The Cat

Kirsty Arbuckle Lommen

“No,” he said with a disdainful twitch of his velvet-soft ear, “just…no.”

“Oh, come on,” I chirped (despite being wounded by his rejection). “What’s your damage? What’s the risk?”

He raised his nose — a perfect terracotta-colored triangle — and sniffed as if he’d caught a whiff of something far away but alluring. It was an expression obviously meant to change the subject.

“Kitty!” I said, perhaps too loudly, trying to regain his attention.

“Oh, please. Do you even hear yourself? ‘Kitty. Kitty-kitty.’ Really?” His drawl suggested a Texas ancestry, but one steeped in money and oil. Who knew cats could speak with accents?

“Kitty-kitty is a thing,” I persisted. “You know it is. People say it all the time. It’s just a way of being friendly. I just want to give you a scratch behind the ears. It would feel good. You know it would. It’s what people do.” I stopped; even I could hear the pathetic babbling in my voice.

“Yes, regrettably, it is what people do,” he said as he rose and turned his back to the sidewalk where I stood with my elbows propped on the fence rail. He made his way across the uneven lawn and toward the front porch steps with the stoic grace of an antique sailing vessel. He paused briefly to rub his cheek against the decaying lattice that skirted the house’s foundation. “I have a name, you know,” he said as if addressing a stout, metallic insect trundling its way drunkenly across a stair tread.

“Tell me what it is!” I demanded, but he’d already slipped into the inky shadows beneath the porch steps. From his camouflaged position, I knew he could watch my every move until I crossed the street and exited his field of vision. I knew instinctively, however, that he would not be bothered to monitor me at all. He might even have been asleep by then, already dreaming of anarchy and indolence.

The next time I saw him was pretty much like the first time I saw him. I’d exited the bus and made my slow way up the avenue under a greyscale sky, shuffling along until I was parallel to the chain link fence that hemmed his yard — hemmed except for the front gate, that is. Why anyone would bother to fence their yard but leave an unguarded, open portal where the gate should stand sentry is a mystery, don’t you think? But that was the state of security at the untidy, green bungalow that anchored the corner lot.

He was there, perched ornamentally on the second-from-the-top porch stair. He’d taken on that loaf-like pose that cats effect when they’re meditating, breathing in and out as smoothly as if his lungs were powered by wind-up clockworks. His abundant tail was wound elegantly around his side, its tip warming the two white orbs of his front paws. Peaceful, really; he was peaceful.

“Kitty!” I yelled out from my spot at the fence.

He twitched in response as if he’d been zinged by a static charge, yet he didn’t open his eyes. Then he sighed as his brow tightened in annoyance. Finally he opened just one eye, and only enough to see me perched again at his fence. “You,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, waiting…waiting.

“So…,” I added hopefully.

“So,” he replied, both eyes again closed.

“You should tell me your name,” I called to him. “Mine’s Lou. What’s yours?”

He opened his eyes, but only to roll them in response to my awkward attempts at conversation. “What in heaven’s name are you on about now?” he drawled in his Tex-Mex accent.

“Your name — what’s your name?” I repeated. “Tell me your name.”

He rose to a seated position, arching his back into a satisfying stretch before licking his whiskers with his baby-doll tongue. He raised his eyelids to half-mast and regarded me before finally speaking. “Listen closely,” he said, “and try to understand this. ‘Names’ are an entirely artificial construct of the human species. Only humans find it necessary to assign arbitrary sets of sounds to each other as identifiers. Why? Probably because your inferior sense of smell keeps you from recognizing individuals by their unique scents, as normal animals do.” He cocked one whiskered eyebrow as if to ask if I understood. “I am not a human,” he continued, “therefore I do not have a name, nor do I require one. Get it?”

“Wait, no,” I stammered. “The last time I was here I distinctly remember you saying that you had a name. I know you did.”

“I deny it,” he said simply. And what was I to do then? Call him a liar?

“But, you, uh — you live in a house?” I said uncertainly. “Don’t the people who live here call you something?”

He turned away abruptly, suddenly interested in grooming an unruly patch of fur on his right shoulder. “Kitty?” I called. “Did you hear me?”

“Perhaps you should go find those people,” he said after restoring his fur to proper order, “and talk to them. I myself,” he continued while he swayed down the steps with the casual gait of a couture model, “have an appointment. And if I’m not mistaken, you do too.” He looked meaningfully toward the corner and the crosswalk that would lead me to the medical campus across the street.

“Wait!” I called as he slipped through the peeling lattice and into the den under the porch steps. I could just barely see his silhouette as he faded into the murky blackness behind the risers. “How do you know about my appointment?”

How could he know about my appointment? I hadn’t spoken to anyone about my on-going appointments at the low, brick office building on the periphery of the campus.

I squinted, hoping to see him still there under the steps, but he was invisible by then, silent; gone as a ghost.

The encounter that stands out most in my memory happened on a rare, bright spring morning. The sun was shining down from a blue sky as perfect as God’s love as I stepped off of the bus and onto the curb.

And up ahead on the sidewalk, in front of the little green bungalow, stood the cat. He’d left his yard and taken a position just outside the missing gate, smelling sprigs of the boxwood hedge as if their scent carried coded messages. He held his mouth slightly open to let the vapors glide over his palate like an oenophile sampling a rare vintage. He was so absorbed in this exercise that he failed to see me until I was just a few steps away. And when he did, his eyes widened in panic; he slunk down, belly to the ground, and quickly scuttled through the gate and into his yard, almost like an insect escaping to sanctuary under a damp rock. His terrified demeanor reminded me that cats are, after all, prey animals. At least when they’re not busy being predators.

“Hold up!” I called to him. “It’s just me. You know me. Lou? Remember?”

He stopped abruptly as he reached the corner of his house, swiveling his head over his shoulder to regard me from this safe distance. “It’s me!” I assured him, palms out in a gesture of harmlessness.

He hissed at me then, mouth open, sharp-edged teeth on gleaming display.

“It’s just me,” I said again. “Why are you acting so crazy?”

“If I’m crazy,” he growled, “I guess it’s because we’re all crazy here.” He tipped his chin in the direction of the campus across the street, hinting once again that he knew more about me — or at least my appointments — than I would ever know about him. And then he scuttled around the corner of the house and out of sight.

It was, I’m sorry to say, the last thing he ever said to me; despite my on-going appointments, it was the last time I ever saw him.

As my medication took effect and my condition began to stabilize as the weeks passed, my appointments at the center gradually lessened. But whenever I made my way past the green house on my way to the office, I continued to look for the cat, even stopping at the fence occasionally to peer through the risers of the front porch steps. I could almost imagine his soft-edged outline there in his den, lurking in the shadows, wanting to indulge an urge to insult me, but still too afraid of being caught out in the open. Was he in there? I’d shade my eyes and squint, hoping the clouds would clear enough for a ray of sunshine to pierce through the lattice at just the right angle to illuminate his shadowy cave. But I never caught even a glimpse of the cat again.

Of course my therapy eventually ended (at least for a time), and one day I found myself exiting the medical campus for the last time. The green house on the corner, as always, came into view as I crossed the street and made my way back to the bus stop. I realized that I hadn’t thought of the cat in quite some time, and I also realized that forgetting about him entirely would probably be for the best. There was an untidy pile of troublesome subjects that had taken root in my imagination during that dark period of my life, and I would be happy to put them all behind me. A snooty cat with a Texas trust fund could certainly be counted among them.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help scanning the yard for his presence as I ambled past the boxwood hedge toward the front gate, and as I did, she darted out onto the sidewalk — a tawny kitten with the dark ears, paws, and tail that signaled a Siamese ancestry. She skidded to a stop directly in front of me, already voicing her impatience. “Merowl!” she demanded in a surprisingly abrasive tone. “Mowerlow?” she then inquired — I could easily discern the questioning tone if not the actual meaning of her words.

“Well, hello there!” I said, bending down to meet her. She paused for just a moment to smell my outstretched hand before declaring, “Perft.” She rubbed the side of her head against my fingers while winding figure-eights around my shins, continuing a soliloquy of soft cat-noises that she alone understood.

“Can I pick you up?” I inquired, almost expecting to be rebuked by this kitten as I had so many times by her predecessor. But instead she rose onto her back feet to meet my hands. I picked her up and held her under my chin as she rumbled her approval. “What’s your name, cutie?” I asked, but other than to reach up a paw to gently tap my chin, she made no reply. “Cat got your tongue?” I inquired. “That’s okay. You can keep your real name a secret. But if it’s okay with you, I think I’ll call you Dinah.” At that she continued to purr, squirming occasionally into different positions before stiffening her legs against me — the unmistakable signal that she was ready to get down. I set her gently onto the sidewalk, and she returned to her yard and headed to the porch. She bounded up the steps two at a time, and settled on the welcome mat in front of the crooked screen door.

“Bye, sweetie,” I said quietly. “By the way, in case we ever see each other again? My name is Lou.”

For April’s Made Up Words extended edition sign up here