The Tail of the Tip-Off (22 page)

40

S
aturday, cold and clear, exhilarated the Reverend Herb Jones not because of the weather but because the carpet men actually showed up. The white van doors slid open with a quiet metallic noise. The two men shouldered the heavy rolls of carpet and floor protector, the cushy rubber pad placed under the carpet. They returned for a five-gallon drum of powerful glue as well as a few carpet tacks for those difficult corners.

In a fit on Friday night, the Reverend Jones had torn up all the old carpets. He had had to vent his anger on something. The carpet men, JoJo and Carl Gentry, brothers, happily carted out the old and since the Reverend Jones tipped them they wedged it into the back of the van to haul to the dump later. Otherwise the good pastor would have had to haul it himself or pay someone else to do it. This was easier and JoJo and Carl always liked pocket money.

“Inbred.”
Cazenovia sat on the stairway above the communion wafer closet.

“Oh, Cazzie, you're mean. Just because JoJo and Carl don't have chins doesn't mean they're inbred.”
Elocution had heard enough Cazzie theories on bloodlines to last forever. The point was always the same: cats are better genetic specimens than humans.

Saturdays, sermon day, made the Rev, as Harry called him, tense. He'd find a myriad of things to do to delay writing the sermon, then he'd finally sigh, surrender, and sit down at his desk. Once he was in the middle of his task he enjoyed it. It was getting there that was so hard.

The bare floor felt odd under his shoes as he squeezed into his desk chair. JoJo decided they'd do Herb's office last.

The color, a rich forest green, was quite attractive and Matthew surprised Herb by paying extra, out of his own pocket, for a simple mustard yellow border inset four inches from the edge. Once down it would be very handsome.

The carpet, precut at the factory, proved easy to install. The men made a few adjustments but technology had invaded their craft, too.

The vestibule, finished in an hour and a half, looked splendid. The two cats tested it.

Cazenovia kneaded the carpet, smelling of dye and glue underneath.
“M-m-m, what fun.”

“Don't get any in your claws or he'll pitch a fit. For a preacher, he can swear when he has to.”
Elocution smiled as she, too, worked the carpet.

“It's bad manners to give orders to your elders.”
Cazenovia pulled up a thread of carpet, dangling it in front of the slender cat.
“I'll drop this in front of you.”
Her eyes glittered.

Elocution ignored her as she listened to JoJo and Carl carry the padding down the hall to the closet containing the communion wafers. They propped up the rolled padding on the foot of the wide stairway behind the closet. As they slopped down glue, the brothers laughed, talked about friends, turkey season, the new pro-football league which both thought would bomb.

“Hey, it's twelve o'clock. No wonder I'm hungry.” Carl checked his square Casio watch.

“Let's go to Jarman's Gap.” JoJo cited a local eatery.

“JoJo, you're on.” Carl laid his brush, full of rubber cement, across the top of the five-gallon drum which he closed first, gently tapping the lid so it wouldn't be on too tight.

“Brush will be useless.” Carl pointed to the dripping bristles.

“I'll get another one out of the truck. I'm too hungry to care.” He wiped his hands on his overalls. “I'll pay for it.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Carl closed the box of carpet tacks, placing his small hammer next to the box and five-gallon drum.

Hunger must have clouded their minds because they grabbed their coats without realizing they'd left a section of floor exposed, full of glue, in front of the communion closet. Perhaps they forgot, or perhaps they figured they could sand it off if it hardened by the time they returned.

Cazenovia and Elocution watched them leave.

“Bet the skinny one could eat you out of house and home,”
Cazenovia remarked of JoJo.

“Yeah. It's quiet in Poppy's office. Think he's having a brainstorm?”
Elocution loved Herb.

“Let's see.”

He looked up as the two cats walked into his office. “Hello, girls.”

“Hello. The carpet looks good as far as it goes,”
Cazenovia replied.

“Epistle, Romans chapter thirteen, verses eight through ten and Gospel Matthew chapter eight, verses twenty-three through twenty-seven. I'm torn. Do I take my sermon from Romans, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' or do I take it from Matthew? That's such a great story about Christ calming the seas. ‘Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' They're both so complex, so many levels of meaning.” He looked down at his cats, now at his feet. “'Course, I never know what people will hear. Some hear nothing. Others hear a rebuke. Someone else finds comfort. But each parishioner usually believes I am talking only to them. Well, I am.” He smiled, warming to his subject. “You know, I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus practiced His sermons with cats. Our Lord loved all creatures but surely He must have loved cats best.”

“I should hope to holler.”
Elocution blinked and smiled.

“You know, I'd better check the closet. Tomorrow is communion and Charlotte didn't get in to work Friday. She usually checks the supply.” He stood up.

“I'm outta here.”
Elocution burnt the wind scrambling out of the office.

“Dope!”
Cazenovia called after her.
“You look guilty as sin.”

Elocution ignored her, gracefully leaping up and over the exposed rubber cement part of the hall and clutching onto the side of the stairwell. Deep claw marks attested to the fact that she had done this before. She pulled herself up, squeezing through the banisters, hopping over the rolled padding, then raced up the stairs. She'd hide up there until the tempest blew over.

Cazenovia meowed prettily as Herb stepped into the hall.
“Look at the vestibule.”
She took a few steps toward the vestibule then returned to her human.

He paused then walked out to the vestibule. “Hey, this looks good. You think so, too.”

“I love it when you understand.”
Cazenovia rubbed against his pants leg while she purred.

“That border—such a nice finishing touch. I'll have to be sure to write Matthew a thank-you.” He folded his arms across his chest, smiled then turned to go back down the hall, his rubber-soled shoes quiet on the new carpet.

He stepped over the large roll of carpet at the edge of the vestibule. This would be used in the hall. He didn't look down as he walked to the closet and he stepped right into the rubber cement before he realized it. The other foot slopped into it, too.

Cazenovia prudently remained where the vestibule connected to the hall. She saw him wobble a minute and then he tumbled over. Now his hands were in it. He pulled up one hand, the goo stringing out like a fat spiderweb off his fingers. He tried to reach a banister but couldn't. With all his might he yanked the other hand out of the ooze, which was affixing itself to his rubber soles.

Leaning forward he grasped for the closet door handle but he couldn't quite make it. He tried to pick one foot up but it wasn't budging.

“Dammit to hell!”

“I'm not coming down the stairs,”
Elocution called out.

“You're missing a good one.”
Cazenovia laughed out loud.

“He's opened the closet?”

“No, he's stuck in the glue and he's got it all over his hands, too. He can't even untie his shoes and step out of them until he cleans off his hands. Oh, it's not a pretty sight.”

Elocution, curiosity raging, crept to the top of the stairs.
“If he falls backwards he'll knock over the drum and the carpet tacks.”

“He's in a pickle,”
Cazenovia guffawed.

“If he has any sense he'll stay where he is until JoJo and Carl come back.”
Elocution tried not to laugh at Herb's predicament, but it was funny.

“What are you looking at?” Herb roared as he beheld the cat peering down at him through the banisters.

“You. I came down for a closer look.”
She slipped halfway through the white banisters.

“Elo. Don't you dare. Stay where you are.” Herb had visions of Elocution getting stuck in the glue with him.

A knock on the front door startled them.

“I'll see who it is.”
Cazenovia turned, her long hair swirling out from the speed.

“I'm in here!” Herb bellowed.

The door opened and Harry gingerly stepped through, accompanied by Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. Cazenovia quickly filled them in—except for Harry, of course.

The animals rushed forward to see. Harry didn't lag behind.

“Rev.”

“This goddamned carpet has been nothing but a trial!” He lurched to and fro.

“Uh, well, let me go find cardboard or something so you can step onto it.”

“I can't pick my feet up.”

“No, but you can untie your shoes.”

He held up his fingers. “The laces are too thin.”

“Can't you pull that stuff off your hands?”

“What do you think I've been trying to do!” he crossly said. “It just transfers from one hand to the other and then my fingers get stuck.”

“Okay, okay. I'll find something I can kneel on and I'll untie your shoes. Then you can step out.”

“Does he know?”
Mrs. Murphy asked the church cats.

“Not yet,”
Elocution answered in a singsong voice.

“Boy, will you all be in trouble.”
Tucker affected an innocent air.

“You lying sack of you-know-what! You ate as much as we did.”
Pewter boxed her ears.

“Prove it.”
Tucker loved tormenting the cats.

“I have ways to get even.”
The gray cat flattened her ears. Quite a scary sight.

Harry, who had dashed to the little kitchen, came back with Coke cartons she'd flattened. She carefully put them on the rubber cement then stepped onto them. She only had two and she put them side by side so she could kneel down on one knee. She slipped a little, her arms flailing, but righted herself.

“That's all we need, two of us stuck. I will wring their necks! I will bless them in every language I know.”

“Right.” Harry put one knee down, holding her foot over the goo. It wasn't that easy. She quickly untied both shoes, secretly thankful that he hadn't been able to bend over and try it himself because he would have smeared the powerful glue over the laces and then she would have had to cut him out. She stretched out the laces so he could step out, then she slowly stood up on one foot while bringing the other foot over and down onto the red Coke cardboard carton.

Nimbly she stepped back onto the safe part of the hall holding out her hand for a grateful but angry Herb.

“Thank you.”

“It was an adventure.”

“I will kill them.” He stomped to the kitchen to try and peel off the cement.

The animals stayed behind to gossip.

Harry walked into the kitchen. “Can I help get that stuff off? If you have rubber gloves maybe I can pull it off more easily.”

“No. It's worse with rubber. I think that's why I got stuck in the LaBrea Tar Pits. Rubber-soled shoes.” His sense of humor was returning. “Of all the damned, dumb things. To walk off and leave that shit on the floor. Sorry.” He apologized for swearing in front of a lady.

“I'd say worse.”

“Is there worse?” He used a paring knife to peel off the blackish stuff.

“Oh sure,” she cheerfully replied.

“Where do you hear such stuff? Your mother would have been horrified.”

“All you have to do is tune into rap music. Every other word is the F-word and it's filled with romantic notions of rape, pillage, and revenge. It's probably what the Norsemen would have sung in the seventh century
A
.
D
. if they'd known how to rap.”

“I see. A true cultural advance.” He'd cleaned one hand, holding it under the cold tap because it burned a little.

“Hey, we can't take all the credit. The English went to an art museum to see a dead sheep.”

“I thought they got over that. The dead sheep. I remember reading about that.”

“Maybe they have but as I said Americans can't take all the credit for these cultural improvements.”

“You're right. My patriotism got the better of me.” He'd held the other hand under the water now even though little round bits adhered between his fingers. “This stuff is nasty.”

“I'll say. Got any hand cream?”

“Charlotte has some on her desk.”

Harry walked outside to Charlotte's office, nabbed a blue jar of Nivea off her desk, and came back to Herb. He rubbed the soothing cream onto his hands.

The door opened, and JoJo and Carl, full and happy, clomped down the hall. Herb emerged from his kitchen, keeping his temper in check. He described his ordeal.

Blushing, they apologized, said not another word and immediately returned to their task. The first thing they had to do was liberate Herb's shoes, ruined.

All four cats watched from the stairway. Tucker, who couldn't leap over the glue, watched from behind the brothers.

“Can't even give those to the Salvation Army,”
Pewter remarked.

“Since when have you given anything to the Salvation Army?”
Mrs. Murphy said.

“I haven't. Humans can take care of themselves. These guys are sure working fast, aren't they?”

“Fear and guilt will do that to you.”
Elocution wanted to bat JoJo's ponytail.

“Look who's talking.”
Cazenovia then informed the others about Elocution racing up the stairs when Herb headed for the closet.

Back in the kitchen, Herb made Harry a cup of tea, one for himself, too. They sat down to go over the calendar. Since Harry was on the Parish Guild, the calendar wasn't her responsibility but Herb wanted feedback so she dutifully listened.