Doomed (22 page)

As he gently heaved the drooping, dead Manx in my direction and I recoiled a step, I saw something else. In the same cage, hidden by the recently expired black cat, there sat a tiny orange kitten. This was my last chance. In another moment I’d be driven back to the Beverly Wilshire with a rigid feline corpse in my girlish lap. On-camera, with
the shelter’s staff as my witnesses, I pointed a chubby index finger at this new orange puff of fur and said, “That one, Daddy!” Making my voice gamine, I piped, “There’s my kitty!” The orange object of my desperate affection opened two green eyes and returned my gaze.

My mother sneaked a quick peek at the index card tacked next to the cage. In a dozen words, it told the tiny kitten’s brief backstory. That afternoon in the no-kill animal shelter, my mom leaned close to my dad and whispered, “Let her have the orange one.” She whispered, “Put back the dead one, and let Maddy have the kitten.”

Still holding the drooping dead Manx, my dad gritted his capped teeth and said, “Camille, it’s still a kitten.” Through a tight smile, he hissed, “That damned thing will live for frigging forever.” He gave the furry corpse a shake, smirking, and said, “With this one, maybe she could call her boyfriend to perform a Lazarus number.”

“If that’s the kitty that our little Maddy has her heart set on …,” my mom said, and she reached into the wire cage and collected the shivering orange puffball, “… then that’s the kitten she should have.” Standing so as to allow the cameras full access to the gesture, turned toward them in a slight cheat, she settled the warm handful into my care. At the same time, in a whispered aside to my dad, she said, “Don’t worry, Antonio.” She motioned for him to lean down and read the index card.

And at that, a photographer representing
Cat Fancy
magazine stepped forward, said, “Smile!” and we were, all of us, blinded by the flash.

Gentle Tweeter,

I never imagined it would be too awfully difficult to be a good mother. That’s why my own mother seemed like such a disappointment. Really, what onerous efforts did successful motherhood require? One had only to accumulate a sufficient deposit of fresh spermatozoa within one’s womb, and then await the release of a viable egg. From what I could suss out, the whole process seemed more or less automated. The actual birthing involved staffing a sterile, tiled room with an entire documentary film crew, all the grips and gaffers and sound engineers, the cameramen and assistant directors and makeup artists. I’ve seen the result: My mother blissed out on an intravenous Demerol drip, spread-eagled on a kind of vinyl dais with special leg rests. A stylist is powdering down the shine on her meticulously waxed pubis, and—voilà—the ooze-colored bulb of my newborn noggin pops out. Chapter one: I am born. This miraculous celluloid moment is absolutely revolting. My lovely mother winces a single grimace, but otherwise her dazzling smile remains intact as my slime-slickened miniature self comes corkscrewing out of her steaming innards. Swiftly am I followed into the world by an equally not-attractive afterbirth. Even then, no doubt I was hoping the attendant physician would give me a good wallop. A
real public thrashing. Only a child raised in such complete love and privilege could crave a savage beating as fervently as I did.

Usually my mother played a copy of the video whenever people gathered for my birthday. “We got it in a single take,” she’d always say. “Madison was a lot skinnier back then—thank God!” And she’d always get a rollicking laugh at my expense. Such flank attacks are why I so longed for my parents to honestly sock me in the kisser. My blackened eye would trumpet what small torments I daily endured.

You, Gentle Tweeter, you no doubt saw the stills from the birthing film that
People
magazine published. My heartless Swiss school chums certainly saw them, and until the day I died I was to regularly find these photographs—a me the size of regurgitated food, the red of a ripe tomato smeared with cheesy pap and squirming at the end of a ropy umbilical cord—these were stealthily affixed to the back of my sweater with adhesive tape, or they were published in place of my annual portrait in the school yearbook.

Once I was born, I could see for myself that motherhood required no special skills. My general impression was that various glands come to the fore, and you’re rendered essentially a puppet or a slave to the timing of bodily secretions—colostrum, piddle, doo-doo. You’re always consuming or voiding some vital gunk.

It’s this full comprehension of motherhood that prompted me to give my kitten, Tigerstripe, a better upbringing than I had endured. I vowed to show my own mother how this job should properly be done. “Put some clothes on, you people!” I’d admonish my naked parents on the beaches of Nice or Nancy or Newark. “Do you want
my kitty to grow up to be a pervert?” I’d locate their pungent stash of hashish and flush it down the toilet, saying, “You might not care about the safety of your child, but I do care about mine!”

Granted, as a distraction from religion, the cat worked perfectly. I no longer returned Jesus’ calls during dinner. Instead, I carried Tigerstripe everywhere in the crook of my elbow, lecturing in a stage whisper, always within earshot of my folks, “My mommy and daddy might be drug-hungry sex zombies, but I’ll never allow them to hurt you.” For their part, my parents were simply glad that Jesus and I had broken up. Thus, they acquiesced as I carried my Tigerstripe with me at all times, in Taipei and Turin and Topeka. He slept curled beside me in my various beds in Kabul and Cairo and Cape Town. At the breakfast table in Banff or Bern, I said, “
We
don’t like nonfat, fair-trade tofu sausage, and
we
request that you no longer serve it to
us
.” In Copenhagen, I announced, “We would like another chocolate éclair, or
we
refuse to attend the opening of
La Bohème
tonight.” Needless to say, Tigerstripe proved himself an excellent companion at the opera, largely sleeping, yet by his mere presence egging my allergic parents to barely suppressed fits of outrage. At La Scala and the Met and the Royal Albert Hall, a trail of shed cat hair and leaping fleas followed us everywhere.

The more I distanced myself in the exclusive company of my new kitten, the more my dad perused the photographs and the files of destitute orphans available for adoption. The more that I isolated myself, the more my mom surfed real estate listings on her notebook computer. Neither of them mentioned it, but despite their soy-based machinations,
my stewardship of Tigerstripe resulted in a very fat little kitten. Feeding him appeared to make him happy, and making Tiger happy made me happy, and after only a couple of weeks of overfeeding, to carry him was like lugging around a Louis Vuitton anvil.

It wasn’t in Basel or Budapest or Boise, but one afternoon I came upon the doorway to a darkened screening room. It was in our house in Barcelona, and I was passing in the hallway when I saw the door was slightly ajar. From the darkness within, I heard a combination of caterwauls, an inharmonious duet like alley cats expressing their ardor. Holding my eye to the narrow opening where the door had not fully met its frame, I could see a writhing, paste-covered blob on the movie screen within. The squalling was that gelatinous creature, my infant self, clearly not happy to be delivered unto this harsh glare of lights, documentary filmmakers, and burning sage. And seated alone in the center of the otherwise empty seats was my mother.

She pressed a telephone to the side of her face as she watched that, the tiresome video of my new life beginning. Her shoulders shuddered. Her chest heaved. Inconsolably she sobbed, “Please listen to me, Leonard.” Her cheeks shining, she swiped at her tears with her free hand. “I know it’s her fate to die on her birthday, but please, don’t let my baby girl suffer.”

Gentle Tweeter,

Within days of my adopting him, Tigerstripe swelled as large as a popcorn ball, then swelled to the size of a brioche, feeling as spongy soft as homemade fudge. He had days before ceased going wee in his cat box. Likewise, his plaintive mewing stopped, so now I was compelled to cry in the manner of a ventriloquist, holding my lips fixed in a frozen rictus of a smile as I forged merry kitten sounds for my parents’ benefit.

In the comfort of Mexico City or Mumbai or Montreal, over a breakfast of raw tuna sashimi and shrimp ceviche and duck liver pâté, my puss-puss wouldn’t eat a bite. My mother and father surreptitiously watched my failing efforts to feed him, sneaking glances from behind their respective notebook computers while I placed my hideously swollen kitty on the breakfast table beside my plate and tempted him with succulent tidbits. To me, Tigerstripe represented my opportunity to shame them both. My care of him would demonstrate proper nonpagan, nonvegan, non-Reagan parenting skills. All of those past lives my mom and dad had brought to my upbringing, I’d eschew them. My strategy would be simply to lavish adoration on my kitty and raise him to a well-adjusted, non-body-image-dysmorphic cat-hood.

Here did I fake a tiny
meow
for my fellow breakfasters.

Do you see what I’d done, Gentle Tweeter? Do you see how I’d trapped myself in a corner? In Bangalore and Hyderabad and Houston, my catkin was obviously sick, but I couldn’t admit that fact by going to my folks to beg their advice. Over the breakfast table in Hanoi, my father eyed the bloated fuzz ball breathing heavily as it lay on its side beside my plate. Feigning Ctrl+Alt+Indifference, he asked, “How’s little Tigger?”

“His name is Tigerstripe,” I protested. Reaching to scoop him up and lift him into my lap, I said, “And he’s fine.” Between motionless lips, I said
meow
. Subtly using my fingertips, I moved the inert kitten’s mouth to match.
Meow
.

My father exchanged a raised eyebrow with my mom, and he asked, “Tiger’s not sick?”

“He’s fine!”

My mom laid her Ctrl+Alt+Serene gaze on the comatose blob now shivering atop my napkin-covered thighs, and she asked, “He doesn’t need to see a veterinarian, maybe?”

“He’s fine!” said I. “He’s sleeping.” I couldn’t let them see my fear. The quivering fur ball I petted, he felt hot—too hot. Gummy gunk rimmed his closed eyelids and sputtered at his teeny black nostrils. Even worse, stroking his sides I could feel the skin stretched tight, his belly distended. Through his soft fur, his faint kitten heartbeat felt a million-billion miles away. One possibility was that I’d fed him something wrong. Or I’d fed him too much. He was panting now, his kitty-pink tongue protruding slightly, each breath a death rattle. In too many ways, poor Tigerstripe was reproducing my nana’s slow, painful passing. Without thinking, my fingertips sought out the spot behind his front leg where
the heartbeat felt strongest, and within the thinking bowels of my brain I began counting,
One-alligator … two-alligator … three-alligator …
between the slow, irregular beats. I noticed that neither of my parents was eating. The sickroom reek of afflicted kitten eclipsed everyone’s appetite.

My dad proposed, “How about you and Tiger go together to see a grief counselor?” He swallowed, betraying his Ctrl+Alt+Anxiety, and said, “You could talk about your grandpa and grandma dying.”

“I’m not grieving!” Under my breath I was counting
 … Five-alligator … six-alligator …
between the fading heartbeats.

My mother’s worried eyes swept the table until they settled on the pastry basket. Lifting it, she heaved the tasty goodies toward me. “Would you like a muffin?”

“No!” I counted,
Eight-alligator … nine-alligator …

“But you love blueberry muffins.” Her eyes tested me, measuring my response.

“I’m not hungry!” I snapped, counting
 … Elevenalligator … twelve-alligator …
My kitty’s raspy, rattling breath had stopped. With frantic fumbling fingers I sought to massage his failed feline heart back to life. To hide this effort from my parents I wrapped my linen napkin around Tigerstripe’s swollen body. Thus thickly swaddled, his heartbeat became impossible to locate. To mask my panic, I said, “I’m not hungry! Tigerstripe is healthy and happy! I’m not hungry, and I didn’t rip off anyone’s man banana!”

Hearing that, my mother’s face looked Ctrl+Alt+ Slapped. Her hands reached across the table in what must’ve been some instinctive maternal gesture, some attempted
mammalian embrace inherited from our primate ancestors, and she said, “We only want to help you, Maddy, Raindrop.”

Recoiling, cradling my still, silent kitten, I countered, my words pure acid, “Maybe we could just desert Tigerstripe on some remote farm outpost upstate? How about that?” My voice rising to hysteria, I said, “Or perhaps we could ship my kitty off to some expensive school in Switzerland, where she could live, socially isolated, among hateful rich pussycats!”

Under my breath I was counting,
Eighteen-alligator … nineteen-alligator … twenty-alligator …
but I knew it was already too late. In Seoul or São Paulo or Seattle, I was half falling, half sprinting as I abandoned my place at the breakfast table and fled back to my bedroom bearing my baby kitten wrapped in his napkin shroud.

Gentle Tweeter,

The long-ago predead, eleven-year-old me carried my bundled feline corpse through Antwerp and Aspen and Ann Arbor. Like the blanket-wrapped cadaver of some expired Granny Joad, another bookish reference, I smuggled poor Tigerstripe through various immigration and customs checkpoints. I wore him strapped to my skin, hidden beneath my clothing, the way my mom and dad had so often played mule for their contraband narcotics. Needless to say, his sour odor did not abate; neither did the faithful entourage of winged parasites, primarily houseflies, but also their adolescent grubs and maggots that appeared on the scene as if conjured by some foul magic.