Never Drop a Cat on A Hot Tin Roof

Crede dropped his line into the water and watched the bobber float lazily through the creek grass. The steady whine of black flies echoed off the dry cliffs across the stream, and the morning mist was just about gone as the day heated up toward noon. He focused on a water spider dancing spritely across the surface, deftly scooting left and right, seemingly unimpressed by its own unusual ability to defy gravity.

“Walk on water”, he thought, “hell, that’s what she expected me to do.”

“She” was Marla, his now ex-wife. Their relationship had been dubious from the start. Marla, a tall striking beauty from Colorado, was well educated and from a wealthy family. And Crede, well, he was bred in the woods. But he had his way with women. A ruggedly handsome outdoorsman, he had swept her off her feet, and much to the disdain of her parents, they married soon after they met. Crede’s parents were concerned too, but they didn’t venture to speak of it for fear of upsetting Crede.

Maybe he had changed. His childhood had been fraught with wild temper tantrums, cruelty to his pets and even to his friends. His parents didn’t know where the anger had come from; he seemed to have been born that way, and they hoped that maturity had erased the worst of it. There was no way that they could have known how long that spark would remain in the ashes unextinguished.

It didn’t take Marla long to know though. They were only married a short time when the abuse started. Crede began to drink too much and spent most of his time belittling her, even describing the gruesome things he might do if she ever crossed him. Eventually the physical battery began, and Marla left him right after the first year. She obtained a good job in a nearby town as a biologist for the fisheries division and moved to an apartment a little closer to the lab. She had not seen Crede since filing for a divorce.

But he watched her.

The fisheries division was now sending Marla on regular trips to South America for specimen collecting expeditions along the coast of Brazil and then on to the Amazon. She was becoming relaxed and happy once again. She met Tom on one of these trips, and just two weeks later he rented a house near the airport to be closer to her.

It was now 2:00 in the afternoon, and Crede could feel the back of his neck burning from the sun. He slapped at a black fly that voraciously bit at his cheek. He had drunk too many beers, and the fish weren’t biting. He was becoming irritable, and the thought of going home to the same old cold silence irritated him even more. He had become so moody and bad tempered lately that even his friends had avoided him.

He knew Marla was seeing Tom, and he had even driven past Tom’s driveway several times when Marla’s car had been parked there on weekends.

When he got up this morning he knew he would have to do something about it.

Marla arrived at the airport from Brazil around 5:00 pm. The heat waves were rising off the runway. She worried that the small fish in her ice chest would overheat if she didn’t get them to a cooler place soon.

Since Tom’s house was closer than hers at this point, she stopped there and took the ice chest to the bathroom. She filled the tub with tepid water and released the fish into it. She would call Tom to tell him what she had done, and later they could meet there to take the specimens to the lab.

Crede arrived at Tom’s house just after dark. The house appeared empty. He slipped down the side alley to the back. An upstairs window was open, and it only took him a few seconds to climb up, split the screen, and step inside.

Moments later he heard the slamming of a car door near the front of the house. Sure enough, Marla and Tom’s voices carried over the evening sounds of the neighborhood. Listening to them laughing and talking only erased any last shred of sanity Crede had left. He felt the gun in his hand. He would wait here in the bedroom. He wanted to catch them in the act. The very act. Sweat rolled down his back in rivers. The oppressive humid heat of this August night enveloped him; even the trigger was slipping under his fingers.

Tom and Marla turned on the radio on the front porch and began to dance. Dogs were barking, and the cooling fans from the neighbor’s houses were whirring in a frenzy; the noise was driving Crede crazy.

How would he be able to tell when they were coming to the bedroom?

Suddenly a crack of light spread across the dark, carpeted floor, and a small cat sauntered into the room. It came directly across to the closet where Crede stood and persistently rubbed on his legs. “Meow, meow”. Crede was shaking. Panicking he picked it up and tossed it out the open window. He regretted it immediately. The cat came down on the garden shed’s tin roof which was still scorching hot from the long day’s exposure to the sun. The cat careened off in a frenzy and leaping to the garbage bin below, set off a deafening clatter of metal trash can covers in the driveway.

Crede heard the radio in the front of the house shut off. He moved quickly now. He just didn’t want to be seen yet, He wanted them both together, just as planned. It couldn’t be any other way.

He backed into the adjacent, dark bathroom, slipping quickly behind the door. Groping in the dark, he found the edge of the tub. It was cool and inviting. He would slip behind the curtain and wait. Stepping into the tub, he felt the tepid water. He was puzzled, but the coolness of the water beckoned him, and he sat down all the way. If even for just a moment, it was such a relief from the sweltering heat. He felt a slight stir in the water and then even more intense slapping and splashing. For a long time it just didn’t make sense. Finally, he opened his mouth to protest - even to scream- but nothing came out, nothing at all.

A few minutes later Tom flicked on the bathroom light. His eye caught the glint of something that looked like a gun on the bottom of the tub under the very red slimy water.

“Marla, Marla” Tom called back to her, “Honey, just what did you feed those piranhas?”