Down to the Dirt by Joel Thomas Hynes Page A

not in my head this time.
    —Keith? Keith, come up quick. I think he’s dyin’!
    —What? Who’s fuckin’ dyin’? Where are ya?
    —In the bathroom! It’s the cat. Come up. Hurry up.
    Feelin’ so sluggish now, the mushrooms not quite worn off. Can’t believe I let her talk me into wearin’ this stupid fuckin’ dress. It didn’t even look that good on her. She keeps squelchin’ like a busted bullhorn from upstairs so I just grabs my jeans and hauls ’em on underneath the dress on my way up.
    I finds her sittin’ on the edge of the tub, a mingled look of disgust and horror on her face as she stares down at the cat, sprawled out on the floor, eyes rollin’ back into his head. His little silver chest laboriously risin’ and fallin’, losin’ momentumwith each passin’ breath. Natasha drops a towel on a stinkin’ puddle of catshit. There’s a milky white froth dribbling from his mouth. Too late for a psychiatrist now, Puss.
    —Sweet Jesus.
    Natasha tries to stifle a low groan, her chin quivering. She loves this little cat. She’s struggling to hold back the tears, tellin’ me to do something, anything, before Becky gets home.
    —Fuck do you want me to do about it, girl?
    —Take him out back and kill him, Keith.
    — Take him out back and kill him ? Christ sakes, ‘Tash, are you fuckin’ cracked?
    —Well drown him in the tub or something. I don’t know—
    —Drown a cat in the fuckin’ bathtub? Mind out now.
    —Well I don’t know, just…just get rid of him. He’s in pain.
    He is in pain. He’s suffering and don’t understand why it’s so hard to breathe, why his legs don’t have the strength to hold his skimpy body up to walk.
    —Alright then. Alright. I s’pose I’ll take him out back. I gotta go change first.
    —No, Keith. Do it now. You have to do it now. Becky’s gonna be home soon. I was just talkin’ to her—
    —Well yes, I will but—
    —Do it fuckin’ now, Keith!
    She half-screams this last bit at me, a touch of hysteria in her voice. My mind is too fragile to go against her.
    So I scoops the poor little morsel into a white plastic bag. He howls something fierce to be touched. He’s gotten so frail you can actually feel your thumb and index finger meet by squeezin’ underneath his spine. No meat left on him at all. Hisbowels lets go again as I’m liftin’ him and Natasha makes a heave towards the toilet.
    Puss settles into the bag quite comfortably though, and I remembers how he used to love this when he was a kitten. Stick him in a plastic bag and swing him around ’til your arm got tired. Hang the bag on a doorknob and he’d go right to sleep in it. Claw his way out when he woke up. I wonder if he’s made the association himself, and if so, if it lessens his pain any.
    Out in the woods behind the house with a practically dead cat in a plastic bag, looking for the most civilized way to kill it. Drownin’ always sounds so lonely. I takes his head out of the bag and holds my hands around his throat. Holdin’ ’em there. One little twist and he’s gone, out of his misery. But I can’t. I couldn’t. He’s so small and his throat is warm and his eyes are open and under different circumstances they’d look, I don’t know, mischievous, maybe even predatory. He’s so small.
    I’m in no state for this shit. I stuffs him back down into the bag, lays him on the ground and paces around for a bit. I bounces around is more like it. Generations of windswept needles from the evergreens have made the ground spongy, yieldin’ readily to the pressure of my boots. How to do this the right way?
    Without thinkin’ I digs a large muck-covered rock out of the ground, lifts it up over my head and slams it down onto the cat’s face. But the ground beneath him is too soft, his head presses into it and the rock bounces back at me. He lets out a screech quite unlike any sound that ever comes from a cat; a high-pitched, piggish squeal he must have reserved all his lifefor the moment