The Second Entry

I woke up to the sound of Mary slamming the front door. I looked at the Light-Brite red of my digital clock and shut my eyes. The flashing 6:34am stayed behind my eyelids and tried to tell me something. I wondered vaguely what day it was. Then I realized that I should have opened the coffee shop almost an hour ago. Sitting up, I remembered the cats. Fuck. I should have checked on them last night. I should have stayed with them last night. Oh God. The edges of my vision got gray and fuzzy in that special way that is only caused my gut-rot red wine.

Peeling off my clothes and scrambling into new ones, I checked for pillowcase creases on my face. Nothing that wouldn't’t fade in the time it took me to get to work. I crammed a stick of gum in my mouth, grabbed my keys, and bolted for the car.

My mind was a sickening blend of hang-over and the realization that I was a horse’s ass. I mean, what kind of person acts like I did? Don’t answer that. I vowed to never drink again, a promise I made every day that would last until about 6 that evening, when I was released from job #2 waiting tables at the elegant Papa Hayden. All the other cool server-types would sit around in the bar, counting their tips and chain smoking, flirting with the bartender for free drinks. I was no different. It was part of the lifestyle of working in the food industry. You could try to fight it, but you wouldn't last long. I certainly didn’t.

I screeched to a halt and double-parked in front of the apartment the cats lived in. I ran up the stairs and flung open the door.

"I will never drink again. I will be nicer to my friends. I will apologize to Mary and let her have that vintage dress of mine that she’s always liked. I will never-" and I stopped short, the dialogue in my head cut off like a head injury. One of the kittens was in the dining room. The only rule of the house was that the animals were to remain in the sun room at all times. They had everything they needed in there, and weren't supposed to be out in the house at large. Too much stuff to get into. Too much trouble to be caused. The day before I had refilled their water dish and securely fastened to door to the sunroom, started to walk away, and then returned to double check. When I left, it had been shut tight and the kittens had been batting at each other’s tails in the fading sunlight. Now, here was the smaller one, sitting perfectly still, tail wrapped regally around its feet, looking at me as if to say, "Asshole."

I broke out of my trance and scooped her up. "Where is your brother?" I asked her, not expecting an answer, but with a feeling of unease starting to spin tight in my stomach. She meowed.

I deposited her in the sunroom and looked around for her sibling. No sign of him. I looked under the couch and spotted it: a hole that had been masking taped over, the tape now in shreds and moving with the breeze from the air conditioner. She meowed again.

A faint meow echoed back at us, and my panic blossomed fully. I followed the sound of the tiny cry into the bathroom and nearly passed out.

Now I know that people say that a lot. It’s a cliché, in fact. No matter what little curveball gets thrown, people are always ‘almost passing out.’ But I shit you not.

Look: here we have a tiny seven month old Russian Blue kitten hanging by the mangled shreds of what used to be his left hind leg from the toilet seat he had crawled up on and batted at, which had then fallen on him, pinning him in his current predicament. There was surprisingly little blood. He looked at me and let out a feeble meow, front paws waving. My heart fell and shattered against the cold stone floor of my absolute horror. I had never ever felt anything like this and would have done anything to have never been there in the first place. I dove for the toilet and lifted the lid, cradling the unfortunate kitty as he came unstuck from the porcelain. Then he did start to bleed, and I noticed he was shaking, and really not looking very good at all. He was probably thinking the same thing about me.

I ran out into the kitchen and stood over the sink, hoping to find an answer in the drain. None came.

I was seriously fucked. I was late for work for the second day in a row, bordering on being fired, Mary hated my guts, and now I had what amounted to a mutilated cat in my arms in a stranger’s house that I was supposed to be in charge of. I should have never taken the job. I needed the money, but I couldn’t take care of someone else’s pets. I couldn’t take care of myself. And now look what happened.

I started to cry. For myself, yes, I was that self-pitying, but also for the kitten, who was still shaking and whose leg was not spontaneously regenerating as I had hoped. I rushed out the front door; cat bundled close, and thought about what I was going to do. I had no friends in Portland; all I did was work and drink. My boss at the coffee shop had been royally pissed when I was late the day before, costing her hundreds of dollars in missed sales. I wanted to get in my car and drive to the emergency animal clinic, but realistically, I needed job #1.

I got to the car and turned around, eyes wild, and ran for the nearest door and banged on it with my free hand.

“Someone please help me! I’ve got this cat here and this leg and oh! Help! Please!” My sobbing and pounding brought a bleary woman to the door in her robe. “I never wanted this to happen! I’m not a bad person!” I screamed at her. She was clearly seasoned in dealing with nut jobs, because she opened the door and let me show her the cat.

“Where did you find him?” she asked.

“He was hanging from the toilet upstairs and I have to get to work or I’ll get fired and please help me..." I was seriously losing it.

She got her husband to join her. She took the kitten, who kept crying, but weaker now, and we all agreed that I should just go to work and they would take time off from their adult jobs to deal with this and that they would be by the coffee shop to tell me what was going on. They would also be expecting to have “a talk” with me later. The woman made me give her the number of the cat’s owners, which I surrendered humbly, and knew that I was entering a realm of irresponsibility previously unknown to me. The kind of thing I read about in the tragic novels I hunched over at the coffee shop when it was slow.

If it was possible to be something worse than a horse’s ass, then I had just become it.


I slunk into work feeling like the blood had been drained out of my body and replaced with maple syrup.

It was almost 8am, and there were people milling around outside the front door, checking their watches and putting their hands up to the fingerprint smeared glass, trying to peak inside. I started a pot of coffee, turned on the espresso machine, and opened the front door.

“Well, it’s about time you got here. Where have you been? I’m going to be late for work because you weren’t here on time.” I had seen this lady around. I could have had her drink and favorite pastry ready to go before she asked for it, and not charged her a penny and she still would have given me the third degree. This made her diatribe a little easier to swallow. Other people behind her were in general agreement, but softened up when I told them about the cat.

“Is he going to be alright?” the nurses from the hospital across the street asked, and took up a collection to help pay for the vet bill, which was going to be big. This gesture touched me, in a place I thought I had been denied eternal access to, and I broke down crying all over again when they handed me the envelope stuffed with ones and fives. Some of that money was probably meant for people’s lunches.

Due to technical difficulties, I will not be able to post for about a week. But fear not! As soon as internet access is captured for my personal den of iniquity, I will be able to post many many words...

Word count up to day 2: 5126

The First Entry

The morning we met I was abuzz with adrenaline and guilt from accidentally crushing the hind leg of one of the show cats I was supposed to be watching. Well, they weren’t show cats yet. They were technically still kittens, cute, dust-bin gray, with blue-tipped boots and tails. They were Russian, and very expensive. I was turning out to be a bad cat sitter.

I had spent the night at my apartment instead of the house with the cats, as my roommate had just confessed her undying love for me that afternoon, and I felt that this needed my complete attention. We talked through most of the night, drinking cheap Chilean wine straight out of the bottle. Her argument was that she was not just a Catholic school girl testing out the bubbly waters of lesbianism, but that she was truly, deeply, and profoundly in love with me. So much so that she was willing to put up with my rising alcoholism, my blatant disregard for her feelings, and my tendency to bring home strange men.

“But see, I love you,” she said, wiping the tears from her rosy cheeks and clasping the bottle of wine to her chest. Her recently shorn locks were still thick, rich and buttery. The blond highlights caught the flickering candlelight and gleamed.

“Mary. Listen to me. It will not work. I am so emotionally unavailable that the number for my heart is unlisted. I won’t even give it to myself.” This was the wine talking. I had a flair for bathos when drinking heavily, like any other college dropout just old enough to buy booze at the store, proudly flipping out my newly minted driver’s license and smirking at the clerk as he did the math.

“But…I…” and she dissolved into tears again, body wracked with real pain, not believing, like most people the first time they get their heart broken, that it could ever happen to them.

It didn’t matter to Mary that my brief forays into same-sex relationships had never included her. We had always been just friends. She was 18, just out of high school, and settling into her sexuality with her eyes wide and dewy, like the innocent forest creature she was. I was 21, and convinced that my three years of seniority made me infinitely more mature and wise. That was also mostly the wine talking.

“Listen,” I said putting my hand on her shoulder in a way that I hoped was supportive but not suggestive. “There’s a woman out there for you who will love you and treat you like you deserve to be treated. But I am not that woman. You’re so young, just a girl really,” and here I struck a pose, furrowing my brow in an attempt to convey that I knew what I was talking about. “And you aren’t ready for me, or anyone like me. I’ve got problems. Emotional baggage. I’m toxic, actually, now that I’m giving it real thought.” I took a slug of wine and coughed unattractively, hoping to drive home my point. Something I said had the desired effect on her, because she narrowed her eyes at me and lowered her head, face wet and flushed with anger.

“You sound just like a man,” she growled, her voice dangerously soft. I started to think that maybe drinking during this exchange had been a bad idea.

Mary stood up, wobbled on her new high heels, an affectation meant to impress me, I think, to make her seem sexy and more grown-up, and pitched forward. They were cute, really, the shoes. Shiny black with just a small two inch heel. Sort of clunky but expensive. She reached out with her arms to break her fall, but refused to let go of the wine bottle, which struck a potted plant to the right of me, baseball bat style, and dead leaves jumped ship and scattered all over the floor.

“Here, let me help you.” I tried to take her arm and prop her upright, but she recoiled and yelped.

“NO! Don’t touch me.” She smoothed her skirt with one hand and regained her composure. “In fact, I’d like to be alone.” She teetered again on her shoes, but stayed upright. She took a few steps out of what she considered to be my grasp and continued. “I’m sure there’s some guy you could stay with tonight.” It was supposed to be a dig, but I felt glamorous and adult when she spat it at me. Yes, there were actually a few men I could call.

Then I decided to remain in the spotlight for just a little bit longer, as emotionally damaged people are apt to do when they feel the glow of drama fading. I grabbed Mary’s arm and pulled her towards me, her eyes getting big, mascara running garishly down her cheeks, mouth open in surprise and what was probably shock, although at the time I thought she was being coy and disguising it as protest. I gripped her rigid neck with my other hand and kissed her, hard. Nose smashed against her face, I thought, “This looks sexier on TV than it feels in real life.”

She pushed me away using the wine bottle for extra leverage, the mouth of the green glass a small, toothless guard dog.

“Ow! What the hell did you do that for? That really hurt!” Obviously, she should have punched me in the stomach and then maybe spit on me when I fell to the floor.

“Just stay away from me.” She sounded defeated now, broken in some essential way, and I suppose she had no other way to sound. I had just broken her Christmas ornament heart and then tried to toy with whatever was left of her dignity by fucking with her head. Maybe I should have just punched her in the stomach. A good catfight would have simplified and truncated this whole mess. But this twisted little scene could go on for hours.

I turned towards my bedroom and wrestled with the doorknob. I could feel the quarter-sized mark on my ribs where Mary had nailed me with the bottle. It was going to bruise like a hickie. I deserved it.

I collapsed onto my bed and spun, in the merry-go-round style of drunks, into sleep.