Continued, The Correspondent
Rosalie Van Antwerp
Dear Rosalie,
I RAN OVER THEODORE LüBECK’S CAT WITH MY CAR.
OH MY GOD. I was coming in from the garden club meeting this evening around six-thirty.
I’d gone to the meeting, and it’s as contentious as you can imagine, and then to the Safeway for a few things, and I was coming down the road with the evening sun blinding me through the tree limbs and I had stopped the car in the middle of the street because there was a deer with her two fawns and at first it startled me.
Lübeck’s cat (it’s a slate gray color with white paws) must have come underneath my car, stupid imbecile, while I was stopped and I didn’t see it—how could I have?
Dear GOD. When the deer darted off into the trees I punched the gas to get going into the driveway and there was a good thwump (I was flummoxed).
I stopped again, looked in the rearview and there was a twitching heap I couldn’t discern; I got out, it’s the CAT in the road!
You know, I have no feelings for animals, but oh, Lord, that cat was making a terrible whine and seizing, so I stood there gaping.
HORRIFIED. This cat does go outside and it comes around my garden and porch, so I’m always shooing it off.
Well, I’ve shooed it off for the last time.
Mr. Lübeck must have seen me from his window stopped in the road because he came out and looked at me, and then he came closer down his walk, saw the cat, and he started saying, “Oh. Oh.” I was apologizing and explaining myself and he came over and knelt down by the cat and put his big knotty hand right on the bloody, filthy fur.
He asked me to go get a towel. Of course I was not going to bring out one of my own good towels, so off I went, straight in the front door of his house, Rosalie!
Just waltzed right in, never set foot inside the man’s house before in my life (more on the house to follow), and I went to the bathroom and took a towel from the rack and brought it to him.
These were not towels of exceptionally high quality, and a horrible mauve color, and I did take all of this into consideration, but knowing I am able to get bloodstains out of fabrics using peroxide and cold water, I figured what the hell.
When I came back out the cat was fully deceased and Mr. Lübeck was on his knees.
His old knees in the middle of the street wearing good khaki pants and I could see the top of his head (have I ever told you he is quite tall?
A big man, built for sport, like Lars. He still has a good head of white hair).
He wrapped the cat in the towel and managed to stand up carrying the cat, and that did impress me, that his knees still work so well.
He thanked me for helping him—thanked me!
I killed the creature!—and took the cat inside.
I stood in the road for a moment. My car was still running just a few paces up toward my house and the deer were gone.
Wind in the trees. A gorgeous night. Stain of cat guts on the road.
Syb
Postscript: God almighty, you can see I’m in a state. I am reading The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. What are you reading?
Second postscript: Mick Watts wants to take me to dinner again—he delivered a note by hand last week.
Of course Mick is a bit of an ass. He eats terribly, smokes, and drinks dark spirits, and he’s not a reader of fiction…
but he is funny. God, he’s very funny, makes me laugh.
Trudy and Millie think I should go again, but they never knew Daan. What do you think?