Читать книгу In a Cat’s Eye - Kevin Bergeron - Страница 5

The sun was bright that day and I couldn’t see anything at first. I waited on the sidewalk until my eyes got used to the light, facing the building with my back to the sun, looking through a big window that had tape on it. The room was empty except there was a table with a red squeeze bottle that was a chef with a pointy hat where catsup came out. He was always there grinning at you. It must have been a lunch place once.

After I got done looking at the chef I walked around town for a long time, but all I found was a blue jay feather. Then right away I found some jelly doughnuts in back of the bakery, and a dime and a nickel underneath the machines at the Laundromat.

I was walking along minding my own business and eating a jelly doughnut when some guy tried to jump me down by the river. It was some guy I’d seen around town and I thought he’d been following me. He said something when I walked by, asked me if I had a cigarette, and I didn’t like the way he said it. I figured he was planning to jump me. I went over to ask him what he was looking at and he gave me a dirty look so I went to smack him and he pushed me into the river and shook his fist and walked off. Now that I think about it, maybe he’d only wanted a cigarette. Still, a guy could grab your wrist when you’re handing him a cigarette, and there might be another guy in the bushes. I thought the guy might be going to jump me.

When I was done walking I went in the alley out back of The Morpheum to see if Mr. Winkley was out there, and he was sitting on top of the dumpster looking up the fire escape at Nancy’s window.

“I’m waiting for her too,” I said. I don’t usually talk to cats, though. “I’m going to fix her door.”

He stood up and began turning around in circles on top of the dumpster and meowing.

“I just got jumped,” I said.

He went into the dumpster and started hopping around on top of the trash. Then he stopped and stared at the trash that was in there.

“I smacked the guy,” I said.

We all figured that Mr Winkley had probably lost his eye in a fight. Before Nancy had him fixed he got into fights all the time, but he lost most of them. You kind of hate to do that to them, but you can’t live with them any other way, and they fight and get in trouble all the time. After his operation he didn’t fight as much.

It must have been a mouse in the dumpster. Mr Winkley stood still and waited. He probably figured that the mouse would forget he was there, and come back out.

He waited for a while but the mouse didn’t come back, and he hopped back out, sat down again on top of the dumpster, and started butting the side of his head against my hand and purring.

“If I had just kept on walking, then maybe he wouldn’t have jumped me,” I said.

Mr Winkley was washing his face and then he stopped and looked up at the window. He jumped from the dumpster onto the fire escape, ran up and went through the hole in the screen. Nancy was home.

I headed back. Stanley was standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. Every time you’d see him he’d either be leaning against a wall or walking on the sidewalk with his head down like he was looking for pennies. He always had a mean look on his face and he never talked to anybody. He was in his forties and still washed dishes. I thought, That guy is a loser, and always trying to start something. As soon as he saw me he snapped his head away because he’d never look at you. I didn’t like any guy looking at me, but a guy that never looks at you and never says anything, you never know what that guy’s thinking or when he might sneak up on you.