Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [64]
“Hope, don’t hold that cat over the stove like that,” Agnes scolded. “Her tail could catch fire on one of the burners.”
There was nothing Natalie or I could say that would make Hope understand that the only suffering her cat was experiencing was her.
“You can’t hang that thing around her neck. It’s too heavy.”
“But Natalie, this way she can’t get lost. I can hear her wherever she goes in the house.”
The necklace, made of two jar lids and a length of red yarn, was secured around the cat’s neck. The lids clanked together whenever the cat moved.
“What are you doing to this cat?” the doctor bellowed when it leapt up on his lap, fleeing from Hope.
“Dad, Freud’s sick,” Hope said, catching her breath.
“Leave this poor animal alone,” was all he said before nodding off in front of the TV.
On the fourth day, the cat’s condition worsened. According to Hope, Freud again contacted her during REM sleep and said that she had hung on for as long as she could, she really just needed to be left in peace so she could die now.
“Has anybody seen Hope?” I asked that afternoon. I needed a ride to the Hampshire Mall so I could fill out a job application at Chess King and Hope was the only one who could drive me there.
“I haven’t seen her all day,” Agnes said, scrubbing at the dining room table with vinegar and newspaper. “Last time I saw her she was downstairs in the basement”—she used her fingernail to scrub something off the table—“with the cat.”
I turned around and looked at the door to the basement. “Hope?” I called out. When I didn’t hear any answer, I opened the door. It was dark. But then just as I was about to close the door, I heard something, a faint scratching sound. I flicked on the light and started down the stairs.
Hope was lying on the floor with her head next to a yellow plastic laundry basket. She appeared to be dead. “Hope, are you okay?”
“Mmmm? Who?” she mumbled sleepily.
“Hope, what are you doing down here on the floor? People have been looking for—”
That’s when I saw the whiskers. They were poking out of the slats of the laundry basket, flicker, flicker, flicker.
I leaned forward and peered inside the basket. Freud was pressed against the side of it, her nose trying to poke through. “Hey cat,” I said gently. Then, “Hope, what’s going on in here?”
Hope slowly sat up. She brought her finger to the side of the basket and tickled Freud’s whiskers. “Poor kitty.”
“Why is she in the laundry basket? And why do you have this dollhouse on top of it?”
Hope looked up at me and her face told me that something dreadful had happened. It was the face you might wear if you had to tell a parent that their child had met unfavorably with a python.
“She’s dying, Augusten.”
The cat made a yowling sound, almost a growl.
I brushed a cobweb off my head and slapped the back of my neck. “What you are doing down here? It’s awful.”
The basement was damp, with a dirt floor, stone walls and a low ceiling of exposed beams.
In a calm, tender voice Hope explained. “I’m down here with Freud to keep her company while she passes away.”
My first impulse was to laugh. Except the expression on Hope’s face told me she wasn’t kidding. So I said, “Oh-kay,” and I backed away, then walked slowly up the steps, turning the light off before closing the door.
Then I ran as fast as I could upstairs and burst into Natalie’s room.
“Oh my God,” I said. “You will never believe what your crazy sister is doing.”
Natalie quickly let her skirt fall, covering her thighs and turned away from the mirror. “What now?”
“She’s got the cat trapped in a laundry basket in the basement. She’s gonna kill it.”
“What?”
“It’s true. I was just down there. She’s got the thing stuck inside this laundry basket because she says it’s dying and she wants to keep it company or something.”
“Are you serious?” She raised her eyebrows in her trademark don’t-fuck-with-me-fashion.
“Totally.”
She grabbed her Canon Al.
“No, not like that. Just lean in and tilt your head up toward the lightbulb,” Natalie directed,