In a Cat’s Eye

“I was wondering,” she said, “if maybe you would take care of him; I mean, just until I got settled in.”

I saw the corner of a suitcase sticking out from under her bed.

“Don’t go,” I said. “He’d miss you too much. Besides, you’d have to quit your job. You’d lose all your seniority. You’re the best trimmer they have. You’d have to give Mr. Horne two weeks’ notice. It’s a law. If you don’t, then the police will get you and bring you back.” I knew that wasn’t true, but I didn’t want her to go away.

“They’ll never find me,” she said.

“What’s the story with you and Roy?” I said. I had to find out for Elsie, but I wanted to know for myself too, and I thought maybe she was going because she wanted to get away from Roy.

She went back to the dishes.

“No story,” she said. “He’s just a friend.”

Some friend, I thought; she’d just got done saying that I was her friend. I didn’t want to push it, so I just said, “If he’s been bothering you …”

“Stay away from him, Willy.” She turned around and dried her hands with a towel. “He’s a lot bigger than you are. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

I didn’t like her saying I was small.

“Roy isn’t as big as everybody thinks,” I said. “I could take that guy, easy, but I don’t like to pick on guys that have only one arm.”

“You’re just the right size,” she said. “Anyway, there’s a lot of things going on in my life and I don’t know. Never mind me. Roy isn’t bothering me.”

She came over and sat across the table from me. Mr. Winkley was on the table turning around in circles and rubbing against her hand. Nobody said anything and Nancy looked sad about something. When she finally talked, it was like she was talking to herself.

“It’s green now,” she said.

“What’s green?”

“His eye.”

“Him?” I said. “Mr. Winkley?”

“It’s green now. That’s because you’re here.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about. If it had been anyone else, I would have thought they were on drugs, but I didn’t think that Nancy would ever take drugs.

“Cats’ eyes are green,” I said. “Sometimes they’re blue. Some cats have blue eyes.”

“That’s not what I mean. Lately, sometimes his eye gets black, and real big, like a saucer. It scares me.”

“You must have had a bad dream or something,” I said. I didn’t like her talking crazy like that.

“It seems silly now,” she said. “It’s when I’m alone; I’m not afraid when you’re here.”

You could just barely hear piano music coming through the wall from Gladys’s room. It sounded like classical music and I thought Gladys was improving herself. Mr. Winkley went to sleep on the table. It was getting dark and we listened to the music. When the music ended Mr. Winkley woke up and stood up on his hind legs and grabbed onto my wrist, and started arm wrestling with me.

“It’s getting dark earlier now than it used to,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “Why does it do that, Willy?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It does that every year. In the winter it will be dark most of the time.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m glad it’s not the other way around. I mean, it’s better to have the sun in the summertime, when it’s nice outside, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” I said.

She went back to the sink to finish washing the dishes. Mr. Winkley was still grabbing my wrist trying to pull it down. He bit down on the back of my hand and stared at me like he was saying he was going to beat me one way or another. That’s when I saw that his eye, which had been green just a few minutes before, was big and black, and I realized that was what Nancy had been talking about. I could see why it scared her. It did look like a saucer, like he was a machine that could kill you and didn’t care. It was like he was two different cats.

“Help me, Willy.”

Her saying that when it was so quiet in the room scared me. I didn’t know what she meant.

“I can’t reach the cabinet over the sink,” she said. “I need a big tall man to help me put these dishes away.”

I was taller than Nancy and I could reach the cabinet to put the dishes away for her.

“Mr. Winkley won’t hurt you,” I said. “I’ll show you.” I picked him up and handed him to her and we looked at his big black eye. He must have been wondering why we were looking at him like that.

“Keep looking at his eye,” I said. I went and turned on the light.

“It turned green,” she said.

I turned the light off and on a few times so she’d get the idea, and then I explained the whole thing to her, how cats can see in the dark, and how humans’ eyes do the same thing only not as much. I knew all about it.

I was about ready to leave and she started telling me about this movie that was supposed to be very good. I wanted a cigarette and Nancy wouldn’t have minded, but I didn’t smoke in her room because Nancy wasn’t the kind of girl who would ever smoke.

I was getting ready to leave again and she said, “I have to show you my bird book.” She went and got the book. She sat down at the table, and I pulled up my chair beside her so she could show me the bird pictures. She’d circled in pencil the ones she’d seen. I didn’t even know she was interested in birds.

She pointed to a picture of a bluebird and said, “My mother used to say that when you see a bluebird, it brings you happiness. I always used to look for them.”

There was no circle around the bluebird. She turned the page.

“This one, the purple finch, is our official state bird,” she said.

“It’s pretty,” I said. I wasn’t looking at the picture, though; I was looking at her. That’s when I realized, like a light bulb going on over my head, that she had been telling me about the movie because she wanted me to ask if I could take her to see it. She must have gotten the idea from Elsie.

She told me she’d bought the book some weeks or months before, along with a bird feeder and some seeds. She got the feeder out of the closet to show me.

“I was going to put it outside my window,” she said, “and I was pretty hepped up about it at first, but then it seemed kind of stupid. It’s too dark in the alley. The birds won’t go there. Anyway, I don’t know how to put it together.”

“The birds will come,” I said. “It’s not always so dark in the alley. I can drill holes in the brick for the screws and make a hanger for it, and we’ll put it outside your window. You put some seeds in it, and pretty soon a bird will come to it, and then the other birds will come too.”

“Do you think I might get a bluebird? Oh Willy, I’ve never seen a bluebird!”

“Sure,” I said. “There’ll be lots of bluebirds; all kinds of birds; blue, red, yellow, all different colors. When do you want me to put it up?”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. How about tomorrow morning?”