Eshtine

sugar (a continuation of tiger)

The cat-curse was broken by a sweet, pudgy girl tabby I called Thomasina after a cat in a Disney movie. She strolled into my backyard and showed no compunction about being friends. Walking through the alley across the street one day, I spotted Thomasina in someone elseís yard. Not just anyoneís yardóthe crazy cat ladyís yard. My friends in the neighborhood had warned me about her. But if Thomasina thought she was okayÖ
The crazy cat ladyís name was Netta. I started to visit her often to read Calvin and Hobbes comics to her, help her brush all those cats, and check her charges for fleas and ear mites. She had a house of monstrous proportions. The basement was big enough to stable horses in and the upstairs, never used, nonetheless smelled of cat urine. She spent most of her time in the dimly lit middle room on the first floor. The windows looked out on the brick of the neighboring house and the bulb in the one lamp was maybe giving out 25 watts. I sat on a lumpy yellow upholstered chair while Baby, her shyest cat, played the back-and-forth game, turning figure eights around my legs. Baby would occasionally stretch out her declawed paws on the furniture as if to scratch, which always made Netta giggle: ìOh, look! Sheís doing her nails!î
Nettaís regulars included Baby, Sammy the grey Persian, Thomasina and Sugar. Sugar looked like her mama had been a calico and her daddy a longhair. She had a fluffy Persian tail, all brown and black and gold, and a silksoft shorthaired body, white save for one or two dabs of color to match her tail. Her voice was soft and musical, high-pitched, a soprano to Thomasinaís alto. She was dainty but not prim, like if the prettiest girl in class was also the kindest.
Some mornings in the summer when I was thirteen or fourteen I would sit on my porch steps and watch the sun come up. Some mornings when I did this Sugar would be wandering down the street, sheíd see me and come running to keep me company, singing little trills all the way.
But Netta had a mean neighbor who put rat poison in his backyard. Sugar ate some and died. I found this out through someone else. That day when I went to see Netta she said she was looking for Sugar. ìSheís usually around by now; have you found her anywhere?î I had to look into that childlike old face and say a bad person had killed her beautiful cat.
That night at home I cried harder for Sugar than I had cried for my fatherís death, perhaps because every death contains every other one.