domestic cats.
Cats are an extension of the human psyche, she said. We made them middle class. So now they get cancer and arthritis. They get kidney stones.
Her voice rose as she went on: They’re procreating like mosquitoes! Over a hundred million in America! A hundred million! A bored middle-class cat kills a thousand wild little darlings in its lifetime. Cats are the most species-destructive animals on the planet, and yet we supplement their diet with what they don’t kill! You could feed five third-world nations with the money Americans spend on cat food! Not to mention the annual veterinary expenses! More billions!
Her friends waited until she finished. When she got her teeth into a topic she shook it until it lay limp and silent. They didn’t tell her how bewildered they were by her diatribe. She had three cats herself, ones she picked up from the pound. Her cats were like feral critters in captivity. She kept them indoors to protect the wild creatures outside, but her cats lurked menacingly around the couch and skulked off like guilty bullies when humans got close. Nobody would say her cats were middle class, but they’d kill if given half a chance.
Her friends still sought her company. In many ways, she was kind and generous. She left big tips for artists and actors posing as waiters and waitresses. She was a devout conservationist. On Thanksgiving, she served soup to the homeless. But whose side would she take if a pit bull attacked them on the street? There was something dangerous about her that her friends couldn’t resist. It was as if she were their wild little darling and they her protectors.
He had owned his small hardware store for thirty-three years and lived for the day when someone came in who didn’t know the name of the item he needed. Would-be fix-it men gave him his greatest pleasure, after so many years of eking out a measly living selling replacement parts for people’s falling-apart lives.
Enter a young man with the kind of glasses that up-and-coming lawyers wore. Or maybe a teacher. A history or English teacher. At worst, a pastor for some liberal church. Whoever he was, he was someone who didn’t mind showing up in public wearing earth-toned tweeds and flannel. He wouldn’t know a pipe wrench from a deadbolt. He wasn’t somebody who lived in the real world of broken-down washing machines and leaky faucets. He headed straight for the plumbing section, exactly where his kind usually went. The hardware store man watched as the customer stood, bewildered, in a world of rubber gaskets, plastic tubes, and metal-threaded pipes of every size and angle.
The hardware store man moved in.
What are you looking for?
I think I can find it.
The customer wiped his brow with his smooth hand. His eyes scanned the shelves like someone speed-reading a foreign document, hoping that one word would resemble his native tongue and that he would be able to pronounce it with confidence.
This was the magic moment for the hardware store man. He looked squarely into the customer’s face to force out the greatest embarrassment.
What is it called?
In the eyes of the hardware store man, the customer looked like a child who couldn’t find the bathroom. His brow knit as he looked up at the steel rafters, stared into their webby depths as if he were trying to remember some long-lost time when his hands worked with the ordinary drips and spills of life.
Then the customer turned to face the hardware store man. He lifted his chin so that he was looking at the hardware store man through his bifocals.
How the hell do I know what it’s called and why the hell should I care? I could give a damn what it’s called.
Now the customer moved in more closely to the hardware store man: I suppose you know the names of all these flimsy, poorly made, overpriced pieces of plastic and rubber crap?
Of course I do, said the hardware store man in a sharp, indignant voice.
So what? What has it taught you about the nature of the universe? What has it taught you about good and evil? Why don’t you fill your mind with something worth remembering?
The customer grabbed an item from the display. Here’s what I need, he said. Oh, I see it is called a flapper ball! Flapper ball! Now there’s a brilliant name for you. Took some brains to come up with that name! Flapper ball indeed.
The hardware man was speechless as the customer paid for the flapper ball and walked out.
The hardware man stood behind the cash register. He felt terrible. Anger? Despair? It was just a terrible feeling, but he couldn’t think of a name for it.
For some reason this man wore so much chapstick on his lips that if he fell on his face he’d leave a skid mark like a slug. Nobody ever commented about it, even though his lips slid around so much when he talked that you’d think he was trying to invent a new language for romance. And he was in a job that put his face in the faces of the public all day long. He sat in a booth on the ground floor of a large office building under a sign that said, INFORMATION? ASK ME.
This woman did not belong to a religion that condoned polygamy, but she felt that God had created her for many men, not just one.
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