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smackenzieThe next morning Alicia comes to my house again, this time when I'm putting my wet laundry in the dryer. She's wearing a yellow shirt and a skirt printed with giant tropical flowers, and she's holding a cat carrier. I don't have a cat. If she's giving away a cat carrier, I'm the wrong person to try and give it to.
"I'm so sorry to bother you," she says, "but I'm at my wits' end. Do you want a cat? If you don't want to keep him, can you foster him until I can find him a home?" She lifts the cat carrier enough for me to look inside, and sure enough, a pair of yellow eyes looks back at me.
"That's not Madame CJ, is it?" Madame CJ the cat, named after Madame CJ Walker the entrepreneur, is the gray-and-white fluffball who escaped from Alicia's house and took up residence under my porch that one time. Alicia has another cat, a marmalade terror named Soap, but I can't imagine she'd get rid of him either.
"His name is Diego. One of my TAs had to give him up, so I said I'd take him. He's a very relaxed cat. I thought he'd be ok with Soap and Madame CJ - they get along with each other just fine - but Soap has been terrorizing him for two weeks, despite my best efforts to separate them, and I can't keep him any more."
"Is that why you were so stressed out last night?"
"It's one of the things. I know a no-kill shelter not too far away, but if you can take him, we'd both be so much happier."
I peer into the cat carrier again. Diego looks like a fuzzy gray lump from what I can see. "How old is he?"
"Three years. He's not on a special diet, he doesn't have any medical issues, he's been fixed. He's an indoor cat and he's very cuddly, when Soap isn't monopolizing my time. Please, Sparrow. I want to do right by him but I can't keep him."
I've lived with cats before - my sister had a calico named Brussel Sprout for most of her teen years, and I've had roommates who had cats, including one right after college whose cat had kittens under the kitchen table in the middle of the night - I like them, and I'm pretty sure I can cat-proof my house -
"Does he like plants?" I ask, suddenly thinking of my spider plants and my little cactus garden and the begonias and daylilies and peppers and potted ficus trees in my house. I don't want a cat, as cute as he probably is, to be chewing on my plants while I'm gone all day.
"He likes mint, but he doesn't seem to be interested in any of my houseplants." Alicia lifts the cat carrier to her face and says "You're a good kitty, aren't you?" through the little front screen. "He's quiet, too. I'll bring over his food and toys. I bought him a cat bed, but he'll probably rather sleep with you."
"Did I just adopt a cat?"
"You just adopted a cat." Alicia beams. "Say hello to your new mama," she tells Diego. He doesn't even purr. I have a quick flash of turning around and stepping on him, or getting out of the shower and stepping on him, or walking across a room and stepping on him, because he hasn't made any noise to tell me he's there.
Alicia hands me the cat carrier with effusive thanks, and just like that, I have a cat, a plush gray creature named after Diego Rivera who likes to sit on my feet and lie on his back and wave his paws at nothing and climb on me while I'm doing yoga and sniff everything before I put it in my mouth and lick my toothpaste. My plants hold no interest for him, as promised, and he prefers my bed over his own, as promised, and aside from a morning "meow" to politely ask me to get out of bed and feed him, he's very quiet. The cat who had kittens under my and my roommate's kitchen table was the chattiest cat I've ever met, and if she even thought there was anyone anywhere else in the apartment, she'd talk to them. One of my friends rigged up a baby monitor to see if she talked to herself while everyone was out. (Before she had kittens, obviously. After she had them, before we could find them all homes, she talked to them too. All the time.)
Alicia brings over a half-empty bag of cat food and a handful of cat toys - a squeaky mouse, a catnip mouse, and a bunch of pink and green feathers at the end of a long wand - kisses Diego on the head, kisses me on the cheek, and thanks me again.
"I had some of your cookies for breakfast," I tell her, before she can leave. "They were really good."
"Oh, thank you, honey," she says. "I still have a batch of thumbprint cookies to give away. You can take them to work."
That reminds me, it might be about time to leave some of my own homemade cookies on the kitchen counter for the wandering studio spirit. It doesn't like store-bought or even bakery cookies - I don't know how it can tell that the made-by-hand-this-morning bakery cookies aren't made by my hand, but it can - and while it probably will like Alicia's, I should make my own.
"There's a potluck after church tomorrow," she goes on, evidently reading my mind. It's an impressive and entirely non-magical trick she has, probably honed during her years as a classroom instructor, or even earlier, when she herself was still a student and needed to navigate the halls of white academia as a black woman. "No one will say no to my cookies. Thank you again for taking Diego. I'm sorry for springing him on you, but I thought you might say yes."
I don't know what to say to that. I didn't realize I was such a soft touch until I was confronted with a cat that needed a home.
Alicia goes back home and I take Diego, his bed, his food, and his toys inside. I let him out of the cat carrier and introduce him to the house, remind him not to eat my plants, and apologize for having to leave.
"I need to run errands and go to work," I tell him. He just looks at me. His eyes are very yellow and I remember a twenty-something guy I tattooed a few years ago, who wanted eyes on the back of his bald skull, so he could see anyone sneaking up behind him. He was a mix of extremely paranoid and genuinely rational, and from what I remember, he was very pleased with his second set of eyes. They were green, though, not yellow.
"Be a good kitty," I continue. Diego stretches and yawns. I realize I don't have a food or water dish for him - Alicia didn't bring any - so I put some food in a cereal bowl and fill another bowl with water, so he won't starve or dehydrate while I'm gone.
I'm at the store picking up an economy pack of paper towels when it occurs to me that I never mentioned the were-hedgehog to Alicia, and I didn't ask if there was a chance Diego might turn into a person.
Maya is excited that I've adopted a cat, as is the client in her chair, and Kona is just glad that I brought more paper towels.
"You need to give me your inventory," I tell him. "Maya did." Maya looks up from where she's working on her client's thigh long enough to look smug.
"Is your cat going to turn into a human?" Kona asks me by way of response. Maya snickers. Kona told her about the were-hedgehog yesterday, which meant she asked me for more details, which meant I shared the way the hedgehog had yelled "Sonofabitch!" right after he turned. She was infinitely amused at the thought of a naked man grabbing his clothes and stomping off to the bathroom to get dressed, entirely unembarrassed.
"I didn't ask. I might find out when I get home."
I unpack the paper towels, distribute them to everyone's stations, put the extras in the kitchen, and hide in the office for a little while to take care of some paperwork. It's the one thing I hate about owning my own business. I sort invoices and receipts and miscellaneous pieces of paper, I make notes, I spend ten minutes looking for the very detailed inventory of her station that Maya wrote up for me. I discover a stack of flash designs in the desk drawer, which is strange, because they're supposed to be on the table in the waiting area. I write a check to renew the studio subscription to Tattoo Art, one of the more work-safe tattoo magazines.
I stop about ten minutes before I need to start cleaning and prepping for my first client of the day, so I can make myself some tea and do some stretches. There's a paper lunch sack on the kitchen counter with "Maya's Chai-ya" written on it in purple. There's also a list of ingredients and instructions on how to make the perfect cup of tea written on the bag. I open it and inhale. It smells like cinnamon and ginger and pepper and reminds me of a cheap Indian cafe my friends and I used to go to when I was in college. It was called Delhi Cafe and you could stuff your face for not a lot of money, especially if you brought friends with whom to share a pile of fresh garlic naan. I think I'll have Indian food for dinner.
But first, a cup of Maya's chai, and then tattoos. Today's work includes a couple of hours on a Japanese-woodcut-inspired sleeve, an Alice in Wonderland based on John Tenniel's illustrations, a shoulder full of bat silhouettes, and a protection charm in French wound around the client's arm.
words: 1709
total words: 10,533
"I'm so sorry to bother you," she says, "but I'm at my wits' end. Do you want a cat? If you don't want to keep him, can you foster him until I can find him a home?" She lifts the cat carrier enough for me to look inside, and sure enough, a pair of yellow eyes looks back at me.
"That's not Madame CJ, is it?" Madame CJ the cat, named after Madame CJ Walker the entrepreneur, is the gray-and-white fluffball who escaped from Alicia's house and took up residence under my porch that one time. Alicia has another cat, a marmalade terror named Soap, but I can't imagine she'd get rid of him either.
"His name is Diego. One of my TAs had to give him up, so I said I'd take him. He's a very relaxed cat. I thought he'd be ok with Soap and Madame CJ - they get along with each other just fine - but Soap has been terrorizing him for two weeks, despite my best efforts to separate them, and I can't keep him any more."
"Is that why you were so stressed out last night?"
"It's one of the things. I know a no-kill shelter not too far away, but if you can take him, we'd both be so much happier."
I peer into the cat carrier again. Diego looks like a fuzzy gray lump from what I can see. "How old is he?"
"Three years. He's not on a special diet, he doesn't have any medical issues, he's been fixed. He's an indoor cat and he's very cuddly, when Soap isn't monopolizing my time. Please, Sparrow. I want to do right by him but I can't keep him."
I've lived with cats before - my sister had a calico named Brussel Sprout for most of her teen years, and I've had roommates who had cats, including one right after college whose cat had kittens under the kitchen table in the middle of the night - I like them, and I'm pretty sure I can cat-proof my house -
"Does he like plants?" I ask, suddenly thinking of my spider plants and my little cactus garden and the begonias and daylilies and peppers and potted ficus trees in my house. I don't want a cat, as cute as he probably is, to be chewing on my plants while I'm gone all day.
"He likes mint, but he doesn't seem to be interested in any of my houseplants." Alicia lifts the cat carrier to her face and says "You're a good kitty, aren't you?" through the little front screen. "He's quiet, too. I'll bring over his food and toys. I bought him a cat bed, but he'll probably rather sleep with you."
"Did I just adopt a cat?"
"You just adopted a cat." Alicia beams. "Say hello to your new mama," she tells Diego. He doesn't even purr. I have a quick flash of turning around and stepping on him, or getting out of the shower and stepping on him, or walking across a room and stepping on him, because he hasn't made any noise to tell me he's there.
Alicia hands me the cat carrier with effusive thanks, and just like that, I have a cat, a plush gray creature named after Diego Rivera who likes to sit on my feet and lie on his back and wave his paws at nothing and climb on me while I'm doing yoga and sniff everything before I put it in my mouth and lick my toothpaste. My plants hold no interest for him, as promised, and he prefers my bed over his own, as promised, and aside from a morning "meow" to politely ask me to get out of bed and feed him, he's very quiet. The cat who had kittens under my and my roommate's kitchen table was the chattiest cat I've ever met, and if she even thought there was anyone anywhere else in the apartment, she'd talk to them. One of my friends rigged up a baby monitor to see if she talked to herself while everyone was out. (Before she had kittens, obviously. After she had them, before we could find them all homes, she talked to them too. All the time.)
Alicia brings over a half-empty bag of cat food and a handful of cat toys - a squeaky mouse, a catnip mouse, and a bunch of pink and green feathers at the end of a long wand - kisses Diego on the head, kisses me on the cheek, and thanks me again.
"I had some of your cookies for breakfast," I tell her, before she can leave. "They were really good."
"Oh, thank you, honey," she says. "I still have a batch of thumbprint cookies to give away. You can take them to work."
That reminds me, it might be about time to leave some of my own homemade cookies on the kitchen counter for the wandering studio spirit. It doesn't like store-bought or even bakery cookies - I don't know how it can tell that the made-by-hand-this-morning bakery cookies aren't made by my hand, but it can - and while it probably will like Alicia's, I should make my own.
"There's a potluck after church tomorrow," she goes on, evidently reading my mind. It's an impressive and entirely non-magical trick she has, probably honed during her years as a classroom instructor, or even earlier, when she herself was still a student and needed to navigate the halls of white academia as a black woman. "No one will say no to my cookies. Thank you again for taking Diego. I'm sorry for springing him on you, but I thought you might say yes."
I don't know what to say to that. I didn't realize I was such a soft touch until I was confronted with a cat that needed a home.
Alicia goes back home and I take Diego, his bed, his food, and his toys inside. I let him out of the cat carrier and introduce him to the house, remind him not to eat my plants, and apologize for having to leave.
"I need to run errands and go to work," I tell him. He just looks at me. His eyes are very yellow and I remember a twenty-something guy I tattooed a few years ago, who wanted eyes on the back of his bald skull, so he could see anyone sneaking up behind him. He was a mix of extremely paranoid and genuinely rational, and from what I remember, he was very pleased with his second set of eyes. They were green, though, not yellow.
"Be a good kitty," I continue. Diego stretches and yawns. I realize I don't have a food or water dish for him - Alicia didn't bring any - so I put some food in a cereal bowl and fill another bowl with water, so he won't starve or dehydrate while I'm gone.
I'm at the store picking up an economy pack of paper towels when it occurs to me that I never mentioned the were-hedgehog to Alicia, and I didn't ask if there was a chance Diego might turn into a person.
Maya is excited that I've adopted a cat, as is the client in her chair, and Kona is just glad that I brought more paper towels.
"You need to give me your inventory," I tell him. "Maya did." Maya looks up from where she's working on her client's thigh long enough to look smug.
"Is your cat going to turn into a human?" Kona asks me by way of response. Maya snickers. Kona told her about the were-hedgehog yesterday, which meant she asked me for more details, which meant I shared the way the hedgehog had yelled "Sonofabitch!" right after he turned. She was infinitely amused at the thought of a naked man grabbing his clothes and stomping off to the bathroom to get dressed, entirely unembarrassed.
"I didn't ask. I might find out when I get home."
I unpack the paper towels, distribute them to everyone's stations, put the extras in the kitchen, and hide in the office for a little while to take care of some paperwork. It's the one thing I hate about owning my own business. I sort invoices and receipts and miscellaneous pieces of paper, I make notes, I spend ten minutes looking for the very detailed inventory of her station that Maya wrote up for me. I discover a stack of flash designs in the desk drawer, which is strange, because they're supposed to be on the table in the waiting area. I write a check to renew the studio subscription to Tattoo Art, one of the more work-safe tattoo magazines.
I stop about ten minutes before I need to start cleaning and prepping for my first client of the day, so I can make myself some tea and do some stretches. There's a paper lunch sack on the kitchen counter with "Maya's Chai-ya" written on it in purple. There's also a list of ingredients and instructions on how to make the perfect cup of tea written on the bag. I open it and inhale. It smells like cinnamon and ginger and pepper and reminds me of a cheap Indian cafe my friends and I used to go to when I was in college. It was called Delhi Cafe and you could stuff your face for not a lot of money, especially if you brought friends with whom to share a pile of fresh garlic naan. I think I'll have Indian food for dinner.
But first, a cup of Maya's chai, and then tattoos. Today's work includes a couple of hours on a Japanese-woodcut-inspired sleeve, an Alice in Wonderland based on John Tenniel's illustrations, a shoulder full of bat silhouettes, and a protection charm in French wound around the client's arm.
words: 1709
total words: 10,533
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Date: 2015-11-07 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-07 11:06 pm (UTC)