Strays

by Britt Collins

  Chapter 4

  Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

  On the trendier, leafier fringes of Hawthorne Boulevard, not too far from his house, Ron Buss went to visit a cat lady who was known for taking in strays. His friend Stefanie had told Ron that this lady might have heard if anyone had found Mata. Within the animal-rescue community, she’d become known as the queen of street cats in Southeast Portland and made nightly rounds of bleak alleyways and abandoned buildings feeding ferals. With a small network of other cat ladies, she would capture these forgotten felines, pay to neuter them, find homes for kittens and friendly adult cats, and return the wilder adults to their colonies.

  Walking along the overgrown path to the cat lady’s old dusty-pink saltbox bungalow, which was buried beneath a canopy of wisteria, Ron saw cats of many colors squashed against the window screens sunning themselves. A slight whiff of urine mingled with citrus-scented incense on the doorstep.

  Some twenty years before, Ron had filled his own house with strays. He’d had four middle-aged cats at that point, and that summer someone had left three Siamese-mix kittens on his doorstep in a cardboard box with cruel cooking instructions scribbled on top. He quickly learned how to hand-feed them with a syringe and otherwise look after them. Some days later, he heard yowling outside his front door and found that their mother had been dropped off with another kitten. Ron named the mother Mama Yoko, and the little feline family moved in permanently, pushing his cat count to nine. Ron became known as the cat man around the neighborhood.

  When the cat lady opened the door, she was clasping a chatty brown Burmese in her arms. Both she and the cat had big, bright green eyes and glossy sable-colored hair reddened by the sun. The woman wore eyeliner to accentuate her striking eyes. At least a dozen other cats were behind her—red, yellow, and brown tabbies, tortoiseshells, tuxedos, grays, and blacks—all lounging alluringly across sofas and bookshelves. She didn’t look like the typical crazy cat lady with unbrushed hair in a bathrobe. She was very glamorous, and apart from the faint cat-pee smell at her front door, her house looked immaculate.

  She listened to Ron’s story about his cat who was lost, found, and lost again. “Poor little mite,” she said to Ron. “She’s not a black cat, is she?”

  “No, she’s white with tabby markings and kohl-lined eyes,” he said, handing her one of the lost-cat flyers with Mata’s face.

  The cat lady took a good look at the flyer but didn’t recognize her. Then she told him a couple of stories of missing cats that were found and gave him a reassuring smile. “You never know—someone might actually be taking care of your kitty.”

  “I know she’s out there somewhere.”

  “What’s worrying is that it’s nearly Halloween,” she said, her smile fading, “and people do wretched things to animals around this time. It’s good of you not to give up on her.” She explained that she and her husband were a little overwhelmed with strays at the moment. “The streets just seem to be a dumping ground for animals. People frequently leave cats behind when their lives change or their hearts grow cold. I’m not a cynic, but I’ve seen the worst of humanity.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’ve rescued quite a few myself,” Ron said glumly. “Well, if you see her or hear anything about a cat of her description, I’d be grateful if you’d let me know.”

  “Of course. I’ll ask around and keep an eye out for your kitty.”

  “Thank you,” he said, turning away.

  Ron walked the five blocks back home blinded with tears.

  After the visit to the cat lady proved to be another dead end, Ron thought he had exhausted his search options. But that afternoon, while pottering around at home and tidying the kitchen, he found a matchbook on which he’d jotted the number for an animal psychic, Rachel. Another friend had recommended he call Rachel, who worked exclusively to find missing pets. A public-service psychic, Rachel didn’t ask for any money, so Ron figured she must be legit.

  Ron left a rambling message on her voice mail, explaining how Mata had gone missing. When Rachel got back to him, she suggested that she could show Ron how to tune in to his intuition, and they could try to locate the cat telepathically. She explained the nature of spiritual connections and psychic impressions and how to tell if he was having one.

  For example, she said, “While you’re concentrating on your cat and asking where she is, if you smell freshly cut grass and your cat liked rolling around in the grass, that would be a psychic impression.” Ron believed that he had a spiritual connection with his cats, since he got them as tiny orphans, so he was open to trying.

  Rachel asked Ron to picture his cat and concentrate and, after a minute, asked, “Are you getting anything?”

  Ron didn’t see or smell anything.

  “Let’s try this . . . I’d like you to turn off the lights and light a candle,” she said. “It will strengthen the psychic bond with Mata.”

  Ron put down the phone, found a half-melted red cranberry-scented candle in a small glass on a bookshelf, and lit it.

  “Okay, it’s lit,” he said, switching his phone onto the loudspeaker and waiting for further instructions.

  “I want you to clear your mind and concentrate on Mata again, and I will, too.”

  After a brief pause, Rachel gasped and said, “There’s a person, like a rock that was fractured in many places but was glued back together, but the fractures still show,” she said. “This person has her.”

  Ron thought he knew whom she was talking about: his rogue neighbor, Jack. He hung up but was now more worried than ever. He called Suzy, who told him that she didn’t think Jack had anything to do with Mata’s disappearance this time, as they had been away over Labor Day weekend. But Ron couldn’t shake his feeling that Jack was somehow involved.

  Halloween was a big event in Portland. All Ron’s neighbors’ porches and lawns were ablaze with carved pumpkins and decorated with scarecrows and spiders on giant cobwebs. In the front yard of a house a few doors away, the owner, a film-set designer, had erected a monsters’ ball, a theatrical display of life-size vampires and witches in fancy dress draped on deck chairs, with skeletons and zombies springing out of a makeshift graveyard.

  The day before Halloween, Ron woke up feeling low. He kept thinking about Mata and tried to distract himself by doing some late-season gardening before the weather turned. In his homey urban garden at the side of the house, a jumble of potatoes, squash, green beans, mustard greens, and a few pumpkins were all hemmed in by a tiny, white picket fence.

  Ron picked his biggest pumpkins to make jack-o’-lanterns and bake a pumpkin pie for Ann next door, in thanks for her supportiveness since Mata’s disappearance. Ann was a bit of a curtain twitcher who reminded him of Gladys Kravitz from the ’60s sitcom Bewitched, but she was well-intentioned and kind. Brushing the dirt off the pumpkins, Ron thought back to when Mata and Creto were kittens and they always wanted to be involved in everything: if he was tearing up carpet and pulling nails from the floorboards, they tried to pull the nails out with their tiny teeth; if he was gardening, they’d come out and help dig holes, their little white paws getting smudged with dirt.

  Now Creto sat on the edge of the little vegetable patch, nervously watching him work.

  Creto had been shy and skittish since Mata’s first disappearance. In fact, shortly before Mata went missing the first time, Creto himself had disappeared for two days. When he had come back home, he’d had a swollen eye and bloodied mouth. Someone had obviously kicked him in the head. One of his fangs was broken, a few bottom teeth were knocked out, and the skin on his chin was torn. For two months, the cat couldn’t see straight and kept bumping into things. The vet said Creto was lucky to be alive.

  Since Mata had vanished again, Creto had become much more fearful. He hid from everyone but Ron and hissed at them, even if he knew them. A lovely leggy tuxedo tomcat with silvery-green eyes and a crooked mustache, he had become positively clingy ever since his sister had disappeared, staying constantly at Ron’s hee
ls when he was working around the house or in the garden.

  Ron stopped gardening to finish his coffee. Suddenly he heard Creto hiss and saw a swish of black and white fur flick past. He glanced over his shoulder to see Creto frantically scrambling up the back-porch steps. When he turned back around to see what had scared the cat, he spotted Jack walking by his house. Ron flushed with adrenaline and launched himself up and out of the garden, running toward Jack on the sidewalk, his fingers muddy from digging and still holding his mug of coffee.

  “I know you killed her,” Ron shouted, stepping in front of Jack and blocking his path.

  Jack hesitated, momentarily confused, and Ron couldn’t stop himself—he shoved Jack. Ron didn’t believe in violence, but in his hurt and rage, he lost his head. Jack pushed him back, easily knocking him to the ground. The coffee mug bounced on the grass and rolled away.

  Jack loomed over Ron, furious. “I didn’t touch your fucking cat, you fat faggot,” he shouted, his face flaming and the blue-green tattoos on his herculean neck pulsating with rage. “I’m not an animal abuser. I might stomp at them to scare them away, but I’d never light them on fire.”

  Ron staggered to his feet and started screaming, “You’re a terrorist. I’m sure it was you who kicked Creto in the face and knocked out his tooth. Why else is he so terrified of you? And everyone knows you kidnapped Mata and dumped her in the woods last year. What’d you do with her this time . . . did you kill her?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Red faced and seething, Ron grabbed the coffee mug off the lawn and flung it at Jack, hitting him in the head and cutting his temple. This time the mug shattered.

  Jack touched his face and, seeing blood on his fingers, turned feral and hysterical. He charged and head-butted Ron like a crazed rhino, and then punched him in the ribs. “If you run around telling people I killed your cat, you will disappear,” he said, jabbing a finger at him. “I’ll take you out, and no one will ever find you.”

  “Fuck you, loser,” Ron spat back. He straightened up and went for Jack’s throat, but Jack quickly grabbed both of his arms and put him in a guillotine choke.

  “You live and breathe because I say so,” Jack said, menacingly, before releasing Ron, leaving him gasping and sputtering. “I’m telling you now, watch your back.” Then he stormed off, spun around, and shouted from across the road with a taunting grin, “That was a pretty good shot, faggot. I was actually rooting for you.”

  “Junkie scumbag,” Ron fumed under his breath, turning away.

  Ron limped back to his house to get a broom and swept the broken coffee mug pieces off the sidewalk. He picked up the basket of pumpkins and hobbled inside.

  The moment he opened the back door, Creto popped out from behind the fridge where he’d taken refuge, his glittery gem-green eyes wide and questioning. Ron washed the dirt off his hands and, picking up his frightened cat, slumped into a chair and cuddled and comforted him.

  They were both shaking.

  That same afternoon before Halloween, Michael, Tabor, and Kyle wandered over to the New Seasons. It was windy, so they huddled together in their usual spot by the graffitied fire hydrant. A few years earlier, the street kids had spray-painted the hydrant with a likeness of Michael, with his street-name “Groundscore” above it. It had proved surprisingly durable. Now they held out their flimsy SPARE A LITTLE KINDNESS sign next to their totem.

  Stretched out on Michael’s pack between him and Kyle, Tabor was wearing a shiny new red heart-shaped metal ID tag Michael had got her, with his phone number and “LC Tabor” inscribed on the front. The LC stood for “Love Cat.”

  Just a few days earlier, Michael had asked Stinson and a buddy of theirs, Whip Kid, another young drifter who also sometimes crashed at their squat, to look after Tabor for five minutes while he popped across the UPS parking lot and into the New Seasons. When he came out of the supermarket, he saw them chasing Tabor across the sidewalk toward him, her leash trailing behind her. The street kids couldn’t handle her—she was willful and feisty and had come after him. She didn’t want to let Michael out of her sight. The new tag was more protection for her.

  Tabor had become something of a star along that stretch of Hawthorne. Moments after the men and cat arrived in their spot every day, passing locals and shoppers stopped to greet the cat. Many came out of the supermarket and handed Michael bags stuffed with cat food, treats, and accessories. Others gave him coffee and sandwiches, even a bag of candy corn. Many of these same people had been walking past the panhandlers all summer long, but the sparky little cat suddenly made them visible that fall.

  Tabor lapped up all the attention, swishing, prancing, and doing little belly rolls. She was a born showgirl, a fool for adoration.

  A young couple in their twenties stopped to put some change in the guys’ cup and to pet Tabor. She popped on her hind legs to reach the girl’s hand like a tiny show pony.

  “Awww, soooo cute, she does little jumps!” the girl said as she took out her phone and tried to snap a photo of the cat in action.

  “She does tricks for treats,” Michael said, laughing.

  A little while later, Michael and Kyle were sitting quietly, smoking and staring at a swirl of leaves on the sidewalk. Tabor had been curled on Michael’s backpack between them when suddenly she rolled over on her back and started yowling and screeching in a way she had never done before. Michael and Kyle looked at each other, stunned.

  “Tabor, what’s wrong with you?” Michael asked, scooping her into his arms and hugging her tightly. “Kyle, know what she’s saying?”

  Kyle put on a high-pitched voice and said, “They’re killing me . . . heeeeelp.”

  Michael broke into an amused smile, but he guessed something bad had happened to the cat before he’d stumbled across her. “When I found her she was like, ‘Don’t fucking touch me. I’ve been traumatized.’ ”

  “Come to think of it,” said Kyle, “the other day someone was trying to open a bag of weed beside me, and Tabor shot onto his lap. I think this cat’s a stoner.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s mental. She chases lights all night. It must be kitty stress. I’ve seen it in dogs that belong to potheads.”

  Even though she was unpredictable and sometimes incredibly stubborn, Michael, Stinson, and Kyle had fallen hard for the sweet, plucky little cat.

  As the days got colder, Michael grew more anxious about being able to care for Tabor. He had had other street cats: Sunshine, a tiny tiger-striped orange kitten he’d found in an alley, and a brown tabby kitten, who had first belonged to a friend who went to jail. But neither of those cats had taken to living outside or accompanying him on the road when he was drifting south for the winter, so he had found them proper homes.

  The homeless had a code of ethics—they always took care of their animals first. Living on the street without anyone or anything else, they were usually devoted to their furry companions. One of Michael’s buddies suggested that he take Tabor to a no-kill shelter, but Michael had visions of Tabor looking sad, sitting beside a tiny pink suitcase with all her bowls and toy mice, waiting in line with a bunch of other cats and dogs at the shelter. He couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning her.

  Tabor had now been with him for two months, but he still had moments of doubt about the wisdom and practicality of keeping her. Somehow, Tabor always sensed these moods and would look into his eyes or lick his fingers until he melted. Michael realized he had become attached to her—he loved the way she burrowed into his chest, pulled at his beard to wake him, and chirruped to her toy mice. She was super needy at times, but he was grateful to be needed by anybody for anything. He hadn’t cared for anyone for a long time, and part of him longed for it.

  Before Tabor had appeared, Michael would start every morning with beer, progress to Steel Reserve, then to whatever slop was left. But, quite unexpectedly, Tabor had affected Michael’s drinking habits. He’d got off the malt liquor and now only drank at night. He fe
lt that he needed to keep it together so that no one would call the police on him and take the cat away.

  Now, as Michael reflected on how much Tabor meant to him, he resolved to make whatever sacrifices necessary to take her with him wherever he was going. It was time to make plans to head south to warmer weather.

  Nevertheless, the thought that she might have an owner out there somewhere was always on his mind.

  Chapter 5

  Born to Run

  Michael William Arthur King grew up in an ordinary clapboard house in Webster Groves on the outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri. A leafy suburb, lined with pretty shuttered bungalows, Webster Groves had a sleepy small-town feel. It was a safe, decent, and peaceful kind of place, with long, winding streets surrounded by woods and creeks where kids and dogs played outside and ran wild. But for Michael it was mostly a quiet little corner of hell. His family lived on the poorer end of town and his parents, whom he thought of as bad-tempered strangers, were overwhelmed with trying to raise him and his four siblings. His father worked around the clock at two jobs, but money was still tight, and his mother remained home alone looking after five kids. A teenage bride when she moved to the United States from England, she struggled to assimilate into a new culture without any help from family or anyone.

  Michael’s parents had met in England in 1955. Clarence, or Clancy as everyone called him, was an American soldier stationed at a U.S. Army base in Cambridge. Kathleen was a nineteen-year-old British orphan for whom marrying a dashing American soldier opened the door to a new life. Clancy brought Kathleen back to the States with him and became a police officer in St. Louis. Kathleen had their first child at twenty.

  The five King children were expected to be quiet and do as they were told. They weren’t allowed to have friends over, couldn’t use the telephone, couldn’t play music. But Michael was willful and talked back, and his mother used to hit him with his dad’s police belt, among other punishments. One of his most disturbing memories was being locked in the upstairs closet while the rest of the family ate dinner. To Michael, Kathleen seemed angry all the time, which got worse as he got older.