Gangrene

The old man had acquired the big yellow cat two years earlier for the little girl, from a box of other cats, or kittens, in the vestibule of the local grocery. Being too old (or so it was often said by many) to be the father of such a young child, the old man was always looking for ways to make the little girl smile (and maybe not notice his old tired face as much) when he arrived home from work each day. A piece of candy one day. A small, pretty silk rose might do the trick, the next. And on the day in question, a day to which the old man would think back on in bitterness those last few minutes of his life, he had picked up the little yellow kitten from the box full of other perfectly acceptable kittens and stated to the man and woman standing beside the free kitten sign, "This one. I think she would like this one here."

And so the story begins:

It was a hot and impossibly humid afternoon in the latter half of August. Yellow Cat had been off, on the lamb, for two days now and the little girl was sitting on the front porch swing, swinging and singing a song she had made up herself for her "kitty-cat."

"Kitty-cat, Kitty-cat, where can you be? Where, oh where can my Yellow Cat be?" She sang the song with conviction. For though it was an often occurrence for Yellow Cat to escape the house through a screen door opened a fraction too long, and it was not out of the ordinary for him to be gone a whole day, it was however not ordinary and in fact never had it occurred that Yellow Cat had not returned, meowing and scratching at the front door, by midnight, at the latest, waking the little girl, who without exception always ran to open the door, and welcome her precious friend back home.

She was sitting there, on the verge of tears, singing and swinging when she noticed her father, the old man who loved his little girl so much he had been out searching, on foot, for her lost cat, walking up the drive.

"Oh, did you find him daddy?" asking him, as she ran to him, the same question she had asked only the hour before when the old man had returned from driving around the neighborhood, looking for the cat.

"No Sugar. Daddy still can't find your kitty-cat."

"Oh no!" she said, and began to cry in that very mellow-dramatic way little girls have of crying over things like that. It reminded the old man of the way little girls cried in movies. Not new movies, but old ones. The kind of movies he grew up watching. The kind without all that irony. He hated it, but it almost made him smile to see her, in her little dramatic pose.

"Don't you worry sweet-heart, we'll find your Yellow Cat."

"Do you promise daddy?" she asked as she took his hand and walked with him the remainder of the driveway and into the house.

"Yes Sugar. Why I bet that darn cat will be back home tonight. You know he always comes back. He's probably on his way home now as we speak. Been up to no good I bet."

The old mans words were prophetic. Not only did Yellow Cat return, but he did so within the hour of the old man's last search. His wife, who was cooking the evening meal, was the first to hear the cat, scratching at the back door.

"Darling. Your kitty," she yelled out to the little girl. "Yellow cat is at the door!"

Running to the door, the little girl flung it open and swooped up the cat into her arms.

"Bad cat!" she said immediately, more relieved than angry. "You gave me a terrible scare."

The cat meowed, and rubbed its head beneath the girl's chin. His hair was matted down with a mixture of mud and God only knew what else from the two days running spree. He was shaking as if cold, but it wasn't cold outside at all. The girl just thought to herself: he must be so excited to be back home.