The Cat

Excerpt:

What’s this? Something gray is crumpled against the wall. It looks like a wadded, dirty sweater. I walk over and freeze: a cat. At first I think it’s alive; it seems to be twitching. But no, it’s just its fur rustling in the breeze. I bend down close. Its eyes are black slits. Its mouth hangs open, revealing jagged teeth and a pale, pink tongue. Brown patches of dried blood circle its scruff. I can’t stop staring at its front teeth, so still and violent. Could I touch? I want to caress the tip of the sharp, jutting tooth. It seems necessary. I reach forward, brush my index finger against the tooth, and jerk away. It’s dry, sharp and cold. For some reason I felt it would be hot. I look around me; the alleyway is deserted. The fur fans stiffly in the breeze. I stuff my hands back into my hoodie and quickly walk away.

I don't know what compelled me to throw a cat into the narrative. I haven't really been planning much as I write; I just kind of try to enter the world I'm creating and allow whatever to happen. I found myself wanting to encounter a dead cat. I'm glad it happened. The narrator is obsessed with connections and the cat becomes something to which other images and impressions can be linked. Particularly significant is his original perception of the cat as a "wadded, dirty sweater," as he obsesses about the soft, white sweater worn by Joni. Thus, the sweater becomes a symbol for both fear and desire and the paradoxical emotions become more and more entwined. Here he first encounters Joni:

"Hello stranger," her voice is like a purr. I think of the dead cat; its eyes jerk open. Glowing green, like the Heineken bottle, like Roky’s eyes shining with a strange, internal light. Shake the image away. Her lips are reddened and sticky from the bottle of Tropicana fruit punch.

"Hey. How many bunnies did you have to kill to make that sweater?" She laughs and I can see her tongue: red and sticky and sweet.

"Actually it’s polar bear. And it only took one. It’s really soft… see?" She holds her arm out for me to stroke. It is soft! I can feel the warmth of her arm beneath the sleeve. Why so warm?

Joni and the cat are instantly inseparable. As the object of the narrator's sexual desire, Joni is prey, but, because of her relationship to the cat, she is simultaneously a predator, with fruit punch blood around her mouth and an image of her murdering bunnies. The dead cat is also both predator and prey-- predator by nature and by violent appearance, prey by virtue of the fact of its bloody death. Also, like the cat, Joni confuses the narrator by defying expectations: he is surprised by the coolness he feels touching the cat's tooth, and by the warmth he feels touching her arm.

That's it for today.