Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Last Sunday's Brunch, or "You Ever Been Crossed by a Black Cat Like That?"

Ah, Sunday brunches at Karen's on 25th with the select elite: my favorite musical theatre folk.  We gather, never quite sure how many of the gang will show up, but always quite certain we'll have a gay old time, full of gossip, dirty jokes, Jenn's effortless grace, and, of course, the the coffee, carbs and grease.

I walked in late this last week, after having stopped at school to pick up some scores for a collaboration coming up next spring.  Not sure where my group was sitting, I listened for the corner of the cafe broadcasting the most vibrant laughter and choruses in various shades of witty sarcasm and mimicry, exclaiming things like "Oh no, honey!  Professor So-and-so is more like this..." or "You know s/he's got the best [insert any explitivie or noun here] of anyone in the department."  I spotted Phil (a fabulous friend and fashionable mentor), my lovely Tiara (she lives up to the name, but you'd better not say it like the fashion accessory!), the divine Miss Jennifer P. (yes, she really is divine) and the ever-welcome and -welcoming Jean-Louise (our own kind of Mary Poppins, but with a Sewing with Nancy, punk-rocker chick mix), and sat down at their table, expecting as uneventful a brunch as we ever have.

They had all cleaned their plates, so I ordered a glass of water, and took up the tail-end of the conversation.  Soon, it was time for everybody to grab their tickets, walk up the the ancient stove-top sagging next to the cash register, pay for their meals ("I had the Fisherman's Breakfast.  Shouldn't have, but I did."), and bid adieu.  I offered to drive Phil -- who was uncharacteristically ill and rather a bit flushed following a lovely bout of surgery-- home.  He had some fabric he wanted to show Jean, so she decided to meet us at Phil's place.

Upon our arrival, we met a Jean-Louise who was trying to avoid the mangiest, sickliest black cat I had ever seen.  I thought it was a sort of early Halloween prank some kids were pulling.  You know, drug a black cat and leave it on somebody's porch -- see what kind of bad luck they could wreak.  But nothing of th sort: the cat, having decided Phil's porch was a sunny little spot upon which it could convalesce, sat directly in front of the front door, bending its nose awkwardly to the porch floorboards, breathing heavily and trying to die while at the same time blocking the path we all needed to take to get inside Phil's cleverly decorated and richly furnished house.  Phil grimaced in disgust at the animal's black muzzle, strung with foamy saliva and (with me following closely behind) took the intrepid step to join Jean on the other side of the ill-fated feline and unlock the perfectly shabby-chic, distressed front door.

As soon as the key was in the lock, the cat started yowling.  It was the most terrible sound I've ever heard.  Jean put her hands over her ears, I began nervously giggling, and Phil, drugged with expensive pain-pills, groggily whined, "Ugh!  I can't handle this today!  Do something.  Well, do something after you see this gorgeous fabric for Piazza."  Trying to ignore the death-cry comgin from the wailing cat on the porch, Jean and I admired the shimmering fabrics and spectacular lace overlays  (they really were "gorgeous" with exceptional italics) and then set to work trying to find the number for local Animal Control using Jean's iPhone apps.  When that didn't work, we just 4-1-1ed the number.

I called Animal control while Phil and Jean tucked their heads in the curtains to watch the black cat on the porch.  The phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing.  Phil gasped -- I thought he'd ripped a stitch or something, but he said, "It's...it's....it's convulsing or something.  Oh, God, this is awful.  Oh, oh God!"  I walked over to the window to see, and it was awful.  The poor cat shuddered, its ears folded back, eyes half closed and its tongue hanging out its mouth.  Jean looked horrified, and I was impatient for someone from Animal Control to pick up the phone.

Finally, an answer, "Thank you for calling your local Animal Control Center.  Our office hours are Monday through Saturday, nine to five.  We are closed Sunday..."  What?!? I'm thinking.  How can animal control be closed on Sunday?  What are people supposed to DO when they are experiencing an animal emergency?"  I looked at Jean and Phil and told them the office was closed until Monday morning.  Their reactions, deflated at how local civil agencies had again let them down, were exact copies of my thoughts.

"So what do we do now?" Phil asked.

"I guess we try calling dispatch or something?" I offered.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Jean-Louise confirmed.

Dispatch:  "Thank you for calling local dispatch.  What is your emergency?"

Nic:  "Um, we have a dying cat stuck on our front porch.  We think it's a stray.  What do we do? Can someone come remove it?"

Dispatch:  "Animal control tells us that they're closed on Sundays.  They can't come out until tomorrow morning."

Nic:  "Yes.  We got that from their answering machine when we called.  Isn't there someone else who could help us?"

Dispatch:  "They really don't do house calls for cats.  Maybe if it were a dying dog or something, then somebody could come out.  But you're pretty much on your own for cats."

Nic, with an increasing sense of futility: "Um, it's foaming at the mouth and we really don't want to touch it."

Dispatch, with mounting frustration:  "Like I said, we really can't do anything, and they won't come out for cats."

Nic:  "Um, ok.  I guess we'll figure it out on our own, then.  Thanks."

By this time, I can see Phil and Jean in that place where they didn't really want to keep looking at the convulsing cat, but they didn't quite know how to quit watching.  The poor dears, they were just in shock.  I decided we had to rescue Phil's porch and do something to get this cat away from the house.

"Phil," I took control, "go find us a cardboard box and a sack.  We're gonna take that cat somewhere else."

Phil rummaged in the back for a minute and came to the front room with a department store sack and a soup-stack carboard lid.  Fearless Jean and opened the door and went out on the porch to pick the cat up and put it in the box.  The cat had stopped seizing for a minute, and I stooped down with the plastic sack to pick it up.  It started moaning again, "Yeeee-ooowww.  Yeeeeee-oow."  I said, "I know, cat.  I know.  We're just gonna cover you with this sack so we can pick you up and put you in this box."  I didn't think the pathetic creature had any energy left to fight me too much; what a startle when it tried to get up as I reach down to wrap it and pick it up.

Jean held the box as I tried to get it in the box.  The box was to short -- I was nervous the cat would get out and find its way back to Phil's porch.  We must have been a sight.  "Phil," I called into the house, "can you find a taller box so this cat can't escape."  He came back a few minute later with a box that was just a bit better.  We picked the cat up and kind of scooped it as carefully as we could into the taller box.  The thing was just yowling.  It was pretty awful.  I kept laughing nervously, and poor Jean carried the cat-box and all across the street to an empty parking lot.

Jean left.  Phil was worn out.  The porch was covered with wet spots where the cat had spat up.  I asked Phil if he had any bleach and dish soap.  He directed me to the kitchen where the supplies were.  I fixed up a bucket of sani-water and commenced to sloshing the porch in hopes of disinfecting the place where the cat had been.  Finishing the job, I rinsed the bucket out and thoroughly washed my hands with hot water and antibac soap.

"I'm gonna go home now, Phil," I said.  "Call me when animal control comes tomorrow.  Get better, and stay outta trouble.  Hopefully, no bad luck:  we didn't cross that black cat, it crossed us. Right?"

I picture us, a week later now, and I have to laugh.  What a sight we must have been.  A recently stitched up convalescent, a fashionable young musician and a wicked-awesome seamstress, stooping over some dying black cat, doing everything we could to keep it as comfortable as possible so we wouldn't catch bad luck.  The silly suspicions we adhere to.

Guess our kindness didn't work.  Swine flu hit a week later  Damn cat!

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