The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook

by Joanne Rocklin

  “Phin wrote me that he’d bought a tag for Mud sporting a diamond. He thought it made Mud look pretty cool, all ready for his new digs. I wish Phin had remembered to put his new info on it. Or maybe he didn’t know it yet. But Phin shouldn’t have removed the old tag so soon.”

  But it wasn’t Phin who removed the old tag! It was me it was me it was me it was me it was me it was me.

  I am afraid to open my mouth in case a giant cartoon bubble floats out with those guilty words swimming around inside of it.

  Then Dylan says, “I’d like to arrange a reunion between Zook and Phin, if that’s OK. And, of course, I want you all to meet one another, too.”

  “We’d love that!” says my mother.

  I give one of those fake smiles, the kind where you turn up the corners of your mouth but don’t open it.

  So a few days later we all pile into Mom’s car to bring Zook and Phin together again. Zook’s in his carrier on Dylan’s lap in the front seat.

  Dylan’s great-uncle didn’t really move to a new house. He moved to a Home, the kind with a capital H. It’s a Retirement Home. Actually, it has a much fancier name: the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility. They assist you with all the things you may not be able to do anymore when you are very old, like walk, and eat, and dress. And even breathe.

  “Just so you know, Phin breathes through an oxygen tank,” says Dylan when we reach the Home. “Phin smoked like a fish all his life, and his lungs don’t work very well. So the tank gives him air to breathe.”

  Of course Freddy finds this hilarious, falling down on the big green lawn of the Home. My mom looks shocked, but I’m not. She doesn’t know Fred like I do. Since Dylan came into our lives and my brother’s appetite has improved, I’m scared Freddy’s turning into one of those Rowdies.

  “That’s so silly!” yells Freddy. “Fish don’t smoke!”

  So I explain about smoked fish, like smoked salmon or smoked whitefish, the kind Gramma Dee and I like. I go on and on to Fred about smoked fish. That kind of takes my mind off why we’re all here, walking up the great graveled path to the Home, its white stone stairs shining in the sun.

  I feel like a villain.

  It’s not a good feeling. I don’t know how other villains feel, but I feel like the lowest of the low, which would be some sort of insect, I guess. I ponder this for a while, dragging my feet up the big stairs. Of course, caterpillars and beetles don’t feel like villains, going about their buggy day on the ground.

  Then I do some more pondering about the Home’s name. How it’s Sunrise and not Sunset, because sunrise sounds more hopeful than sunset. But elderly people may not have that many sunrises OR sunsets left. Why remind everybody about all that? Which isn’t a good thing to ponder, because then I start pondering about all the sunrises and sunsets Phin and Zook missed together because of villainous me.

  We enter the Home. Dylan, carrying Zook, tells a receptionist who we are and she cheerfully chirps, “Phin’s so excited to see you!”

  We all troop down corridors painted cheerful colors like yellow and pink. Hanging here and there on the walls are cheerful paintings of people wearing old-fashioned clothing, and kids playing with old-fashioned toys like hoops and marbles, so the Sunrise people will think of cheerful things from their past. We meet people pushing walkers, or sitting on benches, or strolling by. Most of them wave or say hi. One lady has a little Chihuahua in her lap, because small pets are allowed here. Cheerfulness is everywhere. I begin to feel a tiny bit more cheerful myself.

  Dylan knocks on a door and there is a long silence, the kind of silence that feels like someone’s inside, waiting. Dylan holds up a finger as if he’s expecting this wait, and after a while we hear a soft voice say, “Come. In.”

  Phin is sitting in a chair facing the door. You can tell he’d be tall standing up. He’s wearing a bright red shirt and shiny black shoes. On his head is one of those nightcaps Mother Goose characters wear to keep their bald heads warm. He’s the oldest man I’ve ever seen, with lines on his face like streets on a map and a bushy gray beard like God on that chapel ceiling. Plastic tubing runs from each of his nostrils and behind his ears. The tubes are attached to a small blue oxygen tank with wheels, sitting on the floor beside his chair. On the other side of his chair is a little table with things laid out for tea, as well as a plate of cookies.

  “Hey,” Phin says.

  Dylan puts down Zook’s carrier and introduces us. I notice that even though Phin’s body is old, his eyes are young and mischievous. Those eyes stare hard at you, like he could read your mind, which I sincerely hope he can’t do. He’s probably the kind of person who would make rowdy remarks if he could talk faster. There are little pauses between every word he says.

  “Now. Let’s. See. My. Guy,” Phin says.

  Fred opens the carrier and pulls out Zook. Zook’s legs dangle over Phin’s, and Phin reaches out to take him. Zook gives a little yelp and curls up on Phin’s lap.

  “Old. Mud,” Phin says, stroking Zook, who begins to knead his paws back and forth. Zook is purring and kneading, and Phin is stroking and stroking, and it’s as if they just said good-bye only one or two sunrises ago. Then I remember that they didn’t really have a chance to say good-bye.

  “Still. Rolling. In. The. Mud?” Phin asks.

  “Well, we keep him indoors,” my mother says. “It’s safer that way. There’s a lot of traffic where we live, and we don’t have a backyard.”

  Dylan pours tea for everyone, even for Freddy, who puts lots of milk in his and dunks his cookie. Except for Phin, that is, who doesn’t let go of Zook, just keeps stroking and stroking him. Mom and Dylan chat with Phin about this and that, and then they explain about giving Zook fluids.

  “We’re all getting very, very good at it,” I say, in case there’s a question about whether Zook should come back with us. But soon Phin scoops up Zook and hands him over to me. I put Zook in his carrier right away.

  Phin points to a guitar standing in a dark corner. Dylan gives it to him. He kisses Phin’s lined cheek. Suddenly, Phin’s hands are moving lickety-split over that guitar. There are hardly any spaces between the notes, as if his fingers were doing all the fast talking Phin wished he could do.

  “Ee-ow,” sings Zook softly, tired now.

  Phin looks tired, too. He puts aside his guitar and high-fives Freddy and me. Mom and Dylan hug him good-bye, and I pick up Zook’s carrier.

  Phin leans forward to wiggle a finger through the carrier’s cage door.

  “We’re. Two. Old. Indoor. Cats. Now,” he says.

  Phin’s smiling, but it’s sad to think of him and Zook that way. Even though it’s true.

  We go out into the corridor, and I decide I can’t ignore the yellow-whopper lump in my belly anymore. “I’ll be right back,” I say.

  I open Phin’s door without knocking, which is rude, I know. But I want to return to him quickly, before I chicken out. I shut the door behind me.

  Phin’s still sitting in his chair. He looks surprised to see me again, but not that surprised. Maybe he can read my mind, but I don’t care, because I’m going to tell him myself what’s on it.

  “I stole your cat,” I say.

  Phin frowns. He points to a chair across the room. I pull it over and sit in front of him. I start talking, really fast.

  “He was cold and scared and dirty and hungry when we found him, and he had a BB-gun pellet in his side,” I say. “His name tag said MUD, which I thought was a terrible name for a cat. Actually, I still do, in my humble opinion, even though I guess I understand why you named him that.”

  “Slow. Down,” says Phin, smiling.

  I nod, take a deep breath, and continue.

  “For a long, long time, I thought for sure he belonged to someone very cruel. My dad said I have an inventive mind, but I think I invented way too much this time. I threw away his name tag with your address on it. Nobody in the world knows I did that. Except you, now.”

  Phin is sitting very still, as if
he’s waiting for something.

  “But I did keep the name tag with the diamond on it, just in case it was valuable,” I say. “It wasn’t, but of course you already know that. Anyway, we named him Zook because we love O’Leary’s fried zucchini, and so does Zook. I want to tell you that I’m so sorry I stole him. I also want you to know he’s had a happy life with us. A very, very happy life. And we’ve been happy because of Zook.”

  Phin’s oxygen tank hisses quietly.

  “You’d like O’Leary’s, too. We can bring you one of their pizzas one day.”

  I stand up. Phin grabs my hand.

  “I. Do. Understand,” he says. “Maybe. It. Was. Meant. To. Be.”

  And that’s when I decide to tell Phin everything, even though it seems as if he knows everything already. One thing’s for sure: Phin understands what it’s like when you don’t get a chance to say good-bye. I sit down again.

  “Do you have time to hear something else?” I ask.

  “Lots,” Phin says.

  So I tell him the story going around and around in my head about visiting my dad in the hospital with Zook in that wicker basket covered up with the napkin with strawberries on it. About my dad calling him a furry taco and all of us laughing our heads off at that.

  And then I tell Phin the part of the story I’ve never told out loud.

  “I had to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t help it. There was this teeny bathroom just two steps from Dad’s bed. I didn’t have to go far. I didn’t take that long. When I got back into bed with him, my father was sleeping. I kissed his left earlobe, the one with the mole shaped like an avocado on it. His story ear, the one he always pulled before he told his stories. And my mother and I saw that he was lying very still. My father had died, you see. He was very, very sick. But I am so glad Zook was with him, keeping him warm and cozy all the way to the end, purring a song in his story ear. So glad. I wanted to tell you that, too.”

  Phin is still holding my hand. He takes my other one. He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he says, “See? Meant. To. Be.”

  Phin’s pauses make every word he says sound true and important. I’m thinking that Phin sounds like God talking, if God’s a nice old African-American man with young eyes and an oxygen tank. I feel my sour, yellow-whopper lump start to melt inside of me. Tears fill up my eyes and my nose gets stuffed up, but I’m feeling good and I’m feeling sad all at once, like the blues.

  “Tell. Your. Mother. Too,” Phin says.

  “OK,” I say.

  I get up and hug Phin, who smells like a eucalyptus tree. Maybe he’s not God, but he’s a great-grandfather figure now. Then I rub my eyes, because tears would ruin all that cheerfulness in the Home’s corridors. Also, my mom would start asking nosy questions.

  I’ll tell her everything when I’m ready.

  ccording to my theory, happy-ending times feel like the happy endings in stories or movies or on TV, except you’re having them in real life. Something nice happens and you start imagining cool background music playing, or people suddenly leaping up and dancing together, their arms and legs doing exactly the same thing in a coordinated way.

  Happy-ending times happen all the time, but you have to be a good noticer, or they’ll just pass you by. You can look back on your life and think, “Hey, that was one of them. I think.” But it’s so much better to catch them like a fastball, AT THE EXACT MOMENT they’re happening. I’ve been catching more and more happy-ending times lately.

  The time we all realized that Zook was Mud was a happy-ending time.

  And the day I told Phin about my yellow whopper was another one, even though I was crying.

  Another happy-ending time also involved Phin because of an idea I had. A really good one, in my humble opinion. I kept thinking about Phin being an indoor cat like Zook, all cooped up. I realized we didn’t need to bring an O’Leary’s pizza to Phin; instead, we’d bring Phin to O’Leary’s! So we did. He came in his wheelchair with his oxygen tank and his guitar. Salvatore and Manic Moe hooked up two microphones, and Phin played guitar with Dylan. Dylan sang. You could almost see the musical notes dancing out the open window or squeezing under the crack in the door, just like in a cartoon. They waved their little note-tails at people passing by, who then followed the music into the store and ate some pizza.

  “Hey, Phin, now you’ll be a regular at this establishment!” I said.

  Phin winked at me as he left, looking tired but pleased with himself. Dylan pushed him down the street to his truck, and the imaginary happy-ending orchestra played louder and louder as Phin and his wheelchair got smaller and smaller.

  Some people look like they’re having happy endings all the time—ever notice? My former first-grade teacher Miss Crackenhower has that look, with those big smiley white teeth of hers. I’ll bet she hears music wherever she goes.

  Another happy-ending time was when Freddy told me he knew how to read and would hardly need my help anymore.

  “I keep getting fired from my jobs!” I said.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “But I don’t need any more rebuses. Those are for babies. I like sounding words out.”

  “OK, if you say so,” I said. I winked at the imaginary video camera capturing the moment. Major happy-ending music started up. But then, after the imaginary commercial, there was the short funny part where I said I had to teach him a few more things. I pointed out that PH sounded like F, as in the word phone, and GH could, too, as in the word enough. And CH could sound like K, as in school, but had a different sound in chug.

  “You’re wrong,” Fred said. “School is spelled S-K-O-O-L, like in Little Tots Playskool.”

  So we looked up school in the dictionary, and Freddy couldn’t wait to tell his teacher about her big mistake.

  If that were the ending of a show, they’d play a little doop-dee-doo tune right then. That means something funny has just happened, but tune in next time for more happy-ending shows.

  Every time we give Zook his fluids, every time he leaps off that big brown chair looking healthy and beautiful, like all the promises of the world come true, has been a happy-ending time. Twice a day for thirty days makes sixty times I’ve heard music in my head.

  Another happy-ending time happened in the Safeway supermarket and involved My Secret Love. I was in the frozen food section with my mother, and she was taking a long time deciding on ice cream flavors, which is one of the good things about having Dylan come for dinner: She serves dessert to make the meal last longer.

  It was only out of the corner of my eye, but that’s all I needed to recognize My Secret Love, passing by our aisle with a friend. My mom was still deep in thought. I quickly scooted down one aisle and up another. I strolled right toward My Secret Love going the other way. Unfortunately, he was talking to his friend as they were sharing a humongous bag of Cheez Doodles, and he didn’t notice me.

  So I zoomed down another aisle and raced around to the front of the store so I’d bump into him again as he and his friend emerged from aisle three. I coughed. He glanced at me, and I could tell he thought I looked familiar but really didn’t recognize me. That’s understandable, because I was wearing a new red T-shirt, and he’s used to seeing me in a Raiders sweatshirt and eating pizza.

  “You’re … ?” he said, pointing his finger right at me.

  “Oona!” I said. “From O’Leary’s.”

  “Oh, right! Oona!” he said. “You’re always hanging out there with that little kid.”

  I thought that was a great conversation starter on his part. “He’s—” I started to say. I wanted to tell him that the little kid is my brother and his name is Freddy, and that Freddy and I, we’re really good friends with the owners of the pizza establishment, and I’d be happy to get him some extra sides of zook, if he likes. And does he have any brothers or sisters?

  But then his friend snickered and said, “Hey, Oona, Oona, sing me a tune-a!” He elbowed My Secret Love in the ribs. I didn’t feel like singing, believe you me. I narro
wed my eyes at the friend, a nincompoop Rowdy with an orange Cheez Doodly mustache. Maybe they weren’t truly close friends.

  But My Secret Love snickered, too, and elbowed back. And he had his own orange mustache, I noticed, but that wasn’t the important thing, really.

  The important thing was, the important thing IS, all of a sudden I knew everything you need to know about true love. And it’s this:

  1. True love does make you want to sing. For instance, Baby, please don’t go or Fiddle-i-fee. It may even make you want to laugh. But not snicker.

  2. True love shouldn’t be so hard! True love should feel easy and meant to be, the way Dylan and my mom seem to feel about each other. And as easy as loving Zook. SO WHAT if Zook’s a cat?

  3. True love should make everyone feel happy because you are wonderful in the other person’s eyes, and vice-versa, in a DOG IS GOD SPELLED BACKWARD sort of way.

  I went back to my mother in the frozen food section. She’d chosen rum raisin and hadn’t even realized I’d been gone. Or that I’d just had one of those happy-ending times, the kind of ending that comes at the end of a story when a character figures out something important about life. OK, I didn’t feel exactly happy, but not exactly sad, either.

  The other day I had a long conversation with Kiran. He is so smart. It was the deepest, most mature conversation I’ve had with a friend, ever. I imagine I will have conversations like that with a Real True Love one day.

  Kiran said, “I don’t like movies and books with happy endings. Real life isn’t like that. Happy endings are juvenile.”

  Then he described his favorite movie, which is called Casablanca. It takes place during World War II and is considered the most popular and famous movie of all time, according to people online. It’s very deep and doesn’t have a very happy ending at all.

  I said, “Well, real life isn’t only about unhappy endings, either.”

  We went on and on about that, and finally we agreed to disagree. But then we realized that we actually agreed because real life has sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy, and sometimes bittersweet endings. But life keeps starting up again. Only stories end.