“Jack! … So you decided to come back! Where have you been?”
“Whazzit matter?”
“You’ve been drinking again.”
“I been drinkin’ an’ thinkin’ an’ drinkin’ an’—”
Dakh Won heard something crash in the kitchen.
“You’re dead drunk! You can’t even sit on a chair.”
“I wanna find the cat. Where’s Stinker? I wanna drown ’im.”
“Jack, you’d better leave.”
There was another crash, and Dakh Won streaked through the house—a brown blur passing through the kitchen and out the cat-hatch. Under the back steps he hunched and listened to the anger of the voices.
“I’m warning you, Jack. Don’t give me any trouble. Go away from here.”
“You tryin’ to throw me outa my own house?”
“I’m all through with you. That’s final.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“I’m filing for divorce.”
“Whoopee! Now I can have some fun.”
“You’ve been having plenty of fun, as you call it. I know all about that camp trailer you live in. I know what goes on when you’re away on a job—you and your tramps!”
“Go on—getta divorce. Nobody wants you. Nobody wants a—wants a cripple!”
“You and your drunken driving made me a cripple! And you’re going to pay—and pay—and pay.”
“You witch!”
“You won’t have a dollar left for tramps—not when the court gets through with you!”
“You crippled, ugly witch! I’ll smash your fingers!”
“Don’t you touch me!”
“I’ll kill you—”
“Stop it! …STOP …”
Dakh Won heard the screams and the scuffling feet. Then he saw the tassled shoes limping hurriedly from the house into the night. They headed for the ravine faster than he’d ever seen them go.
Bounding after them he heard sobs and moans as the feet hobbled unevenly along the trail toward the gate. The clay path was white in the moonlight, winding between the dark cherry bushes and the blackness of the ravine.
Back in the house there were crashing noises and a bellowing voice. Then Dakh Won saw the brutal boots staggering across the yard toward the white ribbon of pathway.
Ahead of him, the tassled shoes hurried on in panic, and behind him the boots were coming. The cat’s ears went back, and his sleek tail became a bushy plume. He stopped in the path and arched his back.
Then unaccountably, with a sudden languor, Dakh Won sprawled on the path and lay there, motionless. Where he happened to stretch his dark body there was a streak of shadow across the moonlit path, cast by a wild cherry bush, and in this puddle of darkness Dakh Won was an invisible mound of dark brown fur.
The boots lumbered closer, the voice roaring.“I’ll get you, you witch! I’ll kill you!”
Dakh Won closed his eyes. The feet bore down, and the boots tumbled over him, plunging deep into his unprotected side. With a snarl of pain he sprang to his feet—just as the evil boots sailed over him and disappeared. There was a rumbling of loose rocks in the ravine and then only the splash of the rushing stream down below as the cat licked his wounded side.
Only Dakh Won knows the true reason for his action that night on the ravine trail. It is not a cat’s nature to be vengeful—or heroic—but Dakh Won is a Siamese, and when people talk about the fatal accident in the ravine, his sapphire eyes are full of secrets.
EAST SIDE STORY
(The following interview with Mrs. P.G.R. was taped at the Country Residence for Women in December 1985, for the Oral History Project of Gattville Community College.)
Yes, of course I shall be happy to give you my recollections of the 1920s. What interests you in particular, my dear?
What was it like to be a woman in the twenties?
Oh, it was glorious! We had recently gained the right to vote, you know. We bobbed our hair and bobbed our skirts up above the knee and burned our petticoats. They called us flappers. My parents were shocked because I danced the wicked Charleston and smoked cigarettes in long holders and tried to look flat chested. Some of us went to Paris andreally kicked up our heels. Those were the days!
Best of all, we were free to choose glamorous careers—not just schoolteaching and stenography. We felt gloriouslyin the swim, don’t you know.
What careers did you consider glamorous?
Advertising … journalism … merchandising … publishing, and so forth. I trained as a commercial artist, and I shall never forget my first job with an advertising agency. It was across the street from Cat Canyon. Do you know about the Palace Theater scandal? No, of course you don’t. You are too young.
What was Cat Canyon?
Anenormous hole in the ground, filled with stray cats! At first the newspapers called it a civic disgrace and a monument to corruption. It all started when they tore down the Palace Theater. But first let me ring for tea … . Hello, Marie? May we have a pot of tea and some cookies brought up to 105? Two teacups, please. I have a guest. Thank you, Marie.
Now what was I about to say? Ah, yes, the Palace Theater. It looked like a Greek temple and had been thereforever and was famous for its acoustics. All the great names had appeared there—Caruso, Mrs. Barrymore, the divine Sarah—all of those.
Where was it located?
Right downtown, on the East Side. The freeway cuts through there now. In the twenties downtown was exciting and civilized and clean andsafe. It was a crime to tear down the Palace Theater, but some real estate speculators wanted to build ahuge twenty-two-story office building.
Didn’t anyone try to stop them?
A few persons wrote irate letters to the newspapers, but there were no demonstrations or campaigns such as we have today. Militant demonstrations were reserved for woman suffrage, the labor movement, and Prohibition.
So they tore down the theater and excavated a whole city block on the East Side for the new skyscraper. They had just started constructing the foundation when the city put a stop to the work. Not only was the concrete substandard, but the engineering concept was found to be faulty! Also, one of the principals in the scheme embezzled a lot of money, and there were criminal trials, exposes of political graft, lawsuits, and a suicide. It dragged through the courts and across the front pages of the newspapers for years. Meanwhile, they put a fence around the excavation—and then a strange thing happened. All the wild cats and stray cats of the city discovered that big hole filled with chunks of concrete—just as they discovered the cemeteries in Paris and the ruins in Rome. Have you been to Europe, my dear? You should go while you are young.
What was the public reaction to this invasion?
Why, people started wandering over to the East Side to watch thescores of cats cavorting in the excavation, and it became a genuine tourist attraction. That’s when one of the local columnists named it Cat Canyon, and the city built a specialviewing fence.
What is a viewing fence?
This one was just a wooden fence with three horizontal rails, but the top rail was a wide shelf, so sightseers could lean on it comfortably. It was also a handy place to set a lunch-box and thermos, and persons working in the vicinity spent their lunch hours there.
The commercial buildings around the Canyon were four or five stories high, withno elevators! There were little hotels, nice restaurants, dress shops, art galleries, millinery shops. No doubt you have neverseen a millinery shop, my dear, but in those days they were more important than filling stations. Weall wore hats, but not many of us had automobiles.
The advertising agency was upstairs above an art gallery, overlooking Cat Canyon, and on my first day at work I could hardlywait for lunchtime so I could take my sketch pad to the viewing fence.
The excavation was deep but cluttered with concrete posts and slabs and ledges, with weeds growing in the cracks. All kinds of cats were jumping around like mountain goats and chasing each other and nibbling the weeds and washing themselves in the sun.