‘What makes you say that?’
‘There’s this other cat she watches, out the window. She watches her all the time. She loves her, I can just tell. My mother would be very upset if she knew I had a homosexual cat. She had very strong feelings about it.’ The scent of vinegar fills the air for a moment and I think I might throw up. I didn’t mean to say any of that.
‘Do you think your cat—?’
‘I can’t talk about that any more,’ I say.
‘Well—’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, no, no, no, NO.’
‘All right,’ he says. ‘How is your daughter?’
I wince. I mentioned Lauren once in passing, by accident. It was a big mistake because he has never let it go since. ‘She’s been spending a lot of time at school,’ I say. ‘I haven’t seen her too much.’
‘You know, Ted, this session is for you. It’s private. You can say anything here. Some people feel it’s the only place they can really express themselves. In our daily lives can be difficult to say what we think or feel to those closest to us. That is a very isolating experience. It can be lonely, keeping secrets. That’s why it’s important to have somewhere safe, like this. You can say anything to me.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘There are parts of my life I’d like to share with someone, one day. Not you, but someone.’
He raises his eyebrows.
‘I was watching monster trucks on TV last night, and I was thinking,Monster trucks are great. They’re big and loud and fun. It would be so great if I could meet someone who has a love of big trucks, one day.’
‘That’s a good goal.’ His eyes are glazing over. They look like two blue marbles.
For weeks I store up my most boring thoughts to tell the bug man. It’s hard work sometimes, thinking of enough things to fill an hour. But that last one just came to me spontaneously.
‘In my book,’ he says, ‘I talk about how dissociation can actuallyprotectus …’
It’s safe to tune out now, so I do. The bug man likes to talk about his book. It’s not published or anything. I don’t think it’s even finished. He has been writing it since I’ve known him. We all have something that we care about more than anything else, I guess. For me it’s Lauren and Olivia. For the bug man it’s his never-ending book.
At the end of the hour he hands me a brown paper bag, just like a lunch bag a kid takes to school. I know there are four boxes of pills in there and it makes me feel a lot better.
What I’m doing with the bug man is pretty smart, I have to say. I got the idea some time ago, not long after Little Girl With Popsicle.
Lauren had been running a low-grade fever for some days. I wanted to get her antibiotics but I didn’t know how. A doctor would never understand our situation. I hoped maybe she would get better on her own, but days went by and she didn’t. In fact she got worse. I looked on the internet and I found a free clinic on the far side of town.
‘How do you feel?’ I asked Lauren. ‘Tell me exactly.’
‘I’m hot,’ she said. ‘There are bugs crawling on my skin. I can’t think. All I want to do is sleep. Even talking to you makes me tired.’ There was a little rasp in her voice. I listened very carefully to everything she said. I wrote it down and put the paper in my pocket.
After dark I walked into the city to the free clinic.
It took them a couple hours to see me but I didn’t mind. The waiting room was bare and smelled somewhat like urine. But it was quiet. I settled in for some time with my thoughts. As I have said, I do some of my best thinking in waiting rooms.
When the angry lady called my name I took the note out of my pocket. I read it three times. I hoped I could remember it all. Then I went to a cubicle with a tired doctor in it. He asked me about my symptoms. I put a little rasp into my voice and spoke slowly. ‘I’m hot,’ I said. ‘There are bugs crawling on my skin. I can’t think. All I want to do is sleep. Even talking to you makes me tired.’ I repeated what Lauren had said. I was word perfect. And it worked! He prescribed me antibiotics and bed rest. I went to the little pharmacy next door and filled the prescription. I was so relieved I almost danced in the aisles. I kept my head up as I walked back – I let myself watch the world around me. I saw a pretty neon sign with a flower on it, a stall selling fruit shaped like stars. I saw a woman with a tiny black dog in a big red handbag. I kept a tight hold of the paper bag with the antibiotics in it.
When I reached my street I was very tired. I had walked ten miles or more, to the clinic and back. I gave Lauren the antibiotics by hiding them in her food. She got better quickly after that. My plan worked!
When things with Lauren got bad I knew I had to get some answers. Not about her body but her mind. So that’s how I got the idea to go to the bug man and pretend to talk about myself, while really asking him questions about Lauren. It’s just like when I got the antibiotics except this time the medicine is information.
I come back. I am on my street. The house in front of me is yellow with green trim. I am in front of the Chihuahua lady’s house again,and that same feeling is in me too, like I almost know something. It’s like ants in my brain, marching with their little feet.
I see that there is something stapled to the telephone pole. I go to look, because it is usually a missing cat. Cats can seem very capable and independent, but they do need our help.
It is not a cat this time. One face is repeated in blurred photocopy into the distance, pole after pole. It takes me a moment before I am sure. She looks much younger, sure, and there’s no dog with her, but it’s the Chihuahua lady. In the picture she is leaning against a wall in a sunny place, smiling. She looks happy.
The last time there were flyers on the telephone poles it was Little Girl With Popsicle.
