seen that one, but I bet I felt it through my mother’s blood, because you know it laid her out so it must have laid me out too. What kind of memory would that be?
The Catfish’s gun did not look like my showy little cap gun. It was more boring and more real. Long and plain and heavy looking. I was hypnotized. I mean, one pull of that trigger right there under his finger and people could die—forever. And that was a sobering thought, indeed. How could a little piece of metal force itself into your body and displace enough body parts to kill you dead? I have noticed, by the way, that death is often caused by two things trying to be in the same place at the same time, like two cars on the same stretch of highway, or a bullet and a heart. Because of this insight, I am not convinced that world peace is possible, what with everything fighting over limited space.
Mother finally saw the gun and screamed.
Catfish drove up on the sidewalk. “Woman!” he yelled.
I banged the Catfish on the shoulder and screamed, “Use your brain! Get that gun out of her face.”
Catfish stomped the brakes. “Holy crow! What did I ever do to deserve such a woman?” (I’d been asking myself that same question ever since he showed up in our lives.)
The car skidded to a stop. Mother gathered herself together, straightened her skirt, and sniffed proudly, “I’ve had a very difficult day, Carl, and it is just too much for me to see a gun. You know, I do not approve of guns.”
“And guns don’t approve of you, Babe.”
I wished somebody would just take out his voice box. The whole world would be better if the Catfish opened his big mouth and said absolutely nothing.
But Mother didn’t scream at him or anything. She was very quiet. Long pause.
I was waiting for her to say something, like maybe she would say, Shut up, Carl, we’re going home whether you like it or not. She could have said that, but she didn’t.
What she said was, “I would like very much for you to use your new gun to get me a pig.”
The Catfish’s jaw fell open.
Mine too.
And she told him about the IQ Zoo. As far-fetched as she sounded, I liked her idea of saving that pig. My only regret to having been kicked out, literally, of the IQ Zoo was that we had left without the pig.
Somebody had to entice the Catfish to get that pig, and again, that somebody was me. It was a good thing I understood him. Nothing worked better with the Catfish than to call his manhood into question. So I said, “Wait a minute, what was all that talk about using that gun to protect her from bullies?”
“Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout? What bullies?”
“Bullies,” I said, “violent bullies.” So I told him about getting shoved out of the IQ Zoo so hard that Mother fell down and lost her shoe.
“Babe, is that true?” He turned those wide-spaced eyes on Mother.
She nodded.
He looked at her for two or three long seconds, and I swear I could see his temperature rise. Just like in the cartoons.
Suddenly he hit the accelerator and did a U-turn right over the median, heading for the IQ Zoo. He ran red lights and yield signs and skidded to a stop across the street from the place.
“Don’t move,” he said, kicking the car door open.
The next moments stretched in time like elastic, then snapped back with the sound of gunfire. I knew it when I heard it. Strange, since I had never heard a real gunshot before. Dull loud pops came from inside the building. Gunshots. My throat was full of cement.
Before I could catch a lungful of air, the Catfish came flying out the door. That little pig was under his arm like a football. He pointed his pistol at the sky and fired again while he ran, bony knees popping up real high with each step. A gang of crazies chased him out: Circus God in his bright baggies; the son in his unhappiness; then the mother and daughter in their majorette uniforms; angry men too, from the audience, shouting and shaking their fists.
And there came the Catfish, happier than I had ever seen him.
He tossed the pig over the seat to me and jumped behind the wheel. “Whoo-hoo mercy!” he hollered as the car fishtailed and sprayed gravel all over the mob.
The piglet in my arms was about as cuddly as a bag of potatoes. He went to squealing and crawling up my neck, stabbing me with those hard, pointy feet. That little guy was so excited, I decided to lay my healing hands on him. And it was the quickest healing I have ever done. Just like that, the piglet flopped across my lap and fell asleep.
I stroked that strange hairy skin of my beautiful new pig and felt a tiny bit of softness toward the Catfish, who had rescued him. The piglet was an even better birthday present than the cowboy outfit, but the gift-giver was a big fat mess. The Catfish could have given me a gift every day for the rest of my life and it wouldn’t have made him the kind of adult who should have been with my mother, not a man who could replace my prince of a father.