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The Cats of Alta
Mar. 15th, 2007 10:26 amCrawled into the Witch House around ten last night. My downstairs neighbor was shouting through the door: "C'mon already you stupid fuck...", his words reverbetate down the cat-urine soaked hallway. A dim bulb flickered above me filling the walls with the shadow strobe of insects fluttering around its orbit. I stood there on the landing wondering who, if anybody, he was talking to.
I should explain that my downstairs neighbor can best be described as the 'Crazy Cat Woman' from the Simpsons only if she was a he who was an ex-Marine who served in Vietnam. Normally soft spoken with his little boy haircut frosted gray with age and his eyes magnified into a state of permanent 'gosh' by his glasses. We met when I was moving in, he came out of his apartment to strike up a conversation with me. I, at theat moment, was hauling the other end of my bed that my best friend was attempting to navigate up the second landing. Unperturbed by my grunting and shortness of breath he warned me to be careful not to let any of his children escape.
'Escape?' I immediately make this guy as some kind of 'Uncle Touch' type. There's an entire third grade class tied up in a circle in his living room. Gagged, bound and forced to watch old John Wayne movies over and over again. The bones of their bus driver lie bleached in the tub.
'Oh yes, they do love to scamper about', he motions to a belligerent looking kitten that's sitting next to him, looking up at me with the indignant stare of an Emperor who can't figure out why a guest to his court isn't bowing. The neighbor goes on despite the weight of the couch slipping from my fingers and the grunting noise i'm answering him with. He gushes about his 'children' which would be the eight or nine cats that seem to actually run my building.
It took me about a month but then I figured it out, the cats call the shots here on Alta Avenue and the human locals are just the complacent monkey servants that feed and entertain them. Early in the morning, on my way to work, I see them coming back from their nightly prowlings and Masonic-esque secret meetings they hold in the empty field behind my building. Some slink and some saunter, they do that cat strut that human pimps work so hard to emulate. There's a few regulars that stand out, such as the fat calico who seems to nod at me when I pass by, the stubby tail ball of black fur that likes to hang out on my porch, there's the little nervous cat that hides under the nearest car whenever I get too close and then there's the white cat, who watches me with a stoicism that would be the envy of any cop, guard or grunt. These are my actual landlords, they just need a human being to occasionaly collect the rent, cash the check, set out some food and keep the monkey residents from catching on to who's really in charge.
"...no, No, NO, NO GOD DAMN IT NO!" he bellows through his door. Chipped white paint, sordid peephole sitting like a VD wart, little stickers of American flags whose white bars have aged into a sickly yellow, a USMC anchor & globe, proclamations of his love of the feline race and America. There is a rattling noise followed by a cascade of glass shattering. Crazy Cat Marine has finally flipped his shit. He's gone too long without his meds. He hasn't had pussy since the Reagan years. He's been hearing the 'voices' in his head again. The Cats of Alta are telling him to do weird and horrible things to those who might jeopardize their plans. The Cat Crazy Marine is reenacting scenes from Reservoir Dogs with the pizza boy, the landlord, a Jehovahs Witness, a friend who dropped by my place to visit!
Then I hear it. The echo-hiss of a TV set. A whistle. A crowd cheer. A jingle. It's just some stupid game on the tube. One of those college Neuremberg Rallies that drive the closet neanderthals into a rage. I shake my head in vicarious disgrace.
"Relax Francis... it's just a fucking game." I go home, slip down to the boxers, pour a glass of love and tune into the local NPR. I blast dead white men to drown out the muffled screaming seeping through the floor.
I should explain that my downstairs neighbor can best be described as the 'Crazy Cat Woman' from the Simpsons only if she was a he who was an ex-Marine who served in Vietnam. Normally soft spoken with his little boy haircut frosted gray with age and his eyes magnified into a state of permanent 'gosh' by his glasses. We met when I was moving in, he came out of his apartment to strike up a conversation with me. I, at theat moment, was hauling the other end of my bed that my best friend was attempting to navigate up the second landing. Unperturbed by my grunting and shortness of breath he warned me to be careful not to let any of his children escape.
'Escape?' I immediately make this guy as some kind of 'Uncle Touch' type. There's an entire third grade class tied up in a circle in his living room. Gagged, bound and forced to watch old John Wayne movies over and over again. The bones of their bus driver lie bleached in the tub.
'Oh yes, they do love to scamper about', he motions to a belligerent looking kitten that's sitting next to him, looking up at me with the indignant stare of an Emperor who can't figure out why a guest to his court isn't bowing. The neighbor goes on despite the weight of the couch slipping from my fingers and the grunting noise i'm answering him with. He gushes about his 'children' which would be the eight or nine cats that seem to actually run my building.
It took me about a month but then I figured it out, the cats call the shots here on Alta Avenue and the human locals are just the complacent monkey servants that feed and entertain them. Early in the morning, on my way to work, I see them coming back from their nightly prowlings and Masonic-esque secret meetings they hold in the empty field behind my building. Some slink and some saunter, they do that cat strut that human pimps work so hard to emulate. There's a few regulars that stand out, such as the fat calico who seems to nod at me when I pass by, the stubby tail ball of black fur that likes to hang out on my porch, there's the little nervous cat that hides under the nearest car whenever I get too close and then there's the white cat, who watches me with a stoicism that would be the envy of any cop, guard or grunt. These are my actual landlords, they just need a human being to occasionaly collect the rent, cash the check, set out some food and keep the monkey residents from catching on to who's really in charge.
"...no, No, NO, NO GOD DAMN IT NO!" he bellows through his door. Chipped white paint, sordid peephole sitting like a VD wart, little stickers of American flags whose white bars have aged into a sickly yellow, a USMC anchor & globe, proclamations of his love of the feline race and America. There is a rattling noise followed by a cascade of glass shattering. Crazy Cat Marine has finally flipped his shit. He's gone too long without his meds. He hasn't had pussy since the Reagan years. He's been hearing the 'voices' in his head again. The Cats of Alta are telling him to do weird and horrible things to those who might jeopardize their plans. The Cat Crazy Marine is reenacting scenes from Reservoir Dogs with the pizza boy, the landlord, a Jehovahs Witness, a friend who dropped by my place to visit!
Then I hear it. The echo-hiss of a TV set. A whistle. A crowd cheer. A jingle. It's just some stupid game on the tube. One of those college Neuremberg Rallies that drive the closet neanderthals into a rage. I shake my head in vicarious disgrace.
"Relax Francis... it's just a fucking game." I go home, slip down to the boxers, pour a glass of love and tune into the local NPR. I blast dead white men to drown out the muffled screaming seeping through the floor.
