Cat Stories

The Fourth Magi

Stacy Mantle 15 years ago

“Yams! Hate ’em. Asparagus spears – who in the hell, other than liberals, eats asparagus?! Croutons? What’s that – some Frenchie word for stale bread?” Elmer continued rummaging to the bottom of the box where he found a smashed pumpkin pie and wondered what “mental midget” had packed the damn box. Ugly climbed into the unpacked, empty box and peered at Elmer over the edge. Elmer opened another beer and sat down hard on the kitchen chair after first checking from force of new habit to see if there was a cat on it.

He took a long gulp of beer and stared at the cat in the box. He looked intently at the Christmas wrapping paper of the box, with a scene of the Three Wise Men on camels following the Star of Bethlehem. It reminded him of her, of Christmases past, of how much she loved the holidays, the cookies she baked, and her staying up into the wee hours of the morning, knitting presents for him and the boy. He remembered the look on the boy’s face on Christmas mornings. He rubbed his eyes hard with his hand. Ugly hung one paw over the edge of the box.

Elmer removed his hand from his face and looked fiercely at the cat.

“Don’t think I’m letting you stay ’cause I need you…because I don’t! I don’t need nobody, especially an ugly cat. I do just fine by myself. You hear me?”

Then he recalled his visit to the room.

“I had a boy once,” Elmer addressed the cat in the box. “His name was John. He was a good kid…quiet. We didn’t get along that well. We was just too different. He took after his mother…kind and sensitive. He used to go out and sit in the woods for hours by himself. He loved animals. He always wanted a cat or a dog and I wouldn’t let him. I could barely keep food on the table and a roof over our heads as it was. His mother would’ve given him the world if she could of. He was her life. He went off to war and came back in a box. He should never have joined up in the first place – think he did it to spite me, or get away from me. Should have gone to college and made something of himself…not like me. He won awards for schoolwork. He was bright – like his mother. She never got over it. Broke her heart. After he died, she went to her sister’s and never came back. Couldn’t live with me no more. Can’t say I blame her. I wasn’t easy to live with. She’s gone now, too.

“I miss ’em…you damn ugly cat! I miss ’em so bad it hurts. But you can’t bring them back after they’re gone and you can’t take back the things you said, or did…or make up for the things you didn’t do, or even tell them you’re sorry! You just have to go on and hope they forgave you, and hope that maybe you’ll see them again after you die so you can tell them you loved them.”

And then Elmer began to cry. He began to sob so hard that the canned goods on the table jiggled, and the beer in the bottle began to slosh, and the cat jumped out of the box. Elmer’s shoulders heaved with the sobs and his thin chest pounded against the table’s edge, and the cobwebs and dust in his soul began to shake loose, and the iron latches of his heart began to strain and rattle free. When the flood was spent, Elmer angrily wiped the flannel sleeve of his shirt across his tear-stained face and he stared at the frozen turkey and canned asparagus spears on his table, and it was a long time before he noticed the cat on his lap.

The next day dawned with blinding sunlight reflected off fresh snow against a crystal blue backdrop of sky and a cat asleep on the pillow next to Elmer’s head. Elmer opened most of the curtains and window blinds in the house, and Ugly was thrilled to have countless patches of sunlight to nap in and new reasons to chase reflections and shadows across the floor. Elmer even opened the door to the boy’s room, which caused the cat to permanently forsake the laundry basket in the cellar and he slept instead on the boy’s bed all afternoon. Elmer walked past the open bedroom doorway and nodded in approval. The boy would have liked that. That evening, the cat beat the daylights out of a brown paper grocery sack in the kitchen until he and his paper cocoon rolled down the cellar stairs. Elmer first laughed so hard that he snorted beer out of his nose and then he went down to make sure Ugly wasn’t injured. The cat marched back up the stairs and pretended the incident never happened.

If anyone had ever bothered to pry, or follow Elmer around town, they might have noticed the subtle changes in Elmer, but of course nobody did. Elmer started using return address labels on his letters. One morning, the postman picked up Elmer’s outgoing mail and found an envelope on top of the stack addressed to “Mr. Rural Mail Carrier.” Inside was a Christmas card signed “Your customer, Elmer” and a ten-dollar bill “for a beer or something stronger.” He nearly drove into a ditch.

Elmer’s sister retrieved her mail from her mailbox one balmy afternoon and didn’t recognize the spindly block lettering on the envelope at first. The card was signed, “Love, Your Brother Elmer. P.S. I’ll call you New Year’s Day.” She had several small glasses of creme de menthe, called a couple of lady friends to tell them about “the miracle,” and that afternoon the entire Silver & Gold Book Club and Prayer Circle at her church prayed for Elmer.

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Ugly benefited from Elmer’s new benevolence, too. Elmer renamed him – “Mister Ugly,” as a sign of respect, with perhaps a dash of appreciation thrown in that dangerously approached love.

It was a few days before Christmas when Don Carstens of Carstens Construction & Home Remodeling showed up unexpectedly at Miss Bridgewater’s home, wearing a bewildered expression that rivaled her own after he told her why he was there. An “anonymous benefactor” had ordered him to repair anything and everything she needed fixed, including a new professionally painted sign for her lawn, up to a generous dollar amount that caused her to gasp. She pleaded with Mr. Carstens to reveal who had made such a gift, but he just shook his head and said he couldn’t. He remembered all too well the conversation with Elmer of the day before in which that old coot had described in excruciating detail what he would do to Carstens and his anatomy if he ever betrayed the secret. Carstens had never before been threatened with “neutering.”

Fred Fields had his own revelation when Elmer selected a ten-dollar cat toy from his inventory, made in China, and then asked to have it gift wrapped “please.”

Elmer sat in his recliner on Christmas Eve, nursing a beer, with Mister Ugly on his lap. Both did their best to ignore Peter Jennings. Elmer had reduced his beer consumption to one bottle with dinner, maybe two, depending on the state of the Mexican trade agreement. Mister Ugly was allowed to finish whatever Elmer left on his plate. Elmer imagined that Miss Bridgewater probably had to eat her dinner out on her porch, away from all those “indoor cats.” He chuckled at the thought.

Maybe he’d call her up after the New Year and invite her to stop by and meet Mister Ugly, and to ask what veterinarian she recommended for “fixing” a trespassing cat, and to ask what else a cat needed beside “Hairball Remedy.” Maybe she even had a nice fixed girl cat that would be good company for a damn ugly trespassing tomcat who had taken over a “qualified” home. Maybe nobody should be alone unless they wanted to be.

Maybe he’d invite her over for dinner – she looked too thin anyway – and serve asparagus spears on china plates with silverware. Maybe he’d put a tablecloth on the kitchen table. Maybe he’d unpack some of the decorative things from boxes in the attic and make the place look a bit more like it did before, when the boy and his mother lived there. He also figured Miss Bridgewater probably didn’t drink beer…maybe she drank one of those herbal teas that smelled like old socks. He’d have to get some of that.

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Maybe he’d take advantage of some of the after-Christmas sales and buy himself some new clothes, instead of the jeans and flannel shirts he usually bought at Fields – most likely assembled in Mexico from fabric manufactured in Guatemala, or some such place.

“Miss Bridgewater of Shadygrove.” It had a pretty ring to it, like a film title. Elmer thought that Miss Bridgewater looked like the sort of woman who liked to dance. He bet she did. He bet her laugh was probably musical. There was a good chance that she might be a liberal, but that was okay. He bet she wouldn’t blabber on about things the way that Peter Jennings did. He could tolerate liberal tendencies…hell, he’d already survived over a month with a darn Communist cat.

Maybe he start saying “darn” instead of “damn” all the time. Maybe he’d stop cussing all together, especially in the presence of Miss Bridgewater. Maybe he’d quit drinking beer and learn to like herbal teas that smelled like old socks. Maybe he’d cook that mysterious free turkey tomorrow and give Mister Ugly a leg, although he wouldn’t be surprised if the cat demanded white meat, with gravy.

Elmer finished his beer and set the empty bottle on the end table. He switched off the TV and leaned back in his recliner. He scratched Mister Ugly behind the ears and smiled slightly when the cat started to purr. He closed his eyes and nodded to himself in satisfaction. For Elmer and Mister Ugly the possibilities were endless.

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