Twenty

 

 

That night. Posthospital and Frank’s dead-on-arrival verdict, Sebastian lumbered about their apartment. He paced in the kitchen where It picked at kibble, looked up, and mouthed a hello. While endearing, It irritated Sebastian all the same. He should’ve returned the comfort; after all, the poor thing had also lost Frank. But despite himself, Sebastian couldn’t be bothered with It, the damn needy thing. He daren’t scoop up the warm sack of fur. The body against his own—every breath, purr, heartbeat, and meow—would remind him too much of Frank.

The ER doctor told him the impact of Frank’s head striking the curb wasn’t the culprit. Instead, the murderer was a brain aneurysm that preceded the fall. Sebastian was convinced It blamed him for Frank’s death. Yes, It hated Sebastian for taking away the security blanket It loved so much.

Sebastian nearly stepped on It as It weaved through his legs, yowling incessantly. It stopped to butt Its head against first one shin, then the other. Still, Sebastian fed It again, dumped kibble into the bowl until It stopped the aria. Kibble, kibble, kibble! The bottomless pit was fed four times that night. It finally ran out of the kitchen and announced Its satiety with a lower-pitched mew, then gifted Sebastian with a barf trail.

Sebastian breathed through his mouth to avoid inhaling the smell of bile as he wiped up the mess, pissed he was forced into the role of housekeeper. Either way, however, the obnoxious thing was braver than he, because It kept moving forward; this only heightened the irritation that permeated every corner of Sebastian’s mind.

Sebastian paced around the kitchen for hours. He could’ve screamed, but he knew that if he did, he might not be able to stop the ultimate crescendo toward full-forced wails. Finally, he harnessed the strength to leave the kitchen and took up residence in the living room. And the pacing continued: toward the window, around the sofa, next to the nightstand where an empty picture frame—a birthday gift from Chloe—stood waiting for the right occupant. Sebastian was suddenly grateful she was so insistent on capturing the still life of him and Frank earlier that night. Maybe somehow Chloe foresaw it would be the last picture ever taken of them together.

That night. The screams finally began inside Sebastian’s head, though he still couldn’t verbalize any of his feelings to the walls, the window, the phone, or the obese sack of fur perched on the sofa. Should he call Chloe? No. She was probably still at thirty thousand feet in her sky cabin. His continued pacing carried him into the bathroom, which held him hostage for yet another hour. But he couldn’t stop, even with his then sore back and feet. He began cackling like a madman in a horror flick, his tummy buckling and chest locking as he sucked in air.

The medicine cabinet? Zilch—he’d hoped to find the pills that were prescribed two months earlier for leg spasms he’d experienced after dancing his ass off at an audition for yet another box office bomb. “Fuck!” he shouted. He checked again; nothing! He slammed the cabinet shut. This was Chloe’s fault; she’d probably taken the bottle of muscle relaxants with her to Cancún.

It meowed again from the living room. The piercing sound reminded Sebastian of those things in heat during childhood summer nights in Margaretville. He saw his mother’s roundish face, then his father’s, gaunt from too many puffs of smoke. The image of his sweet ginger cat, Mister, passed before his mind’s eye. Mister.

Sebastian covered his ears. Any more meows from It would’ve been unadulterated torture. “Shut up!” he yelled out the bathroom door, despite knowing that he probably was being cruel to the poor thing. It stopped briefly, but started up soon after, louder than before.

An escape route sprang to mind: there was vodka in the freezer. Sebastian shook his head. No. Absolutely not! Vodka would only remind him of the Sex on the Beach cocktails he and Frank shared so many times. So he slumped there, where he was, onto the closed toilet lid. With arms folded as a pillow, he rested his head on the sink. His body, heavy with trying to bully himself and everyone else into silence, had grown too tired to pace.

A police siren wailed from the street, finally smothering the tomcat cries It insisted on projecting throughout the apartment. When a rush of frosty night air whooshed against Sebastian’s body, he bolted toward the open window. A stronger gust of wind came. The smell of snow, clean yet violent, swept inside the apartment and forced a chill from the bottom of Sebastian’s feet to the top of his head. As he stood there, letting the frigid air blast him full in the face, he felt the warmth of It pressed against his leg.

“No more!” Sebastian screamed. The voice that arose from his bowels vibrated in his head, a guttural emission like the dissonance of an orchestra’s warm-up sequence. He visualized his innards spilling through his belly button: bile, piss, and shit all releasing until his body was turned inside out. What’s the body, anyway: Flesh? A slipcover? Exhausted, Sebastian finally collapsed onto the sofa.

In the ensuring silence, the damn thing curled up next to him on the sofa. It purred loudly, and the greenish-gold eyes seemed to say, “I am not an It. I am not a thing.”

“Oh, sweet Arthur,” Sebastian heard himself say. “My baby, my baby, my baby,” he continued as he blotted his tears and drew in a long, slow breath. He rested his head against Arthur’s and checked his wristwatch: 3:30 a.m. Hands on his belly, he released a four-count breath through his mouth.

His focus aimed toward the ceiling, Sebastian finally realized where he was: Onto the next day, from that day, from that night before. Life goes on for everyone, except Frank, he thought. Life fucking goes on and on . . .