Chapter 6
Favorite Pussy
Samuel Foster
Ipunch in the pin on the keypad at the front door, and the unit flashes and clicks. The door swings open silently and I step over the threshold then pause. All is quiet within the vast expanse of my home and I listen for some sign of life.
“Hey, baby! I’m home,” I call out into the silence, kicking the door shut behind me. As I move, a wave of floral fragrance whirls around me.Shannin.I’m going to need a shower. The scent is cloying. Unwanted.
“Hello?” I call again. “Where’s my favorite pussy hiding?” I drop my bag in the hall and head towards the sweeping curved staircase that leads upstairs to the bedrooms. I hear a light thud from above and I smile. As I reach the bottom of the stairs, I look up into wide green eyes and my heart swells.
“Hello, baby, I missed you,” I murmur and sweet little feet tiptoe down the stairs. A small, silky body winds itself around my legs and I’m answered with a chirping little meow. I chuckle.
“And ‘brrrmeowww’ to you too, my little Munchkin,” I say, leaning down to scoop up the gray and white cat at my feet. For a moment, I feel a pang. There was a time when he could leap into my arms with ease. Munchkin meows again, and softly bumps the top of his head under my chin, ragged purrs vibrating through his body. I run my hands over his soft fur and let him brush his cheek against mine. “Did you eat yet?” I ask playfully. Of course, he hasn’t. His feed dispenser is filled with kibble, but aside from the occasional nibble, I know he’s waiting for dinner with me.
Munchkin continues to purr and cuddle into the curve of my neck as I head towards the kitchen. I set him down on the counter, shrug out of my coat, and turn to the refrigerator.
“Salmon okay?” I ask. The cupboard is packed with tins of the specialized diet food he needs for his thyroid condition. The damn stuff costs more than my own grub, but that’s of no consequence to me. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him healthy. Munchkin makes a sound that I take as approval. “You’re right...who wouldn’t want salmon?” I’ve put a tin out on the kitchen table, along with a container of noodles and a cold beer for myself. I peel open the container and scoop a healthy helping of food into the little ceramic bowl that has ‘Munchkin’ and a little crown painted on the side. He skips across the table and tucks in eagerly. I slide onto one of the bar stools beside the counter and crack open my brew. Thirsty again. Guess I worked up a sweat. I really need that shower.
“Good show tonight, Munch,” I tell him, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Munchkin looks up at me from his bowl for a moment. His face may seem more silver now, but the eyes haven’t changed. Those same eyes that had been staring up at me from the back of a stinking culvert. He’d run in there to hide from me the day I found him all those years ago. The day I found Atticus.
Atticus.
The thought of him still hurts. I’d been young. So young. So alone. The kitten had seemed like another soul to share the world with. Food would have been smarter – I was always so hungry. But the loneliness was the worst. Not knowing who to trust.Never feeling safe.
I couldn’t have been more than nine when Ma left. Round the same age as the kid I saw today. The thought of Jimmy’s pinched little face makes my jaw clench.
“You’ll be fine, Sammy,” Ma had said, “You’ll see. You’re a smart kid. You’ll make a plan.” I’d watched as she’d applied another layer of lipstick, the red vivid against sallow skin that spoke of years of drug use. I never said anything – I learned early not to talk back. “Joe’s a good man,” she went on. “He’s good to me.” She glanced into the small, cracked mirror she kept in her purse. It was the same one I’d seen her divide her strange white powder on. She rubbed her lips together to blend the lipstick, then looked back at me. “It’s just...he’s not big on kids, see? I can’t expect him to take you in too.”
I’d remained silent. Joe despised me. The burly man had a heavy fist and wasn’t afraid to use it. The first beating happened only a week after she picked him up in a smoky little bar just off the Strip. At first I’d thought he was just another of Ma’s special ‘friends’; the ones who left cash on the dresser when they left. But he’d stuck around. In the beginning he’d ignored me, but then the baleful stares had been joined by muttered curses.
“Stinking half-breed,” he’d barked one day. I’d never met my father – he’d been one of Ma’s brief flings. When she fell pregnant, she’d been unsure who had sired me. But when I arrived, dark-eyed and dusky, she’d pinned it down to the guy she only ever referred to as ‘Billy the Injun’. I later figured that ‘Paiute’ would have been a more appropriate term. Either way, she’d never learned his real name and I wasn’t about to go up to every Native American I saw, asking if he was my dad.
In any event, Joe’s lack of parenting skills was exacerbated by his racism. The first slap to my head had knocked me clean off my feet. It was followed by more. Eventually I’d hide in the closet when he came round, which was increasingly often. When Ma told me she was moving in with him, the horror almost matched the fear I felt when she later said she wasn’t taking me with.
“I’ll take you to the precinct station; they’ll look after you there,” she’d said, zipping up the little backpack holding all my earthly possessions: a couple of changes of clothes; a spare pair of sneakers; a faded blanket I’d had since she’d brought me home from the hospital. There was an envelope containing all my personal documents too, although I didn’t know why at the time.
“I’m sorry, Sammy. I love you. They’ll take care of you.” She’d pressed a $10 bill into my palm and left me at the foot of the stairs staring after her as she’d climbed into the taxi and driven off. I’d glanced up at the police station for a moment, ducked past an officer, then bolted after her, running until my legs couldn’t go any further. It was a mistake, I’d thought. She never meant to leave me behind.How could she?
My world had come crashing down then. For days I wandered, lost...until I spotted Munchkin, the little cat who led me to Atticus. The broken man who saved me. Or maybe we saved each other. The three of us in our magical world.
A strident little meow yanks me from my reverie and I turn back to the counter to where Munchkin is tapping my hand with an insistent paw. His bowl is empty and evidently his belly still is too. I shake my head and grin.
“Coming back for more, eh?” I ask. I’m rewarded with a ‘rrroo-oww’ that tells me I should be moving faster. I scoop another serving of salmon into his bowl. He eats half of it, then sits back and starts grooming himself. “C’mon, buddy, I gotta get cleaned up. Then we can watchStuart Littleagain.”
I lift him against my chest and head upstairs.
