Fiction by F. T. Rea
October 11, 1985: Waiting for
the veterinarian to call back about his cat, Pal, Roscoe Swift sat at
his old wooden desk. His breath was shallow. He stared at a blank sheet
of paper as he struggled to concentrate on a radio report about one of his
favorite heroes, cinema luminary and champion prankster Orson Welles, who had
just died.
As the tension gripped Swift's neck and radiated into his arms, he
sought refuge from his sense of dread. Closing his eyes he saw the foreboding scene that sets
the mystery in motion in Welles' masterpiece, "Citizen Kane." There was
the mansion, Xanadu, and inside it publishing mogul Charles Foster Kane
was dying alone in the shadows.
With his pen Roscoe loosely sketched Kane's slumped body, but with the head of a
cat. The artist drew a dialog balloon next to the cat's face; in it he
put Kane's ambiguous last word: "Rosebud."
Without meaning to, the artist had fashioned the cat's
look after Zig-Zag -- the little stray Roscoe and his ex-wife, Julie, had
taken in a few weeks after their marriage in the summer of 1970. As the story went, a
neighbor on his way to class tossed the kitten in Roscoe's Studebaker to
save her from a pack of dogs. Later, Roscoe found her hiding under his
seat. Right away, he didn't want to keep her but Julie overruled him.
Four years after Zig-Zag's unexpected arrival, she disappeared.
Eventually, Roscoe found her under a bush in a back yard down the
street. Her latest paramour, a black tomcat with a bent ear, scampered off as Roscoe
approached. Lying on her side, Zig-Zag's eyes were
glazed over. Maggots were having at her guts. Patting her head and
whispering her name, he carried the stiff body home on a unfinished plank he
found.
Through the kitchen window Julie saw him coming. She rushed out onto the
back porch and began to sob. Without a word Roscoe placed the board on
the porch. Then, as Julie crouched she sobbed and touched poor Zig-Zag. Quite
unexpectedly, the cat moved.
She was alive!
Immediately, Roscoe went inside to call a veterinarian. But seconds later, with Julie
holding her, Zig-Zag cried out, arched her back, and gave up the ghost
for good.
Julie seemed comforted by the notion that Zig-Zag hadn't died alone in another yard. Roscoe mentioned her tomcat friend had been nearby when he found her.
The next day Nixon resigned. Three summers later Roscoe and Julie split up. The sound of the radio suddenly broke through his time-trance, so he switched it off.
Then he noticed loud footsteps, overhead, in the
apartment above him. Roscoe's new neighbor, a woman in her mid-30’s, had a
heavy-footed walk.
Pal had made her first appearance at Roscoe's English basement apartment
shortly after his longtime job as manager of the Fan City Cinema
ended on the last day of 1982. Virginia Commonwealth University
bought the old building -- converted from a church to a theater -- and dismantled it in order to build on
the lot. He and his sometimes-live-in girlfriend, Tess Dailey, were
having breakfast on an unseasonably warm winter morning, when a peculiar
noise got their attention. They discovered a determined gray cat
squeezing its way through the chicken wire stretched across the outside
of the window.
Roscoe didn't want to encourage the animal to stay around, but playful
and charming Tess insisted on feeding it something, which turned out to
be his leftover pizza. The next day, ignoring Roscoe's wishes not to
name the cat Tess started calling it "Rosebud."
Well, it turned out Rosebud was smart and would eat anything Roscoe
would eat. Then, only a month later, Tess, the kid-sister of his old
friend, Finn, announced she had given her notice on her art gallery job.
Beyond that, she had decided to move to New York to pursue her career
as a dancer/choreographer.
"I gotta go before I'm too old and scared to do it," Tess explained.
They hadn't had any sort of squabble, but Roscoe, 35, knew the drill
well. She'd seen all his moves and heard all his jokes. Smart, pretty
girls her age, 23, know when to say, "when."
Later, in the airport parking lot she leaned her back against his
Volkswagen bus, as they kissed goodbye. Roscoe held her chin and
couldn't resist using his Bogart imitation: "We'll always have Paris,
Schweetheart."
Tess laughed, cried and made him promise to reconsider keeping Rosebud. And, that he did, except he renamed the cat "Pal."
Ultimately, Pal proved to be a good companion. Their morning ritual at
the kitchen table, as Roscoe slowly drank his coffee, was rarely changed
for any reason until she got sick. Pal always insisted on curling up on
the parts of the Richmond Times-Dispatch he had finished reading. She
would get up each time he needed to put another section on the used
pile. Then she would park herself on the newspaper stack again, to doze.
Pal was waiting for him to push his cereal bowl toward her, so she
could drink the milk at the bottom.
Taking a break from the fog of nostalgia Swift opened the door,
to step outside and check his mailbox. It was noticeably colder than it
had been earlier in the day. He found only junk mail and his telephone
bill. "It'll keep," he muttered, shutting the box.
He decided to take a walk around the block. Swift breathed deeply, the
crisp autumn air smelled good. A pair of pleasant, fragile-looking old
ladies offered him a religious tract. He politely said, "No, thank you."
Red, orange and yellow leaves were blowing about the street as he
considered, once again, the role of irony in the grand scheme of things.
Fresh thoughts began to fall into place, his stride quickened.
Back inside, the artist and occasional no-budget filmmaker -- who for
his income depended mostly on a part-time position as special events
coordinator for a charity -- pulled out a few blank sheets of paper.
After a flurry of writing he put the pen down and went to the
refrigerator. Breaking his new weekday rule -- no beer before 5 p.m. --
he cracked open a green can of Heineken.
Staring into a poster of a Degas ballerina painting, which was over his
desk, another bubble of realization popped: Yes, it had been far too
long since he had gotten laid. Roscoe sighed/chuckled, as he reached for
the paper to read over what he had just written:
It would be easy to continue to see
all of life itself as God. For me that's been a comfortable notion for
many years. I have thought of it as a soft-edge brand of existentialism
that avoids dwelling on doubt and debate. However, at this particular
sad moment I find it more interesting, perhaps more useful, to see God
in a different light. What about The Creator as the totally
unpredictable random factor that causes change? Mutations?
Thus, I submit – the ironic God. This
God is itself another dimension – fifth, sixth, take your pick. Since it
has no form or action we are capable of corralling to measure, it
remains beyond the grasp of our reason. Perhaps we sense it most when we
take risks, when we are in uncharted waters.
In many ways the biggest risk we take
is falling in love. The playful, musical laughter of young lovers --
off, in their own dimension -- may be as close to being at one with this
mysterious force as human beings are likely to get.
Putting the page down, the author rubbed his eyes. The text before him
seemed to have been written by another hand. It excited him. After
another swig of beer he grabbed the pen. Again, the words poured out,
effortlessly:
The spark that set life in motion on
this planet stemmed from the magic of the aforementioned force -- a
force that creates anomalies as it wafts its way, hither and yon, and
into the cosmic gears of order.
Why?
Who knows? Who knows if it cares about
what it does? Who knows what else it can do, if anything? Preachers say
they know, then they ask for money. I say nobody even knows what entity
created order, in the first place, so it could then be tweaked by this
ironic force of change? We just know that nothing stays the same, and
payback is a bitch.
What the hell does that mean?
Maybe everything, or nothing. Maybe
Rosebud. If there is inevitably a yes, no, and maybe aspect to all
Earthly propositions, then perhaps God is a kaleidoscope of
ever-changing maybes. Change
-- a big bang? -- caused mass to emerge from what had been only energy.
Then came more change. We move from single cells, to dinosaurs, to
mammals, to whatever is next in line; no doubt, something that will
thrive on the poisons my species has unleashed on nature.
No matter how comforted people are by
their worshiping of order and predictability, the existence of the
species is owed to mutations through the ages. Without the random
changes which fall like leaves one time, and a ton of bricks the next,
the short life we struggle to live wouldn't even exist.
The phone rang. Walking like a zombie, Roscoe picked up the receiver: "Hello."
He listened to the vet's report: Pal's infection was so massive it was a
medical wonder she was still alive. She had not responded to the
antibiotic, nor had she regained any interest in eating. Fluids had been
pumped into her. She was only getting weaker.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," said the careful male voice, "but
the quality of, ah, your Pal's life, in whatever time she has left, is
only going to continue to deteriorate. Do you want to take her home for
the night and see what happens? Or, you might consider putting her down
today. It's your decision. Mr. Swift."
"There's no good in prolonging her suffering," said Roscoe, "if the situation is hopeless. She must be so confused, and..."
"I understand," the vet said. "If you want, we can take care of it in
about an hour, including disposal of the remains. But you can still come
to see her to say good-bye, or whatever you..."
"How do you," Swift cringed, "I mean, will it be lethal injection?"
"Yes," Roscoe heard from the receiver, as his heart sank.
"OK, I’ll be there in a half-hour," said Roscoe. "And, yes I'd like to
spend a few minutes with Pal before you put her to sleep. And, well, I’m
not so sure about the rest, because I can't... After she's kaput, I'll
take her body with me."
"That's fine, I understand," said the man. "And, I'm sorry we couldn't make her well."
"Thanks," said Swift. He hung up. Tears spilled onto his cheeks as he
sat at his desk again. He began connecting to other sad times,
disappointments, losses, deaths, melancholia. The phone rang, again.
On cruise-control, Roscoe listened to an artificially perky woman he didn't know.
"This may be YOUR lucky day! If you qualify and register now, you will
be eligible to win an all-expenses-paid vacation in HAWAII. That's SEVEN
sunny days and romantic nights for two in paradise. How does THAT sound
to you Mr. Roscoe?"
"What on earth are you talking about?" protested Roscoe. "Ah, listen, my last name is Swift, not Roscoe."
The anonymous voice began again, "That's SEVEN sunny days and romantic nights for..."
"You shouldn’t have called," Roscoe advised. "This is a ... look, I'm
busy, I'm trying to work. Whatever list I'm on, please just take my name off of
it."
"This may be YOUR lucky day! If you qualify and register now, you will be eligible..."
Roscoe raised his voice, "Believe me, I don't qualify! You've got the wrong guy. I never buy anything, and I don't even give a happy Shinola about
Hawaii, much less whatever you're selling!"
Swift hung up and walked back to his desk to cut the radio back on.
Mercifully, a recording of "Rhapsody in Blue" was just starting. Pen still in hand, he tried to finish his thoughts, but got nowhere, so he reacted to the phone call.
Shrill voices and strident blather.
Relentless telemarketing and talk-show crackpots. Constant accusations.
Constant denials. Aggressive promos and seeping disinformation. When you
add them all up, the combination becomes a cacophony that stands like a
wall of noise, separating us from whatever quiet truths we might
discover, but for it.
The wall of noise is more than a
mean-spirited abuse of our sense of hearing. It's a greed-driven abuse
of the most cherished of rights – Free Speech.
In such a maddening
condition one of mankind's basic universal pursuits – peace of mind – is
all but out of reach.
During the fifteen minutes Roscoe spent alone with Pal, in the quiet
pale green room in which she would die, he found the courage to
push through his lifelong needle-phobia. He simply couldn't abide the
idea of Pal having to go out without her true friend at her side.
So, he opted to stay on for the execution.
Roscoe gently stroked Pal's head as the vet, Dan Yost, prepared to shoot
poison into the animal's veins. His assistant, Sally, held Pal in
position by her striped legs. Swift avoided looking at the syringe,
hoping to suppress the queasy, lightheaded sweats the sight of an
injection -- anyone's injection -- always brought on. To block out his
powerful desire to turn away from the nauseating specter, he focused
totally on Pal's face, on her eyes that looked so weary.
"Easy there girl," Roscoe said, scratching behind her ears as she
flinched from the prick of the needle. "Easy Pal," he said in a low tone
that would ordinarily make her purr. As Pal had never liked
anybody fooling around with her feet, she struggled weakly to free
herself from Sally's grip.
Panic made Roscoe's heart race as he saw Pal's dignity being
compromised. Then she slowly turned her head to the side and sank her
teeth into his right thumb. Roscoe didn't react. Seconds later, she was
motionless.
When Roscoe's thumb began bleeding Dan was shocked: "I've never seen
that happen. Hey, I'm so sorry, man. I didn't think there was any way."
"It's OK," said Roscoe. "She never liked being held down. She protested,
even if she was ready to go. , and she left me something to remember her
by. I'm glad."
Dan was greatly relieved and said so. He cleaned and dressed Roscoe's
wound and continued to apologize. Roscoe watched Sally's gentle hands as
she carefully wrapped the lifeless cat in a white towel. Dan cautioned
him to watch for infection and to go to the doctor if there was
swelling.
Remembering he needed to call a friend about borrowing a shovel, Roscoe
asked, "May I please use your telephone for a short call?"
"Sure, not a problem," said Dan.
At sunset, Roscoe and two of his oldest friends, Rusty Donovan and Zach
Collins, buried Pal under a large oak tree in Byrd Park. Each of the
three took turns digging the grave. The oak was located at a dogleg in
the middle of the ninth fairway of their unmarked Frisbee-golf course,
where their small group of golfers had been playing for ten years.
Roscoe showed off his bandage as he told them about what happened when
Pal died. He thought of Sally, as he put
the lifeless cat into the fresh hole in the ground. After they covered
the grave the men toasted Pal with a ceremonial beer. Rusty, who was
still always holding, broke out a joint. Stories about favorite pets
were exchanged while they smoked.
The three agreed to meet there the following afternoon for a round of
golf. Starting with that next round's play, they began treating Pal's
grave site as hallowed ground. It became routine for the players to meow
and hiss, out loud, whenever a drive inadvertently smacked into the
"Dead Cat Tree."
On a bright morning almost three weeks after Pal's burial, Roscoe saw
Sally sitting alone in a new coffee shop that he'd been meaning to try.
She invited him to sit at her table and asked about his injured thumb.
He said it was healing fine and showed it to her.
Lingering over coffee, they shared his Washington Post. She pointed out a
funny article about a wild celebration of the 47th anniversary of Orson
Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio prank.
He told her Welles was one of his biggest heroes.
Sally tilted her head and subtly raised a fetching eyebrow, "Do you hope the bite mark will leave a scar?"
"Naturally," he replied.
Later, halfway through her second large cup of French Roast, Sally told Roscoe that a couple of days ago she had read a short story. It was written by a friend who asked her to look it over and "offer light-but-honest criticism."
"Sounds dangerous," said Roscoe.
"It's a good story," Sally said, "so I'm glad I don't have to lie to her about that. OK, maybe it's not a great story, but I liked it."
"What about it appealed to you?" Roscoe asked, sounding like an interviewer.
"OK, she answered. "The story is more of a conversation than a plot with action. The main character is a 27-year-old woman. Essentially, she's telling her boyfriend about why she wants to break up."
"A break up scene one-act play; what's to like? Roscoe put down the newspaper and continued the interview. "Is it funny?"
"At times it is," she replied. "The gal in the story let him down easy by accepting the blame, sort of."
"Roscoe asked, "What does 'sort of'' mean?"
"In this case, 'sort of,' means the boyfriend seemed to buy her story," Sally said. "But my sense of it was she was bullshitting him, probably to avoid telling him she had simply gotten bored."
"How so?" asked Roscoe.
Sally volunteered: "OK, to sum it up: In a vegetarian restaurant she picked, she says to him that her history of bad luck and mistakes had set her course toward always have to prove she didn't need anything, or anybody. But now, she tells him, she can see that pattern has numbed her sensitivity for affection. Her fault. Not his. Kaput."
Speaking of vegetarian restaurants," Roscoe said, "how about having dinner with me tonight at Grace Place?
* * *
All rights reserved. "Maybe Rosebud" with its accompanying illustration are part of a series of stories called "Detached."
:
