Lost in Cat Brain Land Read online

“Mr. Branson…Ted,” Susan said, “I can’t take your child.

  I’m sorry, it’s just not…”

  She did not want to take the meat, but she could not offend this man. He might have friends with kids, although she doubted he had friends. Who would hang out with a guy who called meat his child? Well, if she was paid to watch kids and this lunatic wanted to pay her to babysit a hunk of cow, she would do it.

  “I don’t see what the problem could be.”

  Susan smiled. “Problem? There’s no problem here.

  Bring your son this way and I’ll introduce him to the other children.”

  “Scotty,” Ted said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “My boy’s name is Scotty.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Susan. “His name is Scotty.”

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  For the first time, Susan was glad the seven children she watched were, without exception, idiots.

  She led Mr. Branson into the living room. The man dragged the hunk of meat behind him as if it were a reluctant child. Where the hell had the meat come from anyway? Maybe it was just a large rib-eye steak, but Susan had never seen rib-eyes that size before.

  She watched the seven children watching Alice in Wonderland, their comatose eyes reflecting the purple visage of the Cheshire Cat. “Everyone,” she said. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Scotty.”

  Haley, a little blonde girl, turned from the television and waved her hands like someone trying to signal a lifeguard. The other kids heard nothing, or pretended to hear nothing.

  Children were such little creeps.

  Normally, there were over ten pages of paperwork to fill out for a new child, but since Scotty wasn’t really a child, she skipped the paperwork.

  “Well,” Mr. Branson said, “I’m late for work. If there are any forms to sign, I’ll fill them out this evening, around five.

  Thanks again.”

  He kissed Susan on the cheek. He walked out of the living room. The front door slammed. Susan realized she had forgotten to ask how Mr. Branson found her daycare.

  She heard the door creak and open up again. Mr. Branson called, “I forgot to tell you, Scotty’s allergic to chocolate milk.”

  The door shut. Susan rubbed her left cheek, the one he had not kissed. She stared at the meat-child. She felt the kick of queasy memories in her gut, things she could not think about for the life of her.

  Allergic to chocolate milk....

  She expected to have an easier time lugging Scotty the meat-child into the kitchen. He could not have weighed more than 124

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  sixty pounds, but felt at least double that. When she lifted him up, legs - which she hadn’t seen - uncurled from the thing’s red belly. She recoiled, dropping him. She fled to the kitchen and pressed up against the refrigerator. Take care of the child, take care of the child, take care of the child, she told herself. Breathe in, breathe out.

  She returned with oven mitts. She stood over the meat-child, clamping and unclamping the mitts like a cottony lobster.

  None of the other children said anything as Susan dragged Scotty into the kitchen by his legs. Susan wondered what the little idiots would tell their parents about Scotty, the new boy.

  She figured most would not remember anything at all. They would recall nothing about meat.

  Scotty was too heavy for Susan to lift onto the kitchen table.

  Instead, she slid him into the corner, beside Tanuki’s food and water. She emptied the water bowl, gone green with sedation, into the sink. She cursed her husband for the empty bottle of Jack he’d left out on the counter. The prick was a drinker these days, ever since the cat died. She understood how much he loved Tanuki. She loved Tanuki too. They had adopted the cat thirteen years ago, before they were even married. Now the cat had been dead for over a year. Leaving food and water out was a means of coping that didn’t hurt anyone, but if a parent were to see the empty whiskey bottle and complain to the daycare board, Susan could lose her business.

  She tried her best to scrape the grime from the bowl but gave up after a half-assed attempt. She set the bowl on the counter.

  She searched the fridge for chocolate syrup. She realized it was no use. They were out of milk. She grabbed one of her Atkins chocolate-flavored protein shakes.

  It was close enough, right?

  Susan popped the tab and poured the thick, brown liquid into the bowl. She set the bowl on the floor next to Scotty.

  “Drink up,” she said, but who was she kidding? She was talking 125

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  to some fucking meat.

  She lifted the bowl and tilted it just enough. A few drops splattered on the meat child’s back. Nothing happened, so she poured more. Then she let the whole thing spill.

  Still, nothing happened.

  Susan left the chocolate-soaked Scotty on the linoleum floor and walked out of the kitchen. She peeked into the living room to make sure the kids were alright. Silent as crabs, the children stared at the television screen. The children seemed no less alive than before, but they had gone red and it wasn’t from the movie’s glow.

  Susan screamed at these new children. She collapsed on the floor and choreographed an Ian Curtis nightmare. A very bad...

  “Mrs. Mackery,” said Charlie, the oldest boy she watched.

  Susan looked up. Her insides tightened. A trail of crimson ran from the sofa where Charlie had sat to where he stood. The child gave no indication that he realized he was skinless. How could he be without skin? How could he be alive?

  “Mrs. Mackery,” he said.

  “What is it, Charlie?” she said. When facing terrible situations, Susan knew to act normal. Acting normal was the key to overcoming all of life’s problems.

  “That new boy, he hurt me.”

  Susan looked at the other children. She looked at the cable box. 1:11 glowed green. How could it be over an hour past noon? Mr. Branson dropped off Scotty around eight. In that time, she had done nothing except drag the meat into the kitchen and pour the chocolate shake over it. Something wasn’t right. Susan thought she might call her husband. He took care of every problem.

  Something moved in the hallway. She looked at the children again, taking count. One was missing. Who? She registered their faces. Haley.

  “Haley,” she called, “Haley!”

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  The toilet flushed. The sink ran for a few seconds, then the bathroom door opened. “Haley,” she said.

  The thing that scuttled into the living room was not Haley, even if it wore her face. It grinned, but the skull beneath failed to smile in sync with the loosely draped little girl face. Susan imagined more than one mind existing behind that hideous face.In the kitchen there was a terrible crying, like a cat meowing, hung by its tail from a basketball hoop, swinging like a furry piñata, then beaten with metal bats into a sad and voiceless thing. Everything and everyone was crying.

  Susan awoke in her bed. The light overhead made her jaw ache.

  Her husband stood over her. He squinted at her. She felt pitiful and ashamed. He held out his hand and she took it.

  “Where are the children?” she said.

  He pulled her to her feet. “A new business offer came in so I took the day off. You were passed out like a sorority bitch. I called the parents. The children are gone. They’ll be back. Are you hungry? I cooked dinner.”

  Of course they’ll be back, Susan thought. Her guts mumbled.

  She had eaten nothing all day. “Did you have a bad day?” she said. Would he ask about her day?

  He kissed her cheek, moving away from her as he did so.

  He turned off the light on his way out.

  No, of course not.

  Susan forced herself out of bed. She wanted to explain everything.

  When she entered the kitchen, she felt scrambled in a fog.

  Mr. Branson stood from his seat at the table. “What the
hell is he doing here?” she said.

  Her husband turned around. “Ted is my partner. We’re going into a sort of…new business together.”

  “What kind of business?” she demanded.

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  Her husband and Mr. Branson responded together. “Your new husband,” they said.

  The doorbell rang and Susan knew she must answer it, if only to escape from her husband and Mr. Branson for a moment or two.

  Susan left the kitchen, passed through the lightless living room, and pressed her face against the front door. She looked through the door peep onto the lit front porch.

  Outside stood Tanuki. No, even if it wore the face of their beloved cat, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t...not Tanuki, not with his head on the body of a boy.

  The boy’s body was bookish and pale, just as Susan always imagined Tanuki.

  Tanuki held a platter of meat. All seven of the daycare children stood around him.

  “Meow, can we come in now?” Tanuki said. He spoke in the voice of a six-year-old boy with a sore throat.

  Susan threw the door open. She looked into the eyes of her dead cat and saw her husband approaching from behind.

  Two hands wrapped around her belly.

  “It’s just me,” said her husband. “Don’t tense up like that.”

  She wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to go. Her husband kissed the back of her neck. “What’s the matter with you?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? If nothing’s the matter with you, then why the hell are you letting our guests sit outside in the cold? Ask them in for dinner.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She looked at Tanuki and the children. She said, “Would you like to come in for dinner?”

  Her husband jerked her inside and waved for Tanuki and the kids to follow. “Tanuki,” he said gruffly, “take the kids into the kitchen. I’d like to speak with my wife alone.”

  Tanuki gave a thumbs up and shuffled into the kitchen.

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  The children followed close behind, as if they feared passing beyond Tanuki’s supervision.

  Susan was bawling now. Hysterical, even. She was so ashamed of herself, to lose her composure like this. “What the hell’s going on?” she said.

  Her husband said, “Don’t get upset over this. You’ve got no goddamn reason to get upset. I should slap the shit out of you.

  I know you’ve wanted us to start our own family for a while now and talking things with Ted, I said let’s do it. Let’s start our own family. We needed more money, but Ted said just have a few extra workers. Kids will pay for kids. Ted told me how. I invited him to live with us.”

  “Slow down,” Susan said, starting to gain her composure.

  “Slow down. Where did you meet Ted? Why did he come here this morning?”

  “How did I meet who? Who did I meet?”

  “Ted Branson. How did you meet Ted Branson?”

  Her husband crossed his arms and head-butted her like a wooden Indian chief. “I met him nowhere special,” he said.

  Susan buckled over. She pulled her hair. She clawed at her husband’s feet. This is it, she thought, I’ve done it for sure. This knitted little life of mine is gone for good. “Nowhere special,”

  she sobbed, “nowhere special. For God’s sake, what does that mean? Nowhere spe-”

  He kicked a dirty Reebok into her chomp-chomps, as he had nicknamed the cat’s teeth.

  She bit her tongue and it burst in half.

  “I didn’t mean that,” her husband said, as Susan gagged up blood.

  “Truly, I didn’t. All I want is for you to understand that we can finally start a family. I want you to be happy. We can finally be happy. And if it’s really that important to you, I met Ted in a bathroom. He was looking for a daycare service.”

  Susan looked up at her husband. Was this really her husband? She had always considered him the more rational of 129

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  the two of them, and while she knew she was being irrational, well, he had was an abusive spouse!

  But then she thought of Tanuki’s death, and it hurt far worse than everything he had just done to her.

  “Where did Tanuki come from?” she said.

  “That’s mine and Ted’s business,” he said.

  “Ted and I decided that since Tanuki might have trouble acquiring a job, he’s the best candidate for fatherhood. Ted and I will provide financial support while you stay home with Tanuki and the kids. We’ll be the perfect family.”

  In the kitchen, Tanuki’s mewing laughter pitched above the kid laughter. This is not my life, she thought. I cannot be Susan. Make me into someone else. I cannot be Susan. I have always been just Susan. Please. Anyone. Make. Me. Into. Someone Else. Anyone. Or someone, come here to me.

  Despite the transformations of her world, she remained stifled, obedient, and afraid. In other words, she remained painfully herself.

  Everything grew quiet. Her partially-severed tongue hung over her bottom lip. She let the blood run down her chin.

  “It’s dinner time,” her husband said, standing at the front of the table, but Ted was not out with the dinner yet.

  Susan leaned back in the seat opposite end her husband.

  She looked around at all the fleshless faces. Susan didn’t want a family, or maybe she did still want one. Maybe she wanted this one. She didn’t know. Nobody knew if they truly belonged to their family because nobody ever chose their family. She still loved her husband, she supposed. Susan also loved Tanuki.

  “Dinner’s not ready yet,” Mr. Branson – Ted – called from the bathroom.

  “Is he preparing dinner in the bathroom?” Susan asked.

  Forming each word hurt.

  Tanuki whined about dinner taking too longer. Susan’s 130

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  husband told the cat-child that Father Ted would be just a minute. “He is preparing dinner right now,” he said.

  “What would it be like,” she said, “to be in a family I chose to love?”

  “You should ask Ted about that one. He’s into Hallmark cards.”

  The children were laughing, but everyone stopped chattering as Ted stepped out of the bathroom carrying a silver platter holding a large rib-eye steak.

  “I would like to bless this meal,” Ted said. “Bow your heads, everyone.”

  Susan bowed her head. Ted began a prayer to the meat.

  Lord Meat, we thank you for your sacrifice, for transforming our children so that someday we might also come to wear the perfect likeness of you....

  Susan wondered how long her tongue would bleed, and whether, exactly, the hanging part would interfere with her enjoyment of tonight’s family dinner.

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  CRAZY LOVE

  So you meet a stranger on the bus. The two of you speed headfirst into small talk about diminishing salmon populations, and that settles it. You will have a casual fuck. Two hours later, you float on the pillows that appear when the storms of good sex have ceased thundering. You’re both vigorous cuddlers, so it’s hard to tell in the half-light where your flesh ends and the stranger’s flesh begins. You fall asleep, very much in love.

  The stranger shakes you into wakefulness around seven in the morning and says, “You knocked me up.” You insist upon the eternal virtues of prophylactics and tell the stranger to go back to sleep. The stranger gets out of bed and paces from one end of your room to the other. This irritates you. You have always hated pacers and morning people. It seems you have fucked the wrong kind of stranger again.

  Five minutes later, the stranger yelps and gives birth to a child. Faithful to its strange origins, the child is a weird-looking thing. It could pass for one of those plug, cutesy-eyed hearts that pop up in grocery stores and boutique shops when February rolls around. You find it hard to imagine that your genes played any role in its creation. “It sure is a weird-lo
oking thing,” you say.

  “I think it is beautiful,” the stranger says, and that settles it. You make coffee and eggs and the three of you take the bus 132

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  down to the courthouse. You get married. With a child thrown into the equation, you see no option but marriage. Still, you’re uncertain whether you really love this spouse-stranger. After all, the spouse-stranger is a pacer and a morning person. You return home from a honeymoon of takeout Chinese and an Italian horror film that the spouse-stranger claims to have seen precisely thirty-six times. “Once for every child born,” the spouse-stranger says.

  You think this is a lot of children for one person to have, but decide it is better to leave your separate pasts unspoken. You find yourself warming up to the fuzzy infant dozing between the two of you on the sofa. Family life might be okay after all.

  A month of swell fucking and many diaper changes goes by.

  Then one morning at the crack of dawn, the spouse-stranger asks for a divorce. You pull the covers to your chin and say, “I thought we were happy.”

  “I am happy,” the spouse-stranger says, “and I feel like I’m in Hell.”

  “How can you feel both things at once? What makes you think that?” you ask.

  “Oh, a lot of things,” says the spouse-stranger, packing a suitcase that belongs to you full of clothes that are yours. The spouse-stranger slams the front door three times on the way out.You prepare to face the trials of single parenting, but first you sleep until noon. With the spouse-stranger gone, you can finally return to your normal habits. When you wake up, the empty bed saddens you. Prickles of loneliness scratch at your insides and turn your thoughts into some kind of lousy meat.

  Everything you think seems out of place in your head, dragging you to a new all-time low every minute.

  You walk into the kitchen and spot a note on the counter.

  Your heart beats with the gusto of a Bach symphony. You clear your throat and restrain the great hopes the sight of this ketchup-stained note has bestowed upon you. You hold it between your 133

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