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The Cat
By Daniel Morris
Previously Written in 2003
“Life is not a problem to be solved,
but a reality to be experienced.”
--Soren Kierkegaard
The cat came back the very next day! The cat came back.
How? He had taken infallible measures to ensure the little nightmare's permanent dismissal. Well, he had put the little thing outdoors and locked the door. But— that should have been enough. How’d that little bastard get back in?
The furry feline trotted over to the woman and rubbed against her leg, letting out a purr. She bent down to pick it up.
“Kitty.” she cooed. The man looked on in horror as she rubbed her face against that flea-ridden varmint. That was his face! A face he had kissed many a time. He felt ill.
She walked to the kitchen and let the mammal back into its room. It owned the space. The spot was man-proof. He despised that kitchen almost as much as he detested that damned cat.
The woman wasn't the cleanest of people. The refrigerator was always dirty and congested. The dishes were never done. The baby's high chair was a sticky mess. But, what he hated most were those blood sucking insects that jumped from Kitty's litter box onto the chair and then the table. He hated the smell of stagnate newspaper and cat piss that violated his nostrils whenever he was brave enough to enter that fucking cookery. What he hated was that cat.
“You sure you won't mind if I get rid of it?” he asked, pointing down at that nightmare of an animal. He had been given a second chance to give the woman a second chance.
“As long as you—” the woman began.
“—find it a good home,” the man finished.
You see, the apartment wasn't his. He was just staying with the woman while he worked some things out. They weren't exactly boyfriend/girlfriend either. The man had no right to say, “Woman, we gonna get rid of that damn cat!” All he could do was compromise... Or he could run game.
The domesticated feline created unsanitary living conditions for the woman's three-year-old daughter, who constantly complained about bugs biting her. This was the only reason the woman even considered letting the cat go; otherwise, she would never have thought of parting with her “kitty.”
Fleas were everywhere. There was a particular chair in the living room that, if you sat on it, would instantly cover you in parasites. And they were indestructible. The man learned this firsthand when he managed to grab one off his neck. He grit his teeth as he tried in vain to crush it between his fingers. When he opened his grip, the little fucker walked to the edge of his hand, turned, laughed at him, and hopped off.
The only place they didn't attack was the woman's bedroom. For some strange reason, they seemed to have respect for that territory. The man couldn't remember a time when he saw or felt one of those little things in the bed. This thought made him sleepy.
“You ready?” The woman asked. It was already the next morning. It didn't feel like he had slept for long. Maybe two hours at the most. But, on the other hand, he felt well-rested.
​
The woman would wake him up just in time for her to leave for work—not a second sooner. She knew he would only be dropping her off, so there was no need for the man to shit, shower, and shave. She was a very considerate woman who understood the importance of sleep.
The three of them drove south to a building where social workers were stationed, complete with a food bank and daycare. They weren’t above accepting free food, the woman could see her daughter whenever she pleased, and the man didn’t have to babysit. It was pretty ideal.
When the woman first started working there, she used her lunch breaks to visit her daughter. But after she met the man, she spent that time with him instead.
After dropping them off, he rushed back to the house, unlocked the door, and headed straight to the kitchen. The apathetic creature sat on the table, perfectly poised. The man flicked a flea off his neck. He wouldn’t try anything before lunch, just in case the woman had forgotten her favorite tube of lipstick or something. He didn’t want to seem too eager—though he was. He wasn't sleeping right because of that damned cat. He shut the kitchen door and went to lie down.
When he woke up, he got ready, picked up the woman, and they went to a chicken joint for food.
Back at the house, he went straight to the kitchen but bypassed the critter to grab a few garbage bags from under the sink. He walked outside and lined the floor and seats of the car. Then, back inside, he caught the hairy creature by the scruff.
In the car, the cat meowed sorrowfully, a pitiful sound repeated every three seconds until it began panting—a sight the man had never seen before.
The car turned down a quiet street and parked outside an unassuming ranch house. This house belonged to his friend, The Butcher.
Across the street, there lived an old lady who fed neighborhood cats. Now those cats were pretty much hers. More than a dozen of them littered her front porch and yard, seldom straying more than a block from her house. Many a day, the man and The Butcher would sit on the butcher's porch and watch the infestation.
“Mangy beasts,” The Butcher would often say between sips of his homemade mead. “I keel them all,” The man would smile, convincing himself that his friend was just one of those people who talked shit for shock value.
There were rumors, spread by kids, that The Butcher used the meat of strays to make his famous hot dogs. The man figured this was preposterous. But To be safe, he did advise the woman to look elsewhere for her dining experiences.
The man got out of the vehicle and opened the car door. The cat looked at him and spoke through the only language it knew. But the man was beyond words. He grabbed it and set it down on the sidewalk before closing the door. Kitty backed up against the rear tire, still whining. Across the street, the other cats listened, their ears perked up. Slowly, they began to creep towards the house cat.
“That’s your new family,” the man said. The cat seemed to disagree with a defiant “meow,” staying put. The man figured the little asshole would eventually give in to peer pressure and join the other cats in the old lady’s yard. He walked to The Butcher’s front door, planning to let nature take its course. But as soon as he knocked, and The Butcher opened the door, the cat bolted inside the house!
“Son of ze bitch!” The Butcher exclaimed, mixing up his terminology for the feline. They chased the cat into a room, where it promptly vanished under a bed. The Butcher grabbed a broom and started poking around until he heard a hiss—the first time the man had ever heard that sound from the creature. After some tougher prodding, the cat shot out of the room, darted into the bathroom, and jumped into the tub.
"Muzefucka! Savage peau de vache!" The Butcher cursed, tossing aside the broom and grabbing a bat that had been resting in the corner. The man realized that the butcher just thought this was one of the strays from across the street.The man started to explain the situation but swallowed his words.
The Butcher tiptoed over to the tub, bat in hand. He slowly pushed it toward the cat to gauge its reaction. The beast roared and swiped fiercely at the wooden threat. Scared shitless, the cat began excreting in the bathtub. The Butcher snapped.
“I keel you!” he shouted, delivering a powerful blow with the bat. The cat leaped around with its face smashed in, and the man winced as if he could feel the pain. The Butcher hit the cat as if whooping a child, punctuating each word with a hit.
“ALL!” CRACK! “YOU!” WHACK! “HAD!” WHAM! “TO!” BAM! “DO!” PAP! “WAS!” BAP! “LEEAVE!” THWACK!
The cat was unquestionably deceased, but The Butcher gave it one more for the afterlife.
“FOUTREE!” he yelled, breaking the bat on the lifeless body. He breathed heavily, spat on what now resembled roadkill in the tub, and seemed personally offended and then relieved. Slicking his limp hair back over his head, he turned to the man and said, in the woman’s voice, “You ready?”
The man tilted his head, confused. “Ready for what?”
The woman looked at him with a strange expression before realizing he was blurring the lines between reality and unconscious imagination. He finished waking up and laughed.
“I just had the wildest dream.”
The woman smiled, kissed his cheek, and went to get her daughter settled. The man stretched, got up, and walked past the kitchen, eyeing the closed door with curiosity. They all met in the hallway and walked down the stairs together.
After dropping them off, he rushed back to the apartment and flung open the kitchen door. The cat meowed and went straight to its empty bowl, begging for food. The man sighed. He hadn’t even eaten yet, and he refused to feed the cat first.
After lunch, he took Kitty over to the old lady’s house. He dropped it inside the fenced yard with all the other cats, not bothering to stop and say “Hi” to The Butcher. He didn’t wait to see how the cat adjusted; he simply got back in the car and drove off.
Later, he picked up the woman and the child after work. “How was your day?” he asked.
​
“It was good.” She strapped her child into the car seat as the man looked back and made a funny face. The child covered her eyes and grinned. “There's a...” She paused, focusing on buckling the seatbelt. Once the door was closed and she was seated in the passenger side, she continued, “The daycare is having a Halloween party on Friday, so I need to get her a costume—or at least a mask or something. Think we could stop by Big Lots?”
"Sure," the man smiled, thinking, Why is she asking me? It's her car. But he understood the arrangement. She loved him, and he loved her things. He had a roof over his head, food on the table, and a car to drive. She, in turn, had the comfort of knowing the car kept him tethered to her. Even if he used it to pick up other women and cheat shamelessly, he’d always have to bring it back to her. And when he did, well, he might as well lie down in her bed.
“I got rid of the cat,” he said
“Yeah, right. Are you serious? Are you playing, or are you for real?” This wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.
“I’m for real. You said as long as I found it a good home.”
“I know. Where’d you take him?”
“It’s not a ‘him,’ it’s a ‘her.’ All dogs are males, and all cats are females.” She laughed at the joke she’d heard countless times before. “I took it to my friend. She’s like a cat lady.”
Normally, this would sound odd coming from a man in his early thirties, but he knew a wide assortment of people around the city, so the woman accepted it. Still, she wasn’t entirely sure if he was serious about the cat. She didn’t mean to sound surprised, but she didn’t really think he would go through with it. She assumed he was just talking shit. But he wasn’t. And that night, he slept peacefully.
The cat came back! He thought it was goner, but the cat came back. It just wouldn’t stay away!
It wasn’t until the next day—after some great morning sex, after the sun had shined on his face, and after they had lunch at a wonderful new restaurant downtown—that he returned to the house, skipping merrily up to the front door. That’s when he saw the cat, sitting there, begging to be let back in.
He didn't give the cat a chance to see the inside of its old home. Without hesitation, he grabbed it up and headed straight for the car. He drove to The Butcher’s restaurant and parked in a secluded alley that only he knew about. He knocked on the secret door in the back, where employees sometimes entered. The butcher peeked through a slit. The man had never used this entrance before, and the butcher gave him a look to make sure he didn't make it a habit.
“Got something for you,” the man said, holding out an old, tattered canvas bookbag that bulged and bubbled with the cat’s movements. The butcher smiled and took his new delicacy. The man stood there as if waiting for a tip. The butcher looked the man up and down.
“Merci,” he said, hoping this would move him along.
"I wanna see," the man said, his voice cracking. He didn’t want it to come to this, but he had no other alternative. He hated the cat and wanted it dead.
“Ah. Leur toujour s'ennuyer!” The butcher said this with a snarl, but he left the door open, so the man translated it to “come in.”
The butcher walked to a metal table in the middle of the room. Wooden cutting boards were stained red and green with no distinction for those used to cut meats and those used to cut vegetables. He let the cat out of the bag. It licked its lips before walking around on the surface of the table with dainty footsteps. In the room were rugged employees with stained aprons. One was sharpening a knife. Another was rubbing his hands together. All were excited.
There was a moment when the man looked at Kitty, and Kitty looked back at him. Two mammals, caught in this crazy world, both needing the same basic things: food, and shelter—and both seeking the same thing—comfort. Surely, Kitty hated the fleas as much as, if not more than, the man did. Maybe getting rid of the host wasn’t the solution. Maybe they could find a way to ease their shared discomfort. The man's expression shifted from firm resolve to gentle understanding. He stepped forward and reached out to pick up his old new–
In two quick motions, the butcher picked up a butcher’s knife and swung through the cat. The butcher didn’t hold the cat down while it struggled, angling for a chop. The cat's head was lopped clean off! It landed on the floor with a final, drawn-out meow. Its body, however, spasmed erratically, spraying blood across the room. The Butcher and his employees roared with laughter as their faces and aprons were splattered with fresh blood.
“Ha ha! Dey love it when I do diss!” The Butcher shouted gleefully, glancing over at the man, who had passed out cold on the floor.
“You ready?” the woman asked. The man jolted awake, running to the kitchen in a panic. The cat was gone, but this didn’t explain anything. That thing is small enough to hide a million places in here. And he would never harm an animal. It wasn’t in his nature.He certainly wouldn’t take a kitten to the back door of a restaurant just to have it decapitated by a maniacal butcher.
He walked back to the bedroom while questioning what happened. The woman watched, waiting for an explanation. Then they both laughed.
“I don’t know why I did that,” he said, shaking his head.
“Another wild dream?” she asked, giving him an easy out while hinting at the possible truth.
“Yeah. I had a dream about the butcher.”
“Who?” She asked.
After dropping her off at work, he returned home and checked the kitchen one more time. He sucked his teeth, meowed, and called, "Here, kitty kitty," Nothing.
The phone rang.
"Hey babe," the woman said, "I just wanted to let you know I’m going to lunch with some friends, so you don’t have to come back here until I get off work." As she spoke, the man heard a faint sound coming from the kitchen. He crept over to the door and shoved it open. Still no cat.
“Hello?” the woman asked, her voice distant on the line.
He noticed the kitchen window was open. That window was never open. He didn’t think it could open. He couldn’t remember a time when that kitchen window had ever been open.
“Hellooo?” she sang into the phone.
“Hey... Sorry... I’ll be there at 5,” he muttered, still staring at the open window.
He hung up the phone and closed the kitchen window. Then, he searched everywhere: under the table, on top of the fridge, beneath the sink. He lifted the couch, pulled back the curtains, and checked under the loveseat. He inspected the tub and behind the door, then went through the closets and checked under the bed. Finally, he looked in the tub again, just to be sure. By the time he was done, it was already 3 p.m.
After a quick nap, he picked the woman up from work, trying to push the thoughts of the cat from his mind. It was gone—or it had never existed—but it wasn’t in the house. He forced himself to relax as she chatted away. When there was a pause in her monologue, he figured it was time to engage in the conversation.
“So, where’d you go for lunch?” he asked casually.
“The Butcher’s.”
The car swerved.
“I thought I told you not to eat there! I told you what he uses for meat!”
“You said he uses stray dogs and cats. I thought you were joking.”
“I was, but... What if it’s true? What did you eat?”
“I had a hot dog—”
Great. Not only did she go to the place he told her not to, but she also ate the thing, which was why he told her not to go to the place in the first place. Still, it seemed ridiculous—no one in America would use strays for a delicatessen, right?
“What?” she asked with a smile, “Did The Butcher cut up Kitty?”
He had to catch himself from making a surprised expression. Instead, he lazied his eyes and laughed with the woman. He tried his damnedest to make the laugh sound genuine.
Later that night the woman called to the man from the bathroom. He walked in and looked into her eye. She held it wide open for him to see what she thought she saw. The man did notice how her pupil looked more like an oval than a circle. And the iris did look more yellow than brown. He gasped.
“You see it?!” she exclaimed.
He laughed like he was joking. “See what?”
“Ock! You make me sick,” she said hitting him playfully.
Even later that night, the man squeezed his eyes shut, trying to convince himself that he was asleep. He attempted to ignore Kitty’s incessant meows, but they seemed to echo louder and louder in his mind. He couldn’t tell if he was losing his sanity or not. He finally said fuck it and stared at the foot of the bed as his heart beat faster. He used to do this when he was a kid, scared of something in his room. He would stare straight into it until his eyes adjusted and that tall skinny man gawking at him from the corner would become the coat rack. So that’s what he did as the meowing grew closer and closer he stared down past his feet.
He shook the woman and softly called out her name. If she heard it, it meant he wasn't going crazy, but it also meant the cat was back. He prayed to God he was going crazy. The covers began to move as if something were tugging at them, maybe even crawling up from the floor. And then, silence. The meows faded into the background, only to start again, growing louder and louder.
​
“Babe,” he whispered.
He shook her again. She responded with a muffled, guttural growl. Her voice sounded almost inhuman. She turned toward him, and in the dim moonlight, he saw a horrifying sight. Whiskers sprouted from her grotesque, swollen cheeks. Pointy ears emerged atop her head. Her eyes were enormous, with slit pupils. Her entire countenance was overtaken by thick, wild fur!
​
He shot up, slammed himself against the wall and yelled loud and long. The woman woke up and pulled something off of her face. She tossed it to the floor as the man continued to yell. She looked into his eyes and called his name. He looked past her. His eyes were expanded far beyond what was normal. His mouth was stretched to the point where his lips cracked. Snot ran from his nose. As he yelled, the woman kept calling his name again and again and again as tears ran from her eyes. The man's chest compressed and his ribs showed their contours through his skin. The yelling decreased.
​
The snot that ran from his nose turned to glutinous dark blood. His visage was contorted into the definition of horror. The woman cried into his lap until his yell was no more than a straining whisper. She looked up at him. The only part left was his physical body.
The cat entered the room and sat on the daughter’s Halloween Mask the woman had tossed onto the floor. Animals don't usually make expressions that show feeling, but the feline looked content. It didn't yearn for the woman's attention. It seemed to know that it didn't have to anymore.