Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

Temple winced. She didn't want to hear what boys could do to cats--and kittens--because she'd always suspected it.

"A couple of them died." Miss Tyler said, her gnarled hands strangling the cane where it curved around to the head. "But four lived. After a while, the girls would come with their rescued strays. 'Please keep it, Miss Tyler, or with whole litters. 'They will go to the pound, Miss Tyler.' 'My brother is giving them marijuana, Miss Tyler.' 'She was hit by a car on the Big Street, Miss Tyler."

Temple looked around in awe. "All these cats were foundlings? Just by opening your door, you got so many?"

Miss Tyler nodded. "I was lucky. There were no relatives on my father's side, so I inherited this house and some substance. I could afford to take mangled cats to the vet. I could afford to have them neutered. I could afford to feed them. Motel cats that live on room-service trays; half-wild cats dumped in the desert scrub, Abused cats with cigarette bums on their bodies, with cut-off tails and ears and put-out eyes."

Temple winced again. She didn't think she could stand to hear what this old woman knew about boys' inhumanity to cats. Man's inhumanity to man, woman and child was bad enough.

"I took in a stray," she said, as if to prove she was doing her part. "He's a big bruiser-----over nineteen pounds. I can't keep him in, though. Sometimes I worry . . ."

"You should. Eat your cookie."

Both comments were stem. Both were to be obeyed. Temple nibbled on the cookie and her conscience. "I guess l should have him fixed."

"You should keep him in," Miss Tyler exhorted. "It is not safe out there." Her voice lowered to a crackling hiss of warning, "Particularly in this neighborhood, particularly around this house."

"Miss Tyler, you don't mean to say that someone could have it in for you because you rescued these cats?"

The old woman shrugged, letting her age-shrunken eves disappear into the sagging pouches of her skin. "I'm old. I live alone. I don't approve of how they like to entertain themselves. They resent me, and my cats. Sometimes someone calls and threatens to inform Public Health. Other times, someone just calls."

"Threatening phone calls?" Temple perked up. "You can report that."

"They can report me for too many cats. It all comes to nothing. The police won't believe either of us, they don't want to mess with a crazy old woman and her cats."

"But you don't have to just wait here like a sitting duck!"

She smiled and caressed her cane. "Too bad cats are not good watch dogs, hmm? But I couldn't bring a noisy, enthusiastic dog into their refuge. They prefer quiet and the company of their kind."

Temple looked around. Were so many cats kept so close happy together? They didn't look unhappy. And they were safe, as they certainly had not been just beyond these sturdy old doors. She could no longer smell the strong animal presence; it had become natural. This was their safe house, and they had a right to leave their scents upon it.

"That's a wonderful cane," she told the old woman.

Miss Tyler held it out into the cool, bright light. "Mexican made," she said proudly, "By an old wood-carver near Cuernavaca. I used to get around before I got so old, before I had all these cats. My last trip, he carved it for me, for luck."

Temple studied the strongly colored figures carved into the cane: parrots and donkeys, wagons and cacti, sombreros and coyotes. No cats. "The colors are hand-painted?"

"All hand-carved, hand-painted, No one does handwork like this anymore. If time must handicap me, if I must limp and lean, at least I will have a magical cane."

"And cats." Temple looked around again, smiled and finished the last of her ginger cookie. "You will have magical cats."

"Oh, don't let Father Hernandez hear you say that. He's down on my cats as it is. He is a serious man. He has no time for magic."

"Father Hernandez? Oh--from the church down the street. Does he object to having so many cats neat the church property?"

Miss Tyler snorted. "How could he? Do I object to the kids playing and yelling at recess day in and day out?" She pounded the cane tip on the floor for emphasis. "No. we have had a parting of the ways on theological grounds, Father Hernandez and myself."

"Theological grounds? You mean matters of dogma or conscience?"

"No, I mean matters of cats."

Temple looked down. Perhaps in theological circles, cats had become a subject of grave debate, such as how many cats could pirouette on the head of a pin.

Miss Tyler looked down--and around---to her sprawling, meowing pride of pussycats. "Father Hernandez," she said in dire tones, "will not concede that my cats will be waiting for me in heaven, and vice versa."

"Oh. Isn't that the standard position in most religions?"

"I don't know about most religions. I am a faithful Roman Catholic, always have been. My house has stood here longer than the church. Until now," she added grimly, "l planned to leave most of my estate to Our Lady of Guadalupe, with a bequest for the care of the cats, but since Father Hernandez has revealed his foolishness on the issue of pets in heaven, I changed my will. Everything goes to the cats now. If they can't be guaranteed passage through the pearly gates, I'll see that my house remains a paradise on earth for them."

"I'm sure Father Hernandez feels he must adhere to the letter of the law. Maybe adults tell children that their dead pets will go to heaven, but I don't think even kids believe it nowadays, any more than they believe in the Tooth Fairy."

"I don't care what kids believe in." The cane rapped the floor again. "All the animals were in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. Why would God separate us from the very creatures He created with us--in heaven, where He can have everything just the way He wants it? If a sparrow cannot fall without His notice, how can He let so many cats suffer without any hope of an afterlife? Besides, there is no one I'd want to see in heaven, except these."

She surveyed her collection with approval.

Temple wasn't getting embroiled in a debate on cat heaven. She discreetly checked her watch. "My gosh, it's late, I've got to go!" jumping up was a bad idea.

Something underfoot squalled in protest. Obviously, the cats in this house weren't used to sudden movement, just then the phone rang. Miss Tyler sighed and began to push away from her stool.

"I'll get it," Temple offered with Girl Scout quickness.

But where was it? Follow the trail of the telephone trill. Miss Tyler was making sputterings of protest behind her, but they slacked off.

Temple found a supple phone cord emerging from behind the refrigerator, and traced it for the space of two more rings through tendrils of hanging ivy to the actual instrument's lair: atop the refrigerator. She grabbed the receiver and pulled it down to her ear.

"Hello," she answered a bit breathlessly, realizing she should have prefaced that with "Tyler residence" in case some elderly phone mate of Blandina's was puzzled by a new voice.

Apparently she sounded enough like Miss Tyler on that one hasty word to reassure the caller.

"S-s-s-sorry," he, she, it, whispered, the esses sharp and sibilant. "You'll be s-s-s-sorry."

Temple tore the phone from her ear as if scorched. She had just heard Peggy's famous Hissing Caller; only, Peggy hadn't said anything about outright threats.

Temple brought the receiver close and listened again.

Nothing to be heard now but the sinister ssssss on the open line, Either Miss Tyler was getting calls from an asthmatic masher or a defective radiator, both of them elderly.

"Hello?" Temple repeated in a high, breaking voice, making herself into a querulous old woman who didn't hear too well. Playing that sweet, elderly poisoner in the high-school class play, "Arsenic and Old Lace," hadn't hurt.