He approached the cat very carefully. Stooped and knelt. Held out his right hand to motion the cat forward. And asked it, “Where’d you come from?”
The cat watched him.
“You can’t eat snakes!” Tommy grinned. “You want to come home with me?”
The cat moved forward one step.
“Can I call you Blackie?”
The cat approached him now, reached him, and brushed one side of its head against Tommy’s right hand, as if agreeing that it would be okay for it and the boy to be friends.
“I’m gonna call you Blackie,” Tommy said. “You want to come home with me?”
He stood and started walking back through the weeds, and Blackie followed him.
* * * *
“I don’t want that cat here,” Tommy’s father said when he came home from work that afternoon and saw Blackie sipping milk from a tin pan on the back porch. His dad worked a few acres of farmland—soybeans, mainly—but actually made his living as a machinist in a small tool-and-die shop in town.
“But he’s a great cat,” Tommy explained, following his father into the dining room. “Really,” the boy said.
Bill ignored him. Weary and in a bad mood, he limped on his left leg to review the day’s mail, whatever his wife had set out on the small table by the window. Half a dozen envelopes. Bills, fliers. He dropped them back onto the doily on the table, then turned and stretched his big arms and yawned.
Tommy hovered near the entrance. “He’s a good hunter. Really. So can I keep him?”
Bill sighed. “A cat?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you get a cat from?”
“Down by the lake. Can I keep him? He might be hurt.”
“No.”
“But he can catch mice and everything. He’ll be a big help.”
“What’d I just say?”
“But he’s a good cat.”
“No!”
Tommy moved out of the way as Bill walked past him, pushing him, and into the kitchen, where he stood at the sink, took down a glass from the old cupboard, and got himself a drink of water.
Tommy went over and pushed open the screen door and let Blackie come in. The cat stayed by him, crouched on the cracked linoleum floor.
From upstairs, Mary called, “Bill, you home?”
“Yeah!”
Tommy kneeled down by the cat. “See? He just wants to—”
“Damn it, what did I just say?” Bill set down the glass, hard, on the counter top, then took a step toward Tommy.
Blackie hissed loudly and pushed away from him, closer to Tommy.
“Oh, yeah, he’s a good cat,” Bill said sarcastically.
“Dad…,” Tommy said.
They both heard Mary coming down the stairs that led into the dining room. She came into the kitchen carrying a big empty laundry basket.
Bill said, “He found a damned cat.”
Mary leaned toward her husband and stood up on her tiptoes to try to give him a peck of a kiss. Bill frowned as she did it.
Mary made a sound and told him, “It’s just a cat. Let him have a pet.”
Bill said, “What is this, a conspiracy? Didn’t I just say no?”
“All right. Enough.” Mary said, “Tommy, take the cat outside.”
“But—”
“Now. Please.”
Tommy said forlornly, “C’mon, Blackie,” and led the cat back outside.
It followed him—but then waited, sat, looked back at Bill, looked directly at him—then bounced past Tommy as the boy held the screen door open.
Bill, frowning, walked through the dining room into the front room, where he sat in his worn recliner and leaned back. He reached for the television remote on the table beside him but then set it aside, closed his eyes, and settled his head back against the top of the recliner.
Mary came in and stood by the entrance. “It’s just a cat. It’s not like he has a lot of friends out here.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Bill, you can’t keep treating us like we’re not here.”
“He doesn’t have time for a cat. He needs to do more to help around here.”
“You worry me.”
“I’m fine. I’m tired.”
“You’re not sleeping at night.”
“My head hurts.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know.”
She walked over to him, began to massage one of his shoulders, and slyly told him, “I know something that’ll fix a headache.”
“Not this one.”
She frowned and reached to feel his forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”
“I’ll be fine, Mary.”
She sighed. “You.” Then went into the kitchen and began peeling potatoes on the counter by the sink.
Outside, on the long wooden back porch, Tommy sat with his back against the shingles of the house siding and held Blackie in his lap. “You’re not a mean cat, are you?” he said to Blackie. “Maybe you should hypnotize him.”
He looked up as he heard a powerful old engine in the driveway and saw Mr. Peck’s ancient green Ford pickup come around the corner and settle still in the gravel just under the tall sycamore, behind his dad’s old Chevy.
Jim Peck was the same age as Tommy’s dad, only a little bigger and younger looking. They’d been overseas together in the war. Peck had come through it all right, Tommy knew, but his dad still carried around everything that had happened to them. Whatever had gone on had followed him home. His mom had told Tommy that for some people who served, it was like that. It was hard to adjust.
Peck opened the gratingly loud driver’s side door, hopped out, and came around to grab an oil-stained cloth bag of tools he had in the bed of the pickup.
“Afternoon, Tommy!”
“Hello, Mr. Peck.”
Peck carried the dirty white cloth bag with him and placed it on the other side of the back porch, then stood and looked down. “Getting ready to go back to school pretty soon?”
“I guess.”
“Don’t you want to? What’s the matter, son?”
“Dad won’t let me keep this cat.”
“Where’d you find him?”
“By the pond. His name is Blackie.”
Peck hunkered down and looked at the cat in Tommy’s lap. “Look at the eyes,” he said. “Real yellow like that.”
“I saw him get a snake,” Tommy said. “He can catch snakes and mice and everything.”
“Then he’d be a good cat to keep around. Your dad inside?” Peck stood.
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll see what we can do about that cat.” Mr. Peck smiled and pulled the back screen door open.
Mary, her back to him, turned and waved with the metal potato peeler in her hand. “Jim, stay for supper.”
“Can’t. Just bringin’ them tools back. Bill!” he called, and went into the front room.
Bill sat up in the recliner and motioned for Jim to take a seat on the couch across from him.
“The matter with you?” Jim asked.
“Headache I can’t shake.”
“I brung your tools back.” He eased himself into the couch. “I’ll come by with the rest of ’em tomorrow. Bad headache?”
“Had it for a couple of days.”
“Too bad,” Jim said, and waited.
Bill said nothing more, just stared at a corner of the room, squinting because of the pain in his forehead.
Jim said to him, “See Tommy found himself a pet.”
“Not for long. I don’t want it around here.”
“That the cat almost got you the other day?”
“I don’t know. It might be.”
Mary came to the entrance, wiping her hands on her apron. “What cat was that?”
Jim said, “You didn’t tell her?”
“Nothing happened,” Bill said irritably.
Mary said to him, “Obviously something did.”
“Cat jumped in front m
e and surprised me, is all.”
“Did more’n that,” said Jim.
Irritably, Bill said to him, “Jim, damn it, you weren’t there.”
Mary said to Bill, “Tell me what happened.”
“It got in the way. I shoulda run it over.”
“When?”
“The other day!” Bill said, almost angrily.
“You think it was this cat?” Mary asked him.
Tommy came in now. Blackie wasn’t with him. Tommy stood alongside his mom in the entrance to the front room. He said, “Dad, I’m sure it wasn’t Blackie.”
Bill looked sharply at his son. “It was him.”
Mary frowned. “And so what happened?”
“I was on the plow and coming under those trees on the north side, and the cat jumped from one of the trees and tried to scratch me. Almost knocked me off the seat. I swatted it, and it run off. Nothing happened.”
Tommy said, “It wasn’t Blackie.”
Angrily, Bill yelled at him, “Just get rid of the cat! I don’t want it near me.”
Tommy looked up at his mother.
Mary carefully shooed him behind her. “Go wash up.”
He told her, leaving, “Okay. But it wasn’t Blackie.”
Bill, annoyed, told Jim Peck, “She don’t have to know everything.”
Mary said impatiently, “No, she doesn’t. But it’d be nice if you told her things once in a while so I’d know why you’re in such a bad mood.” She turned and went into the kitchen.
Bill smiled painfully and asked Jim, “Am I in a bad mood all the time?”
Jim grinned. “Pretty much!” Thunder rumbled, and he rubbed his left arm and said to Bill, “I’ll get going before it rains. This arm. It’s like I can still feel that bullet goin’ through it.” He shook it. “Your leg ever bother you?”
“No,” Bill told him. “Sometimes, maybe.”
“Not when it rains? I feel this every time.” He stood and looked out the front window to where the wind was catching the trees out front and pushing them back and forth. Then he asked Bill, “You ever think about what we did when we were there?”
“No.”
“Some of the things we did.”
“Which we had to do.”
“I guess so. We did what they told us.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s the families I think about.”
Bill stood and said crossly, “Jim, they’re not like us. They ain’t completely human. And you’re my friend. But stop now.”
“I apologize. I’m goin’. You gonna be at the shop tomorrow?”
“In the morning.”
Bill followed him through the kitchen and onto the back porch, where they stood and watched the first fat drops hit the gravel and the sides of their trucks.
Bill looked around for the cat but saw it nowhere.
Jim noticed and said quietly, “You need to talk about it, Bill. I mean it. Don’t keep stuff like that inside. It makes you sick.”
“I’m fine.”
“None of us are fine.”
That was all. Jim went down the back porch steps with one hand over his head as the fat drops came faster. Got into the rusty old green Ford, started it up so that it sounded like thunder exploding right there in the driveway, and slowly backed out.
Bill turned and went into the house. Mary was setting plates on the table. He said angrily to her, “You been talking to him?”
“Bill, he’s our friend, and he’s been through it.”
“Nobody’s been through it.”
“Sit and eat.”
“I ain’t hungry now.” He headed into the front room and yelled at her as he went, “You’re my wife! You don’t talk to people about these things, damn it!”
Tommy came in from the washroom just off the kitchen.
He asked his mother, “Is Dad mad again?”
“Just come on and eat.”
“Is it about Blackie?”
Mary said nothing. She carried their food to the table and sat and told Tommy to get started.
2.
The rain continued through the evening. Upstairs, in the bathroom at the end of the hall, Tommy washed his face and brushed his teeth, then went into his bedroom and undressed and pulled on his striped pajamas. He didn’t say his prayers; he hadn’t in years, even though his mother had tried to teach him to do that every night. Tommy had prayed many times for God or whoever was up there, angels, maybe, to try to make his dad better, help him with his temper or whatever was wrong with him, but God or the angels had not listened.
So Tommy did what he usually did at eight o’clock: turned on his bedside lamp, switched off the overhead ceiling light, and picked out a comic book from the stack he kept under the table by his bed. He read stories that by this time he’d nearly memorized. Finally, yawning, he reached to turn off the lamp when he heard a light rapping on his door and his mother walked in.
“Not asleep yet?”
“I was reading.”
His mother walked to the window and looked out. Tommy saw the reflection of raindrops on the glass running down her face. It was as though she were crying so hard that her whole face was filled with tears.
The window was open; she had lifted it early this afternoon to let in some fresh air, and now she asked Tommy, “You want me to close the window?”
“No, it’s okay. Do you think Blackie is safe?”
“I’m sure he is.” She sat on the edge of the bed and faced him.
“Do you think he went away or will he stay and be my friend?”
“I don’t know, Tommy.”
“He wants to stay. He told me so.”
“Did he?”
“Why does dad hate him?”
His mother sighed. “Your father doesn’t hate him. Your father has a lot on his mind, and he works hard and he worries about us. He wants you to spend more time helping around here because it’s a big job.”
“I do help.”
“I know you do.”
“He just doesn’t want me to have any friends, not even a cat. He hates me.”
“Your father does not hate you!”
“He might as well. He doesn’t care. He’s not like a real father. The other guys have real fathers. They do things with them.”
“I know,” his mother admitted. “And I’m sorry. Your father wishes he could do more. He’s not in good health.”
“He should go to the doctor.”
“I know. He will. He’s stubborn. Like you!” She leaned close and kissed him on the forehead. “Be patient, all right?”
“I’ll try.”
“You might think it’s not easy being a little boy, but it’s not easy being a grown-up, either.”
“I suppose.”
His mother stood and turned off the bedside lamp, then walked to the door and held it open as she looked back at Tommy. She told him, “We’ll do better tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
She closed the door, and Tommy lay back with his head in his pillow. The reflection of the rain on the window ran down the wall across from him, shining there because of the big security light on the barn. Usually the light didn’t bother Tommy, but now he felt that it—
He heard something.
He sat up, looked at the window, and heard it again.
Scratching.
His heart started moving quickly as Tommy slid out of bed, came around the table, and looked at the open window—
Just like that, a quick black shadow jumped into the room and landed on the floor. Water, rain, splashed onto his bare feet.
“Blackie!”
Tommy fell to his knees and, even though the cat was wet, picked it up and held it close to him. “You didn’t leave!”
The cat made no effort to try to break away. It looked at Tommy with its brilliant yellow eyes, then licked one of the boy’s hands.
“How’d you get up here?” Tommy aske
d the cat, setting it down.
The cat moved around Tommy in a circle, then went to the bedside table and crouched there, curled up.
“Are you okay?” Tommy asked it.
The cat looked at him.
Tommy turned on his bedside lamp and, from the shallow drawer in the table, took out some marbles and jacks. He moved to the center of the room and rolled the marbles one at a time toward Blackie.
The marbles made hollow sounds as they rolled toward the cat. As each one came within reach, Blackie quickly brought out his right paw and knocked the marble across the room, under Tommy’s bed and into the closet door.
“You are fast!” Tommy said. “Can you make one stop just by looking at it?”
Blackie showed no expression.
“Here,” Tommy said. “I’m going to roll this one really slow, and you stare at it, Blackie, and see if you can—”
The bedroom door opened behind him.
“Tommy.”
It was his father.
Tommy turned around as fast as he could, terrified that his dad would see the cat.
“Damn it!” Bill said angrily.
“We’re just playing!” Tommy yelled, getting to his feet.
“Get into bed. Get rid of this cat! Don’t you even listen to me at all anymore?”
“He’s my friend!”
“Into bed!” Bill yelled.
As Tommy moved away from him, Bill crossed the room in four steps, lunging toward the window, where Blackie had already leapt onto the sill.
Crouched there under the wooden window, Blackie stared at Bill with those incredible eyes as though daring Bill to move, as though trying to stop Bill from moving.…
“Get!” Bill raised his hand to the cat and swung toward it with the back of his hand.
Blackie hissed at him and growled from low in its throat. “Mreee-owwwrrr.…”
Bill knew better than to tangle with an angry cat, but he wanted to startle Blackie, get it to jump outside into the rain.
“Go!” he yelled, and leaned toward Blackie.
Blackie jumped.
Tommy yelled.
More quickly than Bill realized, the cat was at his face and throat, the front claws opening the skin on his left cheek and throat, the hind claws digging into his chest, the mouth stabbing to get at whatever part of him it could reach, nose or eye or ear.
Bill waved his arms. Grabbed Blackie. Pulled the thing from him and shook it back and forth as powerfully as he could. Then shoved it away, threw it as hard as he could, at the window.
The Third Cat Story Megapack: 25 Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 18