A SHORT STORY
There was a cat in the bar that day. It lay down on a high booth resting the barrel of its chest on its arms. It swung its tail back and forth to the blues music hanging heavy in the background.
She had come in moving slowly, purposefully. She took in her surroundings; she held her head defensively low. There was no hurry. She took silent command. She glistened; but, no one could see her. She moved across the floor as if she were the only one there.
Her eyes were half shut, dreamy-like. She was tired. It showed in her body, in the way she moved.
It wasn't the first time she had been there. In the middle of a long lazy summer, all the wild-eyed cats were out on the prowl. Nameless, ageless they were out to get food, water, shelter, and anything else they came across. Like shards of glass, they had burst out of the corners of the obscured night. They were the brothers and sisters of an unspoken familial bond. However, each night they set out to claim what was theirs and theirs alone; they shared nothing.
The manager of the early evening had opened the door to let in a draft. The open door beckoned the lonely one inside. The clank of the door on its hinges, and the rusty mechanical noise it made alerted and lured her.
He had given her brandy once before. Her animal memory reminded her to go there again.
"Now, there is a pretty girl," he purred to her knowing not to attempt to stroke his little friend. His words served in place of the action well enough. He looked down at her lovingly, with a smile. And she looked up at him asking for more of what he gave her the night before.
The sudden splatter of broken glass and, "I ain't no damn drunk!" shook her and made her flinch. She didn't run, though. What the night manager promised her was enough to make her stay.
But during the daytime, the night manager wasn't there. The cat didn't wait for him though; she wouldn't know how to expect one man or another to be there at any time. As a cat, she wasn't going to wait. She ran on instinct and familiarity.
Once inside, she sat down and listened. She heard the noises and smelled the smells. The heavy scent of cologne on a man coming in from the hot blaze of the afternoon—the smell, green and musky to his nose—lingered in strands between the perpetual ashy acidity of the smoky interior. There was a fan though; and, it blew the paper on the tables around and moved air that beat up against briefcases, and cooled businessmen and women who, like the cat, found refuge in the bar with the open black door.
There was smoke in the atmosphere; it smudged the blues and the blacks that hung high above the cat's head. Innocence had left her a long time ago. She wasn't afraid of their feet tapping against the stools and table legs. Whether or not she was feral, though, was a mystery at which no one guessed; the girl was just there, moving among them in her quiet digitigrade.
She wasn't afraid of a kick; she'd gone through that before.
There were a few seats in there, but it didn't take the cat long to figure out where she wanted to sit—no one messed with her there on that blazing hot, therefore lazy afternoon. The businessmen sat on their stools allowing the fans to dry them. Like a painting of red-on-black-on-black in the dark, the cat was still; with emerald eyes, she watched the folk who knew she was there. They all left her to blend into the background as a silent figure.
Her figure was lean and smooth—fur drawn taught over spare bones. She didn't turn her head or flick her eyes closed. She squinted though, taking in the air from the blowing fans. They hummed at her, lulling her into meditation.
Her tail played, swayed back and forth almost detached from her body; it moved in contrast to the stillness of the rest of her.
"My little one," she heard, then turned her head at the sound. The cat was panting. It was a woman who sat in the corner talking to the ice as it crackled and waxed in her glass. A tear fell down the woman's cheek as the cat looked away. The woman repeated herself in a croak; she rocked and rocked herself.
"Shouldn't no one be alone in this bar," a man said flashing his white teeth as he smiled. His head turned around seeking points in the room, in the air, as if he were searching for someone. Smoke lay around forming patterns of patchwork around the sitting patrons.
The bartender slammed the glass down as another sloshed some ice into a bucket. It clattered. "You got change for a fifty?" One man spoke as the bartender came and took the cash up in his fist.
"Yeah," said the bartender.
A woman came in and rested her hand on the bartender saying, "Now, you wait a minute."
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"You ain't even had a piece of my prayer cake," she said moving behind the bartender. "I made it fresh just for you."
"Well, then I'll take a slice," the man didn't argue.
This woman was Aunt Jolene or Aunt Jo to those closest. She called it "prayer" cake because she sat down one day, looked up to God above her, and asked for the best thing she could serve her mostly drunk patrons, but also looking for something to satisfy their angriest hunger. What she got was some delicious cake; it was an affirmation of the rules she had known since reading her Mama's bible years ago. She owed her freedom to her faith, and no man or nothing could take that knowledge away.
She smiled at the man in front of her; she sold him a slice. "What's that called 'prayer cake' for?" he asked.
"Because you're gonna be prayin' for another piece in a minute," she said with her hands on her hips. This remark caused a commotion of laughter to all but the cat.
The cat still sat silently way in the back, almost in the shadows. The door remained open warning of the orange heat outside.
"Whew," said Aunt Jo. "I feel hot. It's worse in here than it is out there." She took out a towel, clean and white, to run across her neck, clavicle, and down the crevice of her breasts. She looked at the towel to see what it had pulled off of her. "And, that damn cat over there knows it's hot out there, too," she said. The man looked behind him, but saw nothing; it was too dark.
He turned back to Aunt Jo disinterested in what he couldn't see and said nothing further about the cat. Instead, he said, "Well, it is hot outside. Mighty hot." He took more interest in the drenched silhouette of Aunt Jo's figure under a black dress.
"Now, don't tell your wife that," she said. "I don't need Ms. May coming out here to see me," she said throwing the towel down to more riotous laughter. Her patron looked down in embarrassment.
She looked back behind her patron and saw the cat again. This time, she looked into its eyes; she could see them glowing—into her, it seemed.
Then, she yelled, "Dolyn Evergreen Simmons!" seemingly at the cat. It was not the cat to whom she spoke, though. It was the appearance of her six-year-old niece that startled her, causing her to shout. The little girl frowned because all of the commotion thrown into that area put off the cat, making it run into the shadows where she could not see it.
"Aunt Jo, aww. You scared her. Can I have her?"
"Yeah, if you can catch it."
"Jolene, I thought you hated cats," the patron said chuckling, reawakened.
"I said she could have it if she catches it."
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"I am going to lose my mind," Aunt Jo said behind the slippery metal of the steering wheel. She held onto it, gripping its coolness, its hardness—Jo sank into it; she was, in a way, hiding behind it. Gritting her teeth as her hands became fists, the woman glared. Digging the ball of her foot down upon the gas, she roared and sped away. In that black Cadillac she could go fast, but not fast enough—not fast enough to impart fear; she could not be loud enough, or move quickly enough to kill.
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Dolyn held her new cat tightly in her lap. She held it by the legs as it wouldn't sit down. That position was uncomfortable for both, so she pressed her down until she sat. The car rocked back and forth along the bumpy road, yet the cat was surprisingly obliging. Dolyn took it to mean that the cat, now Azure, liked her.
When Dolyn pulled the cat out of the booth, even she was surprised; Azure didn't make a sound or put up a fight. The cat was a kitten, turned out. She purred as if she had been cared for by a human or two before.
She wore no tag and had no name. "Pretty, pretty baby kitten," Dolyn crooned. The kitten wiggled its ear as Dolyn tickled it with her breath as she whispered.
"Look at my two babies," Aunt Jo said as she watched Dolyn play with her new pet through the rearview window. Picking Azure up under the arms, the child stared into the yellow flecks swirling within a galaxy of green. She cradled and rocked her kitten like a baby. Azure bared a belly of white as she lay still, restful and playing the part. Dolyn laughed only now noticing that the cat was black and white. "I didn't know you had two colors!" Azure's head bobbed up and down as if in agreement.
Aunt Jo pulled the car up in a dusty whirl drawing up the ground below. With the thought still in her mind, she said, "Good thing I had that cat checked for fleas," under her breath. "All right now, child. Let's get in that house," she said louder. With a flick, she shut off the car in the joy of returning home.
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They pulled up to Aunt Jo's Victorian townhouse. It was proud and stout as it stood two stories high. It was a classic born into the world as the epitome of grace. To get there, they trailed up a long, winding dirt road kicking up debris and scattering clouds of it in a halo produced by unabated speed. Aunt Jo drove fast; and, Dolyn held tightly to her new playmate. "It's okay. I'll keep you safe," she said to Azure as they bumped and bounced along up the hill.
Chickens trailed out loose around the front of the house. Upon seeing them, Aunt Jo let out, "Aww shit! How'd they get out again?" Nothing surrounded the row of houses, it seemed, but a circle of golden dust. A few patches of grass speckled the area here and there; and, there were a few trees planted by the city planner. There wasn't much to the town. Aunt Jo brought commotion with her and her little chickens when she made a home there. They were hers to bring up. In a way, she was readying herself for the imminent arrival of her niece who finally made her way there when she was old enough to be able to survive alone with her sometimes absent auntie. In truth, except for all of her need for companionship and love of company, Aunt Jo loved to be alone. Small things and children had a special place in her heart, though; they needed her. She could cuddle them—if not physically, then by using baby talk and giving them what she could.
And then, there was Baxter. Baxter, the bulldog, was her first real pride and joy. He waited for them at the base of the house outside. She had him in a cage, for no gate or door could hold him safely inside.
She couldn't keep him in the house is what she'd tell people. He was the reason there were no flowers or greenery other than the grass and trees, she'd complain. Whenever she planted something—daisies, bluebells, roses even, "Lord, let me even have the nerve to want a rose!" She'd holler. Baxter the bulldog would sniff them out and bite their heads off. He'd bore his face down into them, turning his head sideways if he had to, and pop them off and swallow them, snuffing and huffing.
The heat weighed down on him, making him pant. "Don't be mad at me," Aunt Jo said as she and Dolyn passed him. His little, bloodshot eyes rolled around and drunkenly took in Azure who Dolyn kept safely tucked within her arms.
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At night, Aunt Jo entertained folk to tumults of laughter. All the men that would usually be at the bar trekked over to Jolene's for some hot toddies as Jo described, "First, you take your brandy, or rum, or whatever, then you take your tea...," she told them.
Smoke smudged her face, blurring the edges and intertwining between the curls of her lashes. The smell of it warmed her on the inside; she was like a baby laying down after a drink of her mother's body-warm milk; but, her skin was cool like the breezy night outside. Visitors came in and out of the house causing commotion. Aunt Jo kept her front door wide open, as she did at the bar. Their cars took up the space of the driveway, overturning the darkness and filling it up with noise.
"I ain't got nothing for you, go on there...," she directed a gentleman who came up to her. She didn't like the look of his gaping mouth, his tongue hanging out in drunkenness. She slapped him with the feather she was carrying, cussing at the thin strands that flew as she broke them loose. "You know where I got this Hank? Theodore, you know where I got this?" She called after them as they bobbed and folded into the crowd. "I got this from Louisiana when my daddy lived down there," looking down at the peacock feather, she lost herself.
A far-off yelp pulled her back. "Oh, no! Don't y'all messes fool with Baxter!" She was out there in a flash. Someone had almost run him over in his crate. Jolene placed him in a spot hidden in the shadows. "Aww, Baxter! I won't let them hurt you!" She emitted dramatically, "Y'all, this is my baby!"
Upstairs, Dolyn held Azure and listened. The girl stayed away from the smoke that clotted in the entryway and rooms downstairs. She saw the visitors enter and exit, but she didn't dare find her aunt.
By the night's end, Aunt Jo was beyond reach. The intermingling cords of smoke moving to its familiar rhythm mesmerized her. Her eyes were hard; they were large and glimmering, a honey-tinged lacquer. Moonlight filled the windows, cutting through the room like a silent guest. It lit the corners, softening them and setting the mood. It was a velvety mood. Aunt Jo ran her fingers across it, drinking it heavily, allowing it to calm her.
"Did you ever love a dog?" She spoke to herself and anyone who could hear. "I loved one—the bastard. I saw him today. I almost run him down, but I didn't. That would have been cheap." She wiped her face.
"Once, I told him he had my daddy's eyes. Maybe, that's why he did what he done to me. And, I let him get away with it."
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The latch was left open through the night on Baxter's cage. He wasn't locked in, but he didn't take advantage of that. The bulldog sat there, perched on his bed of cloth as if he didn't realize the world outside was on offer for him to take.
During the day, he watched Aunt Jo walk past as she fussily clambered after her chickens, wrangling them up. Usually, he'd be after those chickens, but he didn't take up that offer, either. He watched and waited—mouth fixed in its downturned position.
Then, he saw them. He smelled them as Jo drove them up the road. They were bound in a cage like his. Their cottony fluff balled and passed through the metal bars, flying out the window of the 1959 black Cadillac and into the air, lighter than balloons. Baxter sniffed them out, lifting his head.
At the honk of the horn, Dolyn and Azure were out of the car door. The girl let out, "Oh, oh, oh," as she trailed beside the car's open windows, peeking inside at the baby chickens Aunt Jo brought home.
In the cage, they tumbled and crawled over top of each other. Dolyn knelt in the dirt to lift one close to her face as she did Azure. "Yes, they eat worms and caterpillars and grass," she explained to the uninterested cat. Azure just sat beside the girl, closing her eyes under the afternoon sun.
"Yeah, I got her those chicks," Aunt Jo said to her neighbor. “Maybe, won’t eat these ones.” Jo stared at Dolyn from a distance as she spoke hoping the little girl would hear.
It could've been the sound of her voice that triggered Baxter to escape, or maybe he was waiting for the right moment. Whatever it was, he took off and out of the cage unseen. He rushed towards the chicks but veered off unto Azure as she lay quiet.
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"He just bit that cat's head clean off," the neighbor said taking off his cap, "Just came up and bid it clean off!"
It wasn't until she heard the latch of the cuff clinch against Baxter's neck that she started to scream, "No! Don't, take him!" Aunt Jo wailed and threw herself down to the ground as if she were giving herself up in his stead. "You can't take his life! Please! He don't understand!" She held onto the animal control officer's leg, and he dragged her.
Jolene sat there until nightfall looking after the spot where they took Baxter. Dolyn watched her. She stood alone in the door, except for the little chick she chose earlier that afternoon. By then, she was used to the smell of smoke in the house behind her.
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