The Cat and the Vet

Trigger Warning: guns, PTSD, combat-related graphic violence, suicidal ideation, violence against women, alcohol, substance abuse

Andrew was just coming home from the VFW like he did every Friday night. At least, every Friday he didn’t have a date. Which was to say: most Fridays. Nobody there was from the old unit. But there were a few Marines there who got it. Not many POGs to contend with—People Other than Grunts. But enough were there that he wanted to stick with Marine riflemen more than he wanted to mix.

But as he stepped out of the Uber, the little calico cat jumped up on his front stoop.

“Meow,” it meowed at him.

Shutting the car door, he waved his gratitude at the driver (and he’d get to the guy’s tip in just a minute), but his attention was really on this cat. He barely noticed the Uber move away.

The City wasn’t exactly a quiet place. But he didn’t feel like he had to compete with sounds of traffic tonight—especially not at this hour. So, the word “quiet” was always relative here. Maybe the cat was going to hear him, maybe not. But he wasn’t going to be loud at it.

“Hey, kitty,” he said quietly to it.

It regarded him warily, then sat down.

Andrew didn’t mind cats. He didn’t like them enough to have one as a pet, of course. But he didn’t even have a goldfish. Saying the roaches in this old tenement were his pets was a stretch, maybe even going too far. But he just wasn’t a pet kind of guy.

Plenty of other combat vets swore by their pets, but Andrew didn’t buy into any of that stuff. It wasn’t that he hated animals. Animals were cool. Mostly. He just had a hard time taking care of Number One after the war. Adding a second party to that seemed like an idiot move.

Andrew put out his hand to it, slowly.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” he said, trying to coax it to him.

He took a step towards it. It stood up and circled, then sat down again, just a foot or two farther. It didn’t trust him—which meant it was probably some stray. But it wasn’t being all hissy and hostile. So, it was probably okay, right?

“Come on, kitty,” he said gently. “I’m trying to help you.”

He took another step towards it, and it backed all the way to the edge—the same edge it had hopped up from. With just one more slow step from him, it jumped down, back over the edge of the stoop where it had come from.

He stepped calmly up to where the cat had jumped down and looked over the steel railing.

“Meow!” the cat said to him as it looked up at him.

“What,” he half-joked, “you want me to follow you or something?”

“Meow!” it meowed at him again. And then it went to the side of the building, jumping up to the railing and balancing as it looked at him.

“What are you, the cat reincarnation of Lassie or some shit?” he asked.

The cat just looked at him.

“I must be losing my mind,” he said, walking back down the stoop and over to where the cat was.

The cat then ran up the narrow alley between the buildings.

“I sure do hope you’re not some robber’s trained pet,” he muttered as he followed.

At the end of the alleyway, he looked around. No cat.

“Where’d you go?” he muttered, mostly to himself.

“Meow!” said a now-familiar cat voice from above him. The cat was on the fire escape, where the ancient spring had broken, the lower stair now within reach.

“Well, I know what note I’m leaving for the super,” he half-joked to himself. He was getting a little concerned, but he was also more curious than any cat about where this was going.

He climbed, following the cat to the rooftop.

It led him across the rooftop, and he followed. And he hadn’t even realized the rooftop connected anywhere. He hadn’t been on any rooftop in years—ever since he’d stopped smoking. But never, in this building. Not since he moved here over a year before.

The cat led him across half a dozen other rooftops, a sort of meandering pattern, but it was the only way he could go. And then, as he ducked under a potted plant, the memory trigger happened.

He ducked under the potted plant on the adobe brick hut, and Hadji opened fire. Two skinnies with American-made M4’s, probably taken from dead soldiers. But that’s why he was here, wasn’t it?

“Contact! Contact!” he shouted as he returned fire. “One-thirty!”

Hansen came up from behind, to his left. And just as he turned back to yell at Hansen to turn back, he watched as a bullet took Hansen’s eye out.

His eyes squeezed shut. God, the memory. It was just a memory, but it felt like reliving it. Hundreds of times, he’d watched that awful imagery in his mind. And hundreds of times, he’d tried to shut it out. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, making him shake. Just as it did most times. Tonight was an especially vivid time. Every detail came out this time. The alcohol was supposed to make that blurrier, but it didn’t do its job tonight. Maybe he was finally building up a tolerance.

He kept going over it again and again in his mind. He kept trying to figure out what he’d done wrong, how he could have known Hansen was going to move. It had to be there—the one little piece he was missing that would have saved Hansen. If he figured that out, maybe he could stop hanging on this edge of whether or not to forgive himself, and either do that or damn himself. The limbo was harsh.

He’d thought about the options. Three eggs for breakfast, or nine-millimeter? He’d known plenty of vets who’d taken that way out. But it wasn’t ever going to be the right move. He knew that. Felt it. And even though there were temptations, he’d always reinforced the idea that everyone has a purpose. Even when that felt as hollow and empty as his time fighting the Taliban.

Hansen had been one good motherfucker. That Marine had saved Andrew’s ass countless times. And the one time it had mattered, he’d failed. Every breath Andrew took was one more that Hansen wouldn’t. The guilt felt like a steel rod in his chest sometimes. Just like now. And he fought that with everything.

Maybe he hadn’t had enough to drink to diminish the pain. But the bartender had cut him off at six shots—which he’d requested himself, any six drinks and not a seventh. His old man had drunken himself to death. He didn’t want to wind up like that. Plus, his meager paycheck thanked him for not straining it beyond that point. But on a night like tonight, he was almost ready to risk it.

“Fuck,” he whispered, trying to shut it out again. It wasn’t the combat zone. He wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in the City. The plant wasn’t one of those handmade clay pots, it was one of those mass-produced terracotta ones. It had been the sound of his brushing past the pot that had triggered the memory.

He sat, trying to just get a handle on things, trying to breathe through it like he would any injury. But then something hit him lightly in the ribcage.

Looking down, it was the stupid cat.

He patted it as it crawled into his lap.

“Hey there, kitty,” he whispered in greeting.

“Meow,” it said, and then rubbed up against him. It was probably not the cleanest cat in the world, but hey—it’s not like he was exactly at the cleanest moment in his life, either, up on this dirty roof after getting a slight buzz on.

He petted the cat, and it purred. And something inside him felt just a little bit better. He felt like he could get a handle on things, at least, even if the feels kept on coming.

He got up, holding the cat, but it squirmed. So, he let it go. It ran to the next wall between rooftops and looked back at him.

“Meow!” it called to him.

“Yep, you’re definitely insane, Andrew,” he muttered to himself. He weighed whether or not to follow. And it might have been the alcohol, or it might have just been the sensible thing to do, but he felt like he should maybe follow the stupid fucking cat.

So, that’s what he did.

The cat jumped onto one of those flimsy aluminum plant boxes (which was empty), and then to the rooftop below. Andrew figured it was about a meter-and-a-half drop—five feet, tops. He dropped to the rooftop and followed the cat.

It ran down another fire escape.

“Stupid fucking cat,” he muttered. With a heavy sigh, he followed it.

About three floors down, it ran inside a window. And that gave him pause. He didn’t want to be arrested for breaking-and-entering, or accused of theft, or any of the hundreds of other things that might happen by entering into someone’s apartment.

By the door to the living room, the cat meowed, rubbing up against the door frame.

“Hello?” he called inside. There was a sound he knew intimately, the sound of a pistol action being readied to fire. And then there was the sound of someone running away, the sound of a door being slammed open, the echo of someone going down the stairs.

Andrew hadn’t even realized he’d taken cover. It was an automatic response. But he was ready for the sound of gunshots. He’d watched the apartment. Nobody had crossed his field of view at all. And, no gunshots happened.

But the cat was gone. Maybe the guy scared it. But it hadn't got past him.

He climbed in the window and looked around inside.

“Hello?” he called. There was a sound. A kind of weird squealing, groaning sound. Definitely not a cat. Maybe it was the pressure release on the radiator? Nah, that was bullshit. Nobody ran the radiators in the summer.

He followed the sound of the squeal, and found a woman blindfolded, bound and gagged on the bed.

“I’m here,” he said. “Whoever it was before me ran away.”

The woman made a sound that was definitely crying.

“My name’s Andrew,” he told her. “I live in 2C. I’m going to get this shit off of you. I’m using a knife, though, so don’t move, okay?”

Pulling out the multi-tool that he always carried on his belt, he opened the knife and cut the woman’s bonds. Hands first, then ankles. By the time he’d finished, she had the blindfold and gag off, and she was looking fearfully at him.

He put the knife away.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Physically, at least?”

She nodded.

“Let’s call the police, okay?” he asked, pulling out his phone.

“No,” she said fearfully. “They can’t help me.”

“Some guy with a gun ties you up on the bed,” he reflected to her, “and you don’t want the cops?”

“No,” she said. “This is a unique situation.”

“How can I help?” he asked.

“You can’t,” she said. “Unless you can get my sister out from under the Russians. They’ve turned her into a whore.”

“No, I don’t know how to handle that,” he admitted. “But at least I got here before anything bad happened.”

“How did you know anything was even happening?” she asked.

“I followed your cat,” he said.

“I don’t have a cat,” she said.

“You don’t have a little calico kitty, about yay-big?” he asked, showing her with his hands how big the kitty was.

She blanched.

“Get out,” she said.

“What?” he asked. He didn’t know what offense had made her hostile all of a sudden.

“That’s Edgar,” she said. “He’s been dead six months.”

And then it was his turn for the blood to drain from his face.

“It was a real cat,” Andrew insisted. “I petted it. It rubbed up against me.”

“Just leave,” she reiterated.

Andrew didn’t know what else to do. So, he left, shutting the woman’s door on his way out.