Counting Cats

 

The stray cat streaked across the lawn of the house next door and the work dogs avalanche’d past me and hit the fence like a squadron of stormtroopers. Unable to reach the cat, they instantly turned on one another and mayhem immediately ensued. Everything was teeth and claws, saliva and blood, and a noise level that rivaled controlled demolition, but I had seen the cat first and was prepared. When the water hose didn’t work, I had to disentangle them with a shovel and all the while the cat watched from a safe distance, imperious and contemptuous as only a cat can be. There’s nothing so annoying as a smirking cat and I confess the thought of turning the hose on her did cross my mind but I settled for rattling the chain link at her and after a few seconds, she dismissed me and wandered off.

I’ve always been a cat person. Counting the 4 that currently live with me, I’ve shared my life with a total of 19 of them so far. Each was his or her own cat with a distinct personality. Some were affectionate, some were distant. Some were sweet tempered and shy, some were disagreeable and sullen. Most all lived long and healthy lives and each one was irreplaceable. They all broke my heart one way or another.

I worry about the strays that live in the properties adjoining and behind the agency. They are mostly if not completely feral and perpetually at risk from dogs, traffic, sickness, hunger and weather. And yet they survive and sometimes even thrive. Stubborn creatures, cats, stubborn and stoic, proud and fierce and independent minded. You take them on their own terms or not at all.

For all my little ones who graced my life……. Sometimes I recite their names to help me fall asleep.

Tiffany

Sassafrass

Amanda

Pooka

Magic

Murray

Sugar Bear

Sara Jane

Patchwork

Nicodemus

Willie

Mike

Widget

Chloe

Cassidy

Muggs

Smudge

Zackary

Suki

Lizzie

Mischief

Ronnie, Lamar and Me

 

On the sixth day of suffocating heat and wet wool blanket humidity, Ronnie and Lamar arrive to save the day with a brand new central air unit. How I have not lost ten pounds is a mystery to me and I can’t remember being so glad to see a work crew. The climate gods are apparently feeling generous as this is the first overcast and relatively cool morning we’ve had in a week. The ancient York unit is disassembled and loaded onto a truck to go wherever old air conditioners go to die and by midday, a trim and clean looking Trane has taken its place. Cool air is suddenly flowing through the house. The dogs are delirious and I’m finally able to breathe without feeling like I’m underwater.

Ronnie and Lamar mask, glove and knee pad up then remove a section of
latticework and vanish into the depths of the under-the-house ductwork. They emerge late in the day, looking a lot like Kentucky coal miners after a mine collapse, pack their gear and tell me they’ll see me in the morning. They spend the entire second day navigating the dark, bug, debris and rat infested crawl spaces. Old ductwork is torn out and replaced, the new is wrapped and secured against rodents and other neighborhood wildlife. There there’s not much conversation but Ronnie whistles most of the time and Lamar raps along with the portable radio he sets up. It’s nasty work in a nasty environment, filthy, inhumanly hot, and awkward to move around in, but there’s not a word of complaint from either of them. I haven’t a clue how much they make per hour, but I’m absolutely certain it’s not enough for what they have to do. At some point late in the afternoon of the second day, I realize I don’t hear the radio anymore and when I go to look, I discover they’ve picked up all the trash and insulation and debris, replaced the latticework, re-locked the back gate and disappeared without a trace. Except for the blessed, quiet hum of the new unit, you’d never know they’d been there. I make a mental note to send them a positive review for their website. It’s too easy to criticize shoddy work or sullen workers – the good people need to be recognized and appreciated just as easily and as often.

We might all be better off if we still played in the dirt every now and then.

Baby in the Choir Loft

 

The first sign of trouble was a faint but distinct cry from the choir loft. A head or two glanced up but mostly nobody paid any mind.

The second was a when a hymnal whizzed past the pastor’s head and smacked Uncle Shad Nickerson, sitting prominently in the first pew, on the knee. That got everybody’s attention but before there was time for anyone to react, there was a third sign.

“Great God Almighty!” Jacob Sullivan bellowed from the choir loft, “Lurlene’s havin’ the baby!”

Sunday services at the Baptist church were, as a rule, predictable. We sang, we prayed, we listened to James speak in calm, reasonable tones about being good Christians, we made our offerings. It was pretty plain vanilla, pretty typical, pretty foundational – a part of village life that didn’t inspire or offend anyone. We put on our Sunday clothes and Sunday faces and did our best not to fidget or fall asleep. Until the morning that Lurlene Nickerson birthed her 12^th child in the choir loft, church was uneventful and a touch boring.

“Doc! Doc!” Jacob yelled frantically, “Carry your ass up here now! This baby’s a-comin with or without you!”

That was the moment it all turned into a scene out of the Keystone Kops. There was mayhem in the choir loft, Lurlene was wailing, Doc McDonald and Uncle Shad collided on their way to the scene and the congregation was in an uproar. James was clutching his Bible and calling uselessly for order.

“Good God!” Doc hollered to be heard above the confusion and noise, “Women been havin’ babies since before the damn flood! Jesus wept, Lurlene’s got herself eleven already! Everybody just clear out and settle down! And somebody go fetch her husband!”

The pastor collected his wits and stepping down from the pulpit, led the congregation out. His wife, Lily, took the choir in hand and evacuated the choir loft. Doc made his way through and Lurlene quieted. Uncle Shad hovered helplessly over his daughter-in-law. In a very few minutes as we milled about in front of the church, there was a newborn’s cry. A few minutes after that, Lily appeared on the church steps.

“It’s a boy!” she announced with a wide smile and the entire congregation applauded.

About that time, there was a roar of an engine and a battered pick up truck came barrel assing down the road in a cloud of dust and exhaust. The crowd in front of the church scattered as it careened wildly and pulled in with a screech of brakes, sending a spray of gravel in all directions.

Rodney Nickerson, wild-eyed and looking like an unmade bed in work boots and faded overalls, flung open the truck door and raced for the church, nearly knocking over Lily in his rush to get inside. Nine of his eleven children, including Noah and his prize pig, all packed into the bed of the pick up like sardines, picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and cheered.

Doc pronounced mother and child doing fine and Lily and James arranged for Lurlene to spend the night in the spare bedroom. After that there wasn’t much to be done and with the excitement over, the congregation headed to their homes.

Until that sunny, Sunday morning, there’d never been a baby born in the Baptist Church and there’s never been one born there since. After 12 births, Lurlene was said to have had enough and she discreetly made an appointment with a doctor in Halifax and had her tubes tied over the following Labor Day weekend. The entire village sighed with relief.