Thinking about all the things I hear in this house, the past stories of how these two met and disrupted lives by falling in love and then acquired new lives with other families and then were disrupted again by part of the new family and then, when they least expected the events to come, began a business in their mid-fifties and found that they weren’t so bad at that and with it came a certain amount of fame—”famous among the barns” as mama says often in deference to the poet she chose to memorize when her creative writing teacher insisted that the class have a poem in their respective little pea brains so that the Russians, when they came, would not be able to control at least that little part of themselves, having herded them into some kind of communist camp that would encircle the whole USA. What a teacher she must have been.
She told me that one day in class, this wonderful teacher mentioned that you never knew how heavy a man’s body was until you were under it….oh, boy. And this somewhere in the depths of the south at a place called Sweetbriar, all-girls and so, so proper and in those days the innocents and victims of the ’50s did not discuss being under some guy’s bod, I’m pretty sure of that—mama talks to me when I’m stretched out, on the blue microfiber comforter that won’t tear no matter what, appearing to listen to every golden word and I look interested and give her little cat kisses every now and then as I doze into my own world, dreaming of rabbits I’ve never seen or really fast birds I can’t seem to catch in the bushes outside, or gekkos who forget to look over their shoulders. But I do listen, too, to her stories because you never know…
And so she memorized Fern Hill by that guy who was such a magician with words that every time she reads one out loud I just purr and purr and wish I could write down some things the way he does. I think he drank a lot. Maybe that helps but booze never went over to well with me, at least not in big quantities. Sometimes I sniff at papa’s cognac in the evening or mama’s glass of wine but yuk, that is NOT my drink.
The only reason I stick around while they’re watching the Roma soccer team or a movie from their new Apple flick toy is because papa alternates between wanting decadent chewy chocolate ganache-filled candies and fairly low-fat yogurt, and oh, boy, do I love yogurt. They don’t give me many milk products, as I mentioned and frankly, I think that sucks. A cat loves milk and that’s that. There’s probably going to be an article one day that says cats have ADD, which is why we never pay attention to anyone wanting it, but no milk for cats? Whadda they, nuts? Who makes these silly rules anyway? The one thing mama keeps saying is that she wishes she did not know so much about things she never knew anything about before that vice-president gave us the internet, or so he says. I’m sure it was some other guy…or guys…or girls.
Too much knowledge is, to me, mainly hard to keep on my hard disc and every now and then I just have to push delete and clear it all out. Can’t escape from the garden? Ok. Delete info. Food comes at 8 in the morning and 6 in the evening. I’ll keep that one and file it away. But where I came from and who left me to wander, I’d just as soon delete now that I have a fire built for me in the winter evenings and I can watch Totti do miracles on the soccer field with mama and papa (except when the Roma scores, papa scares the shit outta me yelling with happiness and I hightail it up the stairs to my sanctuary). But I come back down to see Totti again…that guy has hind legs that can kick a ball right through the net!
