A Small Matter (16 page)

The cat, having emerged from the back and
coming towards her, but stimulated by her shout, veered away and
skulked along the baseboard, mapping out his new turf.

“Okay, God,” she said. “I get it. You wanted
to teach me a lesson. Well, what is it? Did you want to humiliate
me at my wedding? Is that what you wanted? Was it enough for you?
Or do you want me to go around in public wearing a Tee shirt that
says I Went To My Wedding, But All I Got Was This Lousy Cat?”

The dark humor surprised her, forcing a
bitter cackle. “It’s been a pretty horrendous day, God,” she said.
“One I will always hold against you.”

A heavy sheet of rain rattled the windows in
the kitchen, providing the tempo to a sweeping, painful feeling of
utter abandonment. She stood up slowly, purposefully, entered the
kitchen, peeled back the pop-off cover of a fresh can of cat food
and spooned the smelly mixture onto a plate. Kilkenney, as though
activated by radar, aroused by the prospect of a meal, fervently
appeared beside her, rubbing himself against her priceless dress,
now rendered ridiculous, having lost its martial form by the
soaking it received from the rain. The cat displayed a mild
ferocity around food, issuing from deep in his throat, as he
rubbed, short, barking coughs which she now realized passed for a
kind of purring. The big furball was trying to bond with her over
his food plate! A feeling of tenderness mixed with revulsion rose
within her and she found herself steeling herself against both
fronts, becoming aware that her entire body was clenched like a
fist, as though to become sympathetic to another living being at
this, the darkest night of her soul, would be to enthrone the
savage reality she’d witnessed at the altar, a reality Kilkenney
had witnessed and shrugged off in favor of a can of stinking,
overcooked fish paste.

No, she thought to herself, I will not
embrace this animal. I will not feel.

She knew what she had to do, and saw no
reason to delay any further. From a cupboard, she removed and
uncapped a fresh bottle of Scotch, the good stuff, a single-malt
heavy with accents of peat and salt air. Carefully selecting a
clean jelly glass, she poured herself a couple of fingers and
returned to the red wing chair, whereupon she sat herself down,
opened her vial of pills, shook the entire contents into her cupped
palm and crammed the entire lot into her mouth, washing down the
obscene and deadly wad of them cleanly with heavy gulps of the
scotch, each successive gulp more forceful than the last, as though
she desired to personally prove to God Himself exactly how much she
desired her own destruction.

“There you go, God,” she said. “I’m going to
finish what you started.”

An odd silence filled Vickie’s mind as it
attempted to comprehend the technical details of her suicide
attempt. Would the pills do it? Had she taken enough to shut down
her system? What was in the bright green pills? The survival part
of her brain thus busied, she allowed the injured child inside
herself to surface briefly one last time only to realize that in
her own way, childishly, she wanted to hurt Mulroney for what he’d
done to her--but he was gone, therefore, she’d hurt him by
proxy--by hurting herself. Her suicide was a childish thing to
do--but she was going to do it.

The oversized cat appeared in the living room
and began to lick his paws and comb his whiskers. The sight of this
sated creature in such a state of satisfaction revolted her. She
arose and opened the living room sliding door to the storm.

“Okay, Kilkenney,” she yelled. “Move!”
Kilkenney, unaccustomed to marching orders, walked slowly toward
the opening, pausing to extend artfully a right hind leg, quivering
it expertly, before taking up a position not quite at the mouth of
the outside. He paused, sniffing carefully, before plunging through
the opening and disappearing from sight.

She stretched herself out full length on the
couch, arranging her wet dress carefully around her. She could at
least be neat and presentable when they found her. There would be
no note. Anybody who didn’t know why she was doing what she did
didn’t have a clue about her anyway, so what was the point? The
wind blowing chill wet gusts through the open door forced her to
shiver and she wished for a blanket as she cursed her need to seek
comfort even while dying, cursed herself for her weakness--for
somewhere, deep down, still caring what went on.

She closed her eyes and as she did, a huge
weight landed on her abdomen--the cat, wet and cold, coughing and
blowing his stinky meat breath in her face which was, she realized,
doubtless the same post meal routine he’d enjoyed with Mulroney.
The foolish beast had simply replaced one human with another. He
began immediately kneading her stomach, his heavy sharp claws
prickling her skin. In a quick angry motion, she grabbed the table
lamp behind her and brought it crashing down towards Kilkenney, but
he--possessed of a strong brain and even stronger hind legs--easily
bounded to safety, imparting a single, sour look in her direction
before disappearing through the open sliding door into the storm.
The lampshade flew off, shattering the bulb, sending fine filaments
flying about. She shoved the lamp to the foot of the couch. This
wasn’t going to be as neat and presentable as she’d hoped.

Jettisoning Kilkenney brought with it a
modicum of guilt, and annoyance that her last moments on earth
should be spent frightening a cat. The suicide should have been
going smoother.

The room seemed to be growing warm at the
same time as the edges of things were getting a bit fuzzy. What was
in those bright green pills, the one’s mixed in with the
painkillers? Judging from her body’s reaction, the bright green
ones weren’t designed to quell pain, but rather to stimulate.
Uppers! Would they do the job? And if so, how? Would they push her
heart to the breaking point? Would she die in the same fashion as
Mulroney, suddenly, as though an anvil had been dropped on her
chest? She found herself impatiently tapping her fingers. Her mouth
turned to cotton and her heart began to race, surprising her--was
this what it felt like to commit suicide? One waited impatiently,
nervously, heart racing, for the end? Was committing suicide akin
to waiting irritably for some kind of cosmic bus of death to roll
up to the stop, a little behind schedule, its doors wheezing open
to reveal a sparse seating of hyped-out souls, flapping and
twitching uncontrollably in their seats?

The unasked-for vision of the Death Bus
freaked her out slightly and she closed her eyes, hoping to shift
her mind to quieter venues, deciding impulsively to keep her eyes
closed for the duration until she crossed the threshold into
oblivion, but her plan was interrupted as a sudden rush of heat
flew up her spine like the shock from a cattle prod and set off a
high-pitched ringing in her ears. The bolt tightened her muscles to
the breaking point, and she felt her lips peeling back in an
intractable grimace.

She realized with horror where the shock came
from--the broken lamp at the end of the couch--touching her wet
gown, the live socket intermittently contacting the golden chains
woven into the wet linen of the gown--she was being
electrocuted!

Another heavy thump on her belly. The cat
again! This time overwhelming her senses with the stink of wet fur,
again coming on with the kneading and the clawing and the short
coughs of unbearable fish breath. Would the blasted creature not
let her die in peace? The room began vibrating faster and faster,
at the same time filling with a greenish white light. She
half-expected the finale of this electric-shock circus to be the
sight of Jesus Himself, in a dripping white robe, coming in out of
the storm, an angry look on His face.

A second thunderbolt raced up her legs, her
resulting spastic rigor throwing herself and Kilkenney from the
couch into an ignominious heap on the rug. The cat, trapped
underneath her, netted by the heavy wet folds of the dress, let out
a yowl and began to scramble, his fright summoning his immense
strength which he used to force his way out of the trap. Using her
for traction, his powerful rear legs clawed and ripped loudly open
the midsection of the priceless dress and he burst clear, leaping
high overhead, twisting in mid-air before landing in the red wing
chair, which toppled backwards under the impact, sending Kilkenney
scurrying once again through the open door and into the storm.

Her mind boiled over, trying to add up the
sum of the number of this hellish universe while an electric hand
reached into her soul. She rolled violently and shook off the
electrocuting lamp and, aided by the high-powered stimulants in the
green capsules, literally leaped to her feet.

Upon examining the huge rip in her dress, she
saw clearly, underneath her bloodily clawed and lacerated skin, the
lacerations patterned with the deeply etched and blackened wounds
caused by the electrified golden chains, which had melted under the
current and sizzled their way down into her flesh. She threw back
her head and released a hideous scream, white hot, which left the
room smoking. Grabbing the scotch, she took a desperate gulp from
the bottle to slow down her acceleration, only to find the burning
liquid igniting the powder keg below, exploding her insides
everywhere, the dripping bile and bright green drops of the
liquefied capsules further wasting her once priceless but now
gutted, bloody and burned outer garment.

Apparently dying wasn’t going to be so
easy.

Chapter 25

Vickie gathered the ruins of her gown about
her and entered the kitchen, rummaging in the cabinet and coming up
with a half-bottle of Pepto which she put eagerly to her lips and
chugged. The pinkish, liquefied chalk instantly balm'd her raging
innards. Looking around, her eyes reflexively catalogued a bunch of
odds and ends that needed doing--there were dishes in the sink from
yesterday’s breakfast. A large box of chocolate macaroons stood
open on the counter, and there was that porcelain ding on the sink
she’d been meaning to patch. Her eyes fastened on a small leather
datebook on the dinette--she recognized it--Mulroney’s. He must
have forgotten it yesterday when he’d shown up unexpectedly. She
flipped it open to find a cocktail napkin scrawled with an address
on Kling Street in North Hollywood. Underneath the address,
Mulroney had made himself a note--Take Vickie to see Virgin Mary
lady.

It seemed a thousand years since Mulroney had
shown up at her front door inviting her to go with him to see a
lady, of whom it was said, had a connection with the powers above
and was healing all comers in the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Had it been only yesterday?

The note scribbled on the napkin was the salt
in the wound of her life. She’d botched the suicide attempt and was
beginning to realize she lacked the strength for another try. She
began pacing the kitchen floor, understanding that she’d finally
hit, on whatever scale of measurement one chose, the bottom of
life--the place where nothing broke the silence, nothing lived,
nothing told you what to do to get on with your life. Where there
was nothing--not even nothing.

But I’m still alive, she thought. It’s
rotten, but it’s not the worst--that’s still to come. That’ll be
coming the day they lower my coffin into the draped hole on the
hill, the drapes hiding the dirt they’ll cover the coffin with when
nobody’s looking.

She went to the bathroom to comb her hair. It
did not need combing--Vito had seen to that. The short hair was a
shock, but it was her blood-soaked side that really set her back.
She tenderly felt the area, realizing that somewhere in the tussle
with the electrified dress and the trapped cat she’d torn open the
butterfly bandage holding her biopsy incision together. She was
bleeding like a stuck pig. Behind her, in the mirrored shower door,
she glimpsed her back and gasped in horror. Her gown was in
tatters, literally shredded by the action of the current melting
the gold thread work running through the linen. The burning threads
had sliced deeply into her skin, like the cuts from a whip. That
she was feeling no pain was a tribute to the lasting power of the
prior doses of Mulroney Specials.

She walked back to the kitchen where
Kilkenney sat perched on the counter, his face in the box of
chocolate macaroons. She’d never seen a cat eat macaroons
before--it was a messy business.

“Well Mulroney,” she said. “For awhile there,
we made a handsome couple. I wish I could say the same for me and
your cat. If you’d lived a little longer, we might have covered
some territory, the three of us.”

She picked up the cocktail napkin, scribbled
with Mulroney’s last wishes for her life. She considered visiting
the address on the napkin. Did it matter if she did, or didn’t?
Outside the kitchen window, the lights of passing cars were hazy
under the storm as the vehicles ushered in the morning commute,
moving slowly along the flooded avenue, the water already at
mid-hubcap. She missed Mulroney--she’d really grown attached to
him, appreciated the way he’d glorified her without sacrificing his
essential raw masculinity. She missed him so--why didn’t she cry or
feel anything? Was it because she was too worn out? Or because she
couldn’t actually fathom that he was gone?

On her finger was the ring. A solid reminder
of what had evaporated in front of her only a few short hours
earlier. In better times, there would have been more than a
ring--there would have been a warm marriage bed full of love, and
champagne and roses on the night stand. Here in the kitchen there
was nothing but a view of dark water, bare trees, and a smelly
cat.

“God,” she said, “I think there’s been a huge
misunderstanding, here--I don’t like it where I am now. I’m not
supposed to be here. This isn’t making any sense.”