Crossing the Street

by Campbell, Molly D. ;

  Janey could drive, cook, she loved to vacuum, and she was a whiz with tools. One day, when Bob came home from school, there was her scooter on the front porch—the back wheel as straight as a die, the chrome polished bright. The dents were gone. Bob hugged Janey and kissed her on both cheeks before grabbing the scooter and shooting down the sidewalk shouting, “WAIT TILL HALLIE SEES THIS; SHE WON’T BELIEVE IT!” Yes, Janey Donohue was a find.

  ▷◁

  Mom insisted on the three of us having a “happy moving day” luncheon. She was too busy to cook, and so she ordered a carryout from Beth’s Bistro, which D picked up on the way over to get Mom. I was in charge of watching over my sleeping nephew. I found it very difficult to keep my hands off him as he twitched in his sleep. It was even harder to stop myself from kissing him until he woke up, but I thought better of it.

  They arrived carrying a bag filled with turkey sandwiches on flaky croissants, spicy pickle chips, seltzers, and cherry pie. Melt-in-your-mouth, crust-made-with-lard, you-don’t-want-to-know-how-many-calories-in-one-slice cherry pie.

  I finished my croissant. D had just picked at hers. Mom had successfully shredded hers into bits. What a waste. I reached for the pie. “Now come ON. This stuff is manna from heaven. I don’t care how fattening it is, we have to consume this entire half-pie this afternoon. It is soul satisfying. Almost better than sex.”

  I divided it into three pieces. D and Mom eyed it with suspicion, despite the fact that neither of them had thighs larger than a teenager’s (I won’t discuss the size of my thighs at that moment). But after one bite, they both moaned with pleasure.

  We were licking our fingers and dabbing at the final crumbs when Diana hit us with the bombshell. “I think it’s really over between me and Bryan.”

  Mom blanched. My lungs stopped working for what seemed like an eternity. I had to hit my chest in a sort of self-inflicted CPR maneuver. “WHAT? You said that you were having a trial separation. TRIAL.”

  D rubbed her nose with her index finger, and her eyes got suspiciously watery. “Being a family takes more than the two of us can handle. Mom, you must know what I am talking about.”

  Mom stared at Diana. I have never seen my mother look so defeated. She massaged her thighs with her fingers, her knuckles white. It was as if all the air in the room became suddenly so heavy that breathing was an effort. Mom could hardly speak; she gasped out her words. “My fault.” She put a hand to her chest, as if to help herself breathe. “I set a bad example.”

  Diana thrust out her hands, as if to ward off a blow. “You did not. That is absolute nonsense!”

  “Damn it to hell! Why did you and I get mixed up with Bryan in the first place?” I wanted to get on the next plane to Chicago and do some serious ass whooping. Maybe with a handgun thrown in for good measure.

  Mom, by this time, had her head in her hands. She was listing to the side. I went to sit beside her and prop her up as Diana continued.

  “Let’s just put all this blaming and hating to rest. One: Mom, I am sure that you are not responsible for the fact that although we all adored Dexter Throckmorton, he had a wandering eye. I know. I said that there must have been something not right about your relationship. I wish I hadn’t said that, because, the fact is, Dad couldn’t always keep his fly zipped. He was an absolutely great dad, while things lasted. But, Mom. He chose to walk off. He didn’t look back much, did he?”

  Mom looked up with blank eyes. “I should have done something.”

  I put an arm around her. “What could you have done? Taken some lovers on the side yourself?” I was shaking.

  Diana continued. “Mom, she is right! Don’t bash yourself one minute longer. And by the way, Beck, it wasn’t all a bed of roses with Bryan. I should have taken it as a head’s up that you left him. But no—I thought that you were just an immature blockhead that was afraid of commitment. That I would be the one to show everybody how to be the relationship queen. Hah!” Diana actually blew her nose on the hem of her silk tank top. “Marriage and motherhood can suck, big time. All that maintenance. He wants dinners and clean sheets. Sex on demand. The baby wants to be held all the time. All that crying. All that laundry. All those goddamn nipple shields! Jesus. And then Bryan whines about everything being different than it was before. He doesn’t like getting up at night to change diapers; they are ‘disgusting.’ So? I think they are disgusting, too!” Diana looked down at the mess on her tank top and tried to wipe it off with her palm. Futile. She snorted. “Mom. Beck. I have come to the conclusion that marriage simply sucks. I have room in my life for the adoration and coddling of only one man, and that is Alex.” She snapped her fingers.

  We sat in silence. I felt as if everything was swirling around, tumbling and turning, my life a kaleidoscope. My mother, my father, my sister, Bryan. Bob. Ella. Gail. My books. All that I had done, just a great big jumble. But then Diana leaned over and touched her baby on his head.

  “Mom. Beck. I swear on Alex’s little noggin that this whole marriage breakup has been a long time coming. And you two should not blame yourselves for anything. I have made the right decision for myself. You two made the right ones for you.” She looked down at Alex and bit her lip. Then she nodded at us both.

  Mom’s face regained a little color. Two circles of pink appeared on her cheeks, and her eyes brightened. “Your father was good to you girls, wasn’t he? He was a loving man.” She laughed, but it sounded more like strangling. “He was just too loving. He loved himself right out of a family.” A drop of something formed on the end of her nose. She ignored it. “It wasn’t my fault that he was so Goddamned loving.”

  We three sat, letting the weight of our realities envelop us. I hiccupped. Diana reached for a napkin and handed it to Mom, indicating that she needed to blow her nose. Mom complied, and then we looked at one another. Then we all smiled. Hell, we three began to double over laughing. That woke up Alex, and we grabbed him and passed him around, covering him with kisses. He hated it.

  ▷◁

  As we cleaned up after our soul-baring lunch session, each of us looking as if weights had been wrested from our spines, Diana hit us with yet another incendiary.

  “Oh, by the way. I’ve been meaning to tell you. You might want to go down to the Humane Society and get one of those Have-a-Heart traps, because there is a really mangy-looking feral cat living under your neighbor’s back porch. I’ve been feeding him scraps, but he won’t come out.”

  I screamed. “SIMPSON!”

  I nearly broke my neck in my rush to get outside. D and Mom got there a minute or two later—D had to put on some flip-flops, and Mom had to carry Alex.

  “Simpy? Simpson? Here Simpy!” I didn’t hear anything at first.

  “He may be way in the back. I heard him meowing the first few nights I was here. Late. He woke me up. I went out and called ‘kitty, kitty,’ and he answered. He seemed to be way under there. I went up and got some bologna and set it by the hole in the lattice, here.” She pointed to a small opening in the rotting grid under Mr. Warden’s back stoop. “After a few days, he would come towards the front, and I could just catch a glimpse of him, and he ate the food I put there for him. But he wouldn’t come out. So you have to crawl under there.”

  D pulled at the lattice, breaking it. Now there was a hole big enough for somebody to fit through. Me, obviously. “But what if this is some sort of wild animal? Not even a cat? What if it’s a raccoon? They look kind of like cats.”

  I was down on all fours, peering through the hole. D kicked me in the rear. “Do raccoons MEOW?”

  Good point. I squinted, but it was so dark in there. I shimmied part way in, catching my shirt on God knows what, probably rusty nails. I cursed at the fact that Bob, skinny little Bob, was in school right then.

  It smelled like rotting corpses under there. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw him. Dirty. Matted. Skeletal. Afraid. Simpson.

/>   “Come here, Simpy! Oh, Simpy, you’re home! Come here, buddy! Are you sick?”

  His ears pricked up. I think a light came into his golden eyes, but I may be over-dramatizing it. He knew me, though! As I called to him softly, he crept towards me. He began to purr as he dragged himself towards my face. I reached out to touch him, and he butted his filthy head into my palm. I could feel the sharp ridge of his skull. My darling boy. I didn’t want to spook him, so I just petted him gently, and we had a small conversation.

  “What happened to you, boy? Where have you been? Are you hurting?”

  He rubbed against my knuckles.

  “What you need is a good meal and a veterinarian, don’t you think?”

  He purred a bit louder and began to knead the dirt underneath us.

  “You have been gone for weeks! Have you been under here the whole time?”

  He licked my hand.

  I scootched a bit closer to him, and stroked him from his head, down his backbone, towards his tail. When my hand grazed his flank, he flinched, but didn’t retreat. I touched him on the side, very gently. His right leg was distorted somehow. It felt warped. Oh, my God—it was broken!

  “Simpy, we have to get you out of here. Now just trust me. I am going to pull you out. I will be as gentle as I can, so don’t panic, and don’t bite me, okay?”

  D kicked me again, this time on the sole of my sneaker. “What is going on? Do you KNOW this cat?”

  Mom cheered. “Oh, honey! It’s Simpson, isn’t it? Is he okay?”

  “Oh, my God! Bryan and I let him out! I thought he had been hit by a car!” Poor D.

  I grasped him by the scruff, very carefully. No protest, only purring. This was an awkward maneuver—I snaked my way out, trying to keep my grip on Simpy’s neck while extricating myself from the crawl space. On the way, I ripped a hole in my shirt and would certainly need a tetanus shot for all the stuff piercing my midsection. A tetanus shot and antibiotics, certainly.

  We emerged into the sunlight. I cradled my cat in my arms. He looked pitiful—so thin, he seemed almost weightless. That mangled leg. Fleas. His paw pads were abraded. His fur was missing in spots all along his spine. But he was alive.

  “This looks nothing like your cat. And he stinks.” D was right. He smelled like infection. But I couldn’t stop kissing his head, and he couldn’t stop purring. It was Simpy, gone but never forgotten. I would recognize him anywhere. He was my little marble-eyed soul mate.

  Mom, always thinking, said, “Let’s not just stand here. You have to take him upstairs and give him some food. He looks like he is starving to death. And then, you have to get him right to the vet. I mean RIGHT OVER THERE.”

  We trooped upstairs. I held him, afraid to put him down. I told D to scramble him an egg with Muenster cheese. His all-time favorite. I set him down very gently on the kitchen floor. D handed me the dish full of eggs. I blew on it to cool it down.

  “Don’t give it all to him; he will just barf it all back up. Just give him a bite.” Since when was Diana the cat expert?

  “How do you know this?” I dumped the majority of the egg out of his bowl and placed the one bite on the floor in front of him. He scarfed it and looked up at me for more.

  “Everyone knows that when you are starving, if you eat too much, it will just come right back up. I watch Survivor.”

  Mom agreed. “Haven’t you seen all those documentaries about the Holocaust? It took weeks before those people rescued from the camps could eat. Many of them died of starvation even after they were liberated. It takes time to get the digestive system working again.”

  D handed me a custard cup full of water. I put that down, too.

  “Okay, gang. This has been a superb teachable moment. Thank you both for your wisdom. But right now, after Simpy finishes his drink of water”—he was lapping to beat the band; I figured all that liquid would come up in the car on the way to the vet—“I need to put him in the car and take him to the vet. Are either of you coming?”

  Mom backed out gracefully, citing the need for a rest. D, however, surprised the hell out of me.

  “Of course, I’m coming. I found him, remember. I want to see this through. Mom will stay here with Alex. They can both nap.”

  Mom nodded assent, because when the queen gives an order, her minions obey. I got the cat carrier out of the closet, put in a fresh towel (“Good grief, you spoil that animal,” D observed), and gently pushed him in and shut the door. Simpy howled, but it was a weak attempt at best.

  Mom waved us off. “Call me and tell me what happens!”

  D honked the horn as we pulled out—I unrolled my window and yelled over to Ella and Janey, playing cards on her porch: “WE FOUND MY CAT! GOING TO THE VET! I MAY BE AWHILE!”

  Janey, who didn’t know I had lost a cat, but was prepared for any eventuality, bless her, yelled, “DON’T YOU EVER WORRY, I GOT THINGS COVERED OVER HERE!”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. As I rolled my window back up, Ella lifted her hand and waved. Her smile seemed genuine. Bona fide. Authentic. She looked like her old self. But as we passed, Ella’s hand dropped, and her face fell once again. Dammit.

  ▷◁

  Simpy usually hated going to the vet, but this time he was just so depleted, he drooped in the carrier, barely moving, as D checked us in. I had to hand it to my pushy sister, who made it very clear to the receptionist that “not having an appointment” was of absolutely no significance.

  “This cat is EXTREMELY SICK AND DEHYDRATED. HIS LEG IS OBVIOUSLY BROKEN. I am sure that your doctors would agree that DYING ANIMALS do not need appointments!”

  The receptionist—probably afraid that if she didn’t do as Diana said, D would beat her up—agreed to inform the doctors that there was an emergency in the waiting area.

  It took about ten minutes for a vet tech to appear and escort us into an exam room. I put Simpy on the exam table, where he trembled and shed hair all over the place. D was waiting outside, which was a good thing, because it would have been too crowded—the room was tiny. I studied the heartworm prevention posters and blew my nose with one of the Kleenexes provided. Probably for sobbing owners during euthanasias. I shuddered, hoping that wouldn’t be me in a few minutes.

  Dr. Demarco was my favorite vet. He knocked softly before entering the room. I liked his petside manner. I think he might have been a football player in a former career—scrubs could not conceal his broad shoulders and bulging biceps. Despite all the muscles, he moved as gracefully as a ballet dancer. I also liked his eyes, which were very kind.

  He gasped a bit when he put his hands on Simpy. “You’ve been through the wringer, haven’t you, guy?” He palpated Simpy’s abdomen and ran his hands all over Simpy’s body. “No internal injuries that I can detect.” He placed his stethoscope in various spots and listened. “Sounds good. No pneumonia.”

  I wondered how long it would take for Dr. Demarco to comment on the leg. The leg. The leg. He looked into Simpy’s eyes, pried his mouth open to study his teeth and gums, and used that little cone thing to examine his ears. “Ears dirty; mites. Easy fix.”

  He ran his hand the wrong way from tail to neck. “Fleas and flea dirt. No ticks. Some scabs, but not too bad.” He stopped and palpated a spot on Simpy’s neck, then squeezed it. Pus gushed out. I nearly fainted. Simpy merely growled.

  “An abscess. That is what smells. I will take him to the back and shave this down—then we’ll clean it well. I will give him an antibiotic shot, called Convenia. It will take care of this and any other indolent infections. It lasts two weeks systemically.”

  The leg. The leg.

  “It looks to me as if he was hit by a car. This leg was completely fractured, but as you can see, there is no bone protruding, which is a good thing. There is nothing I can do about the fracture now, because it has already healed. It healed badly, and he will probably not be able to walk with
out some trouble from now on, but I think he will be fine. Let’s see how he does on the floor.”

  Simpy stood for a moment, and then sensed his chance to escape. He ran crookedly to the exam room door, and when it didn’t open, he reared up and jiggled the handle with a paw.

  “He will be fine. If you want to leave him with us for the afternoon, we can give him a flea bath and get him cleaned up.”

  “Oh, no! I just got him back! He needs to go home with me and rest. Can you just give me the shampoo and stuff? I can bathe him myself.”

  Dr. Demarco smiled. My God, pearly white teeth. This man’s wife was very lucky. “It may be a struggle. He is weak, but cats hate baths. Even this guy will be able to put up a fight. Are you sure?”

  “Completely.” I picked up my skeletal cat and hugged him, trying to avoid getting any pus on my top.

  Dr. Demarco flashed me another one of his blinding smiles, and opened the door to the surgery area. “We’ll be back in a second.”

  A technician came and reached for my cat. She must have sensed my anxiety. “No worries. We are just going to get a weight on him, then take care of that abscess. It won’t take long.

  It seemed like an eternity. I paced back and forth in the tiny room, sneezing a few times from the filthy cat hair floating in the atmosphere. I thought I heard Simpy yowl, but really, it could have been any cat, I told myself.

  The technician brought him back in. It looked like they had shaved his entire upper body. Pitiful. “He had a couple more abscesses on his neck, see, right here, under his chin. We think he’s been fighting.” We gave him a tablet to kill any live fleas on him right now.” She handed me a sleeve with four pills embedded in it. “The pills don’t kill eggs. So you will need to give him one every other day for the next week. That will take care of any eggs that hatch. A bath will get rid of the dirt, but not the flea eggs. We also cleaned out his ears.”