THE CAT'S MAW

CHAPTER VIII

VIII:  OF PAWS AND PENCILS

The next week was slow to pass, and not without its share of discomfort.

Billy’s leg throbbed when he stood, ached when he moved around the house, and his toes looked like overripe grapes ready to burst from the tip of his cast.

At the very least, the boy was happy to be off the medication that dulled his wits and free of the lumpy cot downstairs. He was back in his own room, surrounded by his own things, and able to sleep in his own bed.

Not that he was sleeping much. Whether due to the lack of meds, or the mounting concerns swirling in his young head, Billy was restless. Any sleep that he got was shallow and brief, with dreams being even more elusive. He’d awaken pained and confused, with the lingering sense that he was forgettingsomething.

Meanwhile, the cat remained close. Billy watched intently as it sniffed its way around his room, exploring its new territory.

At first, it poked its head in the closet, skulked under the bed, and rubbed its cheeks against the legs of the pine wardrobe. Then it got more daring, hopping into the laundry basket, batting toy soldiers around on the floor, and finally leaping up onto the windowsill.

There it would sit for hours and gaze out the window. The boy imagined that it yearned for the same things beyond the glass – the tall grass, the rolling meadow, and the graveyard on the hill.

Billy’s mother delivered sandwiches and milk and cookies like clockwork. She would ask if he wanted to join them out in the garden, or play some backgammon with his father, or even come down to watch some TV.

After a few days of little interest and too many plates of half-eaten food, she came to his room armed with pad of paper and a handful of sharpened pencils.

“If you’re going to laze around all day, the least you can do is be creative about it.” She propped him up with some pillows, and put a pencil in his hand.

“I hate drawing,” Billy said, “I’m no good at it.”

“Well, if you practice, you might get good at it. But if you don’t even try, you’ll stay exactly where you are.”

“I know where I am,” Billy said. “I’m a cripple. I’ll be stuck like this forever.”

His mother pursed her lips, removed her glasses, and massaged the bridge of her nose. Then she sat on the bed, put the glasses back on, and laid her hand on his.

“Forever’s a long time,” she said. Her voice was soft, and cracked a little as she spoke. “Nothing lasts forever. Everything changes. That’s life.”

“But it still hurts so much,” he scowled. “When will it get better? How long until I can run again?”

His mother lowered her head, nostrils flaring as she huffed. She was remembering. Remembering the first days her son stood on his own. Remembering him trundle across the kitchen to meet her open arms. Remembering him run down the driveway to catch his first bus to school.

“You shouldn’t worry so much,” she said, squeezing his hand. “That’s a job for grown-ups.” She put the notepad in his lap, and pointed to the cat on the windowsill. “Focus on something good. Then the worries will disappear.”

She picked up his plates and glasses, and started to close the door behind her as she left the room.

“What if the cat wants to leave?” he said.

“He’ll be fine here for a bit,” she turned to say. “Besides, a true artist needs a captive subject.”

She closed the door gently, and Billy heard the muffled thumps as she went down the stairs.

“Kitty…heeeere kitty…wss-wss-wss,” Billy called, and the cat spun its head and looked back at him. 

The glare of afternoon sun made its pupils shrink to needles floating in jars of oily gold. The light shone through the cat’s ears, making the skin inside glow warm and pink. Its whiskers were trembling threads of silver. Its nose looked broader, the nostrils darker, the skin rough and ridged like a lion’s.

Its hind legs tensed, muscles rippling beneath swaths of fur. Its black tail swished down along the wall under the sill and curled like a hook at the tip, as if trying to catch the shadows below.

But the cat didn’t come to him, not with Billy’s first call or the two that followed. It merely stood, arched its back, yawned, turned around in an impossibly small circle, and sat back down in the exact same spot.

So, Billy started to sketch.

He drew a rough rectangle for the window, and pinched curves for the drapes that hung on either side. The cat began as a slender shape – a pear that quickly grew triangle ears, stiff whiskers, and an upside-down question mark for a tail.

Billy angled the pencil to shaded in spots of black fur, finishing with the tail and the tips of the ears.He used the eraser to clean the edges and smudges, and even penciled in the treetops outside. 

The boy looked at the finished picture. Too many mistakes, he thought. It’s not right. He felt the telltale knots of frustration in his gut – the ones that always came when he failed to make things right.

Billy slashed at the page with his pencil, tore it out of the pad, and tossed the crumpled sketch at the bin by his dresser. The paper ball bounced off the bin’s rim and hit the floor.

The cat whipped its head around, spotting the ball. It leapt down from the sill and swatted it under the bed. Billy could hear it scurrying around underneath him.

He pictured the paper ball as a mouse, and the cat toying with its doomed prey. The last thing the poor creature would ever feel would be the hot and bloody slide into the belly of the beast.

The beast.

Billy put the pencil to a fresh sheet of paper and started drawing. He didn’t think, and didn’t question, and didn’t pause to find fault. He drew. And, as he did, the vision returned to him.

It was clear again, as if he had just woken from it. Clearer, like he was still fast asleep.

He sketched the eyes first, rimmed in black, with marks like teardrops running down the sides of its nose. Then came the face, broad and full, with dotted cheeks and high, tufted ears. Then he shaded the muzzle, and made dark slices fan out from its nose.

The mouth came last, gaping and fearsome, a fat tongue flattened behind monstrous teeth. The fangs looked smooth and sharp and deadly with one that glinted at the tip, as if piercing a star.

There it was – the tiger -- a paper phantom staring back him from the depths of a fevered dream. And that’s when the boy remembered its ominous words.

‘You are sick.’

Billy slumped and lowered the sketchpad. Sitting behind it, in the space between his knees, was the cat. It sat there, still and silent, and looked him square in the eyes.

“If I don’t find him,” Billy pointed at sketch, “I’ll lose it, won’t I?”

The cat tilted its head, puzzled.

“This,” the boy slapped at the thigh of his cast with troubled eyes. “This!”

The cat turned towards the cast, and pawed at the Billy’s knee. It lingered there, opening its mouth and poking out its tongue as it sniffed. It then proceeded to sniff down the length of Billy’s shin.

The cat stopped, yawned, and curled in a tight ball below the boy’s knees.

“I’m going to lose my leg,” Billy said, trembling as his face and hands went numb.  

The cat made the tiniest mew, closed its eyes, and began to purr.