The Cat

“Oh sick!” Toby yelled, “What is that thing?”

It. didn’t move when we touched it. Matted and sticky black hair on the thing caught in the autumn breeze. I had goose bumps. Beside the old Victorian courthouse, in the shadow of its tower, Toby and I had found a dead thing in the gutter.

“It’s a dead thing,” I said, in awe, never having seen anything like it before. “Yeah,” Toby and I were whispering like children in church.

I put my hands on my knees. Toby stuck his foot under the thing, like a spatula under a pancake and flipped it over so we could get a better look.

“Oh sick!” Toby screamed, and we laughed. The thing had been a cat once, not long ago, perhaps that afternoon. It looked like a cat once we had it flipped over and there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it except it was still motionless and one of its eyeballs had popped out of socket. The eye was hanging from the cat’s head, attached by forbidden wiring.

Laugh and point, that’s what we did. It was the easiest thing to do.

The idea that the wheel of a tire, or some other force could squeeze a creature hard enough to make its eyes pop out was so outrageous that we stood there and laughed about it for several minutes. We were uninterrupted by anything save the sound of high heels somewhere in the distance.

We dragged the cat behind the courthouse for a closer inspection. The creature was frozen in pain, stiff as a stick and its teeth were showing. Of course, there was that eye to contend with as well. Toby was still rolling around laughing at the way the cat had refused to move as we dragged it by the tail, or rather, as Toby dragged it. I was still laughing as well. Had the cat been able o see in the instant between the moment of impact and death? Did the world suddenly appear bigger or go by in a blur? What would it look like to pop an eye out? I stopped laughing.

Suddenly, I felt as if the cat were looking at me, like a cat that wants a belly rub.

“It’s looking at me,” I said, and Toby, who hadn’t stopped laughing, clutched his gut and howled. He thought that was hilarious. I mentioned the eyeball. But I wasn’t joking. I had to leave the alley behind the courthouse and get some air.

As I did, I saw a woman walking around rather frantically, peeking in all the little places I knew so well all along the street. The sound of her heels drew closer and the woman stopped a little so she could talk to me.

“I’m looking for my cat.” she said. The first thing that came to my mind was relief that Toby hadn’t stepped out of the alley with me. He would laugh and that would betray the lie, make her come back there and see what happened to her cat.

“oh, what does it look like” If she didn’t mention any of the distinct features of “our” cat, I wouldn’t tell her. She said it was a black cat, young, of so-many years old, and with such-and such a name. I only acted like I was listening.

“No ma’am I haven’t seen your cat. But I’ll keep an eye out for him.” and with that the woman left, calling after the cat. It was then that I noticed I had been standing exactly where the cat had been. If we hadn’t moved it, that woman would have found the cat, and us laughing at it.

Toby came out of the alley and said ” are you gonna throw up?” “No.”I said, “Are you?” “Yes,” he said, “If I laugh anymore. Who was that?” “I dunno. Some lady. Look, I have to go now. It’s going to be dinner time soon.” “I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Hey, wait ’till they hear about this” “I want to tell them.” “I saw it first”

“Rock paper scissors, then,” so it was. We shook our fists and each drew according to our whim. I drew the paper, Toby made a rock. I won the rights to tell the story. But the victory wasn’t any fun; I didn’t feel very good about what we had done that afternoon, so I walked home.

My feet were covered in blood.