Out of the Gutter Art

Tag: author

  • It’s Cold, I’m Hungry

    Crossing the Mighty Mississipp…

    …wasn’t easy on foot, with a brindle boxer, calico kitten and Danny.

    Fortunately, before we got a few miles out of Fort Deposit, an 18-wheeler rolled onto the shoulder. Although my recollection was challenged by a bad case of the heebee-geebees at the time, and many years of hard knocks since, I recall a strange exchange of words. The skinny driver had one good eye and a drawl, and asked how we thought we’d get a ride with a stupid dog. Maybe he let us get in as a source of entertainment, but he let us all pile in. In retrospect, I’m sure he was jacked as high as 4 blue Aces; at the time we had no trepidation at all. Spice was all wiggly, wagging her stump of a tail and slobbering; she was quickly settled on the floorboard, while Binky burrowed further into my sweatshirt.

    °Z

    Danny wasn’t keen on leading conversations. He was a quiet, contemplative man. It had been less than a year since I’d gotten out of jail; he seemed content to exist in my orbit. I was quite a handful in those years before a proper diagnosis and medication regimen. Bipolar Disorder was previously known as Manic Depression, and my brain loved to latch onto the mania. (One of my nicknames was “Runs With Scissors”.) In this instance I was chatting my head off to our new trucker friend. We got underway, his truck shuddering as he skipped a gear or two pulling onto the interstate.

    The ride was rough, this was no tricked-out big truck. I forget what he was hauling, but I remember bouncing around the cab over the poorer sections of pavement. As the engine roared and belched, conversation became impossible. I dozed on Danny’s shoulder as the miles slowly crept past.

    Half a day later we rolled into a truck stop, gassing up before the Mississippi River Bridge. Our driver showed some extraordinary kindness. Buying a bunch of hot dogs, peanut butter and bread, we had a veritable feast. The temperature really dropped that night, and he made us get out while he slept a few hours. He may have been generous- he was also careful. Near daybreak he suggested we all stretch and use the restroom, as he wouldn’t be stopping for a while. He said something about “the bridge”; it really didn’t seem important at the time…we loaded up and held on.

  • ORANGE Baby

    ORANGE Baby

    AKA The Crazy Cat

    Chapter 3

       I didn’t want to become the “Cat Lady” of my new neighborhood. I had gotten off on the wrong foot, on day one, with an off-balance dope fiend who lived directly across the street from me. While attempting to acclimate my kitties to their new home, they had escaped the trailer, bounding joyfully through the neighborhood at 100 miles an hour.

      Oliver was a long and lanky boy of dubious Russian Blue heritage. Beautifully Grey and a little odd, he would saunter up to just about anyone. Frenchy was a lovely Calico of the clouded kind, petite, demure and a veritable hellcat when she was cornered. And then there was Fogerty…

       Fogerty deserves his own paragraph. He was a descendent of the Banyan Drive rescue crew, one of the kittens my Mom had meticulously documented in her “Book of Cats on Banyan Drive”. He was born in 1997 , brother to Munson , son of Teddy. He was very old when we arrived in Tampa. But very spry. To the point that the local Vet argued that there was no possible way he was 20 years old, even if I did have documentation.  I gave up trying to persuade him.

       So these were my three cats at my new home. Mine, in the sense that I inherited them. I promised Mom on her deathbed that I would care for her cats after she died. And I was keeping my promise. I was not capable of loving them properly at that time. My heart was too fragile to let any love in. So I fed them, watered them, and talked to them. I watched them settle in, watched them play. Even let one sit on me, now and then.

       But they weren’t allowed in my bedroom, no, that was sacred Shih Tzu territory:

        My pets, my dogs, my loves.