Orange Tabby

The hospital loomed into view about 5 miles north on Highway 97 – two massive brown cubes dotted with bulbous windows that seemed float above the pine trees.

The parking lot’s yellow lights glowed in the black air as Michael eased his blue sedan through the entrance. The frozen steering wheel stung his hands. Weaving his way, preoccupied with the cold burn pulsing in his fingers, he didn’t notice the small figure crossing in front of his car. There was a thump. He slammed on the brakes and got out in the middle of the lane.

The wind scalded his cheeks. He bent his fingers at the knuckles then let them go straight again. Breath floated from his lips in and disintegrated into the cold. There was a shadowy lump on the asphalt near the rear left tire. As he drew closer the lump became clearer piece by piece; legs, a small head, slender frame, long, curled tail.

An orange and white tabby cat lay motionless on the blacktop. Its mouth hung slightly open with tiny teeth protruding. Little puffs of breath escaped over a small pool of blood. Michael knelt beside it looking helplessly from side to side. The animal’s half-open eyes were faint green and speckled with blue and gray. Michael’s stomach knotted and he began to gnaw at his inner cheek.

He reached out his hand and pulled it back. The cat let out a slow, strained wheeze, like a balloon deflating. Michael reached out again and stroked the creature down the curve of its back. Its body winced slightly at first touch but then relaxed. He could feel its crooked spine just beneath the orange and white fur and his hand crested up and down on the shallow rise and fall of its chest. The breathing slowed and slowed. Michael just knelt there, his sore red fingers passing slowly through the soft hair, until the breathing finally stopped.

* * *

The hospital hallways smelled of antiseptics and echoed with the muffled hum of televisions, the shuffling of files and charts, and the squeak and squeal of rubber wheels on frigid linoleum.

Michael slipped into an elevator. As the reflective metal doors closed he realized he had forgotten the room number. His mother had told him a number of times. He had forgotten it. He looked at the floor numbers as if they might nudge him into remembering. His gaze fell back to the metal doors in front of him and his own distorted reflection. The fluorescent light gave his image a sickly tone. He could just barely make out one of his eyes on the mutated face. The elevator stopped on the third floor and the doors creaked open.

A young nurse stepped in. She flashed a brief smile, her blue eyes ringed with small lines of fatigue. Her face was pale and delicate with a small, rounded nose. Her mouth was tiny but her lips full. The light-blue V-neck scrubs revealed the curve of her breasts. As she pressed her floor he could smell her perfume – a pleasant, flowery scent. He got a slight erection and immediately hated himself for it, telling himself that it was perverse to think about sex at a time like this. He fixed his eyes on his own grotesque reflection. He began to sweat. The doors opened on the sixth floor and the nurse strode out. Michael forced himself to refrain from taking another look. He closed his eyes and rose aimlessly to the top floor.

He stepped out of the elevator like a teenager coming home drunk and past curfew. The top floor housed no bedrooms or recovery wards, just a wide corridor leading into the enclosed aerial walkway that connected the hospital’s two main buildings. The walkway was carpeted and the walls paneled with huge plexi-glass windows. He looked down at the formless black mass dotted with lonely lights trailing north to be swallowed up by the Long Island Sound.

There came a subtle whooshing noise and his face was brushed by what could only be described as a breeze. It was a tepid autumn breeze suggesting crushed brown leaves and faded sunlight. He could almost feel leaves crunching under his feet as he inhaled deeply the next soft gust, his ears picking up faint echoes of activity; near-naked branches rustling, children in brand-new sweaters stirring up dirt. He was once a child like that, appallingly unspoiled and unafraid.

Crossing into the other building the air reverted to stillness, the sounds subsided, the scent faded dismally away and he felt hollow inside, the urge to cry welling up suddenly in the back of his throat. He paused a moment to regain his composure but failed and the tears flowed freely over his face. He knelt down, leaned back against the wall, and cried silently into his hands.

The tears eventually stopped. But the sense of relief that usually follows a crying spell was missing. Instead he felt utterly disconnected. He recognized the sensation. His body felt transparent, as if it were dissolving. The tears that had seeped into his mouth tasted metallic and artificial. He was evaporating, being sucked inwards from behind his retinas. He stood still for thirty seconds breathing in deeply, through the nose and out through the mouth, repeating a single word to himself. Relax. His heartbeat slowed, the fear lifted. He entered the elevator and blankly pressed a button at random. Traveling a few flights down, the doors opened and his mother was standing in the hall, leaning back against the aquamarine wall, her head turned towards him, one cheek flush against the paint.

He hugged her.

“It’s over,” she said.

“Oh?” he muttered

“I guess it’s a relief.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He left a while ago.”

“He never forgave him.”

“He’s stubborn.”

“I never forgave him either.”

“Well you’re just as goddamn stubborn.” Her severity surprised them both. “He loved you.”

“That’s grotesque.”

“You have to understand that what he did... it was still out of some pathetic form of love – some kind of love, however twisted and misguided.”

“Wrong.”

“He was confused. Tortured. He was different back then. He didn’t know what he was doing,” she was on the verge of tears again.

“He’s your father, you’d have to believe that.”

“I know I can’t force you to understand.”

“No.”

“I’m tired,” she said blankly.

“Let’s go home.”
He took her arm and guided her down the hall.

* * *

Michael sat in the kitchen of his childhood home and drank a glass of red wine. The room was unfamiliar to him now. Years of renovations and remodeling had fundamentally altered the look and feel of the place. The table was the same and he had memories of eating dinner there when he was younger, but the memories had no connection to physical landscape of the kitchen as it was now. In his mind the room he ate in as a child was a completely different room from a different house.

He remembered one night in particular, when his grandfather first came out of the psychiatric hospital – a tense, awkward supper. His father ate in the other room. Forced to remain at the table by his mother’s imperious glares, Michael ate as quickly as possible and then asked to be excused to go do homework in his room. His grandfather kept his head down the whole meal, slowly and methodically shoveling food into his mouth. That was the last time Michael and his grandfather were in the same room.

The sun was coming up. He finished the rest of his wine. There was something he felt compelled to do. He went outside and rummaged in the garage for a shovel, tossed it into the back of his car and drove off.

He found the cat just where he had left it. He lifted its broken body into the trunk. This time he had gloves on and his hands did not sting. He drove south for a while, stopping at an old, overgrown park. He picked a spot nestled behind a patch of oak trees, laid the orange and white cat down beside him, and began to dig.

He looked towards the hospital. It still stood, clumsy and arcane, the morning sun glaring off the protruding windows, encircling the structure with garlands of white light. He imagined he was witnessing the first explosions of lift-off. Soon another great orange and white burst would erupt from beneath the glowering hospital, launching it ever upward into an awkward orbit.