The Cat, the Hawk, and the Yard

Undisturbed by the cars on Coco Plum Boulevard that had killed several of her brothers and sisters, a cat’s scabby eyes switched back and forth. They went from the cool shade at the side of the road to the fish shop, then back again. The bone-sack of matted fur and fleas limped across the boulevard’s yellow line. The smell from the fish shop was more compelling than any danger from the tires of cars.

A half-mile above, every twitch of the cat’s tail was captured in the eyes of a hawk. The brown-winged death tilted in the slow afternoon up-draft intuitively positioning the sun high and behind. If the cat did look up, she would see only the glare of the Caribbean sun.

Through the trees, the hawk watched a small group of men sitting in a semi-circle behind the garage. Although hunger drove her to circle and watch the cat, she stayed high. She had learned that men were slow but dangerous. If they saw you, they would kill you. Not for food. But because they liked it.

The hawk stayed away from those men sitting around the black fire container. But, her hunger drove her to watch the cat like her life depended on it, because it did.

The hawk judged the distance between the cat, the men, and the line of parked cars that would hide her strike from the sitting men. If the cat would separate itself from the semi -circle a couple more yards, the hawk and her chicks would eat.

Annie was the only one who fed the cats. When it became clear to the men that judging by the cat’s appearance, maybe she should add some de-wormer to the food dish, Annie asked for donations of money.

After that another long discussion ensued. The consensus of the men were that Annie should forget the de-wormer because the worms were probably the only thing keeping the cat together. Only Annie knew how many cats there had been originally. But, by various gruesome methods, cars, coyotes, disease, all the rest of the litter had gone to that great sandbox in the sky.

“She cries over each one.” My new friend Nelson nodded towards Annie.

I looked in her direction.

“Every time.”

The small gray cat brushed past the gate in the chain-link fence that separated the boulevard from the parked cars. Today, the cat’s life was good. Sarge, that limping Rottweiler, she could easily outrun. Lady and Rebel, the other two junk yard dogs, had flopped down in their own shady spots. The noon sun and apathy glued the dogs to the shade of the mangroves that outlined the yard. The small cat instinctively knew that if she stayed twenty feet away from those bone-lazy dogs, her life was charmed.

I didn’t let the momentarily idle dogs fool me. One thing I didn’t have to worry about, while I wandered away from the dock, is that someone would break into my boat because our little flotilla is guarded by Nelson’s dog Sarge.

Sarge was a cross between a Rottweiler and baby rhinoceros. When I was moving in, the first one at the end of the dock inspecting me and my suspicious-looking boat was that huge brown surly 45-gallon drum on four legs.

I reached out to pat Sarge and Annie shouted.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“Not unless you want to be called ‘Stumpy.’”

Until he had broken his leg in the line of duty, Sarge had been a certified K9 Police Dog. You can take the dog out of the job, but you can’t take the job out of the dog. Most cops, once out of uniform, are as gregarious as the next civilian, most times more so. Not so with Sarge. He incessantly walked the beat. Up and down the dock, up and down the dock.

Sarge the police dog was a pig. Sarge’s usual position was lying across the main access to the dock. Anybody walking towards our boats had to step over this black four-legged mound, because Sarge didn’t move for anybody. When he did move, he didn’t so much walk up and down the dock, as patrol the perimeter. He may have been retired as a cop, but nobody seems to have read him the memo.

A couple of weeks after I moved in, Sarge ran down to the canal’s edge and caught a Pufferfish in his mouth. Nelson put on a rubber glove and took the poisonous balloon-sized fish from Sarge’s mouth and then threw the fish far out into the canal. Carlos held onto Sarge, who despite the pain in his mouth, strained against his collar to go after the deadly fish a second time. Carlos gave Sarge a pail of cold tap water to drink just in case there was any reaction to the fish’s poison.

Annie, Nelson and I marveled at Sarge’s strength.

“Bite a poisoned fish and the only medicine you get is a pail of tap water?” I shook my head.

“Do you know what a veterinarian costs in this town?” Annie asked.

That was several weeks ago.  Today, the grey cat saw that the food bowl was still empty. She then crossed the yard to a spot of shade behind the rusted oil drum to hide from the sun. The hawk high above, twitched and hesitated mid-flight.

Behind the garage, away from prying eyes from the street, I sat with the all the other residents of this dockyard, garage, parking lot, boat graveyard, as we faced a barbecue altar. Despite the heat of the noonday sun there was an energy in the talk, common to men discussing momentous events. Their gestures displayed an agitation foreign to them. The urgency of their situation gave them an uncommon purpose. This boatyard normally was their refuge from the storms, both in the water, and in life. I could attend the meeting, but it was made clear to me that this situation was not my problem.

“You paid?” Nelson asked me and Annie in almost disbelief.

“Yeah. Post-dated cheques.” I answered. Annie nodded also.

“Damn.” They all said in unison.

“Annie said you are a welder on an oil-rig.” Small, neat Nelson looked at me. “Good money up there?”

I smiled and shrugged. The others turned their head as one.

“Can be.” I looked at the suddenly interested audience. “Except I just went through a divorce. Have you ever seen any guy who came out of a divorce with any money left?”

All their heads nodded in unison.

I looked down the line of heads. I had just discovered my new mantra.

Thousands of feet above, the hawk’s circle tightened.

FSST went the snap of another beer can. KLINK, the sound of an empty beer can thrown in the general direction of that oil drum rattled off the tin.

“End of the month. Blake says.”

“Shit. That’s today.”

“It is? What month?”

“We gotta do something.”

“And fast.”

“We could start a whorehouse. Carlos here, he could run it by hand until we got some women.”

The men laughed, all except Carlos. His chin jutted towards Malone.

“Jeez, can’t you ever get serious?” Nelson almost shouted. “We’re about to lose our homes for Pete’s sake.” Nelson spread his arms to encompass the decrepit trailer and the mounds of trash, the squalor surrounding his RV up on blocks with the tires lying on its roof.

Of the five boats in our little flotilla, Moulin Au Vent was the closest to the gathered men. On a hot day like today, it gave off an air of sweet long-term rot, like a hot rooming house of old men that only had one bathroom. The old boat suffered from the fiberglass version of leprosy.

Malone started to get up.

“No, you don’t!” Nelson yelled. “If one of us goes down we all go down!”

Tall Malone returned the glares of the other men and sat back down.

“Okay. What do we do then?” Nelson’s Cuban voice asked.

As they spoke a shiny truck made its way into the yard. The hawk’s wing’s quivered in anticipation. Suddenly, most of the men had disappeared.

“Here comes Blake.” One warned.

“I told you!” Nelson barked. “He’s after me.” Nelson said as he and Carlos got up to leave.

“How can you tell?” I shouted.

“He’s got that clipboard of death.”

Annie and I were suddenly left alone sitting in front of a smoldering barbecue having to explain all our neighbor’s sudden disappearances.

“What do I tell Blake?” I shouted.

“I don’t care. Tell him I had to go out and empty my colostomy bag. That should shut him up.”

“Thanks Nelson! Annie! What are you leaving for?” I shouted to her receding back.

“Habit!”

Everybody scattered. Nelson and Carlos disappeared into the rabbit paths of abandoned boats and bushes in the back of the yard, just as Blake acknowledged my nod. He looked down at the clipboard and back up at Nelson’s trailer and opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.

“You know you look about as out of place as a pork chop at a Mosque.”

“I just saw them here. Do you know where he is?”

I shrugged. I barely had met my new landlord so it was best not to start the relationship with a lie. Blake looked at me. I shrugged. Technically a shrug wasn’t a lie. Not really.

“Annie tells me you are a nuclear rated welder. Is that so?”

“Retired. But yeah.”

“I checked with a friend at the union hall. You guys make a lot.”

Time to see if the Mantra worked on my new landlord.

“My ex got it all. Took me to the cleaners.”

Blake smiled a brittle smile that didn’t fool either of us. He nodded to Someday.

“Planning to sail away?”

“Soon as it’s finished. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I don’t know. I have good days and bad days. So far, it’s getting better.” I shrugged. “At least that’s what I tell myself.”

Blake smiled. “Where you going to sail her?”

“Maybe up towards Nova Scotia. If I’m delayed, depending on the hurricanes, I’ll head south into the Caribbean.”

Blake smiled, a wistful smile.

“That’s just what I tell everybody. But, the real plan was just to fix a boat and stay away from the winter. Having a great time is just a bonus.”

Blake looked down at his clipboard. “I hate doing this, chasing people all the time.”

I looked at him. Blake had more money than I’d ever hope to have, apartment blocks, trucks, ulcers, worries. Blake had everything. The only thing I own is Someday, the boat I loved.

Blake and I sat quietly, looking out at Someday.

“How much did you pay for your boat?”

I told him.

“How much have you put into her so far?”

“Bout five times what I paid.”

Blake stifled a snort.

“It’s not about the money. She doesn’t leak, mostly. She’s fun to work on. She looks good. And she’s damned good therapy.”

“It’s always about the money. You can’t live without the money.” Blake tapped the clipboard to his knee. “With what you make as a welder, you could have bought new.”

“Like I said….”

“I know what you said.” Blake smiled. “Like I said. I checked at the union hall.”

Blake and I stared at each other for a minute. I finally smiled. Repeating a fib doesn’t work on people who check.

“Well, once she’s done, I can sail away and except for food and water, it’ll be free, almost.”

Blake smiled, a thin smile. “It’s always about the money.” Blake’s mouth laughed, but his eyes didn’t. “I should have asked for more money.” He chuckled.

I looked at Blake. Despite the chuckle, he meant it. I threw my beer can at the rusted oil drum. The clang of the beer can on the drum startled the sleeping cat in its shade. The startled cat ran out into the middle of the naked open graveled yard.

A half mile above, the hawk saw that the cat was now too far from the easy escape under the cars. She tucked her wings and started to plummet for the kill.