Doomed

  I had, Gentle Tweeter, been weeping nonstop since Halloween. Not that my mother ever noticed.

  When I recall my nana’s kiss, I taste cigarette smoke. By comparison my mother’s kisses were flavored with anti-anxiety medications.

  In the no-kill cat shelter, she was once more foisting Xanax on me in an effort to make me accept a large Manx with a thick coat of black fur. It didn’t seem to matter to her that the cat had died moments before. My dad lifted its still-warm body out of its littered cage and tried to settle the stiffening corpse into my pudgy arms. “Just take it, Maddy,” he whispered. “On-camera it will read as only being asleep. We don’t have all day.…”

  As he gently heaved the drooping, dead Manx in my direction and I recoiled a step, I saw something else. In the same cage, hidden by the recently expired black cat, there sat a tiny orange kitten. This was my last chance. In another moment I’d be driven back to the Beverly Wilshire with a rigid feline corpse in my girlish lap. On-camera, with the shelter’s staff as my witnesses, I pointed a chubby index finger at this new orange puff of fur and said, “That one, Daddy!” Making my voice gamine, I piped, “There’s my kitty!” The orange object of my desperate affection opened two green eyes and returned my gaze.

  My mother sneaked a quick peek at the index card tacked next to the cage. In a dozen words, it told the tiny kitten’s brief backstory. That afternoon in the no-kill animal shelter, my mom leaned close to my dad and whispered, “Let her have the orange one.” She whispered, “Put back the dead one, and let Maddy have the kitten.”

  Still holding the drooping dead Manx, my dad gritted his capped teeth and said, “Camille, it’s still a kitten.” Through a tight smile, he hissed, “That damned thing will live for frigging forever.” He gave the furry corpse a shake, smirking, and said, “With this one, maybe she could call her boyfriend to perform a Lazarus number.”

  “If that’s the kitty that our little Maddy has her heart set on …,” my mom said, and she reached into the wire cage and collected the shivering orange puffball, “… then that’s the kitten she should have.” Standing so as to allow the cameras full access to the gesture, turned toward them in a slight cheat, she settled the warm handful into my care. At the same time, in a whispered aside to my dad, she said, “Don’t worry, Antonio.” She motioned for him to lean down and read the index card.

  And at that, a photographer representing Cat Fancy magazine stepped forward, said, “Smile!” and we were, all of us, blinded by the flash.

  DECEMBER 21, 10:44 A.M. PST

  Mother of the Year

  Posted by [email protected]

  Gentle Tweeter,

  I never imagined it would be too awfully difficult to be a good mother. That’s why my own mother seemed like such a disappointment. Really, what onerous efforts did successful motherhood require? One had only to accumulate a sufficient deposit of fresh spermatozoa within one’s womb, and then await the release of a viable egg. From what I could suss out, the whole process seemed more or less automated. The actual birthing involved staffing a sterile, tiled room with an entire documentary film crew, all the grips and gaffers and sound engineers, the cameramen and assistant directors and makeup artists. I’ve seen the result: My mother blissed out on an intravenous Demerol drip, spread-eagled on a kind of vinyl dais with special leg rests. A stylist is powdering down the shine on her meticulously waxed pubis, and—voilà—the ooze-colored bulb of my newborn noggin pops out. Chapter one: I am born. This miraculous celluloid moment is absolutely revolting. My lovely mother winces a single grimace, but otherwise her dazzling smile remains intact as my slime-slickened miniature self comes corkscrewing out of her steaming innards. Swiftly am I followed into the world by an equally not-attractive afterbirth. Even then, no doubt I was hoping the attendant physician would give me a good wallop. A real public thrashing. Only a child raised in such complete love and privilege could crave a savage beating as fervently as I did.

  Usually my mother played a copy of the video whenever people gathered for my birthday. “We got it in a single take,” she’d always say. “Madison was a lot skinnier back then—thank God!” And she’d always get a rollicking laugh at my expense. Such flank attacks are why I so longed for my parents to honestly sock me in the kisser. My blackened eye would trumpet what small torments I daily endured.

  You, Gentle Tweeter, you no doubt saw the stills from the birthing film that People magazine published. My heartless Swiss school chums certainly saw them, and until the day I died I was to regularly find these photographs—a me the size of regurgitated food, the red of a ripe tomato smeared with cheesy pap and squirming at the end of a ropy umbilical cord—these were stealthily affixed to the back of my sweater with adhesive tape, or they were published in place of my annual portrait in the school yearbook.

  Once I was born, I could see for myself that motherhood required no special skills. My general impression was that various glands come to the fore, and you’re rendered essentially a puppet or a slave to the timing of bodily secretions—colostrum, piddle, doo-doo. You’re always consuming or voiding some vital gunk.

  It’s this full comprehension of motherhood that prompted me to give my kitten, Tigerstripe, a better upbringing than I had endured. I vowed to show my own mother how this job should properly be done. “Put some clothes on, you people!” I’d admonish my naked parents on the beaches of Nice or Nancy or Newark. “Do you want my kitty to grow up to be a pervert?” I’d locate their pungent stash of hashish and flush it down the toilet, saying, “You might not care about the safety of your child, but I do care about mine!”

  Granted, as a distraction from religion, the cat worked perfectly. I no longer returned Jesus’ calls during dinner. Instead, I carried Tigerstripe everywhere in the crook of my elbow, lecturing in a stage whisper, always within earshot of my folks, “My mommy and daddy might be drug-hungry sex zombies, but I’ll never allow them to hurt you.” For their part, my parents were simply glad that Jesus and I had broken up. Thus, they acquiesced as I carried my Tigerstripe with me at all times, in Taipei and Turin and Topeka. He slept curled beside me in my various beds in Kabul and Cairo and Cape Town. At the breakfast table in Banff or Bern, I said, “We don’t like nonfat, fair-trade tofu sausage, and we request that you no longer serve it to us.” In Copenhagen, I announced, “We would like another chocolate éclair, or we refuse to attend the opening of La Bohème tonight.” Needless to say, Tigerstripe proved himself an excellent companion at the opera, largely sleeping, yet by his mere presence egging my allergic parents to barely suppressed fits of outrage. At La Scala and the Met and the Royal Albert Hall, a trail of shed cat hair and leaping fleas followed us everywhere.

  The more I distanced myself in the exclusive company of my new kitten, the more my dad perused the photographs and the files of destitute orphans available for adoption. The more that I isolated myself, the more my mom surfed real estate listings on her notebook computer. Neither of them mentioned it, but despite their soy-based machinations, my stewardship of Tigerstripe resulted in a very fat little kitten. Feeding him appeared to make him happy, and making Tiger happy made me happy, and after only a couple of weeks of overfeeding, to carry him was like lugging around a Louis Vuitton anvil.

  It wasn’t in Basel or Budapest or Boise, but one afternoon I came upon the doorway to a darkened screening room. It was in our house in Barcelona, and I was passing in the hallway when I saw the door was slightly ajar. From the darkness within, I heard a combination of caterwauls, an inharmonious duet like alley cats expressing their ardor. Holding my eye to the narrow opening where the door had not fully met its frame, I could see a writhing, paste-covered blob on the movie screen within. The squalling was that gelatinous creature, my infant self, clearly not happy to be delivered unto this harsh glare of lights, documentary filmmakers, and burning sage. And seated alone in the center of the otherwise empty seats was my mother.

  She pressed a telephone to the side of her face as she watched tha
t, the tiresome video of my new life beginning. Her shoulders shuddered. Her chest heaved. Inconsolably she sobbed, “Please listen to me, Leonard.” Her cheeks shining, she swiped at her tears with her free hand. “I know it’s her fate to die on her birthday, but please, don’t let my baby girl suffer.”

  DECEMBER 21, 10:46 A.M. PST

  My Beloved Is Felled by a Mysterious Condition

  Posted by [email protected]

  Gentle Tweeter,

  Within days of my adopting him, Tigerstripe swelled as large as a popcorn ball, then swelled to the size of a brioche, feeling as spongy soft as homemade fudge. He had days before ceased going wee in his cat box. Likewise, his plaintive mewing stopped, so now I was compelled to cry in the manner of a ventriloquist, holding my lips fixed in a frozen rictus of a smile as I forged merry kitten sounds for my parents’ benefit.

  In the comfort of Mexico City or Mumbai or Montreal, over a breakfast of raw tuna sashimi and shrimp ceviche and duck liver pâté, my puss-puss wouldn’t eat a bite. My mother and father surreptitiously watched my failing efforts to feed him, sneaking glances from behind their respective notebook computers while I placed my hideously swollen kitty on the breakfast table beside my plate and tempted him with succulent tidbits. To me, Tigerstripe represented my opportunity to shame them both. My care of him would demonstrate proper nonpagan, nonvegan, non-Reagan parenting skills. All of those past lives my mom and dad had brought to my upbringing, I’d eschew them. My strategy would be simply to lavish adoration on my kitty and raise him to a well-adjusted, non-body-image-dysmorphic cat-hood.

  Here did I fake a tiny meow for my fellow breakfasters.

  Do you see what I’d done, Gentle Tweeter? Do you see how I’d trapped myself in a corner? In Bangalore and Hyderabad and Houston, my catkin was obviously sick, but I couldn’t admit that fact by going to my folks to beg their advice. Over the breakfast table in Hanoi, my father eyed the bloated fuzz ball breathing heavily as it lay on its side beside my plate. Feigning Ctrl+Alt+Indifference, he asked, “How’s little Tigger?”

  “His name is Tigerstripe,” I protested. Reaching to scoop him up and lift him into my lap, I said, “And he’s fine.” Between motionless lips, I said meow. Subtly using my fingertips, I moved the inert kitten’s mouth to match. Meow.

  My father exchanged a raised eyebrow with my mom, and he asked, “Tiger’s not sick?”

  “He’s fine!”

  My mom laid her Ctrl+Alt+Serene gaze on the comatose blob now shivering atop my napkin-covered thighs, and she asked, “He doesn’t need to see a veterinarian, maybe?”

  “He’s fine!” said I. “He’s sleeping.” I couldn’t let them see my fear. The quivering fur ball I petted, he felt hot—too hot. Gummy gunk rimmed his closed eyelids and sputtered at his teeny black nostrils. Even worse, stroking his sides I could feel the skin stretched tight, his belly distended. Through his soft fur, his faint kitten heartbeat felt a million-billion miles away. One possibility was that I’d fed him something wrong. Or I’d fed him too much. He was panting now, his kitty-pink tongue protruding slightly, each breath a death rattle. In too many ways, poor Tigerstripe was reproducing my nana’s slow, painful passing. Without thinking, my fingertips sought out the spot behind his front leg where the heartbeat felt strongest, and within the thinking bowels of my brain I began counting, One-alligator … two-alligator … three-alligator … between the slow, irregular beats. I noticed that neither of my parents was eating. The sickroom reek of afflicted kitten eclipsed everyone’s appetite.

  My dad proposed, “How about you and Tiger go together to see a grief counselor?” He swallowed, betraying his Ctrl+Alt+Anxiety, and said, “You could talk about your grandpa and grandma dying.”

  “I’m not grieving!” Under my breath I was counting … Five-alligator … six-alligator … between the fading heartbeats.

  My mother’s worried eyes swept the table until they settled on the pastry basket. Lifting it, she heaved the tasty goodies toward me. “Would you like a muffin?”

  “No!” I counted, Eight-alligator … nine-alligator …

  “But you love blueberry muffins.” Her eyes tested me, measuring my response.

  “I’m not hungry!” I snapped, counting … Elevenalligator … twelve-alligator … My kitty’s raspy, rattling breath had stopped. With frantic fumbling fingers I sought to massage his failed feline heart back to life. To hide this effort from my parents I wrapped my linen napkin around Tigerstripe’s swollen body. Thus thickly swaddled, his heartbeat became impossible to locate. To mask my panic, I said, “I’m not hungry! Tigerstripe is healthy and happy! I’m not hungry, and I didn’t rip off anyone’s man banana!”

  Hearing that, my mother’s face looked Ctrl+Alt+ Slapped. Her hands reached across the table in what must’ve been some instinctive maternal gesture, some attempted mammalian embrace inherited from our primate ancestors, and she said, “We only want to help you, Maddy, Raindrop.”

  Recoiling, cradling my still, silent kitten, I countered, my words pure acid, “Maybe we could just desert Tigerstripe on some remote farm outpost upstate? How about that?” My voice rising to hysteria, I said, “Or perhaps we could ship my kitty off to some expensive school in Switzerland, where she could live, socially isolated, among hateful rich pussycats!”

  Under my breath I was counting, Eighteen-alligator … nineteen-alligator … twenty-alligator … but I knew it was already too late. In Seoul or São Paulo or Seattle, I was half falling, half sprinting as I abandoned my place at the breakfast table and fled back to my bedroom bearing my baby kitten wrapped in his napkin shroud.

  DECEMBER 21, 10:49 A.M. PST

  In Denial

  Posted by [email protected]

  Gentle Tweeter,

  The long-ago predead, eleven-year-old me carried my bundled feline corpse through Antwerp and Aspen and Ann Arbor. Like the blanket-wrapped cadaver of some expired Granny Joad, another bookish reference, I smuggled poor Tigerstripe through various immigration and customs checkpoints. I wore him strapped to my skin, hidden beneath my clothing, the way my mom and dad had so often played mule for their contraband narcotics. Needless to say, his sour odor did not abate; neither did the faithful entourage of winged parasites, primarily houseflies, but also their adolescent grubs and maggots that appeared on the scene as if conjured by some foul magic.

  Whether international security was alarmingly lax, or my parents had placed big-money bribes to the right officers, my sad burden was never discovered. Occasionally, I’d mew quietly, defeated, but I kept my secret always wrapped in that original breakfast napkin. Don’t imagine that I was deranged, Gentle Tweeter; I knew my kitty was dead. No one in contact with his deflating fur coat could ignore its constant drip-drip-dripping of cold fluids. Under my sweater, lumped against my belly like a pregnancy, like a miscarriage, I felt the jumble of his collapsing bones.

  In the hours since he’d passed, his furry tum-tum had begun to balloon. And, yes, I might’ve been temporarily insane with grief, but I knew that my kitten was filling with gas, the excretal product of renegade intestinal bacteria. And, yes, I might’ve been secretly terrified that I’d fed him something that had caused his demise, but I knew the word excretal, and I knew that my beloved was about to burst and that such an explosion would reduce my heart’s treasure to a bug-infested carcass. The linen felt sticky against my fingers. To my caressing hands Tigerstripe wasn’t dead, but I was careful not to pet him too vigorously.

  At present, we shared a stretch limo, my parents sitting side by side with their backs to the driver, withdrawing themselves as far as possible from my not-happy circumstances. My parents’ flattened emotional aspect, their somber voices implied that they sensed the truth. Nevertheless in that car between the airport and our home in Jakarta or Johannesburg or Jackson Hole, my mother asked, “How’s the little patient?” Her eyes bloodshot. Her voice forcing a Ctrl+Alt+Lilt. “Feeling any better?”

  In the limo’s plush interior, the peren
nial flies and rank smell proved difficult to ignore, and one of her yoga-sculpted arms flailed out, seeking the controls for the air-conditioning. Her manicured fingers increased the air flow to a full arctic blast, and she plucked a prescription bottle of Xanax from her bag and upended a few pills into her mouth. She handed the bottle to my father behind his newspaper.

  Cradled in my lap, still swaddled in breakfast linen, I carried my heart, and my heart was stiff and cold. My heart was a dead time bomb drooling decayed corruption. In response to her inquiry, I could but meow flatly. Behind the murk of the tinted windows, the outskirts of Lisbon or La Jolla or Lexington fell behind us and vanished. As we motored along, I felt the putrefying juices of my soul mate migrating downward to soil my skort. Smoothed flat, the napkin in my lap would chart jagged islands and filigreed coastlines. Flecked and blotched with the stains of decomposition, the linen would trace a rambling journey in which everything you love falls apart.

  This, it was the opposite of a treasure map.

  My father? He hardly took notice. In that plush setting, my father was busy behind his newspaper, the salmon-toned pages of the Financial Times. Of his person, all I could see were his legs from the knees down, those creased and cuffed trouser legs. I could see only those and his knuckles holding the paper spread in front of him. There, his gold wedding band. While my mom wrestled with her sedated empathy, and I sank deeper into despair, my dad snapped his newsprint pages. He turned them with rustling flourishes. If you’ll notice, Gentle Tweeter, a businessman with a newspaper is worse than any Jane Austen heroine flouncing through life in a taffeta ball gown.

  “Maddy?” asked my mom. Her words shrill with false good cheer, she said, “How would Tigerstripe like a new brother?”