Children of Bast

“Drown, you crazy amait.” Adele laughed. “Catch you later, Chad. Behave.”

  “Never!” He dove under the water and disappeared.

  “Okay, how weird is that?” Adele asked.

  “Very weird, but, you know, it sure looks tempting.”

  “You’re beginning to worry me, Gaylord. Let’s find some food.” She darted off toward our alley with me scurrying after.

  A dumpster provided us with some kind of meat all covered with salty gunk that I didn’t like, but Adele lapped it up like water. After eating and washing, we crumpled down in the shadow of the dumpster and talked

  Chapter 7

  Cats speak a subtle language in which few sounds carry many meanings, depending on how they are sung or purred. “Mnrhnh” means comfortable soft chairs. It also means fish. It means genial companionship . . .and the absence of dogs. Val Schaffner

 

  “So, Gaylord, what are your plans?”

  “I don’t have any plans. I like it out here a lot, but maybe that’s because I’m with you.”

  “Don’t go sloppy on me, now. Of course you like it out here with me. Even I like it out here with me. But I won’t always be here.”

  I stopped bathing and looked at her. “Where you going? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t get hair ball. I’m just saying that you never know. I might decide to leave and go somewhere else, or I might wind up flattened by a car or something. Happens all the time. You got to be able to take care of yourself, Gaylord. First and foremost, you got to take care of you.” She pushed me with her nose.

  I must have looked stunned because she smiled and we nuzzled.

  “I know you’re right,” I said. “I just never thought of you not being here. I mean, I don’t own you, but I never . . .” I walked into the park that surrounded the fountain and sprawled under a bush, whipping my tail. Adele followed.

  “Hey, take it easy. Nothing’s gonna happen right away.” It’s that I’ve been here for a while and I know what to expect. An amait’s life ain’t easy out here, you know.”

  “I might just go home.”

  She flinched away and growled. “You idiot. Gaylord, that’s madness.” She stopped and sighed. “Look, if I promise to do all I can to stick around, will you promise not to go back to that awful trap? I was kidding about going to the cemetery.”

  I kissed her. “Seminary. Okay, I promise.”

  “Yeah, well, you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing me through my time of the month. You’ll probably want to leave then for sure.”

  “Time of the month?”

  “Come on Gaylord. How naïve can you be. I already told you when I come into my heat, I’d mate with a Rottweiler if he wouldn’t eat me after.”

  “Oh, that.” It occurred to me that I was a kith, out here running around with amai way older’n me, especially Adele and Chubby. “You get really bad, huh?”

  “Like I said, if I tell you to scram, do it. Do not think about it, do it. Run like hell and wait for me to find you. Go to Chubby. He’ll know what to do.”

  “After he gets finished laughing himself to death.”

  “That too, but I’m not kidding.” Standing up she pushed a paw under my chin and flipped my head back. “Take me seriously, Gaylord. I cannot be responsible if you don’t”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Again, I was ticked off because she made such a big deal out me being so clueless and dense. I couldn’t help it if I’d been in an apartment all my life with only my maama and sister to talk to. Talking to them was like talking with a chew toy; they walked around and purred, but that was about all. Then, I wondered, how come they didn’t go nuts, too. So I asked her.

  “They were probably fixed.”

  “Oh. I never thought of that.”

  She sighed and gave me an I-pity-you look. “I hate to break it to you, Gaylord, but toms are of limited use.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  We smelled them before they jumped us. Thain, like sack of khara tossed from the dumpster, pounced on us growling, yellow eyes blazing, faraawi blown up like a thistle, mouth open ready for combat. Raeed was a dark cloud that fell on us like a bucket of vomit, his face warped with rage.

  Adele instantly swelled and geared up for a fight. I swelled up, too, but didn’t have a clue what I should do next. So, I bared my teeth and hissed.

  “Told you I’d be back,” Thain screamed.

  Adele screamed back, “Yeah, you pile of puke, with Raeed to do your fighting. Why don’t you try me yourself? I’ll be the very last thing you try.”

  Raeed, his eyes like headlights and muscles that rippled over his entire scared body, lashed his thin tail and laughed like a demented kilaab. He yelled at us both but focused on Adele. “What fun would that be for me? I gonna rip you to little pieces, Adele, and throw ‘em all over town. Little piece of Adele here, nuther piece there, and one for me and one for Thain.” He cackled and screamed. “Wait! We ain’t gonna have no room for Adele’s little pieces. I forgot. Cuz, Thain and me gonna eat your mouse hearted friend, here. Right Thain?”

  “You betcha.” He glared at me. “He looks so nice and sweet and fat, hey, like the spoiled house amait he is.”

  For the first time in my short life, I felt deep hatred for something, but I was so scared I shook.

  Raeed sat down and grinned at Adele. She strolled toward him, grinning, also, but she never took her eyes of him. She sat down right in front of him and touched her nose to his. Raeed stopped grinning and watched her. Like a flash of lightning, she grabbed his muzzle up to his eyes and—I do not to this day know how she did it, Chubby—flipped that sack of garbage over and back-clawed his throat until I thought she was going to rip it open. Thain froze and gawked. His mouth clamped, Raeed couldn’t make a sound. He gurgled like he was choked. Finally, he managed to wrench his face out of her grip and ran, instantly becoming a dot in the distance. I caught a glimpse of his face when he whizzed by me, and it resembled a mass of bloody worms, and his throat was bleeding. She turned on Thain. He disappeared as quick as the lightning’s flash.

  Adele looked at me and smiled, then sat and very calmly washed her face. “That’s how you do it, My Love, if you want to survive out here.”

  I was so stunned I had no voice.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Chubby, you know I’ve become a rather good fighter since I’ve been out here, but Adele was terrifying.”

  “No amait in his right mind ever wanted to tangle with Adele, I assure you.” Chubby looked off a moment watching memories. “I taught her, Gaylord. I taught her that trick: be calm, take things easy, and then attack fast and without mercy. You know that now, of course, but Adele, remember, was once as green as you were. So, I became her fight trainer, and from what you saw, she was a very good student.”

  “That’s for sure. Never on my best day would I contend with her. You did an excellent job, Old Teacher.

  Chubby grinned and looked at me. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “Fine with me. Where to this time? Back to Smokey’s or the mollie bašar?”

  “Neither. I’ll take you to a bašar food store and we’ll hang around the back. There’s a bašar named Clyde who loves amai and gives us fresh fish. Ever eat fresh fish?” I shook my head. “Sweet like sugar. Nothing like it.”

  Clyde was there, we got fresh fish and Chubby was right: almost too sweet but so delicious. We napped for a while when we got back to the shack. When End of Light came, I continued my story.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  For the next few days I thought a lot about what Adele had said concerning taking care of myself first, especially after the fight with Raeed and Thain. Caring for myself had never been a problem because I was fed regularly, slept anytime and anywhere I wanted, got brushed and pampered. I was a house amait, a pet.

  But I always had the urge to be something more. Talking to my maama never helped; she was either passed out from drinking too much nibiit or just not interested. So I dreamed. I pre
tended to be a sleek jungle amait stalking prey. Ned and Harriet watched TV shows that showed our magnificent cousins in jungles running down animals, killing them and eating them. I wanted to be a lion or tiger.

  Sometimes I’d act like a clown, jumping around with my tail arched and my faraawi puffed out in mock attack. I’d charge Ned or Harriet in the hallway and go after them sideways, then dart away in a flash when they tried to get me. Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to be something more than I was. Escaping gave me opportunity, but I was totally stupid about how to do it. I didn’t have goals, just dreams.

  Wanting to do something was okay, but you have to take steps to do it. I couldn’t lay around waiting for it, whatever it was, to come to me or have it brought to me by someone else. But that’s how I’d lived, spoiled rotten. I wasn’t an amait. I was some idea of an amait that Ned and Harriet wanted me to be.

  The worst thing was, I began to see myself as they saw me: soft, flabby, compliant and docile, like my maama and sister. After Adele said they might be fixed, I shuddered to think that I could have been fixed, too. I needed a goal. I needed to make a decision about my future and stick to it, no matter what. From what I learned about lions and tigers on TV, to be a real amait was to be a killer.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  I looked at Chubby. “Following you and Adele around wasn’t any good because all you guys were teaching me was how to scrounge. You don’t kill to eat; you nose around in garbage until you find something prepared.”

  Chubby bristled. “Hey, when you get to be my age, hunting’s not easy. I get food where I can and the easiest way. Why do it the hard way, especially when you don’t have much energy?” He looked away from me and I could tell he was angry with where I was taking this.

  “You’re like a house amait depending on bašar for survival.”

  “Wait just a minute, Whippersnapper. I depend on me, Chubby, the aged patriarch of this clowder. I will never be a pet, getting handouts, even though it might be cushy. You’re still captured in your mind.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Chubby. That lonely mollie bašar whose food you gobble like a kilaab is nothing, right? Huh? What did you say? Can’t hear you.” I laughed but saw Chubby rise and start to puff up, and eye me with that cold stare he was famous for.

  “Settle down Chubby. I saw you gobble it down. I gobbled it, too. What it says is, we too often convince ourselves to depend on bašar for everything we need, even here on the street. They’re push-overs and we know it, and we use them, and lose what we are, amai, born hunters and killers.”

  “You’re carrying this too far,” He began to pace. “I don’t depend on it, okay? I can still hunt. I’m a damned good hunter. Ask anyone here. Chubby can take a mouse or rat like it was struck by lightning. But why? It’s right here for the taking. Doesn’t make me weak. Just makes me . . . lazy, okay?”

  “Chubby, I watched amai, including me and Adele, grubbing around in bašar garbage, and it makes me really sad. We’re built to kill, not crawl around in their leftovers, getting filthy and reeking from their slop. Our heads are like wedges to break through weeds and stuff with ease. We can flatten our bodies and slither like snakes toward prey; our teeth are little needles, and our raspy tongues can lap meat from bones like water. With eyes that see in the dark and with razor claws that renew themselves, we are made to hunt and kill.”

  “Have it your way,” He laid down and became a ball of faraawi again, continued to stare at me. “All I’m saying, Gaylord, is if it’s right in front of you, why sweat? That’s all I’m going to say.” He licked his lips and made his eyes slits.”

  “I said all this to Adele too.” He didn’t answer.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Gaylord, have you ever eaten a mouse?” Adele asked. “You’re right, we are made to hunt and kill, but when have you ever had to? Didn’t your maama tell that because we’re not wild anymore we don’t have to hunt? I don’t know how to hunt. My maama was taken from me just after she taught me how to clean myself; she never got to hunting. I don’t know if she knew how. But so what? Back to my original question, have you ever tasted a mouse?”

  “No.”

  “It’s disgusting. When I first hit the street, a sweet old mollie used to bring them to me, still wiggling and squealing. To practice killing, she told me. I was to kill them and eat them. I balked, so she killed them and opened them so I could eat. I puked each time, and all she did was laugh, and kill and bring me more mice.”

  “What’d they taste like?”

  “Old metal. Go over there to that rainspout and take a lick. That’s what they taste like. And the guts are bloody and oozing, and the heads, which this old mollie said was the best part, were like eating rocks. I never understood her love for them.

  “She ate bugs, too. Just sniffing a roach, her favorite, was enough to put me away. That’s when I met Chubby. He said there was a better way if I wanted to move uptown, where I learned the art of the scrounge.”

  “Okay, but that just fills your belly. It doesn’t make you an amait.”

  “Please don’t get philosophical on me. I’ve heard all that khara a thousand times from amai who swear that hunting wild and eating wild is the only way to go. Well, it isn’t, trust me.”

  That night over a basket of fish bones and rice, I told her my plan. “I’m gonna try it. I’m sorry, but I need to find me, what I am, who I am. Besides, this isn’t filling me.” I pushed the basket toward her. “No to the fish bones, and I hate rice.”

  “So, go find something else.”

  “Can you hook me up with some amai, what do you call them?”

  “Alley amai. That’s because they live in alleys, like we do. We’re alleys. But the amai you want are completely wild, never been house amai, born in the street. They hunt rats and mice under the buildings, and they live on them. You’ll be filthy all the time and . . .”

  “I get filthy and slimy digging in dumpsters.”

  Ignoring me, she went on, “You’ll stink of mouse blood. If you go, don’t come looking for me.” She got up and walked a short distance before turning toward me. “Gaylord, you got a good life here, a safe life. You got friends, half decent places to sleep, and eventually, you’ll probably get me. But, if you go to the wild ones, you’ll cross a line that will be very hard to re-cross.”

  “I’ve got to try.” I started washing my face.

  “No matter how you scrub, mouse stink never goes away. Think about it.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  That’s when she urged me to talk to you, Chubby.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because you’d have intimidated me with horror stories.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I sort of admire your need to find yourself. I don’t think it was necessary, but I do admire your courage, because it did take guts to strike out without a brain in your head.” He smiled.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  “I appreciate your concern, Adele, and I respect your experience and Chubby’s, but I have to find answers myself. Maybe I’ll quit before I begin. Maybe I’m too soft. I don’t know. All I am sure of is my stupidity, which you remind me of all the time by cutting me down. I want to cure that if possible, so you’ll be proud of me. Besides, I stink of rotten meat, fish, rancid butter, coffee—you name it. So what’s the difference?”

  “I can be proud of you here, Gaylord. I think you have the stuff to be a great alley amait without all that tiraan khara about finding yourself. Find yourself here.”

  “Sorry, Adele, but I have to try.”

  She looked at me for a long time, and then meowed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re a stranger to me and I can’t see an amait in you any more. So, I greet you as we do them.”

  I was pissed. “Maybe I’ll be more amait than you are.” I hissed at her.

  “I see a loser.” She flatted her
ears, dropped to a crouch and hissed back. “Don’t ever threaten me, Gaylord, or I’ll shred you alive.”

  “Go to hell.” I screamed at her and ran away.

  I didn’t know where to go, but I wanted to get away from her and her insulting meowing. I headed for the street. If I was going to do it, I had to take the first step. I didn’t need Adele or you, Chubby; I’d take my lumps on my own.

  Chapter 8

  The city of cats and the city of men exist one inside the other, but they are not the same city. Italo Calvino

 

  I ran south until I got to a bunch of apartment buildings. Adele took me there one Time of Owls to look at the lake but told me to stay away from the alleys behind the apartments because some tough amai roamed there. Of course, that’s exactly where I needed to be.

  Stepping into the alley caused me to bristle like something crazed. It was the first time I’d been totally alone since escaping, and I was terrified. The alley reminded me of the hallway at Ned and Harriet’s apartment except there was no ceiling, just a deep black sky without stars. Both sides were lined with apartment buildings that seemed to go up forever. I’d never seen such tall buildings.

  Yellow light beamed from street lamps dotting the edges of the alley and gave off shadows that made it look like chunks had been cut from the sides of the buildings, some looking like they’d been chopped in two.

  Bašar voices blasted my ears. Some were just talking and laughing. Others were angry shouts and screams, like when Ned and Harriet argued. It always seemed odd to me how they tangled together in bed like well-fed kiths but later screamed and yelled at each other. But, I guess we do that, too, don’t we?

  As I trotted down the alley I heard kids crying and kalb barking and the sound of glass smashing. I looked up and saw black staircases like skeletons crawling up the sides of the buildings and heads of amai looking down on me. I wondered if they were wild or housies. Suddenly, a car roared down the alley and missed me by a whisker. What is it about me and cars, Chubby?

  Opening my mouth slightly, I tasted smells from all kinds of things: bašar, kilaab, hot asphalt, grass, and, surprise-surprise, garbage. But it smelled better than Adele’s alley, and when I hopped on a dumpster, I saw the lid was closed. Scratch that, I thought. I jumped down and continued walking.

  I kept to the shadows and stayed low to the bases of buildings. Despite the loud sounds coming all around me, I picked up scratching and squeaking from cracks here and there where the buildings met the street, openings just big enough for an amait to squeeze through. I sniffed into one. Adele’s description of old metal attacked my nose.