A Little Light
He purrs in a Gregorian manner, two tones, one from a place of idleness and the other from a place of bliss. On the street, his teeth had fractured. They pulled seven the day before I brought him home. He wouldn’t touch his dry food. I had no idea about the teeth. They just took them and didn’t tell me. He only has one front canine. Or incisor. Or whatever they call cat teeth. I gave him antibiotics for two weeks. He let me.
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I didn’t want him until he was home. When it was just the two of us. I’d been alone for so long, wandering my house at night, allowing the emptiness to settle into me. Sometimes I’d sit and listen to the second hand on my watch on my dresser in the dark before my lids got heavy. I’d slide my hand into the center of the bed where a hand used to link up. I’d say goodnight to the cold side. Now when I turn the light out, he lays on my chest, making biscuits until he settles in, putting his paws around my neck. If I move, his claws sink and he pulls at me. He too, spent nights wandering, looking for warmth. He bit my cheek once. Not hard.
He lost all the hair on his ears and has problems with his skin. He’s perfect. He’s heavy and breathes heavy and walks heavy and lands heavy when he jumps off the back of the couch. The sound of his paws on the wood floor. The creak at the edge of my bed before he jumps up. The subtle sounds of life. I used to come home and pick him up and cry. He’d lay his head on my shoulder and nuzzle me. I’d lose it the way men do when they’re alone and feel something and nothing and everything all at once.
The way songs snaggle tears when you’re transported to a time before it all changed and there was no hurt or doubt just youth and love and hope. One night I thought I lost him. A week after he was home. I panicked. I scoured the house. I drove the neighborhood. I sat on my porch and sobbed like a kid from a kid’s book waiting for his dog to wander home. I left the garage open with his carrier and some food. He was trapped under a bed with drawers in the base upstairs. All for nothing.
He sits inside the door when I come home and yells at me to feed him. He needs me. To feed him. I need him. To love me. My buddy.
