Deludia

cat's meow

The cat screeched and hissed while becoming a blur of flying claws and gnashing needle-like teeth. I don’t speak cat, but it sure didn’t sound very happy about its situation. My wife wasn’t too pleased either; she was a suddenly incurred mass of blood weeping scratches across her chest and neck, arms, and face. Man, that had to sting.

The cat was constantly seen out our kitchen window as it patrolled the next door property in search of its owners. They had moved away, sans cat, more than a month earlier. The cat was making its own way as best it could, but made soulful and heartbreaking mews as it padded around and looked into the windows. My wife had decided that enough was enough and she was bound and determined to go get the cat and feed it. We could, she decided, put the cat up and give it a warm bed until she could find something more permanent.

Her plans were side-railed by an uncooperative feline attitude though, and now my wife was reconsidering her philanthropy as she daubed at her woulds with her bloodying blouse. Ok, sweatshirt. As the shock wore thin and the scratches began to register with the pain only a cat scratch can, my wife’s tone took a more soured and nasty turn. She came back to the house to wash off and treat her wounds, and by the time she got there she was pretty angry.  She was locked in the bathroom for almost an hour but the only sounds were the running water and occasional whimper.

She came out of the bathroom festooned with band-aids. She had about 30 of them of all shapes and sizes stuck all over; my favorite was the Scooby Doo elbow patch on her chin. She walked with her head erect and her shoulders back in the proud posture of someone trying desperately not to feel like an idiot, and moved to the stove to start dinner.

She had hamburgers in a frying pan and peas in a pot and baker potatoes in the microwave. She had biscuits in the oven and the situation well in hand when we heard the noise. The cat was sitting at our back door, mewing to come in. Apparently it had reconsidered its position after the scuffle, and was now at the door unaware that my wife had reconsidered her position as well. But I opened the door a little to let the cat come in. It stuck it’s nose through the crack in the door and my wife saw it.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Peas began exploding against the wall and the door. One took the cat right on the nose. My wife was hurling vugarisms at the cat and the cat was now arched and hissing and making a rowling sound deep in its throat. The cat leaped into the kitchen and stood off with my wife. She was sucking on her fingers after realizing how hot the water was around the peas she had picked up bare fingered and threw at the cat.

“Hey.” I said. “Cut it out.” My wife raised one of her fingers in punctuation of my sentence. The cat relaxed and walked over and rubbed on my leg. It had that smug “I am Cat” look on its face and it wasn’t wasted on my wife.

“Don’t you smirk at me!” she snarled and hurled another pea at the cat and then howled and sucked on her fingers again. She looked my way and I knew from the darkness that descended on the room that I’d best keep any comments I had for another time. So I tried my best to look concerned and asked when dinner was. A heat began to permeate the descended darkness and I think that, for just an instant, I saw hell in her pupils. I knew I should have said nothing.

My wife shrieked and I turned to see the cat was peeing or spraying or whatever it is that girl cats do that wets the area and stinks terribly. I ducked just in time to be missed by the pot of peas. It gave that confident Revereware clang as it struck the wall, raining peas like shrapnel. The cat stopped what it was doing and leaped, claws out, on the closest thing to it. That was me.

It dug into my chest and stomach and I grabbed it by the scruff and yanked it away from my body. It fought and twisted for a few seconds before settling into a dishrag limpness. “Get me a towel.” I said.

With the cat wrapped snugly in the towel, I put the bundle on the passenger seat of the car and drove to the Humane Society to have the cat placed in protective custody. Before I left they managed to talk me into donating fifty bucks to help with the costs of finding the cat a new home.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

And cats.