On Mortality: A Message for the Undertaker

From her journals:

I don't wanna die. I was thinking the other day that I should have that tattooed someplace on my person, somewhere in small letters, like

I dont
wanna
die

maybe in the middle of my chest or inside my arm or my ankle, inconspicuous and small. I was thinking about the undertaker who with my cold and white body laying stiff on his stainless steel table would find the small tattoo and read it. I don't wanna die. A message for the undertaker, for my lover, for God, for my aging skin. I would like to see his face, the undertaker's.

Actually I'd like ot be buried w/out an undertaker sucking out my insides, filling me w/ formaldahyde, putting color on my dead face - I wish I could be put in a deep hole in the brown earth and covered over, thats all, Indian like. Animal like.

Neal Cassidy was cremated. (T-shirt: God bless the ashes of Neal's bones.) Ashes aren't very useful, though, whereas a body in the ground is good for the soil.

- September 1981

George and Rum

The old man sat, legs in front of him, thin arms propping himself up. "Beautiful sunrise," he said, running his fingers through dewy grass. The cat twined her tan-banded tail around one of his arms.

"Yes," she said, smelling the air. "I bet there are mice in that field over there."

"Why don't you go look?"

"It's a ways off."

"Think you'll get lost?"

"I think you'd get worried. You're a born worrier."

"Why should I worry?"

"I might not come back. Cats are very unpredictable, you know. And they can't feel affection for their masters. I might forget all about you in an hour and go off chasing butterflies."

"I'd call you back," he said.

"I might not hear."

He chuckled. "Go on. What do I want with you, anyway?"

Rum crossed the small stream in a leap and stood on the other side, tail raised, dew flickering her tan ears. "Come with me?" she said.

He got to heis feet, still chuckling, and followed. They found a trail as wide as George's boots and they followed that; the man bending goldenrod out of his way, rum with only her tail showing above the clover.

"Smell any mice yet, Rum?"

"Cats don't smell mice, they feel them. Dogs, they're the ones with noses, poking everywhere. Cats don't use smell for catching mice. We can feel their presence."

"You won't really kill a mouse if you catch it, will you? Just let it go? Please don't hurt it, Rum."

"Oh, I don't know. Mice taste pretty good. Better than that canned stuff you feed me. I could go for a nice fresh mouse."

George, knowing this was only meant to worry him, grinned broadly.

"I probably can't catch a mouse anyway. You and your big feet scare them all away. Why can't you humans walk lightly, like proper animals?"

"I've got quite a bit more weight than you," George said in his own defense. But Rum shushed him, bending close to the ground, ears flattened. She stared intently at the earth under a clump of pink clover. Then she relaxed, disgusted.

"Only a toad."

"Why don't you chase that?"

"Oh, toads are no fun. They hop up and down like grasshoppers, and just when you think they're one place, they turn up another. You can't catch them on the ground because they just hop again. And they don't stay in the air like butterflies, either."

"Toads don't have wings," George said matter-of-factly.

"And even if you do catch one, it wets in your mouth," Rum said, switching her tail. George laughed, bent down and caught the toad. It hunched itself on his palm, not willing to jump from such a height and not willing to admit its identity either. It closed its eyes, pretending to be a rock.

"It's all right," George said. "Rum wouldn't really hurt you. She just likes the chase."

" 'Just likes the chase,' " the toad muttered. Likes to scare me, that's what. Damn terrorist. Sadistic cat."

"I'm sure she's sorry if she scared you," George said, stroking the lumpy skin, loving the texture and coolness. Rum grumbled. The toad said, "She's not sorry at all. Horrid furry thing. All claws and hair and teeth. Damn terrorist. And stop petting me. I ain't no damn cat."

"I'm sorry," George said, suppressing laughter.

"What's so funny? How'd you like someone petting you? And put me down before I piss all over your damn hand."

George put the toad down and it hopped angrily away. It would have stomped away, George thought, if it could.

"Nasty dispositions they have," Rum said. "You never can have a pleasant conversation wiith a toad."

"It was scared. All creatures act like that when they're scared. I bet you've never been scared, so you wouldn't know."

"And such language!" Rum said in mock shock. "I don't know where he picked that up!" Then she contemplated George's words. "No, I never have been scared. I've always been with you." It slipped out, like a too-quick butterfly, before Rum could catch it, and she was embarrassed. It surprised them both. Rum turned and said curtly, "Let's go back," then ran ahead down the trail. George followed her orange tail, wondering how he could possibly be any happier.



Later, as lightning flashed outside the window, Rum sat on the sill with her tail around a potted plant, watching the rain with satisfaction.

"You think that'll help the garden?"

"Undoubtedly," George said.

"Even the catnip?"

"Especially the catnip. I told the rain, 'You give that catnip all the minerals and vitamins you have because that's Rum's catnip.' And it will, too."

Rum showed her amusement only by moving her whiskers, but that satisfied George. It was all he expected.

"What makes the lightning?"

"I don't know. Ask it sometime."

"No, I mean really. What makes it?"

"I told you the truth. I don't know. Something about dust particles, I think. Nobody really knows what makes lightning, Rum. Not even me."

"Then what's the use?" she said vaguely.

"The use of asking? The use of me?"

"The use of the world."

"Nobody knows that either. But we all go on living because we hope to find out."

Rum shook herself of raindrops that were cming in through the screen. "I don't really want to find out," she said. "It might rattle me." She leapt down onto the floor and padded to the kitchen. "Let's eat."

"We got some nice tuna for you." George placed a bowl on the floor. "And cream." He sat at a card table with his dinner and the newspaper in front of him.

"So what's going on in the world?"

"A plane crash. Somebody kidnapped a child. Russia made some more atomic warheads. The United States made twice as many, just in case. And scientists think California is losing land to the sea at the rate a finger-nail grows."

"How fast is that? And how soon will the ocean reach us?"

"I wouldn't worry. We'll be kidnapped, killed by radiation, or have a plane land on our houses before the sea swallows us."

"You're a comfort," Rum said, her mouth full of tuna.

"The sea is kind. If it swallows California, we'll gain land on the east coast, and that would do this country good. We could expand our garden, too."

"What would you do if I was kidnapped?"

"Nobody would kidnap a cat."

"You're talking with your mouth full," Rum said. "Swallow before you speak. And somebody might kidnap me, you never know. What would you do if they held me for ransom?"

"For ransom? I'd sell the house an d the land and all the furniture. Even my wedding band. I'd get you back, somehow."

"Come on, be serious," Rum said, hopefully.

"I am! Aren't I always serious? I'd sell everything for you. And I'd beat up that nasty kidnapper. I'd make him sorry."

Rum eyed George carefully. "Really?"

"Really." George put a forkful of beef pot pie into his mouth. "Who would I have to talk to? You keep me company. You keep me in shape with all your sunrise walks. And sunset walks. You keep me on my toes. I couldn't live without you. You keep me alive."

"Talking with your mouth full agaijn," Rum said, but she was moved. She chewed her food a long time before swallowing.

"I didn't think you had to ask, Rum. I thought you must know I love you. More than anything."

"God! I'm sorry I brought itu pu. I can't take all this sweetness."

"And what about you, Rum? Don't you love me?"

She regarded him with curious eyes. "If I answered that, I wouldn't be a cat. But I think you know the answer."

"Maybe I'd just like to hear it."

"Not from me."

"Why won't you ever just let yourself be yourself?" asked George. "You could be really sweet if you were brave enough. I wish you'd say what you feel. Won't you ever?"

Rum flicked her tail. "Mrrow," she said, and began to wash.


She stayed out late that night, watching the stars, being chased by tomcats. It was good to be away from humans for a while. George understood. He always welcomed her heome. But this morning as she approached the house, Rum felt a change, an absence of welcome. What had happened? She leapt up the steps to the front door, trying to shake the nervousness from her fur. She meowed to the screen and waited. Nobody came. She meowed again and called to george. Perhaps he had slept late. Perhaps he hadn't heard. But what was this feeling creeping over her? She turned around once on the doormat and meowed again, then padded swiftly down the steps, crossing the garden, passing the catnip, around to the back door. There was no screen there, only wood. She meowed at that five times, tail swishing. "Hurry up; my fur is all wte!" Back to the inside, peering through the wire mesh. Her claws pulled at it, then let go. She went to George's bedroom window and yowled loudly under it. Get up, George. Who do you think you are, sleeping late, leaving me outside? I'm hungry. I want breakfast. Dammit, georgge, wake up and get out here. I'll meow until you let me in. I'll just keep meowing until you come, dammit. Where are you? Where are you? Rum sat back, mouth closed. This had never happened before. He wouldn't do this to her unless something awful had happened. She looked up at the window. He had been kidnapped. That was it; somebody had kidnapped him.

The door opened. Rum ran to the steps and then froze, looking up into the face of a stranger.

"I guess you're Rum?"

"Mrrow?" she said.

"Come on in."

She climbed the steps slowly and squeezed in through the door. The strange man led her down the hall to George's bedroom, at the open door of which Rum stopped again, bewildered. Why was George in bed? Was he sick? But he had been fine the night before. And who was the woman? She stood by the bed, worry bringing her brows together, one hand on George's still arm. The man picked Rum up and carried her to the bed, placing her gently beside George.

"Yes, that's his cat," the woman said. "If he's going to recognize anything, he'll recognize her. He loved her. Talked to her all the time. Tried to tell him it was useless, cats can never love their masters. Tried to tell him, get a dog." She was close to tears. "He loved that cat. Why doesn't he recognize her?"

"Well, this condition may be only temporary," the man said. "It's too early to tell just yet. We won't know much more for a few weeks. These things take time."

Rum looked into the still, blank face. "George? George, talk to me. They're all talking over my head, as if I didn't exist. What happened to you? You can tell me. What happened? You look awful. Can you hear me. Are you very sick? What happened, dammit, answer me!"

George's one open eye stared blankly, unknowing. The right side of his face sagged, and spit had collected in the lower corner of his mouth.

"What are they talking about, George? Are you mad because I stayed out all night? I have a right to that, you know. I'm a cat. And, come to think of it, I'm pretty mad at you. Why didn't you let me in? Is that any way to treat me, leaving me out all night and not even getting up to let me in? I was all wet and cold out there, George, and I called and called for you. What kind of a master are you, lying in bed, leaving me outside? Listen! Listen to meQ I can find another master. One who takes better care of me. Who needs you? You won't even answer me! Are you listening? I'll find another master, George! George?"

The doctor said, "What a noisy cat! If I had a cat like that, I'd learn to talk back too."

"Poor thing. I think it really does miss him. It misses his voice."

"You stupid people, don't you think I know what you're saying? I hear every word! Stop talking about me. Talk to me. Tell me something. What's happened? Why is George like this? George? George? Can you hear me? I love you. I love you. Isn't that what you wanted to hear?"

She was quiet now, watching him, hoping that the words carried some magic that woud make him well. She longed to hear his voice, feel his hands welcome her home.

"Is this my fault because I didn't say it before? Why didn't I, George, why didn't I? I love you. Aren't I brave? I love you George."

"Shhh," the doctor said to the meowing cat.

George lay still, one glazed eye unmoving, unreachable, uncaring.

"He doesn't recognize her," George's sister said, wiping at her cheeks. She gathered up Rum, who lay limply in her grasp, and carried her away.

Happiness

All the mourners had left. The casket stood in obstinate, definite silence, like a shut-in turtle, not giving anything of itself. Tiny lacy patterns swirled in silver paint around the bottom and the top rim, and the black wood shone. In Marcia's brown eyes the room blurred and dulled, and she half tripped down the two steps into the parlor. She drew a breath to avoid sobbing aloud, walking slowly toward the black box. She carried flowers, a bunch of hovering baby's breath; and as she came close, she drew up the long, badly fitting dress to her knees, kneeling on white tile. Her eyes would not lift from the floor. She felt she must say something to her mother, say anything, pretend for a moment that she was alive again. Too much weight, Marcia thought, all at once, I can't take it all at once, I can't, mom, I need one more minute of you, I didn't have long enough, let me tell you something. You don't have to talk back, just pretend you're listening, let me sit you up and talk like you can hear me. I want to tell you what I did in school, what I want for supper, what my teacher said, and that I can't take it all at once, it's too much.

She couldn't raise her eyes from the floor. She couldn't lok at the closed coffin. She couldn't speak aloud. There was dirt in between the white tiles, dust like the dust on refrigerator tops, dust like the dust on shoes. Marcia watched her finger making lines through the dust.

Something drew up beside her, its head at the height of Marcia's eyes. Marcia looked into the face of a cat.

"She's dead," Marcia said before she realized she could speak again. She stopped drawing lines in the dust and placed the baby's breath down on the tile. The cat said nothing, but sat slowly down beside her, curling its tail unobtrusively around itself. They watched each other. Marcia sniffed.

"I'm no good in algebra. Last week she said I was no good in algebra, and I don't do my homework. I brought home my report card and she got all mad because I had three Fs."

The cat watched the movement of Marcia's wet mouth.

"You know what I did? I told her I hated her."

The cat's ears moved a little, and as they did, its long whiskers were drawn back delicately. Marcia sniffed again because she hadn't any kleenex, then wiped an arm across her nose.

"I haven't got any friends," she said, her voice shaky, "and my father says I have his mother's big nose, and I can't bake a cake 'cause it always falls and when I went to camp in fourth grade I was so homesick they called my parents in the middle of the night," she sobbed, "to take me home. And I trip over everything. And I break glasses all the time." She sniffed hard although her whole upper lip was wet by now. "I'm ugly, I always was, and I can't do anything right." She shuddered with held-in sobs and wiped at her nose with the other arm, running the whole length of it from elbow to fingers under her nose. The cat sat silent and watched.

Marcia now raised her eyes to the coffin and put a wet finger on the shiny, cool black lid. Getting shakily to her feet she looked down at it. "But Mom told me I had nice eyes," she said.

The cat stood up too and padded across the white tiled floor to Marcia's feet, looking up at her with ears flattened back and whiskers streamlined.

Marcia said wearily, hopelessly, "She had to die? She had to die? And will I have to die some day?" Removing her finger left a spot of wetness which Marcia could find no dry part of her to wipe off. She ran her elbow across the coffin lid, smearing it, and then she raised the hem of her dress to wipe at it, but the hem wouldn't reach, so she wiped her right hand on the dress and ran the hand over the lid of the coffin. A long, wet mark ran from one end to the other, and four small greasy fingerprints settled themselves on the far right, where her hand had left the wood. Marcia sniffed, looked about her for a cloth, and without warning, crumpled to the ground crying. Tears ran down the strange and unattractive curves of her face, dropping in spots onto the dusty floor. She peered through the goldfish bowls of her eyes at the cat. The cat was now sitting again, watching the floor where her tears fell.

"I wish I were a cat." The cat looked into her eyes.

"You wouldn't if you were one."

Marcia was unable to move again, but stopped crying and held her breath, eyes meeting the cat's.

"Do you think I want to die?" the cat said. "Go home." The voice was soft and bordering on kind. With ears straight it said, "She can't hear you now. Go home. I don't want to be a cat, and I never did. Did I have a choice? I am one. I don't want to die, but I will. Now, if I wanted to be a cat, I would be happy. And if I wanted to die, I could be happy knowing someday I will."

Marcia waited, tears drying in the corners of her eyes like sand.

"Go home," the cat said. "Be happy you have nice eyes."

The cat turned away from the girl and didn't listen for a response. It padded silently over the white floor.

A Story About Drugs

Across the street in the phone booth surrounded by a vibrant smell of piss I punch the numbers, "uno medio," I tell him in pidgin Spanish and he sends out the runner, brown kid no more than nine with eyes like a rabbit, I eyeball the block and cop the half and get back on the bus sweating but it's all clear, it's another day of freedom.

City city. All of downtown rising surreal around me, the city is my box of chocolate, squares of chocolate sprinkled with windows, dribbled with columns, long caramels down by the water, I want to open my mouth over the city and swallow it whole but it's already inside of me - at night all night I feel it like constellations in my bones. The bus lurches down Haight Street through the Filmore, the street signs a song of names as familiar as my fingers, Filmore, Steiner, Pierce, Scott and in a grey mist with whispers of sun, black children chase cats, orange workmen stand by vats of evil smelling tar, paint peels everywhere, Do not park in driveway sign, an incredible tattered woman in an army blanket, three punks skateboarding through traffic like crumpled Christmas wrappers blowing.

Sergio and I nodding out in Buena Vista Park can see over the web of bus cables over the houses the drift of fog rolling and breathing, Eugene a street nut passes down the clover hill giving us a snot symphony all the sounds that can be made with mucus, and the turning earth lies under me like a lover, mysterious and infinite and precious, waiting for me.

And we bop down to the head shop where Alain behind the counter with his crooked teeth and French nose donates a pack of cloves to the cause, friend of Sergio's, Sergio knows everybody. In front of the produce market on the sidewalk are bins of oranges, waxy apples, furry peaches colored like globes of sunrise, bubbles of grapes, rows of fruit like an altar under the awning and I bow down, smell the grapefruit my nost to the cool roughness of skin. Sergio and I are reflected in the gleaming apples, our faces warped backward as through a fish eye lens, over and over and red. I palm a speckled nectarine, he palms a pear, stand at the corner with juice running down our fingers.

"I steal everything I ever own," Sergio tells me, grinning fearless into the future, tall and bony in black jeans, black shirt, cracked leather boots, rabbit's foot hanging from one ear, black hair cropped close except for a long wisp in the back, a clump of horsehair braided into it. "You like thees sunglasses? I steal them." "Yeah they're great." "Oh you can't hav them," he says drawing away, drawing backwards, dropping his lower jaw goofing, "they're MYYY sunglass." And I slap my knee doubled over laughting, "oooh they're YOUR sunglasses!"

We catch a bus to the beach, as I get on I say "don't talk to me, don't talk to me," trying to pass for 16 looking young and innocent to save 50 cents with the youth fare, Sergio disappears, I look to see him sneaking in the back door, wiser than me, says "why deed you say don talk to you" and I say never mind. Watching with half an eye a quintessential business man, suit briefcase mustache, checking the time on his wrist, he pulls the bus cable, bing.

"So Michael got busted," Sergio says, "trespassing." Michael is Sergio's sometimes-lover, talks nonstop and con-artist to the bone. "That place we all were crashing at, the warehouss, the cops came and took everybody. They were so funny, they walk in like," he shudders screwing up his face and I understand, the place was trashed, all bugs and mouldy bread and burned bed rolls, I'd sleep at the shelter with the winos vomiting all night before I'd stay there, I say "gas masks and those toxic waste cleanup suits," and he laughs, says "I was under some blankets and they don find me, they don want to touch anytheeng."

I say, "Sergio did Michael go for the test?" "The test? Yeah and he's safe." "Ah, I'm so glad," I say, "so that makes three of us. Man I didn't know how scared I was until I found out I didn't need to be. But that nurse there, she gave me shit. I yelled at her." He grins, his teeth white in his brown skin like the meat of a coconut under the shell, "good," he says.

The nurse, tired eyes behind tortoise shell frames took me into a room with a Love Is poster on the wall and a Boston fern hanging in aggressive macrame, told me to have a seat. The sheet of paper on the table crinkled under me. "Just going to take a little blood," she said, I rolled up my sleeve, she ran a finger, pearl-pink nails along the inside of my arm astonished, "are these ... tracks?" "No they're mosquito bites." Standing in her crisp white, from a faraway world where opium is a brand of perfume she said "how old are you honey?" And I told her to lay off, she wouldn't understand, and she started in with how could I do this to myself, my whole life ahead of me and I warned her to quit it, my life is here and I'm living it, and she gave me maybe I could try to get some kind of help and I slammed my fist on the white metal supply table making the jar of bandaids shake, making the glass of thermometers soaking in alcohol rattle like loose pennies in a dryer and she stepped a step backward astonished. "Christ," I said, "look at what I open my eyes to every time I open my eyes, a world so beautiful and there's a hole in the ozone over Antarctica and the fruit is sprayed with poison and I can't drink the water from the faucet and there's fiberglass in the air and acid in the rain. So just say no to drugs and then they can drop the bomb and flatten us all into creeping screaming lizards wiht the skin hanging off our ribs and all the sweet creatures blind without even a sagebrush to stand under and all the green earth barren as a brick and all the blue sky grey full of ash like radioactive snow -" I shook my head hard, shook the crying out, " don't you give me that whole life ahead of me crap, what the fuck do you know."

And here we are. We're on the beach, where the ocean draws back whispering to itself, curling in, shimmering off across the sand as if it could be so bare and pure and lyrical forever, then hisses foreward in clusters of white foam, announcing its soul, sssss, an understatement of egoless love, and I go down to the edge of the water somehow suddenly barefoot and possessed, wobbling at the knees, kneeling to kiss it, saying sssss back, dancing in a loose-boned shuffle in the heavy sloshy sand. Ocean sweeping up a piece of wood and turning it over and over in wet green darkeness until it becomes blunt soft and bleached like the bone of a creature foreign to this earth, starfish, seahorses, arcing dolphins, tentacles of kep rising up on the waves, ocean washing out a piece of glass, rolling, licking cold across the sharpness until it becomes a rounded translucent tongue, lifting up an abalone shell and dropping it down, basing it against the shoreline, rattling it along coral reefs until it splinters into grains of iridescent sand ... "ssss" I tell the ocean. And then meekly collect my shoes, go back to the shore where Sergio sits smoking a clove. We roll the tobacco from the clove end with some dope and smoke it. "Mmmm," Sergio says and I say "ya."