I take care of a slightly grand old wooden house, and a woman moved in the place for its character. She has a cat, all black with long hair, by coincidence. She's been in love with neat houses all her life, and her first house was a fine wooden one she had built near Seattle. It was really special to her, but she had to leave it because some kook stalker threatened her life there. She feels safe refuge at this house, which is the way it feels there. This woman is a real sweetheart. All the people in the neighborhood love her, especially the children.
So her father built her a wooden replica to take with her; to keep. Little wooden shingles; the works; hundreds or thousands of pieces, three floors tall, and about the size of a small desk maybe. It comes apart in three pieces to move it. It's, obviously, very special to her.
Just recently her father died. She went away for a week or so to take care of things. The model house was on the big wooden porch, where it looked terrific.
I go over one eve and Carolyn and Craig, the couple who live in the downstairs, come out and say we have some crazy bad news. They think Meg's cat is missing, and sick. A few days later they discover that Blackie has crawled into the top floor of the model house, thru an attic window; and curled up, and died.
Oh jeez. Oh jeez I think. Oh jeez, we think; as we're all standing there realizing the implications of this.
What freeking luck this woman has; and what a mean joker the universe is.
They've finally located Blackie because this side of the house, away from theirs, has started to stink. And now it's started to stink powerfully.
Shit, I think. Shit. The entire model house is reeking of death. Permeated. Her dead father's house is holding her dead cat. This woman needs this like a hole in the head. Which, I remember, is coincidentally the reason she left Seattle.
Craig is looking very sick. He tells me Blackie crawled in through that window, that little top window, and he doesn't think we can get him out. And Carolyn says, he (Craig) can't get him out, because the whole thing, concept and odor, is making him very upset. I look over at Craig and he is sick. I say it's not your responsibility to get him out; I will do it. He's a terrific guy we like a lot, and is very green and grateful, and zooms away.
I peek in the little window, and sure enough it's all black and furry in there. I had to figure out how to do it for a while, being no coroner myself. I enlisted Norton's un-eager, but loyal, help.
I put on a breathing mask, and two layers of plastic over my hands, and reached in and carefully straightened him out. He was all soft, and I didn't want him falling apart like cows and possums do. It was the hardest and bravest thing I've done in a year or two, or ten; but I sure as heck didn't want Meg doing it. I pulled him out, and carried him carefully around the porch and buried him under the house's largest and most beautiful rhododendron; a tree Loderi Venus. Right beneath the main window of the house, in the garden, so he'd be there, mythologically.
We cleaned up the wooden house, and tried to forget the whole thing, except for worrying about how to tell her. Norton said I was brave, and Craig would have too, if he'd been able to leave his room.
Carolyn said she would tell Meg when she got home. I said she didn't have to, but she said she could do it.
Meg came home and Carolyn climbed the porch stairs to tell her. Meg answered the door with Blackie. It wasn't her cat.
I have no idea what "the moral" of this story is. And it's probably not helpful to Penni, but, well, it's a cat story. |
