Saving the Stray Cat

Light rain fell on the city pavement, as a black cat with white paws brushed by Sandra, outside Hampton’s Drug Store. 

“Here kitty, you look just like my old Tinkerbell.” Magnetized by the cat’s topaz eyes, Sandra held out her palm, but the cat turned its head and sniffed the air, and ran off, past a skinny boy juggling, and an old man in a tartan skirt playing a harmonica. 

Sandra pulled her baseball cap over her eyes, and fitted her N-95 mask over her face and entered the store, checking for security, and headed to the snack aisles, where she stuffed chocolate bars and chips into her backpack. The money from her parents on top of her school grant had been running out. She needed to lift other stuff she could sell online, but she felt like she’d die if she didn’t get high calories into her brain. The philosophy exam this morning was grueling.  

Last night, while they were studying, her friend Hem gave her a new drug to help her focus, “something better than Addies,” on top of the Special-K, she’d been using the past semester to calm her mind. She’d felt focused, but not in a good way, more like drilling her pencil into her exam booklet, and now she was craving the calories to stabilize herself, and then she’d want the other stuff to calm her mind, but she’d deal with that later.  

A loud bell rang through the store. Shit, she almost abandoned her bag, but it had her ID, so she grabbed it and ran outside, along the street and turned into an alley. She bent over, breathing hard, what the fuck had happened? It wasn’t like she’d held a gun up or anything. No one was chasing in this direction. Further down the alley, behind a large green dumpster, she heard muffled voices, and a man wearing a jean jacket and jeans raced toward her from the other end of the alley, and she froze, telling herself he couldn’t be one of the store’s security guards, but he disappeared on the other side of the dumpster, and she heard raised voices. She needed to get out of there, but she didn’t want to go out front. Someone might have seen her running, and she didn’t want to confront whoever was in the alley.

“Meow.” That cat again; it nuzzled against her legs, but hissed when she reached her hand down to pet it. Where’s your collar? He circled behind her in the alley and then shot past her and headed back towards Hamptons. “You’re just like Tinkerbell.” Had she been around six, in first grade, wearing the new dress with little bluebirds, when her dad came home from work, holding a black and white kitten, which squirmed out of her his hands and scooted across the carpet and swiped a toy with a bell on the floor. “Tinkerbell,” her dad had said and laughed, and the name had stuck. 

She wanted to grab the cat, like she used to do with Tinkerbell after he got used to her, and the old flutters came into her chest. What if the cat got killed like Tinkerbell?

Pedestrians noticed the cat and called out to it, but it also evaded them. A moment later, scampering through people’s legs, he disappeared into Hampton’s. She giggled, thinking of the cat crashing about on the shelves, maybe doing its own bit of shoplifting. At least it would be safe inside, and a concerned person would help it. Half the population loved cats. 

A black streak tore out of Hamptons and headed towards her. “Here Tinkerbell.” She held out her palm, but it hurtled past her towards the large green dumpster. She’d forgotten about the activity back there, but then there was a shout, and she turned and saw the man in the jean jacket grab the cat by the scruff of its neck, and hold it out midair. The cat hissing and snarling, clawed the air with its paws.  

“You’re a feisty one. I got a good, strong black plastic bag here,” he said in a rough voice. Two other men appeared from behind the dumpster. 

“You’re just a stray. Noone will miss you,” a bald man with a large beard wearing a heavy chain for a necklace, laughed.  

“Kill it or let it go. It’s too damn noisy,” said the third man with short hair and steroid muscles bulging from his black tee-shirt.

Sandra raced towards the men. “No, don’t hurt him. Give him to me.” She held out her hands for the cat, but they stood staring at her; sharing the same antsy, hollow look in their eyes, familair to her in the mirror. No, she still went to university, she wasn’t like them. “Please, he’s not hurting you.” 

“Aw, look, the little lady wants to save you.” The jean jacket man holding the cat smirked. “Here catch,” he said, and he swung the cat in an arc, nearly dropping it. “This kitty isn’t going to market, are you? Hey, open the bag, and let’s get this wriggling vermin in there,” he said to the bearded man, who chuckled and stopped fondling his heavy chain and grabbed a garbage bag and opened it. 

Sandra grabbed the bag. “You can’t do that. It’s cruelty to animals.” The man with the muscled chest blocked her and stroked her cheek. She flinched away; she was crazy, dealing with these rough types hidden in an alley.  

“Life’s cruel, honey,” his tight voice mouthed a bitter chemical odor into her face as he backed her up against the wall. He removed her fingers from the bag, one by one, and tossed it to the bearded man, whose chain rattled when he reached for it. Sandra darted to pass around, but the muscled man pinned her chest with one hand. 

“You’re not so innocent. My friend saw you shoveling stolen candy into your bag. Sharesies?” The muscled man’s toxic breath drilled into her lungs. What was she doing in this place with these lowlifes? She was in university, her drug use was petty, compared to whatever they did. “I think I ought to recruit you,” he said. 

She shook her head. “No, I just want the cat.” Stupid to let these people to know what she wanted, but she couldn’t think straight. What would be her best option? Fuck it…, she was in the situation for the cat, and earlier, because the dufus in jeans had set off the alarm.

“You want the cat and we have the cat. We can give you the cat, but we need you to do something for us.” The man flexed his arms over his head, showing off his six-packs. The other two laughed. “Not so funny, if you didn’t screw up, this little lady wouldn’t be hiding out in the alley with us, but since you did and she’s here and we have a cat she wants, I’m thinking she’ll succeed where you failed.” He nodded at her, and she had an uneasy feeling she knew what he wanted from her, but she couldn’t do it, not even for the cat. 

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have waved the gun, dumbass,” the bearded man said. “Weren’t gonna use it,” the man in jeans said, still clutching the whinging cat by the scruff of its neck. If not for the poor cat, the whole scenario might have seemed comedic, and except muscle-boss guy in her face, and the mention of a gun. 

The cat twisted and hissed; it wasn’t going down without a fight. Nine lives; they don’t go into death willingly, except Tinkerbell. If she hadn’t let him outside that day. If she’d kept him inside, like her mom had told her to.  

“What do you want from me?” Her voice sounded tinny.

“I knew you were one of us,” the muscled man said, leering. His breath wafted fumes over her cheek. “Look at me, and I’ll tell you how you can save the cat.” 

She squinted her eyes at him. “How do you know I want to save the cat?”

“No one else runs into an alley and confronts three guys like us.” He leered at her.

“Fools step in where angels….”

“God bless you and St. Francis.” A smirk twisted his lip, and he watched her for several seconds.“I want you to go into that shop and get about twenty charging cables for cellphones.” 

“Too much security around electronics.”  

“A pretty young woman like yourself. Just get it done fast before anyone tries to help you.”  

The bearded man cleared his throat. “Let me go in and get the damn stuff. We don’t need this bitch, and we can snuff the cat.” The man in jeans nodded. “Yeah, my arm’s getting tired. It’s like I’ve got an ugly growth hanging off my hand.”

“No, our new partner, the lovely lady, will do it.”

“How do I know you’ll release the cat unharmed to me?” Why would these idiots tell her the truth, and for fuck’s sake, how could she negotiate with someone with a gun? 

“Partner, didn’t you hear? I called you partner. I’m figuring you can succeed where my current partner didn’t and since you have a need, or shall I say a coping habit,” he peered into her eyes, “…, we can work together in the future.” She looked down at her feet. 

The cat hissed and snarled, and she saw the bearded guy holding a lit lighter under its nose. They were sick and stupid, but what was she, calling herself a university study, a philosophy major? If she needed drugs to cope, what was she doing in school? Cats lived and died all the time. Schrödinger’s cat. Alive and dead, just like her, with the drugs were taking over her life. Who was she kidding? Racing out of a convenience store with stolen candy. For Christ’s sake, she was as pathetic as all these buffoons.  

“Okay, I’ll do it.” She glared at the man, and he backed off.

…

Re-entering Hampton’s, she pulled her cap over her forehead and checked the aisles for the security guard. Ambient music played and fluorescent lights hummed over the tall rows of colorful merchandise with no sign of the earlier alarm. She peeked down the candy aisle. Damn, she still had the stuff she’d shoplifted earlier; looks like I’ve already made ‘partner’. I’ll be damn lucky if I get out of here with the stuff. 

In the next aisle, she saw the security guard’s back. In front of him was a heavyset woman who’d been stocking shelves earlier, speaking in a shrill voice.

“I’m telling you, that cat that was in here, was Frederick; my sister’s cat. Here I’ll show you a photo.” The woman had her phone out and was flipping through it. 

“Sorry, mam. You can understand we were busy with the alarm earlier. We’ll look out for your cat, but I don’t think it’ll come back in here.” the security guard said.

“Can’t you have the police look out for Frederick? My sister will kill me. Look at me. I’m trembling. Poor Frederick.” Sandra moved on. Keep focused, now they’re distracted, you can get the loot, and get the heck out of here. That poor woman wasn’t the only one shaking.  

She located the charging cords and waited until the tall male clerk with thinning blond hair was ringing up a customer. An elderly lady with a red walker had her back to her and was checking out electronic photo albums. No eyes on her; it’s now or never. She opened her bag and fingered the cords into it, and pulled the drawstring closed. Forcing herself to walk, she made her way through the aisle and passed the security guard, peering at the woman’s phone. She should buy something, so she didn’t look too suspicious. No, she needed to get the hell out of there.  

She walked out the door. It was too easy, no alarms. Noone came running out onto the street looking for her. Probably, the police hadn’t even shown up earlier. The traffic, the pedestrians, even the same skinny kid juggling three balls and the old man in the tartan skirt playing the harmonica hadn’t altered, just because her own universe was in crisis. The heavyset woman would most likely never see her sister’s cat again, and her sister would grieve the loss of her cat and maybe take her anger out on her sister. So, what? the world would go on.

The alley looked deserted. She couldn’t even hear the cat. What had those wretches done and why was she so stupid to listen to them?  

Then the voice and the smell of the third man were at her shoulder. “Keep walking, little lady.”  

“The cat, where is the cat? Give me the cat like you said, or I’ll yell for the police.”  

“No, the cat started drawing attention and had to be moved. Looks like you’re not that cat’s only friend.”

“You better not have harmed that cat.” She thought of that woman trying to explain to her sister, she hadn’t meant for the cat to escape. Life and death continued, but the guilt lingered. The man had her walking close to the shopfront windows, as if they were together. She let him lead her into another alley.

The bearded man was holding the cat, but at least he’d put away his lighter. The cat was whining, but then it sensed her, and gave an effort to snarl and hiss louder, almost twisting out of its captor’s grasp. 

“Give me the cat, and I’ll give you the cords.” Not likely, three against one, and a gun. 

“Open your bag first and then we’ll give you the cat,” the muscled man said. She had as much chance at this point as the poor cat.  

“Here, take it and hand over the cat.” She pulled the goods out of her bag and held them out.

“Hand the cat over to our new partner,” the muscled man said to the jean jacket man.

“Aw, she didn’t do nothing.” He scrunched his grip on the cat while the bearded man played with his lighter.

“You heard me. I treat the two of you more honorably than I should, and I’m not gonna to treat this lady any worse.”  

She took the cat, and knew she also had to grab it by the scruff of its neck to keep it from jumping, but she spoke soothing words to it, as she felt the terror flowing through its shaking body like aftershocks. “You’re okay for now; I can’t guarantee your future, but you’re okay for now.” With the cat whimpering and flopping tired in her arms, she hoped noone would think she’d stolen it, and strode back into the store, and found the female worker.  

“Frederick,” the woman cried out, her eyes shiny in her puffy cheeks. Sandra placed the cat in her waiting arms and walked away, aware of the woman calling out “Thankyou.”

Out on the street, she looked up at the clearing sky. For now, Frederick was alive; despite whatever mistake the woman had made in the morning that led to the cat escaping, and so was she, despite her mistakes.