When your cat is staring daggers through you while also “squalling and bawling and carrying on” because she’s hungry, it’s a horrible feeling not to pour food in the bowl.
It was a Friday morning and I was worn out from the process of starving my diabetic cat and not giving her insulin prior to a vet visit. This was what I had to do every time I took her to get her glucose checked, and it was a harrowing experience for both of us every single time I had to do it.
On top of all that, I was, nearly two hours after waking up, still trying to remember one small detail from a dream I’d had the night before.
In this dream I was listening to a Steely Dan album and told the person who was with me (I have no idea who it was [nor do I care]) that it was “a perfect album.” But which one was it? Hadn’t Steely Dan made about two or three “perfect” albums?
Because I couldn’t get the song “Peg” out of my head, I reckoned the album I was talking about in the dream could have been Aja. Then again, the cover of Gaucho kept hovering on the periphery of my brain: two people dancing, blue-green with a gold border. The bass line from “Hey Nineteen” pulsed, shaking the windows of my mind, with what might have been “Midnite Cruiser,” a deep cut from Can’t Buy a Thrill barely audible beneath the master track.
Then I heard a knock. I thought the sound was coming from the front door but I kept hearing it after I opened the front door and saw nobody standing outside. It went from knocking to frantic pounding before I made it back to my desk. That’s when I realized that the pounding was coming from inside my bathroom.
Zelda was watching TV. Chrissy had jumped out of her carrier and was trying to figure out how to open a can of the junky wet food she loves but that I won’t give her anymore. That’s why I knew it wasn’t my cats making so much racket from inside the bathroom.
Further evidence that my cats weren’t involved was a man’s voice yelling, “Let me out of here, you lunatic!”
My heart soared: it was Citizen Jim, my best friend and the person I love most in the world!
“What are you doing in there?” I asked.
He hit the door one more time. “What does it sound like I’m doing? I’m trying to convince you to set me free so I can hurry back to Mama’s!” Citizen Jim said. He sounded frantic, especially when he continued. “If I don’t have her coffee brewing by 6 am, there’s always hell to pay — and it’s hours past that, now!”
Why didn’t he just open the door? “Why don’t you just open the door?” I asked him, trying to peer through the slats with no success.
“Because it’s locked! Wasn’t that all part of your plan to hold me hostage?” he asked.
“Precious Lamb, the door locks from the inside,” I assured him.
“Well, I don’t have a key, do I?”
How was it possible that such a conversation was eating up my time when I needed to take Chrissy to the vet to get her glucose checked? “You don’t need a key — you just need to twist that little thing on the knob.”
“What would you know about twisting some little thing on any knob, you evil lesbian?” he said.
That one did it. “I’m taking my cat to the doctor. I’ll see you when we get back,” I said.
“You heartless, psychotic witch! Don’t you dare leave me,” he yelled. As I was carrying Chrissy through the front door to the car, I heard him sobbing and saying, “You don’t even care that Mama’s gonna murder me when I get back to her apartment!”
He’d figure it out by the time I returned from the vet, right?
Though I had secret, inexpressible misgivings about whether he actually would be able to figure out how to unlock the bathroom door from the inside, I was so proud when I arrived back from the vet and found him seated at my desk watching YouTube videos of cats jumping in fright when catching sight of cucumbers placed near them when they weren’t looking.
While waiting for the vet tech to finish Chrissy’s glucose check, one question kept bothering me about Citizen Jim’s being locked inside my bathroom.
“Why were you in my bathroom and how did you get into my house?”
Citizen Jim ignored me, or maybe he didn’t hear me because he was howling with laughter and pointing at those poor terrified cats on YouTube.
In case of the latter, I asked him again how he even got into my house without my knowing it.
“Are you asking for yourself or for a friend?” he finally said.
I shrugged.
“I’m sorry, Stimpy, I forgot you don’t have any friends,” he said.
I nodded.
“Well, what happened was: at around 2 am, I decided to take a walk after Mama passed out watching the marathon of ‘Angels Touch Us Everywhere’ on MeTV. Those angels touching people everywhere gets her pretty worked up,” he said. “When I got close to your neighborhood, I figured you’d be awake drinking tea and rearranging furniture and listening to the six-part Henry Kissinger podcast episode of ‘Behind the Bastards.’ But the house was dark. So.”
He said this as if I could fill in the blanks from there. “Am I supposed to surmise something from that?” I asked.
“Well, your door was unlocked, as usual, so I opened it and came in. You were obviously drunk as Cooter Brown because it didn’t wake you up when I tiptoed through the kitchen and snuck into the john to take a leak,” he said. “Then I thought how I was as tired as Cooter Brown from being Mama’s errand boy and hairdresser and cook and chauffeur for the past two days and so I got into your bathtub and fell asleep.”
“There’s no such thing as being ‘as tired as Cooter Brown.’ Cooter Brown was a guy who ended up never getting drafted during the Civil War because he was drunk throughout the entire four years of battle,” I said. “That‘s where that expression — ”
Citizen Jim cut me off before I could finish. “Shut it, Encyclopedia Brown! I must’ve been more tired than I thought because I was sleeping like a baby until I heard you blasting that damned Yacht Rock you know I hate.”
I frowned. “I was blasting Dad Rock, not Yacht Rock,” I said.
“You don’t know shit about Dad Rock, Yacht Rock, or the rock I’m going to bash your head in with if you don’t apologize to me,” he said.
“Okay, well, I guess Steely Dan could be considered a perfect example of both categories,” I said to him. “I’m sorry I’m so dumb.”
Citizen Jim threw up his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “The damage is done and the next time you see me will be in court.”
“Do you have any idea when that’ll be?” I asked. “I’ll probably need to request a day off from work if I have to go to court.”
Being nonchalant about his threats always infuriates Citizen Jim!
“Don’t worry, Missy Miss, it’ll be soon. And since you’ve been holding me here against my will, you’ll probably be going from the courtroom straight into a jail cell. You better ask for more than a day off,” he said.
“Thanks for the warning,” I said. “You probably ought to go make that coffee for your mama.”
“No way, I’m not going back there for a smack upside the head and a switch-whippin’,” he said. “I’ll just go back to Birmingham and pay the piper on my next visit.”
“I’ll miss you,” I said as I was showing him out.
“Then prove it and buy some cucumbers to scare your cats with,” he said. “I want you to send me two or three videos every day until your trial for kidnapping and false imprisonment.”
I gave him a thumbs-up and slammed the door. I couldn’t wait to see him again, whenever and wherever and whyever that might be!