Wrong Thing (14 page)

T
he Kid and Miguel were drinking beer in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. It was late in the evening and there was a blizzard outside. Their stomachs were full of food, and the beer in the bottles they were drinking from reflected the light just as it was meant to.

“I got to tell you something,” said the Kid.

“I think I already guessed. Is it about Vanjii?”

“Yeah.”

“Do I have to start saving for a wedding gift?”

“We ain't got that far. But we're gonna move in together.”

Miguel smiled ruefully. “And I guess you ain't talking about her just moving into the house with us . . . ”

“We're gonna get an apartment.”

“Congratulations, you motherfucker. You get fucking domestic bliss, and I get to go back to eating in Denny's every night.”

“I can teach you how to cook.”

“Fuck you. I hope your dick drops off”

“What's a dick?”

Miguel stopped laughing. “Joking aside, bro . . . I'm happy for you. She's awesome. I hope it works out.”

“Thanks.”

“When you moving out?”

“Don't know yet. Soon as we find a place. Probably a couple months.”

“God damn, I'm gonna miss you. You better have me over for dinner plenty.”

The Kid hadn't had a job since high school. But now he knew he'd better start looking. He had about four thousand dollars left in the bank, and he knew it wouldn't carry him more than a few months. A friend of Vanjii's worked at a car dealership on the edge of town. He put in a word for the Kid, and got him a job as a receptionist there.

It was a no-brainer, the pay wasn't much, and he had to work six days a week, but the Kid liked it. All he had to do was sit behind the reception desk, answer the phone and transfer calls to the appropriate manager. He was supposed to greet potential customers when they came in, but he never had to because a salesman would grab them before they were all the way through the door. At first, the Kid enjoyed the novelty of having a job. When that wore off, he enjoyed the feeling of being paid to sit and read books between phone calls.

The Kid and Vanjii found an apartment on Cerrillos Road, near the barrio but not quite in it. It was a one-bedroom place in a large complex and was as cheap as they were going to find anywhere in town. It was populated mainly by couples and poor families, most of them Mexican, a few Indians and whites.

It was the first routine the Kid had had since high school, and he liked it. Waking up beside Vanjii in the cold and dark of morning, six or six-thirty, turning on the radio. Making breakfast for them both, then taking a shower, getting dressed and leaving. Driving on the freeway with all the other cars taking people to work, as the sky got lighter.

What he liked best was the evenings. Sometimes he'd go out with Miguel, or he and Vanjii would go out with Miguel and Maria, but more often he'd just stay home with Vanjii. He'd cook dinner and they'd lie around on the couch, watching movies or reruns of
The X-Files.
Later, they'd go to bed. Vanjii would go straight to sleep, but the Kid would read for a while. That was the best ever—in bed, reading a book, with Vanjii tucked in beside him, then getting drowsy and putting the book aside and turning the light off and falling asleep.

It was a Saturday morning. The Kid was sitting behind the reception desk, drinking a soda. It was the monsoon season, and the rain was so furious that there weren't many customers. The Kid had been reading, but the rain had distracted him, and now he was just staring at the glass door, watching the rain pound on it.

He saw something moving in the rain, something small and dark, coming close to the door and then moving away again. Then it came right up to the door and pressed against the glass. The Kid stood up, walked over and opened the door, and it ran past him and then mewled so loud it almost made him jump. It stood in front of his desk and looked at him, a tiny wet rag with a huge voice.

“What's up?” the Kid said.

The cat meowed urgently. Then it walked over to him and rubbed against his ankle.

“Uh . . . want some milk or something?”

The Kid bent and picked the cat up. It came to him easily and without fear, so he guessed it wasn't a stray. It didn't seem to be much more than a kitten. It hadn't fully grown into its ears. He couldn't tell how long it had been out in the rain—it was soaking, but the rain was heavy enough to have done that in a few minutes. He sat down and held the cat until it was warm, then put it on his desk and petted it. When it rolled onto its back, he looked closely and saw that it was male.

One of the sales guys, Chris, came over. “Got yourself a kitty?”

“Just found him outside. I don't know where he came from.”

“What you gonna do with him?”

“Don't know. I'll see if somebody comes looking for him. Hey, can you get me some milk out of the fridge? I'd get it myself, but I don't want to leave him to run around.”

“Sure.” Chris went to the side room where the staff kept their snacks and came back with some milk in a saucer. He put it down on the floor by the Kid's desk. The Kid set the cat down by the saucer, and it went straight to it and started to drink. The Kid watched him. The rain continued to fall.

It was still raining when the Kid got off work. It was already dark. He drove slowly on the freeway, one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand petting the cat as it lay on the passenger seat. “You don't like driving, huh? Well, you're doin' good. Won't take much longer.” When he got off the freeway he went to a mall. “I'll be right back,” he told the cat. When it saw him start to get out of the car, it meowed in protest. “I swear, I'll be right back. Be cool, okay? Don't shit in my car.”

He ran through the rain into the mall. There was a bookstore, and that was what he wanted. He bought a book about cats. Before leaving the mall, he went to the restroom to take a piss. There were three little kids in there, maybe seven or eight years old. One of them wanted to go into a cubicle to take a shit, but he was afraid his friends would leave while he did. “Bobby,” said one of his friends. “Bobby. Can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you trust us?”

“Yeah.”

“Then shut your motherfuckin' mouth.”

The Kid didn't look at them. He pissed, washed his hands and ran back to his car.

He parked his car and hurried to his apartment, holding the cat inside his jacket to keep it warm and dry. He unlocked the door and went inside. Vanjii was lying on the couch, watching TV

“Hey,” she said. “What's that?”

“It's a cat. You know what those are, right . . . ?”

“Kiss my ass. Where'd you find it?”

“At work. His name's Catboy.”

“How come?”

“Well, when I saw him, I realized he was a cat . . . ”

“Whoa. You should go to college.”

“And then I took a look at him and saw he wasn't a girl cat. So, Catboy. You got a better name?”

“No. C'mere, kitty.”

The Kid lowered Catboy onto Vanjii's stomach. He purred and rubbed against her, marking her.

“You want to keep him?” she said.

“Well, yeah. Nobody showed up to claim him. I ain't gonna take him to the pound and let them kill him if nobody wants him. Looks like nobody wanted him already. I ain't gonna let that happen again. Besides . . . I want him.”

“Uh-huh, he's cute. But we ain't allowed to have cats in the apartment.”

“It's only not allowed if they catch you.”

While the Kid cooked dinner, Vanjii went out and drove to a supermarket. She bought some cat litter and cat food. When she got home, she and the Kid constructed a makeshift litter tray out of a cardboard box lined with plastic. He said he'd go to a pet store and buy a real litter tray soon.

Catboy slept that night curled up on the Kid's chest. There was a huge windstorm that blew canopies of rain between the buildings of the apartment complex. Vanjii, of course, slept through it, but the Kid spent most of the night somewhere between waking and sleeping. He could hear the wind and rain all the time, and sometimes he could feel Catboy's claws on his chest, kneading. He dreamed that the wind was an old
bruja,
a witch, wandering the deserted streets outside, looking for Catboy so she could take him away and hurt him.

Sunday was the Kid's only day off work. Usually, he spent most of it in bed. He would wake up early, get up and make breakfast, then go back to bed. Vanjii would go out and get a newspaper, then bring it home, go into the bedroom and give it to the Kid. He would read it as he drank the coffee she brought him. Sometimes Vanjii would get in bed with him, and they would spend hours talking and fucking. Other times, she would go and meet friends or visit her father, and the Kid would stay there by himself, with newspaper sections spread over the blankets, listening to the mariachi music that blared from neighborhood houses when church was over. He'd get up and cook a late lunch at around three, then he and Vanjii might go see a movie.

That Sunday, though, he didn't read the paper. He read the book about cats he'd bought the day before. Vanjii lay in bed beside him, skimming through the paper. The Kid kept reading out loud to her.

“Hey, check this out. There's only one difference between regular cats and big cats, like lions and tigers. You know what the difference is?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Size. Lions and tigers are just bigger. Besides that, they're just the same. The only reason Catboy doesn't try to eat us is we're bigger than him.”

When Catboy meowed, Vanjii meowed back at him.

“You know what?” said the Kid. “Cats don't meow at each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they don't meow at each other. They got tons of different sounds they make to communicate with each other, but meowing ain't one of them. They only meow when they're trying to communicate with humans.”

“How come?”

“Don't know. The book doesn't say.”