Up the River Styx Without a Paddle, by Way of a White Cat

He showed up before sunup to escort me to the gas chamber.

Who am I? I’m Carmine, Two-face Ciccone. Prisoner number 8318139. Scheduled date of execution tomorrow, June 1^st, at midnight o one. Stay of execution status: denied. Current situation since Charon showed up: fucked.

He only appears on your legitimate last day. He wouldn't show if you were awarded a stay, only if it was a for sure thing. It was like he knew. According to prison lore, Charon will be with me for less than 24 hours.

He had done this sort of thing for God knows how long, and I say God knows because literally, no one who works or lives in the prison can recall how long it had been. It could have been a year, ten years, a hundred?

I saw his pale pink nose poke around the corner of my cell, then his snow-white cheeks, and then those red eyes. I had no clue cats could have red eyes like that until I saw him. They are stop-light red, and at times they glow as though a small bonfire has been lit inside his skull. The glowing and the purring seem to go hand in hand.

He sat outside my cell, staring at nothing. And once in a while, he blinked. He licked his paw, then his other paw, a fairly standard cat routine.

When he first lays eyes on me, he blinks once, and it seems he is saying hello, or perhaps goodbye. I'll never know. Their faces show so little emotion.

After an hour, he steps into my cell and lies down in the middle of the room, in sphinx mode. Facing west.

He falls asleep, opens his eyes for less than a minute, and closes them almost immediately.

9:35 am. He changes locations. I threw a piece of breakfast sausage to him, which he summarily ignored. He is plump, which means he must eat sometime. I hope he isn't here to eat me. I've heard stories of cats that have nibbled their owner's faces after they're dead.

1:15 He hops on the empty bunk across from me, curls up into a ball, and falls asleep. I clear my throat to see if it will wake him. Nothing happens.

Watching him so intently makes me sleepy, but I don't want to doze off on my last day alive. Instead, I am watching feline TV with only one channel.

2:01 He sits up, stretches, turns around, stretches again, yawns turns around in the other direction, and lies down once more. He looked up at me while he was turning but changed nothing about his trajectory.

4:59 I fell asleep, even though I tried to force myself not to. When I woke up, the cat was sitting on my chest. I have no clue how his arrival there did not wake me up. His paws were pillars, his partially exposed claws pointing toward my chin, and his unstaring eyes locked on mine.

I remain motionless.

He jumps down and stretches when he hits the floor, and he lays down again, this time facing the opposing wall. I sit up on the side of the bed. I clean my throat to see if he is paying attention. I knew he was because, like antennae, his ears moved toward me.

5:01 pm. Dinner arrives. My last meal. Steak and eggs.

6:01 pm.  I'd almost forgotten the cat was there when I picked up the bible a minister had left behind the previous day. I am not a religious person, but I thought, why not? It can't hurt.

I've never read the bible before; I know the popular bits: the part about God making light appear, Jesus hiding behind a rock and then popping out yelling 'surprise;,' and the part about the commandments, most of which I have never obeyed.

Prior to cracking the bible open for the first time in thirty years, I would have bet that cats were not mentioned much in it, but the page it fell open to when I picked it up was the old testament chapter called Baruch, number 6:20, which reads: Bats and swallows alight on their bodies and heads – and birds and cats as well. I read it silently and then out loud, and when the words left my mouth, the cat stood up, showed its long fangs to me in an extended yawn and turned its back on me, and lay down again. The hair on the back of my neck came to life.

I put the bible back down on the side table and went to the sink, and splashed cold water on my face, and when I turned around and looked at my bed, the cat was curled up like a pill bug in the center of my pillow. I was afraid to disturb him, even though I really wanted to lie down again. I figured a man in his last hour should be able to recline at will.

8:06 pm. I lie down on the spare bunk, which I had never done, indeed, refused to do because the rumor was that the Vampire of Sacramento had tried to kill himself on that bunk. And even though a superstitious man I am not, I did not like the thought of that kind of bad juju attaching itself to me right before I went to the chamber.

10:48 pm. I fell asleep and have only now woken up. I look around the room for the cat and finally spot him sitting on the side of the sink, perched like only a cat can perch: carefully and confidently on an edge a third of his width, four times his height. He licks his paws and then wipes the top of his head repeatedly.

It took a few seconds to register that the water was dripping into the sink, and he had been wetting his paw with the drips. When he was finished bathing, he lifted his paw and placed it on the faucet – that had dripped nonstop since I've lived here - and shut the water all the way off. I shit you not.

10:56 pm. He tips his head into the sink, and when he emerges, he is wearing a cone-shaped hat tied on by a string, the kind you see on a kid's birthday hat.

10:58 pm. He jumps down and does a shivering flick of his tail, once to the left, once to the right, and then the lights went out, a full three minutes before the rest of the unit's lights did.

11:00 pm. It occurs to me that I only have one hour left to live, and I am lying here wishing I had nine lives instead.

In lieu of conversation with a person, I begin to talk to the cat.

What's your name?

No response.

Why are you here?

No response.

You come here often?

No response.

Cat got your tongue?

Then, in a low, harsh voice with a vaguely Spanish accent similar in nature to Javier Bardem, he replies, You may ask me only three more questions.

I feel both of my eyebrows climbing north of my forehead. What?

That's one.

I wasn't aware you could talk.

I can. I choose not to.

Why are you here?

That's question number two. I think you know why.

You ferry people to the gas chamber.

Is that a question or a statement?

Both.

It can't be both. It has to be one or the other.

Then it was a statement.

You have one remaining question.

Why do I need an escort?

You could have asked me anything, and this is what you chose to ask.

I panicked.

I prefer to think of myself as a shepherd.

Sounds pretty biblical.

You've already proven you know nothing about the bible. And anyway, not all shepherds are religious.

I suppose not.

All sheep are, though, the ones with fleece and the ones without.

I'll bet we have a lot in common.

How so?

We're both serial killers.

You are; I'm not.

How are you not a serial killer?

I can't answer that. You've used up all your questions. Let's just say everything comes down to choice.

Then we sat there for a long time, not talking. When the guard came to get me, the cat, who had still not said another word, despite my haranguing him, followed us down the hallway. He walked as though it was just another day, taking another convict to meet the gasman.

When it came time for me to step into the room they take you to before you officially step into the chamber, he stopped and sat down. In the distance, I hear a train whistle going off.

Last stop on the execution train. All passengers must disembark, I hear him say.

I look at the guard's faces. They show no signs of having heard him.

And then, when I look down at him for the last time, he looks me in the eye and says, For good.

Then the heavy metal door clinks shut, and through the slot of light at the bottom where the door meets the floor, I see the shadows of four feline feet vanish down the hall.