Monster - A. Lee Martinez [9]
“It’s out there again,” she whispered. “It’s sitting on the porch.”
Rob sighed. “It’s just a cat.” While he had no use for cats, these particular felines, while numerous, weren’t generally much of a nuisance. Once in a while, one of the little beasts might start howling in the middle of the night, but it was far less frequent and disturbing than the parties thrown by the swingers across the street.
“Have you ever taken a look at them?” asked Evelyn. “I mean really taken a look at them.”
“They’re cats. What’s to see?”
“Their eyes. There’s something wrong with their eyes.” She peeked out the front-door window at the cat sitting on the porch. “And their shadows aren’t right either.”
“Jeezus, Evelyn. How much time do you spend watching those things?”
“And don’t you ever notice that, except for this one, they always stay in her yard?” she said. “There’s always ten or twenty out there, but they never get outside the fence.”
“Who’s complaining?” he replied. “She’s got them trained.”
“You can’t train a cat to stay in a yard. It can’t be done.”
“Obviously, it can.”
“Something destroyed my rosebushes. Explain that.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Raccoon, maybe?”
“Raccoons don’t burn down rosebushes,” she said. “Burned? You think cats set fire to your rosebushes?”
“Not cats. Cat. That cat! Just look at it. It knows I know, and it’s rubbing my nose in it.”
Rob was beginning to doubt that spouses belonged in that subcategory after all. But at least her inexplicable paranoia gave him a reason to look forward to work. Eight blissful hours of middle management drudgery seemed almost like paradise compared to listening to Evelyn ramble on about her furry arch-nemesis.
He started to open the front door, but she slapped away his hand. “For God’s sake, Rob, use the back door. It’s out there.”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud.” He pushed her aside and opened the door.
The cat stood and stretched. It glanced at Rob and Evelyn but didn’t seem very interested in either of them.
Evelyn hid halfway behind the door and a few steps away from the threshold. “If you were any kind of man, you’d confront her. Tell her that we know what she’s up to.”
“You aren’t serious. You want me to go and yell at an old lady who has never done anything to us except have a cat that likes to sit on our porch?”
“And burns down rosebushes,” she added. “And I think the beast ate the Newtons’ dog. The one that disappeared a week ago.”
“The Saint Bernard?”
She nodded.
The cat raised its head and licked its lips in a manner that even Rob had to admit looked very satisfied.
Evelyn moved a few steps back.
“Oh, for the love of Pete,” said Rob. “Look, if I take the cat back where it belongs and tell them that we’d prefer they keep it inside, would that make you happy?”
He really didn’t care if it made her happy, but he was hoping it might make her shut up. All he’d ever asked of her was a certain degree of bland agreeableness. It seemed ridiculous that one cat should destroy that. If it meant yelling at an old lady to restore her sanity and his peace, then he was perfectly willing to do so.
She smiled. Her smile always struck him as forced and counterproductive, more disturbing than reassuring. His smile was even worse, but at least he had the good sense to use it only on special occasions. He never inflicted it on his wife.
“Won’t you?” she asked. “I can’t stand the dreadful thing. If she could just keep it inside…”
Rob picked up the cat. It didn’t try to run away. He didn’t grab it by the back of the neck, but gently cradled it in his arms. This wasn’t motivated by care or concern but by an awkwardness with touching living things. Whenever someone offered to let him hold their baby, which was thankfully a rare occurrence, he always excused himself to use the bathroom.
He strolled over to the neighbor’s house, passing through the white picket fence around the neatly trimmed yard and colorful flower beds planted along the cobblestone path from the sidewalk to the door. The many cats