Cats in the City

by Tom Watson

  “It’s very nice,” Stick Cat said. Then, observing the pillows at the head of the bed, he commented, “Tiffany must use a lot of pillows. Goose only has two—and there are four here.”

  “No, no,” Edith said. “She only uses one. The other three are mine.”

  Stick Cat tried not to act surprised. “You sleep with three pillows? And Tiffany sleeps with just one?”

  “That’s all she needs,” Edith explained. While this didn’t make much sense to Stick Cat, it all seemed perfectly logical to Edith. “And I like to move from one pillow to another before settling down to sleep. I never know which one is going to be just right on a particular night.”

  Stick Cat tilted his head to the right just a little and asked, “Aren’t they all the same? They’re all covered in that shiny pink material.”

  “That’s silk. I only sleep with silk pillowcases. But they’re not the same at all,” Edith said, and then explained some more. “One pillow is a little softer. One is a little harder. And one is sort of medium. I never know which will be right until I try each one out a few times every night.”

  “Oh.”

  “Then, when I do figure out which one is best,” Edith continued. She seemed to be taking enjoyment in describing her bedtime ritual. “That’s when I let Tiffany tuck me in.”

  “Tuck you in?”

  “That’s right,” Edith answered. “She puts that cashmere blanket on me.”

  “She puts the blanket over you?”

  “Of course,” Edith answered. “Isn’t that what Goose does?”

  “Umm, no.”

  “What do you do with your cashmere blanket?”

  “I lie on it, not under it,” Stick Cat said. This was all starting to make him feel funny for some reason. He wasn’t jealous of all the luxuries Edith seemed to have. But he couldn’t help wondering what steak and salmon tasted like—or what it felt like to have three silk-covered pillows and a cashmere blanket. “That’s what most cats do, I think.”

  “Not this cat, mister,” Edith said immediately. “I can’t believe you sleep on your blanket instead of under it.”

  “Well, umm, it’s not really a blanket anyway. Umm, yeah.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s more like a towel.”

  “A bath towel?” Edith asked. She was just now realizing that maybe Stick Cat did not have a similar sleeping arrangement. “Well, that’s okay, I guess. Those can be kind of soft and cushy sometimes. I’m sure it’s quite comfortable.”

  “It’s not a bath towel.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No.”

  “What kind of towel is it?”

  “It’s more like, umm, a dish towel.”

  “A dish towel?!”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I see,” Edith said.

  Suddenly she seemed to be searching for words to use. “Well, those can be very nice. Especially if they’re new.”

  “Mine’s not new.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. It’s kind of old. It has some tears in the middle and it’s kind of frayed on the ends,” Stick Cat explained. He had always loved that towel. It was worn, yes, but it had always been his. It was familiar and cozy. “Goose was going to throw it away, but then he decided to put it in my box.”

  “Your BOX?!”

  Stick Cat nodded.

  “You sleep in a BOX?!”

  “Yes. Sometimes, I’ll jump up into bed with Goose in the morning, but I prefer the box. It’s right by the side of Goose’s bed. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

  “I guess I’ve never noticed.”

  “It’s not my favorite place to sleep,” added Stick Cat. “It’s just where I sleep most often.”

  “Where’s your favorite place?”

  “Goose’s lap, of course,” Stick Cat said. “Isn’t your favorite place to sleep Tiffany’s lap?”

  “No way. Too hot!” Edith exclaimed. “She’s always trying to get me onto her lap. But I prefer my three pillows, silk pillowcases, and cashmere blanket by far.”

  “Have you always had all those things?” Stick Cat asked.

  Edith shook her head. “No, not always.”

  “How did you get them?”

  “I stopped sleeping,” Edith explained as they walked out of the bedroom. “I would just get up in the middle of the night and move around. Eventually, it drove Tiffany crazy. And that’s when she started trying out new things to help me sleep. It’s just another one of the ways I’ve trained her. She’s a pretty fast learner.”

  Stick Cat was growing tired of Edith’s explanations. He couldn’t imagine acting that way with Goose. Edith’s way of doing things made him feel uncomfortable.

  He scanned Edith’s living room as they entered it. He saw the morning sunshine streaming through the glass. And he saw a very inviting windowsill.

  Chapter 4

  A WHOLE NEW VIEW

  Stick Cat did not hesitate in hopping up to the sill to gaze out the window.

  “Umm, excuse me,” Edith huffed.

  “Yes?” Stick Cat answered. He peered out the window at the building across the alley. It had never even occurred to Stick Cat that Edith’s apartment would have a completely different view. It was instantly fascinating to him.

  “What are you doing?”

  Stick Cat continued to stare. “I’m looking out the window. That brick building across the alley is so neat. You can see the roof and everything!”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Edith said, and came two steps closer.

  Stick Cat knew this tone of voice. He asked, “What is it? Is something the matter?”

  Edith said nothing until she crossed the living room completely and stood right next to the windowsill.

  “You didn’t ask if you could sit up there,” Edith said. She didn’t sound rude or mean. It sounded more like she was reminding Stick Cat of something. “It is my windowsill after all.”

  Now, Stick Cat might have reminded Edith of something himself. He might have reminded her that she had hopped up onto his windowsill in his apartment dozens—no, hundreds—of times. And she had never asked before.

  But he didn’t.

  Stick Cat knew how to handle this with Edith. He had experience.

  Stick Cat jumped down.

  He then looked calmly at Edith.

  In a completely normal voice, he asked, “May I hop up on your windowsill and look outside?”

  Edith smiled. “Oh, Stick Cat,” she said. “You didn’t even have to ask. You’re always welcome.”

  Stick Cat jumped back up and gazed again at all the new things out the window. The first thing he saw was very close to the window—right outside it actually.

  “Why are there stairs outside your window?” he asked.

  Edith answered, “That’s a fire escape.”

  “What’s a fire escape?” Stick Cat asked. “I don’t have one of those on my side of the building.”

  “If there’s a fire in the middle of the night, I can wake up, open the window, and walk down the steps to safety,” explained Edith.

  “You and Tiffany, you mean.”

  “Me and Tiffany?” asked Edith. She seemed puzzled.

  “Yes. If you were sleeping and there was a fire, you and Tiffany would climb down to safety, right?”

  “Well, I suppose if she woke up too.”

  “But wouldn’t you wake her up?”

  “In the middle of a fire?! Are you kidding?” Edith was truly flabbergasted. She hopped up to the sill to join Stick Cat. “Hey, in this apartment it’s every woman for herself.”

  Stick Cat waited a long moment. He was ready to change the subject again. “It’s so neat to see the roof of that building. And there’s a little garden!”

  “Hmm,” Edith said. She was completely disinterested. To Stick Cat it was all new, fascinating, and spectacular. To Edith, not so much.

  Stick Cat continued to stare in absolute wonder. He had never seen the top of a building so c
lose before. He and Edith lived on the twenty-third floor. But on Stick Cat’s side, the building across the alley was much taller. On Edith’s side, however, the building next door was one floor shorter than their level—twenty-two floors high.

  So, to see a roof like this—and so close—was incredibly interesting.

  “Look at those flowers in the garden,” Stick Cat said. “I can see daisies and black-eyed Susans. So pretty.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Edith commented without looking up. She licked her front left paw. There was a single stubborn strand of fur that popped back up right after she licked it.

  “And you can see the river!” exclaimed Stick Cat. He pressed his face against the window and stared as far left as he could. “Through the space between those two buildings down the way. I can see a barge—well, part of a barge anyway.”

  “Hmm,” Edith said with complete disinterest. The strand of fur popped up again. She licked it once more. “Never noticed.”

  “And the sky! You can see a huge patch of sky!” Stick Cat nearly yelled. His eyes stretched wide open. “I was so busy looking at the roof and the garden that I didn’t even notice. Because the building across the alley is shorter, you can see so much more sky! It’s just beautiful today.”

  Edith did not look up. That fur strand had popped up again. She used her front right paw to pat it down.

  Stick Cat said, “I had no idea you have such an incredible view of the sky.”

  Edith placed her right paw over her left paw—and over that annoying strand of fur. It seemed as if she decided to just cover it up. That way, she wouldn’t have to look at it.

  She finally lifted her head and asked, “What are you going on and on about, Stick Cat?”

  “The sky,” he answered. “It’s beautiful.”

  “The sky? Seriously?”

  Stick Cat just nodded, never turning his head away from the window.

  “It’s just the sky, Stick Cat,” Edith said. “I mean, it’s there almost every day.”

  “Almost every day?”

  “Yes, that’s what I said. Almost every day.”

  “Not every day?”

  “Some days I don’t look out the window,” Edith said in an attempt to explain things better.

  “But that doesn’t mean the sky’s not there.”

  “It’s not there for me, mister.”

  Stick Cat pondered Edith’s words for a few minutes. Sometimes, he decided, it was better to not say anything at all. He turned toward Edith after that decision and asked, “What’s the deal with that woman on the top floor?”

  “That’s Hazel,” Edith answered without looking at Stick Cat. Instead, she lowered her chin down to the sill and stared at her front paws. She slowly lifted her right paw off her left one and peeked underneath. She tried to see if that fur strand would pop up again.

  To Edith’s great relief it did not pop up. She gave a great exhale of air.

  “Who is Hazel?” asked Stick Cat.

  “She makes the bagels.”

  “What bagels?”

  “There’s a shop down on the street called Hazel’s Bagels,” Edith explained. “My roommate, Tiffany, gets them for us on Saturday mornings. Hazel cooks them up on that top floor and then takes them down to the shop.”

  “You eat bagels?”

  “On Saturdays, yes,” Edith said nonchalantly. She seemed to think everyone in the city ate bagels on Saturday mornings.

  “I’ve never tried a bagel before,” Stick Cat said. He didn’t sound disappointed. He was simply stating a fact.

  “They’re okay,” Edith commented. “But it’s really what comes with them that I like.”

  “What comes with them?”

  “Lox and cream cheese,” Edith answered. She had become instantly excited. “I LOVE lox!”

  “What are lox?”

  “I don’t know,” Edith answered honestly. “It’s pink and it tastes like fish, but it’s not. It’s soft and mushy and salty.”

  “Sounds good,” Stick Cat said.

  Stick Cat watched Hazel move around inside the brick building across the alley. He asked, “What’s she doing?”

  “She’s just doing what she does every morning. I’ve watched her a million times.”

  Edith took a long, deep inhale of air. She double-checked to ensure that stubborn fur strand had not sprung back up. Then she, like Stick Cat, cast her gaze across the alley at Hazel.

  Hazel herself was an older woman with gray, curly hair. She was skinny and a little frail-looking. She had a smile on her face—as if she was content to be at a job she liked. She appeared happy to be making bagels this morning.

  “The first thing she does is drink some coffee and open the window,” began Edith. She wriggled herself into a comfortable position next to Stick Cat. “You can’t make bagels without drinking coffee and opening the window. I’ve learned that.”

  You could tell this observation struck Stick Cat as a little strange, but he didn’t comment about it. He asked, “What’s next?”

  “Then she dumps the cloud bags into the giant bucket.”

  Stick Cat could see the huge bucket that Edith referred to. It looked more like a huge cooking pot to him. It was the same shape as the big pot Goose used every few months to make a batch of chili or soup or stew. Hazel’s pot was about one hundred times the size. It was much taller than Hazel herself.

  A stepladder stood next to the pot. Stick Cat rightly assumed that Hazel climbed the ladder to pour the ingredients into the pot.

  “What are cloud bags?”

  “Those huge bags on the shelf over there,” Edith said, and pointed. “She opens about ten of them and pours the cloud powder into the giant bucket. Whenever she does, it always creates this big powdery cloud. It’s my favorite part of the process.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “What’s she doing now?” Stick Cat asked.

  Hazel had set her coffee cup down on a rung of the ladder. She walked toward a sink on the far wall, turned the faucet on, and dragged a hose from the sink to the pot.

  “She has to fill the giant bucket with water first,” Edith said. “She fills it about halfway. Then it’s cloud powder time. Then stirring. After that, she scoops this thick stuff out of the bucket and starts shaping the bagels on that silver table. She makes thousands of them at that table with the bagel sign hanging over it.”

  They watched in silence as Hazel stood on the ladder and sprayed water into the pot. Every now and then Hazel put her hand in the running water to test the temperature. She bent down occasionally to grab her coffee cup and take a sip before placing it back on the ladder.

  “So she starts stirring the water and cloud powder together next?” asked Stick Cat.

  Edith didn’t answer.

  There was a good reason for that.

  She was asleep.

  Stick Cat smiled at her. He took real pleasure in knowing that he would sit there on the windowsill and see a whole new view of the big city. New buildings. New windows. A new patch of sky. Different streets twenty-three stories below.

  He stretched a little, careful not to nudge Edith and wake her. He rested his head on his paws and set about taking in this whole new, exciting view.

  But it only lasted seven minutes.

  In seven minutes, everything about Stick Cat’s peaceful day would change.

  Chapter 5

  THE DISAPPEARANCE

  Edith snored.

  Stick Cat watched.

  And Hazel continued to make the bagels. The pot now had enough water and she had returned the hose to the sink. The next step in the bagel-making process fascinated Stick Cat.

  He understood now what Edith meant by “cloud powder.” Each time Hazel dumped one of the large, heavy bags into the pot, a cloud of fine white powder erupted. Even though she was near the top of the stepladder next to the pot, a white cloud would billow up and cover Hazel each time she emptied a bag.

  While Hazel continued
to dump the bags, Stick Cat relaxed and took in the view. He stretched to look left down to the river again. The barge was now gone, but a steel-blue tugboat chugged slowly through the water. A flash of red caught Stick Cat’s eye and he snapped his head toward the garden on the roof of the building across the alley.

  A cardinal was perched on a vine-covered trellis along the side of the garden. Stick Cat had never seen a cardinal before. He had only seen pigeons and, sometimes, seagulls from his window. This bright red cardinal fascinated him. It was smaller than any bird he had ever seen—and far more colorful. It swooped down to the garden, pecked about on the soil for several seconds, and then flew back up to its trellis perch. It did this several times before flying halfway to Stick Cat and landing on the thick black cable that hung between the two buildings.

  The cable wiggled and twitched when the cardinal landed on it, catching Stick Cat’s attention. The cable connected to the wall above Edith’s window and ran across the alley to Hazel’s building, where it attached above her open window. On its rubber casing the words “Cable Television—No Electricity” were printed.

  The cable twitched again when the cardinal spread its wings, dropped from its perch, and flew out of sight. Stick Cat hoped he would see it again.

  As Edith slept, Stick Cat watched Hazel progress through her bagel-making steps. She had already dumped seven bags of cloud powder into the huge pot filled with water. He watched as she dumped four more and then rested. The bags looked so heavy. Stick Cat was not surprised she needed to rest.

  Hazel sat on the top step of the ladder breathing heavily. Stick Cat glanced at Edith next to him—she breathed heavily too. Her eyes were closed and there was a hint of a grin on her face.

  Hazel took two big sips of coffee as she sat there for a moment to regain her strength.

  It didn’t take long. In just a couple of minutes she set her cup down. Some coffee sloshed and spilled, but Hazel didn’t seem to notice. She climbed down three steps to reach a long wooden paddle that leaned against the pot. It looked like a canoe paddle.