Chapter 27.

“You’re so lucky I found you again. What am I going to do with you? You need to stay in solitary for a while, until you can make better choices.” The carrier tipped, spilling the Cat down rough wooden stairs. He wheeled and gathered himself to rush back up, but the door at the top of the stairs clicked shut.

The Cat found himself in a strange place. The center of the cellar was as brightly lit as a veterinarian’s office. But instead of one bare metal table under the lights, there were rows of tables covered with rows of potted plants. And while the vet’s had smelled like disinfectant and medicine, the cellar was filled with a lush green odor, more intense than a freshly cut lawn.

Blinking, the Cat turned from the white glare to explore the dim edges of the cellar. There were white ceiling panels above the lights, but the rest of the cellar was unfinished, showing pipes and wires draped with dusty cobwebs. There was a sink attached to one wall, and an oil tank next to the wall behind the stairs.

Three high windows were set deep into the concrete walls. The Cat jumped up to each window ledge in turn and pawed at the glass, but it was securely fastened. And on the outside the windows were overgrown with vines, as if they were never opened. He jumped down, brushing off spider webs and the husks of dead insects, and investigated the concrete steps at the end of the room. They led to a bolted metal lid.

The Cat prowled around the cellar again, sniffing carefully. Other cats had marked the walls with urine, although not recently. They’d left dry turds, too. And behind the oil tank—

The Cat stiffened. He sniffed the bones. Every hair on his body stood out.

These bones had once been a cat.

The Cat forgot everything he knew about patience. A despairing cry burst from his throat. O Great Cat! Help me! Dashing up the cellar stairs, he scrabbled at the door. Yowl after yowl poured out of him.

 

After a time the Cat’s throat hurt, his front claws hurt, and he was out of breath. Creeping down from the door, he crouched on the bottom step and fell into a doze. When he woke sometime later, panic seized him again. He ran back up to the door, and again he scratched and yowled, yowled and scratched.

Finally the Cat paused, exhausted. His shoulder, where the rooster had dug its claws in, felt tight and sore. He twisted his neck to lick the wound, but he couldn’t quite reach it.

O Great Cat? A dreadful thought came to him. Was he being weaned for the second time in his life—in an even more final way?

He remembered the day his mother had weaned him and his littermates. She was resting on her side in a pile of laundry, while the kittens crawled and tumbled and tussled over the landscape of sheets and towels. Listen up, kids. I’m only going to say this once: No more free lunch.

None of them understood what she meant. A moment later, the Kitten saw her cuff his striped littermate away from her nipples. But he only thought she was annoyed with that particular kitten. And not surprisingly—he thought the striped kitten was annoying, too. He snuggled confidently up to her milky flank, little white forepaws stretched out to knead.

A blow sent him rolling off the laundry pile, onto the cold linoleum floor. The Kitten picked himself up and stared at his mother. She stared back. She really had struck him. The same bulwark of warmth and food, who had always gazed down on them fondly, purring as she offered herself, had flung him away.

Was the same thing was happening now, with the Great Cat? He had thought he was a favorite of Hers—but maybe She was through with him. The Cat imagined Her mighty haunches, Her indifferent tail swaying, as She strolled away from him.

Wait—what was that sound on the other side of the door? The slap of flip-flops coming closer. The Cat’s muscles tensed, and his heart beat faster.

The flip-flops stopped on the other side of the door. The young woman was talking in a soft voice: “Hey. It’s me. Haven’t seen you for a while.” A pause. “Busy? Hmm. So am I, but I’m not too busy for . . .” She giggled.

Another pause, and then she answered with an edge to her voice, “Maybe? Well, maybe I’ll be here when you decide to come. And maybe I won’t.” A click. “Asshole.”

A moment later, the door opened a crack. The Cat thrust his head into the opening, but a bowl shoved back against his nose. “No, Mr. Tux. Eat and be quiet.” The door closed, almost catching his whiskers.

The Cat threw himself at the door again, yowling and scratching heedlessly. In the one-sided struggle the bowl of cat chow fell off the top step and shattered on the concrete floor. He was in such a state that the crash only startled him for an instant.

At last the Cat turned and crept back down the steps. He sniffed at the mess of broken pottery. He ate a few pieces of cat chow, but he was too upset to make a meal of it.

Actually, the Cat needed to relieve himself. He searched the cellar for a litter box he might have missed. Unlike those other cats, he had more pride than to defecate on a bare floor. Cover your bits, his mother had instructed her kittens, and they’d all learned to clamber over the hard plastic sides of the litter box and dig in the crumbled clay.

Jumping onto a table, the Cat discovered that the cellar did have litter of sorts, only it was in unexpected containers: the pots under the lights. Plants grew out of each pot, some of them so luxuriantly that the branches hung over the rims and their roots clogged the soil. But in one row, the plants were mere slips with a few baby rootlets. The Cat found it easy to scoop them out of the soil, leaving a receptive furrow over which to lift his tail.

 

 

 

Brothers and sisters I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Rudyard Kipling