9
AT THREE O'CLOCK on Tuesday morning across the moonlit village nothing stirred, no hush of tires on the damp streets, no rumble of car engines beneath the cloud-veiled moon; the tangle of cottages and shops and sheltering trees was so still the village might have been cast beneath some hoary wizard's hundred-year enchantment. The white walls of Clyde Damen's cottage and its ragged lawn were patterned with the ancient scriptures of tree shadow as still as if frozen in time. But suddenly a shadow broke away, racing across the mottled lawn and up the steps and in through the cat door, his white paws flashing.
Tracking mud across the carpet, Joe Grey trotted through the sleeping house accompanied by comforting and familiar sounds; the creak in the floor as he crossed the hall, Clyde's irregular snoring from the bedroom, and beyond the kitchen door, old Rube gently snuffling his own doggy snores. Joe pictured the Labrador sprawled on the bottom bunk in the laundry, among the tangle of cats, all sleeping deeply. The four household animals had slept thus ever since Barney died, dog and cats crowding together to ease their loneliness for the elderly golden retriever.
Joe missed Barney, too. The old golden had been a clown, always into something, dragging Clyde's Levis and gym equipment all over the house, huffing and growling in the kitchen as he goaded the white cat to knock a pack of cookies off the top of the refrigerator.
Moving swiftly down the hall, Joe's nostrils were filled with the stench of human sleep laced with beer and garlic. Loping across the bedroom's antique rug, he sprang onto the blankets inscribing muddy pawprints, avoiding Clyde's stomach by leaping over his housemate. Kneading the empty pillow, he stretched out across it and began to wash.
Around him, the room was a montage of twisted tree shadows, as dense as if he resided in a jungle-though the thought of jungle irritated him, reminded him of the invading torn. As he washed, Clyde stirred and moaned-and woke, leaning up to stare.
"What the hell are you doing? You're shaking the whole damned bed."
"How could I shake the bed? I was simply washing my face. You're so sensitive."
Clyde snatched up the digital clock. "It's three A.M. I was sound asleep."
"You wouldn't want me to go to sleep unbathed."
"I don't care if you never take a bath-if you call that disgusting licking bathing." Clyde flipped on the bedside lamp, scowling at him.
"My God. I might as well have a platoon of muddy marines marching across the sheets. Can't you wash outside? When I go to bed, I don't drag half the garden in. And I don't do all that stomping and wiggling."
"You have hot and cold running water and a stack of nice thick bath towels. All I have is my poor little cat tongue."
Clyde sighed. "I presume the hunting was successful, by the amount of blood on your face. And by the fact that you are not out in the kitchen banging around clawing open the kibble box, ripping through the entire supply of cat goodies."
"When have I ever done that after a night's hunt? Of course the hunting was successful. Was, in fact, very fine. The full moon, even with clouds streaked across it, makes the rabbits wild.
"It's the lunar pull," Joe told Clyde, giving him a narrow leer. "Oh, the rabbits danced tonight. Spun and danced across the hills as if there wasn't a cat within miles. Lovely rabbits. Such tender little rabbits."
"Please. Spare me your feline sadism."
"What we do is certainly not sadism. We are part of a complicated and essential balance of nature-a part, if you will, of the God-given food chain. An essential link in the necessary…"
Clyde snatched up his pillow and whacked Joe. "Stop talking. Stop washing. Stop shaking the bed. Shut up and lie still and get the hell to sleep."
Joe crawled out from under the pillow, his ears back, his head ducked low, and his bared teeth gleaming sharp as knives.
Clyde drew back, staring at him. "What? What's the matter? I hardly tapped you."
"You didn't tap me. You whacked me. In all our years together, you've never hit me. What's with you? How come you're so irritable?"
"I'm irritable? You're the bad-tempered one-I thought you were going to take my arm off." Clyde peered closer, looking him over. "You and Dulcie have a fight?"
"You're so witty. No we didn't have a fight. I simply don't like being hit. Fun is one thing, but that was real anger. And why would Dulcie and I fight? For your information, I left Dulcie on Ocean Avenue staring in the window of that new Latin American shop, drooling over all that handmade stuff they sell. And why are you so edgy? You and Charlie have a fight?"
"Of course not. She…" Clyde paused, frowning. "Well she was a bit cool."
"And you're taking it out on me. Venting your bad mood on a defenseless little cat. What did you fight about?"
"Nothing. She was just cool. She's been cool ever since Sunday morning. Who knows what's with women?"
"Bernine," Joe said and resumed washing his paws.
"Bernine what?"
Joe shrugged.
"You mean she's in a bad temper because Bernine's staying with Wilma? But why get angry at me?"
"You figure it out. I'm not going to draw pictures for you. I don't suppose you would want to get up and pour me a bowl of milk. I'm incredibly thirsty."
"You're not saying-Charlie's not jealous. Jealous of Bernine Sage?"
"Milk is good for the stomach after a full meal of raw game. A nice chilled drink of milk would ease my mood, and would wash down that cottontail with just the right dietetic balance."
"Why the hell would she be jealous of Bernine? Bernine Sage is nothing-a bimbo, a gold digger. Doesn't Charlie…? Bernine doesn't care about anything but Bernine. What's to be jealous of?"
"If you would keep a bowl of milk in the refrigerator where I can reach it, I wouldn't have to ask. It's demeaning to have to beg. I have no trouble opening the refrigerator, but without fingers and a thumb I really can't manage the milk bottle."
"Please, spare me the details."
"And have a glass yourself-it will help you sleep."
"I was asleep, until you decided to take a bath. And now you want me to get up out of a nice warm bed and freeze my feet on the linoleum, to…"
"Slippers. Put on your slippers. Put on a robe-unless you really enjoy schlepping around the kitchen naked, with the shades up, giving the neighbors a thrill."
"I am not naked. I have on shorts. I am not going to get out of bed. I am not going to go out to the kitchen and wake up the other animals, to pour you a bowl of milk. I can't even describe the rudeness of such a request-all so you can wash down your bloody kill. That is as barbaric as some African headhunter drinking blood and milk. The Watusi or something."
"Masai. They are not headhunters. The Masai are a wise and ancient people. They drink milk mixed with the blood of their cattle to give them strength. It is an important Masai ritual, a meaningful and religious experience. They know that milk is nourishing to the soul as well as to the body of a tired hunter. And if you want to talk disgusting, what about those Sugar Puffs or Honey Pops or whatever you eat for breakfast with all that pyridoxine hydrochloride and palmitate, to name just a few foreign substances. You think that's not putting strange tilings in your stomach?" Joe kneaded the pillow; its springy softness gave him the same sense of security he had known in kittenhood kneading at his mother's warm belly. "There's a fresh half-gallon of milk in the refrigerator, whole milk."