In a Cat’s Eye

Elsie didn’t understand. A girl like Nancy, I’d only drag her down, and I didn’t want that.

“Now don’t forget, when Nancy gets home, to fix her door. Talk to her, Willy. She needs someone to talk to.”

I had a lot of things to do outside and she wasn’t going to give me any soup, so I left.

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The sun was bright that day and I couldn’t see anything at first. I waited on the sidewalk until my eyes got used to the light, facing the building with my back to the sun, looking through a big window that had tape on it. The room was empty except there was a table with a red squeeze bottle that was a chef with a pointy hat where catsup came out. He was always there grinning at you. It must have been a lunch place once.

After I got done looking at the chef I walked around town for a long time, but all I found was a blue jay feather. Then right away I found some jelly doughnuts in back of the bakery, and a dime and a nickel underneath the machines at the Laundromat.

I was walking along minding my own business and eating a jelly doughnut when some guy tried to jump me down by the river. It was some guy I’d seen around town and I thought he’d been following me. He said something when I walked by, asked me if I had a cigarette, and I didn’t like the way he said it. I figured he was planning to jump me. I went over to ask him what he was looking at and he gave me a dirty look so I went to smack him and he pushed me into the river and shook his fist and walked off. Now that I think about it, maybe he’d only wanted a cigarette. Still, a guy could grab your wrist when you’re handing him a cigarette, and there might be another guy in the bushes. I thought the guy might be going to jump me.

When I was done walking I went in the alley out back of The Morpheum to see if Mr. Winkley was out there, and he was sitting on top of the dumpster looking up the fire escape at Nancy’s window.

“I’m waiting for her too,” I said. I don’t usually talk to cats, though. “I’m going to fix her door.”

He stood up and began turning around in circles on top of the dumpster and meowing.

“I just got jumped,” I said.

He went into the dumpster and started hopping around on top of the trash. Then he stopped and stared at the trash that was in there.

“I smacked the guy,” I said.

We all figured that Mr Winkley had probably lost his eye in a fight. Before Nancy had him fixed he got into fights all the time, but he lost most of them. You kind of hate to do that to them, but you can’t live with them any other way, and they fight and get in trouble all the time. After his operation he didn’t fight as much.

It must have been a mouse in the dumpster. Mr Winkley stood still and waited. He probably figured that the mouse would forget he was there, and come back out.

He waited for a while but the mouse didn’t come back, and he hopped back out, sat down again on top of the dumpster, and started butting the side of his head against my hand and purring.

“If I had just kept on walking, then maybe he wouldn’t have jumped me,” I said.

Mr Winkley was washing his face and then he stopped and looked up at the window. He jumped from the dumpster onto the fire escape, ran up and went through the hole in the screen. Nancy was home.

I headed back. Stanley was standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. Every time you’d see him he’d either be leaning against a wall or walking on the sidewalk with his head down like he was looking for pennies. He always had a mean look on his face and he never talked to anybody. He was in his forties and still washed dishes. I thought, That guy is a loser, and always trying to start something. As soon as he saw me he snapped his head away because he’d never look at you. I didn’t like any guy looking at me, but a guy that never looks at you and never says anything, you never know what that guy’s thinking or when he might sneak up on you.

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Nancy had three locks on her door: a keyhole lock below the door knob, a deadbolt that you could only work from inside the room, and a sliding chain lock. She had them all locked when I knocked on her door. She unlocked the three locks and opened the door and I went in.

“The hinges are loose, Willy,” she said. She shook the door to show me. “I think the wood might be bad, and it sticks when I try to close it. Can you fix it so that nobody can break in?”

The truth is that if you know how, you can break into just about anything, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“Sure,” I said. “When I’m done, it’ll be like Fort Knox.”

It would have taken about ten minutes to tighten the hinges and plane the edge of the door, but I made a big deal out of it to make Nancy feel better, and I was thinking that Elsie might let me slide another week on the rent; and I didn’t mind having an excuse to spend some time around Nancy. I had a set of unused hinges and some extra-long drywall screws in the supply closet, and some old receipts and paper bags from Peavey’s Hardware.

Nancy watched and we talked some while I worked. I was taking my time. I had the door off and was taking the hinges off when Howie and Francine came in from the street. They were talking as they came up the stairs.

“Francine, had I only realized what you meant when you said you were going to start keeping a diary, I would never have encouraged you to buy that notebook. You will succeed only in upsetting yourself further.”

Howie was about fifty-five, I guess. He went to college once. Francine was older than Howie.

“I’ve been nothing but good,” she said, “and everybody treats me like dirt.”

They stopped when they came to us, and Francine held up a notebook.

“I’m keeping book on everything that happens around here,” she said. “I’m going to make sure that it all comes out even.”

“Willy is fixing my door,” Nancy said.

Francine didn’t like that Nancy had changed the subject.

“Always make them work for it, just the way I taught you,” Francine said. “Any girl that’s got what you got don’t ever have to give nothing for free.”

“Francine,” Howie said.

“Butt out, Howie,” she said. “Who asked you? Anyhow, this is girl talk.”

She put her hand on Nancy’s shoulder and whispered in Nancy’s ear, “Has Gladys turned you out yet, honey?”

“Leave her alone,” I said.

“Never mind the jailbird,” Francine said.

“Willy paid his debt to society,” Nancy said. She was holding Mr. Winkley. “He’s fixing my door because he’s a nice guy and he likes to help people.”

“I can see you don’t need me anymore,” Francine said to Nancy, “now that you have Gladys to teach you; but don’t you ever forget that I’m the one that taught Gladys.”

Francine always claimed that she had been a prostitute, and she was teaching everybody else how to be a prostitute. She had to believe that she had something that people wanted bad enough that they’d pay her for it. It wasn’t true; nobody had ever wanted her.

“Lock your front door and make them come in the back,” she said to Nancy. “That’s the way Howie does it.”

“Francine, I think we should go now,” Howie said.

“This is all going in the book,” Francine said. She was writing in her book like a cop writing a ticket. Then she slapped the notebook and put it in her handbag and started patting Mr. Winkley, and Nancy handed him over to her. Mr. Winkley was biting Francine’s finger.

“I never had a baby of my own,” Francine said.

She walked down the hall holding Mr. Winkley. Then she turned around.

“Come on, Howie; we’re going now. Howie?”

“I’ll be along in a minute, Francine.”

Francine was mad at Howie for not going with her, and she went into her room with Mr. Winkley.