Short Story: Dead Cat

Short Story: Dead Cat

A silver ’87 cutlass supreme sits on the driveway with one wheel sunk in the yard. Hubcaps gone. He probably sold them to the junk yard. High on the driver’s side, a dent warps the reflection of the paint from parking too damn close to a pickup. On the rear, one rusted screw prevents the license plate from snapping off on the highway and spinning like a UFO through a tailgater’s windshield. The poor bastard behind him wouldn’t even see the expired tabs as the plate sliced his head off.

Knee-high prairie grass covers the property. A mower without a gas cap sits in the middle over a splotch of dead dirt. I kick it. I like to kick things on the ground.

I carve a trail to the one tree in the yard. The branches sag to the top of the grass to hide the crab apples. I shake a branch, but nothing falls. Under my shoes, I squash a few apples into the ground. Others have holes that look like one long worm ate right through them. I pick one up and take a bite. Crisp, and sour as hell.

The place hasn’t changed much.

I stomp up two steps to his front door. A rambler house without any curtains on the windows. No use for curtains. The house is old, in years and neglect. He still lives alone. Doesn’t come out much. Strange to think back when the whole world knew about him. I guess people forget what they don’t see.

I stick my head through the eagle-size tear in the screen door and peer inside. A bottomless stairwell leads to the basement in front of me and a couple steps on the left up to the kitchen. I hear the TV switch off in another room. I pull my head out and knock hard on the frame of the screen door.

The kitchen floor creaks and then loud footsteps down the stairs. Then silence.

“Show yourself Bobby!” I holler.

I hear a quiet grunt. Then a suspended baseball bat points at me through the torn screen.

He growls, “You comin’ here to mow my lawn?”

“You know why I’m here. Now, put the bat down and for God’s sakes, put some clothes on, so I can see ya.”

Instead, he grabs an Old Milwaukee from the counter and takes a swig.

I tell him, “Shit, you’re a mess. From a god damn miracle baby to this? Standin’ there naked as that beer can, pointing a bat at a police…”

“Whattya want?” he interrupts.

I pull out my notepad and scratch down some details. Bobby John Whitlock, aka The Invisible Man, 1134am, March 10, 2010, 23 Rock Lane, suspect appears intoxicated.

“What were you doin’ last night?” I ask.

“Just watchin’ TV.” Bobby places the barrel end of the bat on the ground and it stands up straight. It appears to balance on its own.

“Well, Ms. Carmichael, you know, the lady living on the other side of that tree. She called me up this mornin’. Said she found her cat in the backyard. Dead as that lawn mower of yours.”

“So what?”

“Well, I asked her who did it and she told me she saw nothin’.”

“Invisible don’t make me nothin’,” he says.

“Good, ‘cause nothin’ didn’t kill her cat.”

“You think I done it? I haven’t stepped outside this door since yesterday mornin’.”

“I know. Not when storms were brewin’ like they were. All that lightnin’, but not a drop o’ rain.”

Bobby takes another swig from the can and sucks out the last drops.

I tell him, “That lightnin’ strike on Mom when she was carryin’ you was a zillion to one. She’d tell ya the same if she was as lucky as you to live through it. Not like lightnin’ can see you now anyway.”

“You don’t know what it’s like...Never did.”

I watch the can as if it crushes on its own. He tosses it behind him and it hits the first stair to the basement. Then clinks against the wall and falls to another step. I hear it rattle on the ground in the darkness. The type of sound I know well. Like a blind man forced to listen to what he can’t see. Except I ain’t blind.

The bat appears to move up the stairs to the kitchen and set down on the counter. I walk in and leave my shoes on. I can hear my father screaming up from hell to take my shoes off in his house. The cleanest drunk I ever knew.

The refrigerator opens and Bobby grabs another Old Milwaukee. Without a sound, the can flies towards me and I catch it with one hand.

“You know I’m workin’ right now.” I bang the can down on the table and wipe my hand on my pants.

“For a guy who’s got it all, you don’t let loose often.”

“I like keepin’ my job. Can’t say the same for you.”

I hear the coarse skin on his palms rub together.

I ask, “You stop goin’ to the meetings?”

“What’s the point hangin’ out with a bunch o’ drunks?”

He picks up the beer from the table and uses his fingernail to fiddle with the metal tab. The tab snaps back each time with a loud ting that echoes throughout the kitchen.

I take a step to the window and gaze at a neighbor’s backyard. At least a dozen trees on the property hide the house from view; or maybe hide this house from view.

“You shaved your beard?” Bobby asks.

I nod.

The ting of the metal tab stops. He opens the can and a light mist sprays his face and shoulders. A flash of his image stares back at me with longer hair and sunken shoulders. I look back to the window before he notices something happened.

In the neighbor’s yard, a boy stands against a large oak tree. His head buried in his hands. A younger girl runs to the farthest tree to hide. When she stops, she looks left, then right. Then dashes to another. The boy peeks under his hand in her direction.

I shake my head at the ease of cheating in a game I never won.

I glance back at Bobby and the beer can remains in his hands. I don’t know if he’s watching too.

I peer out the window again. The girl presses her back against the tree. She raises her head and sees my face in the window. Her body jolts and her mouth opens wide as if she heard the tree speak. Then she takes off running to her house before the boy has time to point her out.

“What’re you doin’ here? I told you to leave me the hell alone,” Bobby says.

“I wanted to check how you’re doin’.”

“Nah, the others won’t come down here. No one trusts me. You don’t trust me.”

“Well, I tried. I told you the last time that you had one more strike with me.”

I glance out the window towards Ms. Carmichael’s place. Then I straighten my gun belt.

I turn my radio up to hear a message from dispatch to another officer, but Bobby interrupts. “I didn’t do nothin’. Now get the hell outta of my house.”

“You know I gotta bring you in this time.”

“I told ya, I didn’t do nothin’!”

I step forward. “You know, I took a bite out of one of those apples in your yard. The missus could make a good apple pie with those. Too bad all the apples on the ground have lead shot through’em. Didn’t know we had our own William Tell in training right here in our sleepy town.”

I take the .177 caliber lead pellet out of my pocket and examine it.

“I pulled this little baby out of the tree branch. Wouldn’t take much to stick an air rifle out the bedroom window for some good ol’ target practice.”

Bobby doesn’t say a word.

“Whattya got in your bedroom, a Crosman air rifle? Remington?”

The beer can moves a step back, near the wall.

“Sneakin’ into the girl’s locker-room, God only knows how many times, is one thing, but shootin’ your neighbor’s cat?” I ask.

“It was an accident!” he blurts out.

“No accident that you stuck a rifle out your window.”

Bobby takes a last slurp from the can and sets in on top of the refrigerator.

“Nothin’ to say for yourself?” I ask.

I approach him with my arms out and my eyes down. Clumps of dust scatter on the hardwood floor. I wrap my fingers around his frail arms. He’s shaking more than I am.

I turn him away, towards the wall. “It’ll be okay.”

The cold of his body hits me when I slide one hand down to his wrist. I reach my other hand behind my belt and rub over the familiar, sharp edge of handcuffs. I hesitate.

Before I proceed, Bobby leads me out the front door with the house creaking under our feet.

I radio dispatch, “131 to County. Individual in custody.”