When I woke up on Saturday morning, it was pouring rain. Though I was thankful that I didn't have to leave my apartment, that didn't mean I could just roll over and go back to sleep with the gentle sounds of water hitting the roof carrying me away to dreamland.
There were cats to be fed, of course, and they would campaign—ruthlessly, systematically, mercilessly—for me to rise out of bed and do their bidding until such thing happened.
The way I saw it, the sooner I got up and fed the cats, the sooner I would be able to crawl back into bed with my Kindle and continue reading My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket. And once I finished that book, it was my plan to read the most recent book by Patrick DeWitt, The Librarianist.
But before I could do any of that, there was the matter of feeding the crats (the cats who were brats). Though I was going to give them canned food this morning, and though they would probably eat it, I keep fearing that one day they won't be satisfied unless I take a fishing pole to the Causeway and bring back a dozen red snapper writhing and bucking inside a net, unaware that they are about to be devoured by the most vicious and deadly predators on the planet.
Zelda and Chrissy gathered round while I popped the lid on a can of Tiny Tiger. (The variety my cats like best is Human Eyeball-flavored [in the blue can]; this preference is neck-in-neck with Tears of Mine Enemies [green can].)
As soon as I put their dishes on the floor, there was a loud pounding at the door.
There was only one person who would pound on my door so early in the morning, and I wasn't sure I wanted to deal with Citizen Jim without having had at least one cup of tea. Then I panicked: what if it were Mr. Jerry beating on the door instead of Citizen Jim? Which would be worse for my mental health?
Mr. Jerry only knocked for one of three reasons: to borrow money, to get a ride somewhere, or to return food storage containers if I happened to share a meal with him. Would any of those things be worse than the reasons Citizen Jim usually knocked on my door? (To borrow money, to get a ride somewhere, or to demand that I take part in some crackpot, get-rich-quick scheme sure to fail but not before risking a brush with the law.)
If only I knew which person it was, I could formulate a perfect plan for either!
Mr. Jerry wouldn't be shocked if I cracked the door open an inch and told him I had the measles. Telling him I had COVID had worked so well when he came knocking that every time he showed up on my doorstep after I recovered I told him I had a different highly contagious disease. As far as Mr. Jerry was concerned, I was probably the sickest person he'd ever known—not to mention the most resilient, having bounced back from not only COVID but also from scarlet fever, mumps, bird flu, swine flu, emu flu, cat scratch fever, hound dog blues, rabies, scurvy, rickets, and hepatitis A, B, C plus 1, 2, 3.
At that moment I found myself in a quandary of the most dire and frustrating sort.
I almost ducked down behind the long counter in my kitchen until the coast was clear. But then I slapped my face to bring myself back to Earth: Citizen Jim was my best friend and the person I love most in the world! Of course I would answer the door and ask him in if he happened to be the one now beating so fiercely on the door that I thought I might just stand back and wait for it to bust through the door frame and land in the middle of the living room.
I heard muffled voices outside the door once the banging ceased.
"…through the window…"
"Look through the window? How about we throw a brick through the window?"
Two voices? Men. Gentlemen callers?
Though nothing was more startling than realizing it had been both Citizen Jim and Mr. Jerry pounding on the door like a booze hound outside the liquor store at 8:59 in the morning, I must have startled my visitors when I yanked open the door. Mr. Jerry reeled backwards, flapping and slapping the air with his arms like a drowning man, while Citizen Jim absently reached out and grabbed the end of Mr. Jerry's cane to force him back into an upright position and pull him closer to the door.
"See, Stinky Pete? She's not in the hospital with a case of porphyria," said Citizen Jim. Then he jerked his head to the left in the direction of Mr. Jerry. "This old fart factory thought you were dying of something but I told him you were probably in the crapper and couldn't hear us at the door."
"Then you lied to him, because I heard you—I'm sure the whole neighborhood heard you. I wouldn't be surprised if Dave next door called the cops to come and issue you citations for all the racket you've been making," I said.
I hated to drag Dave into it, but I was thinking about going inside and calling the cops about this neighborhood disturbance and needed someone else to be blamed for it.
"I'll be goddamned if some cop's gonna give me a citation in my own backyard," said Mr. Jerry. He tapped the rubber tip of his cane against Citizen Jim's leg. "Listen! Can you loan me three dollars and give me a ride to the Publix? I need some new rat traps, ant traps, roach traps, and a padlock for the trap door I just had installed in my kitchen."
I shook my head and mouthed the words "Don't do it" to Citizen Jim.
"Sure. All I've got is a fifty, but you can take it," Citizen Jim said.
"What about the ride?" asked Mr. Jerry.
"Yeah, I'll give you a ride and loan you some money—just go up there and wait inside that Frost-a-Lot ice cream van over by the mailboxes," Citizen Jim said.
It took Mr. Jerry about ten minutes to shuffle out of earshot. When I knew he wouldn't hear me, I said, "Are you nuts? Don't loan that old man any money. He could drop dead before he even gets to the ice cream van."
"Oh, I doubt that," said Citizen Jim, shaking his head.
Then I wondered aloud: "Are you driving an ice cream van?"
"Hell no I'm not driving an ice cream van. I'm not driving anything—I got dropped off here by a guy on a Honda 50 that was being pulled by a golf cart that was tied to an Airstream trailer that was attached to a boat hitched to a GMC Gremlin," Citizen Jim said. "I think it was that guy from Bayou La Batre that used to sell shrimp to Granny Wolff out of the back of his car."
"Oh, I get it," I said. "You sent Mr. Jerry on a snipe hunt for the ice cream van, but you're going to leave before he realizes there's no ice cream van to be found."
"What kind of monster do you think I am?" Citizen Jim asked me. "There's an ice cream van up there for him to find—I saw a couple guys loading it up with wire, clocks, sticks of dynamite, and bags with S-E-M-T-E-X written on them, whatever the hell kind of Tijuana soda fountain banana split topping that is."
I should have been alarmed, but I only felt a stab of jealousy since it sounded like Mr. Jerry was about to live out my dream of taking up with armed revolutionaries before I got too old to take a good mug shot photo.
"Do you want to come in for minute?" I asked.
"Nah, I can't stay. I just came by to see if you could float me some cash and give me a ride to Home Depot," he said.
"What do you need from Home Depot?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't need to buy anything there. I'm not even going inside—I just figured I'd camp out overnight and see if I couldn't jump inside one of those contractor's trucks full of workers in the morning and then ask them to drive me to Mama's apartment in Fairhope," Citizen Jim said.
I started coughing into my hand, and let a look of horror cover my face when I looked at my palm. "Oh my God—blood! I think I might have consumption again," I said, and ran inside without telling Citizen Jim goodbye.
