Cat S(h)itting

August 5, 2005

Deborah works a dozen different jobs, and I have trouble keeping her schedule straight. Last night, when she suggested we meet at a restaurant down the street from where she was working, I had no idea where it was. "Where are you?" I asked. "Where's the restaurant?"

She told me the address and that she got off at eight. "How about we meet at 8:30?"

Cool, okay.

Although the L train from Williamsburg wasn't very crowded, I still couldn't get a seat, so I was relieved when I switched to the F at Union Square and found it nearly empty. After I settled into my seat, I noticed a woman a few seats down, mumbling to herself and rocking back and forth. Nothing too unusual about that. She looked fairly young and healthy — in her mid-twenties maybe. Her clothes were relatively clean, as was her skin and hair — all except for her feet, which were swollen, cracked, and leathery. A line of grime circled where the skin spilled over the sides of her flip-flops. She had several worn plastic bags stuffed with what appeared to be garbage — soda bottles, filthy rags, food-stained paper bags, et cetera.

As soon as the train left the station, the woman arranged her bags on the seat next to her, taking a moment to balance them just right so they wouldn't fall over and spill her precious collection of trash all over the floor. Then she stood up and started walking to the other end of the car. I looked at the Conway bag, hoping it wasn't filled with explosives, then watched her to see what she was up to. She had trouble keeping her balance as the train shimmied down the track. When she reached the middle of the car, she grabbed onto a pole, twirled on it like a stripper, then straightened up and began preaching about Jesus.

The train clicked and clacked loudly through the tunnel, but unfortunately that wasn't enough to drown out the woman's evangelistic warbling. It was hard to make out exactly what she was saying, but she was booming — Jesus this and Jesus that.

I don't know if it's the heat or what, but I've been rubbing up against an inordinately high number of kooks lately. Or maybe it's just the heat making me especially intolerant of them. When the train finally pulled into my stop, I couldn't wait to jump off. The doors closed behind me, and the traveling ministry continued on its way.

Once I climbed the stairs leading out of the station, I realized I got off too early — it wasn't the right stop.

"Hey Deborah. I just got off the train, but I got off at the wrong stop. I'm on my way, but I'll be a little late."

Deborah promised to feed a couple of cats while her friend was out of town and, after dinner, she convinced me to come along. "My friend has air conditioning and lots of movies. She said it's okay if we want to hang out there."

"Sure. Sounds good."

We walked several blocks through the heat, struggled with the building's locks, and went up the stairs to her friend's apartment. "I smell a litter box," Deborah sang as she jostled the key in the lock. When it finally clicked, she pushed open the door, and we were flooded with the smell of cat urine.

Deborah looked for the light switch. When she found it and flicked it on, I couldn't believe what I saw. The place was a wreck.

"Did the cats do this?" I asked.

"I don't know. I know my friend has been busy..."

"Yeah, but, I mean, c'mon."

The stench of cats was to be expected — I've done my fair share of cat sitting, after all — but I couldn't figure out what else to blame on the pets. The scraps of paper littering the floor? The knocked-over stacks of books? The magazines fanned out everywhere. I could safely blame the cats for the puke-covered hairball, covered with ants, but that was it.

One cat was an average-sized calico, but the other was a Jabba the Hutt-sized Maine Coon. "Holy shit," I said when he waddled into the room. "Look at that fucking thing."

Deborah cleaned the litter box, changed the cats' water, and fed them while I sat on the couch and shooed away roaches.

"Okay," said Deborah when she finished. "We don't want to stay here, right?"

"Right."

We grabbed a couple of movies and hopped the subway back to Deborah's place. We settled on the bed and looked through the movie stash.

"What should we get?" I asked.

"Rope...The Unbearable Lightness of Being...The Rock...The Perfect Storm..."

We chose *The Unbearable Lightness of Being*, popped it into Deborah's ancient VHS deck, and proceeded to watch the machine chew the movie up and spit out a tangled mess.

"Hmm. How about Rope?"

The deck chewed and spat again.

"Hmm."