The Cat has to Go

This is a tribute to my late father who was fond of the

50s jazz expression, "That cat can really go!"

She shown like a goddess in the sky her love was the alpha and omega to all who witnessed her beauty, saw her fly so precious to the eye, a heaven's call to the finest of earthly wonders in her being a celestial treasure for our poor mortal seeing. She picked a mortal man to give her sweet heart too, A love like heaven, sweeter than the morning dew. ......Suzy wanted the cat's mess out of her sweater. The poor devil had the Hershey squirts the last week and she saw the animal was losing weight. Her little Tommy was eating normally, but it went in one end and out the other. .....The aqua angora was her favorite. After work she tossed it on the bed when she went to don her exercise togs. Tommy loved that sweater as much as Jimmy did on their last date. The human pheromones,the scent of love, drew Tommy to nest in it as Suzy was at the park. The cat slept inhaling the ghost of her mistress' amour, unfortunately Tommy awoke finding he had freed about half of the chicken giblets he had earlier. ....When Suzy Found the results of what had occurred her first impulse was to strangle Tommy as the joy her aqua sweater had aroused in her suitor, Jimmy, flashed through her mind. She was a split second from striking Tommy when her deeply ingrained respect for life stayed her hand. The only thing she had ever killed were worms on the sidewalk after a rain, and cringing pulses shot through her leg and hip even when she did that by accident. She regretted again the day when she was four, as she had so many times, when her friend Paul from two doors north showed her how the nightcrawlers hunched up when pinched between the heel and sidewalk. She could never forget the shame of how they laughed at the night crawlers that day. Fly were a different story for her and swatting them and sticking them to flypaper meant nothing to her, the larger muscular death spasms of the worms, she felt. ......Now the Tommy problem was getting to be too much! The spots on the shag-berber would not come out with an aerosol. She needed $100.00, the minimum anyone would charge to show at her apartment. Tommy went through the same amount of food, but much of it never made it's proper way to the litter box. There were stains all over the carpet and the cleaner from the store was not covering the smell. She always loved Tommy cuddling her, and purring, and rubbing her shins. Tommy was her love when she had no company, and even an hour alone was too much for her. She needed something live and animate in her life. ....Data process meant the aqua angora sweater was a big fraction of her take home pay for the pay period. It wasn't just the money though, it was how Jimmy loved to fondle her in it, his hands working her flesh through the sweater. This was a moment of crisis. ....Suzy was a politically active person and met the firery Jimmy on the bus to the WTO protest. He was a Canon, although Spanish, his violet eyes made him look German. Knowing him two weeks only she had mental images of how their kids would look. They would never be blond like her, but she felt the blue eyes would carry. She dreamed of a raven black haired blue eyed daughter. ....She wanted the sweater back for Jimmy. The dry cleaner would take it in, but she needed to be there in twenty minutes. She ran out the door unknowingly letting it slam and then rebound ajar as she rushed down the stairs. Only two blocks.