Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

“Which is why, having been through several cord-slashings myself…my mom, the family, the church. the city of my birth, etcetera, I wish him well.”

“That is so very noble of you. I see why you are such a star at advice-giving.”

“In that mode, I am sure my father would have stood by my mother if he had known, because his family-approved wife has proven to be selfish and shallow.”

“Really?”

“He does not love her, but he will never leave or divorce her, as a Catholic man, and for the sake of their children.”

Miss Temple shakes her head. “He must see Mira often, with his brother at family events. It must be so painful.”

“Yeah, but not unprecedented,” Mr. Matt says. “There was a case in Chicago of two judges when I was on The Amanda Show. One married the other’s divorced wife and, to retaliate, the other brother married his brother’s longtime paralegal assistant.”

“How weird.”

“That is what people are. So no, on the gnawing pain factor,” Matt said. “My genetic father is a realist. Love at first sight is a miracle, maybe, but real adults have to make compromises. My mother marrying my father’s widowed brother, starting over, the two of them, at their age, has made her stronger than she has ever been. She knows the truth, and the truth is that you cannot go back thirty-some years to rewrite the present. And neither I, nor my ‘real’ father, would want to sacrifice seeing Mira strong and happy. And that is why I have come to peace with him and cherish him so much.”

My Miss Temple swallows, and sniffles. “At least we have a happy ending, coming right up,” she says.

I may have to relieve myself of a hairball right here on the zebra-print coverlet and gaze with loathing on the similarly patterned carrier against the bedroom wall. You are next, you foul portable prison, and all your ilk!

I freeze as my Miss Temple’s fond glance falls upon me. “Louie has been flicking his ears back and forth all this time, and now he is hiccupping. Maybe that monthly omni-vermin application I use is not working.”

Yes, there is always an app for that these days!

Mr. Matt shakes the sheets. “Maybe a vet should check him out before the wedding. We do not want our Ring Bearer to have a case of fleas.”

I am so insulted I could spit, but then they would think I had rabies.

Whatever my human associates have decided to do about the fact that Mr. Matt has had three fathers of various stripes, I very well might have had brothers of different fathers. I sympathize with Mr. Matt’s true father’s lonely, isolated position. Among my kind, nature has decreed kitty litters commonly have multiple fathers. Yet I too have been tripped up in my past by secret patrimony.

I actually look around now to see if Midnight Louise has chosen to attend, although she was offered no position of importance, as I have been, like Ring Bearer. I suppose she could have been chosen Flower Girl, but I believe she would have sniffed at being offered such a childish role, not to mention the humiliation of wearing a collar and having some odiferous posy affixed to it. Me, my performing career has required costume bits, and I can adapt without having an existential personality breakdown.

Meanwhile, the show must go on. As the organ plays and Miss Carmen sings the processional song, various major players shuffle down the red-carpeted aisle, their order announced by Danny Dove from the church’s rear. I am not required to perform until last, and my cue will be when I am released from the carrier. I see the flash of various Fontana brother legs as they escort various ladies forward, Mother of the Bride and Matron of Honor and Flower Girl, as Best Man and Father of the Bride and Bride come in their ordained order. Ho-hum.

It seems I have nodded off during these deadly dull ceremonial preparations, and am awakened by a most rude method.

I find myself swung out and up, my stomach mimicking the motion to an alarming degree. I burp up a bit of forbidden Fancy Feast.

“Ciao, Louie,” a Fontana brother whispers into my suddenly liberated ear as the sweet sound of zippers parting ways on my carrier sends a shiver up my spine akin to claws on a back fence.

“Time to do your cameo soon, dude.” Julio’s nimble fingers affix a small white box to my white bow collar. Phfft. All that high-carat white gold is as light as an empty Temptations treat bag to my panther-like muscular neck and shoulders. Then…betrayed by a Brother. I am zipped into my prison again. At least I now have a better view.

First I sit there and scratch my neck.

That sissy white tie carries enough starch to float a barge.

I look around. Next up to the choir loft. Hmm . More activity than I expected. But I am ready, willing and absolutely able.

I look toward the altar to eye my future position between Best Man and Bridegroom, waiting to be relieved of the box affixed to my neck so the wedded couple can swear to be cuddlesome and clueless for eternity.

Pardon me. My view of married life.

But, lo, what light through yonder church front door breaks? It is the setting sun…and major felony is its name.

My claws seize in and out, sharpening themselves in vain on the tough nylon lining of my so-called “carrier”. Peering through the black mesh sides, I am as handicapped as a film noir dame in a mourning veil.

I hear heavy boots rushing forward, grinding on the terra cotta tiles.

Silhouetted against the twilight, a crew of seven armed men advance with machine pistols, probably Uzis, one after another racking the slide on their firearms with ominous echoing metallic clicks.

I sit caged and ignored by the front pew, watching the wedding crashers advance on the royal red wedding aisle carpet chosen to accentuate my Miss Temple’s pure-white five-foot-long-as-she-is tall wedding gown train.

“Do not move,” the intruders bellow.

My Miss Temple certainly cannot move. That train makes for one mummifying cocoon, as she attempts to turn from the altar toward the thugs. The entire wedding party—all in white, some lurid pastels, and manly formal dude gray—freeze in their positions at the top of the altar steps.

My Miss Temple in her flowing white wedding finery resembles the famous “white marble” living statues at the Venetian hotel, models who move so subtly it is almost impossible to catch them in motion.

That waterfall of tulle veiling her from face to waist is doing my Miss Temple no favors in a crisis. If only, I think, the wedding party girls were bearing Beretta bouquets— Viva Italia !—and the boys were wearing ice pick boutonnières.

The invaders advance nearer, their weapons’ black muzzles sweeping the pews right and left. I can only see vague outlines of the pew people against the lurid stained glass light, but they seem dumbstruck and obedient as well.

And who would not be dumbstruck by these bizarre wedding crashers. To conceal their faces, they are wearing white balaclavas!

Pause action .

Just what is a balaclava? It can be confusing, I agree. Is this foreign word the name of a Russian stringed instrument? Or is that word a balalaika? Or the name of a flaky Greek pastry? But I may be thinking of baklava . Normally, my kind does not eat sweets, but the Greeks, since even before the Trojan horse incident, were considered subtle and sneaky, and there is a lot of rich whipped cream cheese concealed between those flaky layers. Cheese is a protein, you know, suitable for carnivores. Ahem.