October 30, 2002
More Strays
Note: Here at brokentype we believe in transparent metaphors. Cats, whenever they appear, signal longing and heartache. Dogs don't turn up very often, but when they do they are references to your narrator's goofy streak. Convenience stores are short-hand for ennui; cars for childhood; cigarettes for nervous energy; dinner parties for expectations; monkeys for the presence of the divine; church bells for atheism and fear. Children are inadvertent cruelty. Alcohol is indifference. There are also subliminal metaphors that refer to your narrator's furtive sexuality. The best way to get at these is to check the referrer logs, which include, most recently, "Girls getting dry humped in stockings", "Picture's of Meg Ryan's Haircut"(sic) , "pictures of girls in tattered jeans," and, mysteriously, "Flaming Hot Cheetoes." I've taken a moment to construct this handy quick-reference card which is suitable for printing and which will help you navigate the more obtuse posts on this site.
So, with that in mind, here's another post about stray cats. If you came looking for the oft promised fiction, you will have to wait a few more days - sorry. Rest assured that it is on the way.
Endor's Closet
I was up at five o'clock this morning with insomnia and worry. I leaned out the window to have a cigarette and the strays were down in the lot below. I counted seven of them. When I leaned out they all looked up at me at once and waited there, watching, while I smoked. The N train rumbled by, empty and florescent; a paper and envelope truck waited at an empty intersection for the light to change.The cats are stray and wild. They don't let people come near, which is good, and they cooperate with one another rather well for solitary beasts, and they seem to have a nice little wild society in my yard. My favorite of them is a little black and orange tabby. She is playful and wary. I saw her first when she was a kitten, still with her mother, and she had a limp and barely kept up with her brothers. But she has survived and she has slyly positioned herself as the most beautiful kitten in a field of eager and lonely boy cats.
There's a chill in the air -- the weather is turning here -- and the cats are howling more now. I think they have decided to move into my back yard. For a long time they lived in the lot next door, but it is too open and close to the street. My yard is secluded, and there are tables and buckets they can hide under. The younger kittens roll around in the dirt and bat at the flowers. The older ones sit atop the fence and clean their paws. But I worry for them in the cold. On the one hand, I don't want to encourage them to stay, to have more kittens, to keep breeding, but at the same time it is distressing to think about how they will survive the winter.
So I've decided to build a cathouse. This is the house I have in mind. . Obviously this is a dog house, and I will need to make some structural and -- more significantly -- aesthetic adjustments to the plans, if it is to be suitable for cat habitation. I have in mind a two-story structure, so that the younger cats can sleep upstairs while the older ones guard the front door from any wayward creatures that might try and find refuge there. I'll be adding double-ply wall for insulation and lining the inside with the thick fabric cats like to claw at when they dream of climbing trees or staring at blades of grass. I'll also be adding a thick plastic curtain - like the kind you find in walk in freezers -- to keep the chill out. If it gets really cold out, I'll be able to plug in a space heater there from the extension cord I use to light up the yard. On Christmas I'll give them some Catnip.
We'll call it Endor's Closet, and on the door there will be this poem, by Emily Dickinson, (via the Ftrain Anthology of Poetry) because good poems should be used everywhere you can put them, like caulk to keep the chill out. The significance may be lost on them, but I believe in mimetic magic (what else is writing all about?) so I hope that they will notice the poem and purr it to one another on cold nights to remind the little ones of the coming spring.
Dear Girls
I hope you are having superb
times, and am sure you are,
for I hear your voices--mad
and sweet--as a mob of Bobolinks.
I send you my love--which is
always new for Rascals like
you, and ask instead a little
apartment in your Pink
Hearts--call it Endor's Closet.
If ever the world should frown
on you--he is old you
know--give him a kiss, and
that will disarm him--if it
don't--tell him from me,
Who has not found the
Heaven--below--
Will fail of it above,
For angels rent the House next our's,
Wherever we remove--
