Читать книгу Darwin Alone in the Universe - M.A.C. Farrant - Страница 10

THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU

THE CAT’S MADE A DECISION. He doesn’t want his breakfast now. He got tired of waiting in front of his bowl. He sat in front of his empty bowl for forty-five minutes trusting that his breakfast would arrive. Demonstrating for us the famous “patience of a cat” behavior, staring calmly at his empty bowl. He didn’t lie down and wait. He sat. He might have even sighed. While you ignored him. Fussing about the kitchen cleaning up last night’s dishes. The cat watching you, waiting and trusting. Then he got mad. After forty-five minutes of waiting he got mad and went out the window.

Don’t bother calling him now. He’s gone off hungry again. Don’t be surprised if he finds another home. Someplace where meals occur on time.

It’s not my job to feed the cat, it’s yours. This was our agreement. We have it in writing from Salvador & Davis, Notary Public. You do the cat, I do the garbage. You signed the document. You affixed your curlicue signature to the document, beside my neat MacLean’s script. Judith M. Davis witnessed our signatures. It’s all down on paper. You agreed to feed the cat, even going so far as mentioning your love of cats, your relief at being spared the garbage duties. Judith M. Davis smiled when you said this. Herself a lover of cats, she told us, a hater of garbage. “ Aren’t we all,” I said, and then we left for the pet store where we purchased the cat.

Save your breath. Don’t bother hanging out the window calling the cat. He’s not coming back. He’s catching another hummingbird. He’s caught four this week, leaving their chewed heads on the front porch mat. All because. Well, what did you expect? The cat’s telling us something by leaving these iridescent green hummingbird heads. This is not a case of wanton slaughter. End of story.

“Technically,” you said, “the heads are garbage.”

“Technically,” I said, “you’re right—but under the circumstances.”

“Your department,” you said.

And four times this week you walked away from the tiny heads. Our agreement didn’t mention the cross-contamination of duties. An oversight. I realize that now.

I buried the hummingbird heads in the garden. Alongside the remains of the rabbits, snakes, mice and finches that the cat’s resorted to killing because his breakfast hasn’t arrived on time.

Ed English came over pushing his walker while I was burying yesterday’s hummingbird. He planted the walker alongside the graves and stared at the earth while I was burying number four. Ed English is present at most of the burials. Yesterday, he shook his head as he always does and said what he always says, namely, “I’ll be next.” An ominous, hopeless tone to his voice. The red-rimmed eyes of Ed English staring at the gravesite. He seems to think that tending the backyard graves is my job in life, that I’m a gravedigger by choice. Ed English forgets what the rows of grave markers indicate. Besides the birds, mice, snakes and hummingbirds, Ed English thinks I’m ridding the neighborhood of Old Age Pensioners. An idea, incidentally, whose time may have come.

Because Ed English is becoming noisome. It was the same with the plants, if you recall. They, too, had become noisome.

Because each Fall you rip the year-old geraniums out of their hanging baskets, declaring, “They look like shit,” and throw them on the compost. (There’s a cluster of survivor geraniums planted by the back fence. Thanks to me.)

“Noisome” equals your views about children.

“They fracture the peaceful air with their whining, bawling and screaming,” was how you put it. And slept in the spare bed for a year.

“Fair enough,” I finally said. And had my penis seen to.

Twenty-seven years ago.

For which you were grateful. Admit it. You were grateful. The things I do for you.

Ed English was over Wednesday night while you were at the Centre playing Bridge. Watching me at the kitchen table while I made the grave markers, the balsam crucifixes. While I soldered on the species type and date of kill.

“I thought there’d be more to it, making grave markers, digging graves,” Ed English said. “It’s beginning to look like dying is no big deal.”

Here Kitty, Kitty.

The cat returning in hope of an evening meal. Being fed by me. Then settling himself in the middle of the finished crucifixes.