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2003-08-18
Louise Mackie
(b. A Cat)
B. 1985 Greater Boston / D. 7.18.03
Brooklyn
Post-Surgical Complications
All at
once, baseball bores me. The mid-summer night's dream is fled. I'm left rooting, again,
through my photographs, but I can't find any more of Louise. I've found
only two. I gave all the rest away: Oh give me that, they would say, and
I'm comply, handing it over. But I never photographed her anyway when
she'd yawn and quick I'd sneak my finger in sideways like a pencil to
surprise an aggravated little chomp chomp out of her. She didn't mind. Her
pewter-colored fur reflecting the purple of that rayon shirt I wore to
shreds—I could have photographed that the first time I noticed it, sitting
out on the back deck in Somerville in the after-work sun with Louise in my
lap. A series of shots. Sudden alarm: she was as if steeped in magenta
dye. Blaming the landlord: my face suffused with first beer vigor.
Perceiving the reflection happening: Louise, blissful in sunshine and my
attention, the gray peacock-twittering (James Joyce) pelt of her hot to
the touch. It happened so often thereafter I took it for
granted.
Why do I always try to make one piece of Kleenex last so
long?
What am I saying, I didn't even own a camera then (stolen 1983) —nor
when she was little and lay on the pillow behind me, sucking my hair. Now
they probably discourage this; back then, who knew? The stretched expanses
and holes she nursed in my sweaters; the purple Benetton one we actually
called Louise's Nursing Sweater: in fact it was a habit she
outgrew.
Was it my failure to get air conditioning that really killed her?
Will I live with this for the rest of my life?
Her long gray reach
through the bars of her cage at the Animal Rescue League where I'd gone to
get a tiny kitten. She was in one of the cages at the front, that greet
you. With challenge in her eyes she implored me and after that the babies
bored me. She reached on to me, especially, and I took her home to the
name I'd already chosen—Louise (after Brooks). Maybe ten years later
something I read or heard in passing caused me to realize, she'd been on
death row.
And what a copycat. A year after Max, to the day, the
death.
Louise! When I told my Russian landlady I had "cat" (meaning Nina
who survives, not you); and in June, when I told my friend Kate that you
had always been kind of an asshole; and when I stormed and chased you from
your vomit in July; and when I almost gave you away to my parents for
Christmas in 1995, but was dissuaded by your calm and finally consoling
stare: three times three times thousands I betrayed you.
For the sweetness
with which I ofen failed to lace my greetings when you'd join me on the
bed (Almost two whole minutes ALONE!), did your sweet nature compensate us
both?
But the worst was one morning of your last week, a sunny one,
already hot, when you got up on the bed as you hadn't done for days, or
hadn't wanted to. I was awake but didn't want to be. I lay with my back
turned to the place where you stood, briefly; I didn't turn around or
speak your name and you jumped to the floor. You never got up there again.
I'm sorry.
I sit here all the time now.