SAVE THE CAT

The cat came back.

How? The man had taken infallible measures to ensure the little nightmare’s permanent dismissal. Well, he had put it outside and locked the door. But that should have been enough. How’d that little bas­tard get back in?

The furry feline trotted over to the woman and rubbed against her leg, purring. She bent down to pick it up.

“Hey, Kitty,” she cooed.

The man looked on in horror as she rubbed her tiny nose against that flea-ridden varmint. That was his tiny nose. A nose he had kissed many times. His stom­ach churned at the thought.

She carried the creature to the kitchen and let it back into its room. It owned that space. The spot was man-proof. He despised that kitchen almost as much as he detested the damned cat. But he couldn’t blame the cat for everything. The woman wasn’t the cleanest. The refrigerator was always dirty and congested. The dishes were never done. The baby’s high chair was a sticky mess. But he could blame the cat for the fleas that jumped from its litter box onto the chair, then the table. He hated the smell of stagnant newspaper and cat piss that violated his nostrils whenever he dared enter that cookery.

“You sure you won’t mind if I get rid of it?” he asked, pointing down at the nightmare.

“As long as you—” the woman began.

“—find it a good home,” he finished.

The apartment wasn’t his. He was just staying with the woman while he worked some things out. They weren’t exactly boyfriend/girlfriend either. He had no right to say, “Woman, we gonna get rid of that damn cat!” All he could do was compromise… or take more deceptive measures.

The domesticated feline created unsanitary liv­ing conditions for the woman’s three-year-old daugh­ter, who constantly complained about bugs biting her. This was the only reason the woman even considered letting it go; otherwise, she would never part with her kitty.

Fleas were everywhere. There was a chair in the living room that, if he sat on it, he’d be instantly cov­ered. They were indestructible. He learned this first­hand when he grabbed one off his neck, tried crushing it between his fingers, and when he opened his grip, the little fucker walked to the edge of his hand, turned, laughed at him, and hopped off.

The only place they didn’t attack was the wom­an’s bedroom. For some strange reason, they seemed to respect that territory. He couldn’t remember ever see­ing one in the bed. This thought made him sleepy.

“You ready?” the woman asked. It was already the next morning. It didn’t feel like he’d slept long—maybe two hours—but he felt well rested.

The woman, true to form, woke him up just in time—not a second sooner. They didn’t bother with any heavy clothing. It was unseasonably warm for fall. Times like these, they acted like a true family. Outside, they each took one of the little girl’s mitts into their own hands. She leaned this way and that, stomping on the leaves to hear the crunch underfoot.

They drove to the woman’s job, where she spent her days as a social worker. The building includ­ed a food bank and daycare, both of which were free for employees. This was perfect for the uncoupled cou­ple. She always brought home free food, and her little girl could stay close. After he dropped them off, the man could spend the rest of the morning and after­noon doing what he wanted. Everything was perfect, save the cat.

He returned to the house, headed straight for the kitchen, picked up the hairy creature, and carried it to the car.

In the back seat, the cat meowed sorrowfully every three seconds until it began panting—a sight he’d never seen.

There was a place he’d noticed across the street from his friend’s house. It was a dilapidated dwelling completely out of place among the tidy homes. Vines snaked up its weathered walls. The porch was missing more than a few planks. The yard looked like a jungle. And everywhere, cats. Dozens of them.

He figured it belonged to some old cat lady, though he’d never seen anyone there—only the felines. He never asked his friend, The Butcher, about it, but that didn’t stop his friend from voicing his opinion.

“Mangy beasts,” The Butcher would say be­tween sips of his homemade mead. “I keel them all.”

There were rumors that The Butcher used the meat of strays to make his diner’s famous hot dogs. The man figured this was preposterous.  But he never took the woman there– just to be safe. 

Once the car was parked, the man got out and opened the back door like he was the cat’s chauffeur. The cat looked at him and spoke through the only lan­guage it knew. But the man was beyond words. He grabbed it and set it down on the sidewalk before clos­ing the door. Kitty backed up against the rear tire, still whining. Across the street, the other cats listened, their ears perking up. Slowly, they began to creep toward the house cat.

“That’s your new family,” the man said. The cat seemed to disagree with a defiant “meow,” staying put. The man figured the little asshole would eventual­ly give in to peer pressure and join the other cats in the old lady’s– in the yard. 

He walked to The Butcher’s place, planning to let nature take its course. But as soon as he knocked, and the Butcher opened the door, the cat bolted inside the house!

“Son of ze bitch!” The Butcher exclaimed, mix­ing up his terminology for the feline. They chased the cat into a room, where it promptly vanished under a bed. The Butcher grabbed a broom and started poking around until he heard a hiss—the first time the man had ever heard that sound from the creature. After some tougher prodding, the cat shot out of the room, darted into the bathroom, and jumped into the tub.

“Muzefucka! Savage peau de vache!” The Butcher cursed, tossing aside the broom and grabbing a bat that had been resting in the corner. The man real­ized that the butcher just thought this was one of the strays from across the street. The man started to ex­plain the situation, but swallowed his words.

The Butcher tiptoed over to the tub, bat in hand. He slowly pushed it toward the cat to gauge its reaction. The beast roared and swiped fiercely at the wooden threat. Scared shitless, the cat began excreting in the bathtub. The Butcher snapped.

“I keel you!” The Butcher shouted, slamming his bat down with a brutal blow. The cat stumbled around, its face smashed in, and the man winced as if feeling its pain himself. The Butcher kept swinging, like he was whooping a child, each word punctuated with a hit.

“ALL!” CRACK.
“YOU!” WHACK.
“HAD!” WHAM.
“TO!” BAM.
“DO!” PAP.
“WAS!” BAP.
“LEAVE!” THWACK.

The cat was unquestionably deceased, but The Butcher gave it one more for the afterlife.

“FOUTREE!” he yelled, snapping the bat over its limp body. Breathing heavily, he looked at the man­gled carcass, his rage dissolving into a twisted satisfac­tion.

He slicked his greasy hair back and turned to the man, speaking in the woman’s voice. “You ready?”

The man tilted his head, confused. “Ready for what?”

The woman gave him a puzzled look before re­alizing he was still half-asleep, trapped between dream and waking. As his vision cleared, he let out a short laugh.

“I just had the wildest dream.”

The woman smiled, licked his cheek, and went to get her daughter settled. The man stretched, got up, and walked past the kitchen, eyeing the closed door with curiosity. They all met in the hallway and walked down the stairs together.

The woman might as well have been one of the adults in Charlie Brown. Her words blurred into indistinct sounds, drowned out by the man’s confusion over everything that had just happened.

After dropping them off, he mashed on the gas. He bypassed a stop sign without so much as blinking. The car took flight off a hill like the General Lee before a commercial break. He skidded into a parking spot, and the man flew out before it stopped. 

He rushed back to the apartment and kicked open the kitchen door. The cat meowed and went straight to its empty bowl, begging for food. The man sighed. He didn’t know if he was relieved or annoyed, but he was pretty sure he was awake.

The man decided to consciously and quickly execute his plan. He took the cat to the run-down house and dropped it over the fence to be with the others. He left without stopping to visit the Butch­er. He was pretty sure he was awake, but that didn’t stop him from peeking into the kitchen when he got home.

Later, he picked up the woman and the child af­ter work. Once the little girl was strapped into her car seat, the man looked back at her and made a funny face. The child covered her eyes shyly. The woman sat up front, and the man was tuned in, listening to every word.

“The daycare is having a Halloween party on Friday,” the woman said, “so I need to get her a cos­tume—or at least a mask or something. Think we could stop by Big Lots–”

“I got rid of the cat,” he blurted.

“Yeah, right,” she said, “Are you serious? Are you playing, or are you for real?” 

This wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.

“I’m for real. You said as long as I found it a good home.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I’m not.” 

Both of their tones were lighthearted. Hers to undercut her sadness, his to soften the blow of the news. They stared at each other with sanguine expres­sions. She searched his face for any tells of a joke, her slightly slit pupils bouncing around until she saw the truth.

“Oh,” she said.

She put her head down. The man didn’t feel ter­rible, but he was almost disappointed. He wanted her to say, “You did? Good! I hated that little Motha Fucka. Let’s go to the strip club!” But she didn’t. She stayed quiet the whole trip home and into the night. The man didn’t know what to say. When he went to bed, he heard her in the kitchen. Eventually, his concern drift­ed off as he fell asleep.

But the cat came back! He thought it was a goner. He was sure it was a goner, but the little bastard just wouldn’t stay away.

The next day, after some great morning sex, af­ter the woman had cooked breakfast, the man walked into a clean kitchen. After he dropped the woman and child off and returned to the house, he skipped merrily up to the front door. That’s when he saw the cat, sitting there, begging to be let back in.

“Nope!” The man said.

He didn’t even give it a chance to see the inside of the house. Without hesitation, he grabbed it up by the scruff and headed straight for the car. He drove to The Butcher’s restaurant and parked in a back alley. He walked to the employee entrance and knocked. The Butcher peeked through a slit. The man had never used this entrance before, and The Butcher gave him a look to make sure he didn’t make it a habit.

“Got something for you,” the man said, holding out an old, tattered canvas bookbag that bulged and bubbled with the cat’s movements. The Butcher opened the door and took his new delicacy. The man stood there as if waiting for a tip. The Butcher looked the man up and down.

“Merci,” he said, hoping this would move him along.

“I wanna see,” the man said, his voice cracking. He didn’t want it to come to this, but he had no other alternative. He hated the cat and wanted– needed to see it dead.

“Ah. Leur toujour s’ennuyer!” The Butcher said this with a snarl, but he left the door open, so the man translated it to “come in.”

The Butcher walked to a metal table in the mid­dle of the room. Wooden cutting boards were stained red and green with no distinction between those used to cut meat and those used to cut vegetables. He let the cat out of the bag. It licked its lips blithely before walking around on the surface of the table with dainty footsteps. 

From the dark corners of the room, rugged em­ployees with stained aprons emerged. One was sharp­ening a knife. Another was rubbing his hands together. All seemed excited.

The man looked at Kitty, and Kitty looked back at him. Fate, destiny, or luck had brought these two to­gether. These mammals, caught in this crazy world, both need the same basic things: food and shelter, and both sought the same thing—comfort. Surely, Kitty hated the fleas as much as, if not more than the man did. Maybe getting rid of the host wasn’t the solution. Maybe they could find a way to ease their shared dis­comfort. The man’s expression shifted from firm re­solve to gentle understanding. He stepped forward and reached out to pick up his old new–

In two quick motions, The Butcher picked up a butcher’s knife and swung it through the cat. The cat’s head was lopped clean off! It landed on the floor with a final, drawn-out meow. Its body, however, spasmed erratically, spraying blood across everyone in the room. 

“Ha ha! Dey love it when I do diss!” The Butch­er shouted gleefully, glancing over at the man, who had passed out cold on the floor.

He felt a face nuzzling his.

“You ready?” the woman asked. The man jolted awake, running to the kitchen in a panic. The cat was gone, but this didn’t explain anything. It was small enough to hide in a million places. 

He walked back to the bedroom while ques­tioning what had happened. The woman watched, waiting for an explanation. Then they both laughed.

“I don’t know why I did that,” he said, shaking his head.

“Another wild dream?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, sitting on the corner of the bed, “I had a dream about The Butcher.”

“Who?” She asked.

The man looked at her. Then he noticed some­thing in the corner of the room. It was an elaborate scratching post, taking up a good amount of space. The base was covered in dark forest-green carpet, flecked with lint and cat fur, and there were two vertical posts wrapped tightly in beige sisal rope. One post support­ed a small circular platform about halfway up, just big enough for a cat to perch and peer down like royalty. The other extended to the top, where a carpeted cubby hole sat, its entrance rimmed in frayed threads from years of scratching and kneading. 

How did the man not notice this contraption?

The woman saw him staring and smiled with a hint of pride. “You like it? I got it at PetSmart for under a hundred dollars.”

“How much?” He asked.

She laughed.

“Hey. Nothing’s too good for our little fur baby,” she said.

“But I told you I got rid of the cat,” he said in an unsure whisper.

“You did what!?” she exclaimed, “No, you did­n’t–did you? No, you didn’t.”

The man made an expression she couldn’t read, so she interpreted it how she wanted.

She sucked her teeth.

“You play too much,” she said. 

The man was at a loss.

The woman looked at the clock.

“Oh. I’m late for work,” she said.

The woman rushed out the door, leaving the man to his thoughts. He felt something, slapped his neck, and pinched a little flea between his fingers. It simply waited until the man released it before hopping off. He turned–and saw another on his pillow.

After dropping her off at work, he returned home and checked the kitchen one more time. He sucked his teeth, meowed, and called, “Here, kitty, kit­ty.” Nothing.

The phone rang.

“Hey, babe,” the woman said, “I just wanted to let you know I’m going to happy hour with some friends, so you don’t have to pick me up after work. Chanda said she’ll drop me off.”

As she spoke, the man heard a faint sound coming from the kitchen. He crept over to the door and shoved it open. Still no cat.

“Hello?” the woman asked, her voice distant on the line.

He noticed the kitchen window was open. That window was never open. He didn’t think it could open. He couldn’t remember a time when that kitchen win­dow had ever been open.

“Hellooo?” she sang into the phone.

“Hey… Sorry… I’ll be there at 5,” he muttered, still staring at the open window.

“What?” She asked, “Did you hear what I said?”

“Right, yeah, happy hour,” he said, “Okay, babe. I’ll be here. See you when you get home.”

“Love y–”

The man was already in the process of hanging up, so he didn’t hear her. He closed the kitchen win­dow. Then, he searched everywhere: under the table, on top of the fridge, beneath the sink. He lifted the couch, pulled back the curtains, and checked under the loveseat. He inspected the tub and behind the door, then went through the closets and checked under the bed. Finally, he looked in the tub again, just to be sure. By the time he was done, it was already 3 p.m. 

He lay down for a quick nap, but when he woke up, it was dark out. He could hear the woman’s keys jingling from outside the door. He closed his eyes again as she entered.

“Hey, Kitty,” she said.

The man popped up. He rushed out into the living space.

“Hey!” She said, reaching for a hug.

“Hey,” he said, holding her, looking around.

Her ear twitched against his cheek. She could tell something was up.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, “What did you say when you came in?”

“I said ‘Hey,’” she said, confused, as it had only been seven seconds ago.

“Oh. How was happy hour?”

“It was amazing! I know you don’t like it, but we should go sometime. Your friend is—He  knows what he’s doing. I’ll say that.”

“My friend?”

“The Butcher.”

“You went to The Butcher’s diner? Remember what I told you?”

“You said he cut up stray dogs and cats and used them in his recipes. You were joking.”

“Joking. Yeah. I mean, I was but–”

“What?” she asked with a smile, “Did The Butcher cut up Kitty?”

He had to catch himself from making a sur­prised expression. Instead, he muted his guise and laughed with the woman. He tried his damnedest to make the laugh sound genuine.

When they went to bed, he didn’t get much sleep. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore Kit­ty’s incessant meows, but they seemed to echo louder and louder in his mind. He couldn’t tell if he was los­ing his sanity or not. He finally said fuck it and stared at the foot of the bed as his heart beat faster. He used to do this when he was a kid, scared of something in his room. He would stare straight into it until his eyes adjusted, and that tall skinny man gawking at him from the corner would become the coat rack. So that’s what he did as the meowing grew closer and closer, he stared down past his feet. He shook the woman and softly called out her name. If she heard it, it meant he wasn’t going crazy, but it also meant the cat was back. He prayed to God he was going crazy. The covers began to move as if something were tugging at them, maybe even crawling up from the floor. And then, silence. The meows faded into the background, only to start again, growing louder and louder.

“Babe,” he whispered.

He shook her again. She responded with a muf­fled, guttural growl. Her voice sounded almost inhu­man. She turned toward him, and in the dim moon­light, he saw a horrifying sight. Whiskers sprouted from her grotesque, swollen cheeks. Pointy ears emerged atop her head. Her eyes were enormous, with slitted pupils. Her entire countenance was overtaken by a covering of fur!

He shot up, slammed himself against the wall, and yelled loud and long. The woman woke up and pulled something off her face. She tossed it to the floor as the man continued to yell. She looked into his eyes and called his name. He looked past her. His mouth was stretched to the point where his lips cracked. Snot ran from his nose. As he yelled, the woman kept call­ing his name again and again and again as tears ran from her eyes. The man’s chest compressed, and his ribs showed their contours through his skin. The yelling decreased. The snot that ran from his nose turned to glutinous, dark blood. His visage was contorted into the definition of horror. The woman cried into his lap until his yell was no more than a straining whisper. She looked up at him. The only part left was his physical body.

The cat entered the room and sat on the daugh­ter’s Halloween mask—the same mask the woman had tossed onto the floor. The woman’s frantic cries were like a lullaby. The kitten closed its eyes.