White Rabbit Chapter 3

3.

Cat whiskers tell fortunes. Pluck one from a cat’s face, put it under your pillow and in your dreams you will see a glimpse of your future. Or if you prefer, brew it in tea and drink, drink, drink, your future will be somewhere in the bottom of the cup clouded in sugar. This is true, or so says the cat who met Delores after the spiders, somewhere popping out onto the path beneath the apple trees just when everything began to clear; the new path, she supposed, being that she had fallen a considerable distance down what she preferred to think of as a rabbit hole. She thought of the woman in Paris who landed on the hood of the car, wondering what sort of car it was and how heavy was the woman, romantically, again for a moment. She thought of the hole as a rabbit’s hole the way Alice thought of it as a rabbit’s hole, “or was that ever disclosed?” she contemplated. She had never read Alice in Wonderland, but had seen the Disney movie repeatedly when she was seven and in bed chickenpox. The two occurrences will forever be interlinked in her mind. It was so much nicer to think of it as a rabbit’s hole instead of thinking of it as a woodchuck’s hole, a grotesquely large gopher’s, or the ghastly hole of an enormous slithering snake. Snakes give her the shivers.

Above Delores there were branches of trees that were twisted and entwined with branches across from them, as though they were in love, or playing some children’s game and from those tangled branches hung various apples of many colors and shapes. Hungry, she ate two plump yellow ones and put two more in the pockets of her dress along with her pink inhaler and the key. The moon lit her way through the path but it was brighter than any moonlight she had seen before. It was somewhere between the moon and the sun. It was no longer dark and scary; it had evolved into a peaceful tranquil route lined with enormous passive ferns, convivial wildflowers and attractive berry bushes. Let’s not forget the cat… Oh, yes, the cat was over six feet tall and had no whiskers. He mentioned, “The unfortunate part of telling someone that fact is that they naturally want to pull your whiskers—even when you are six feet tall and have teeth such as these.” He snarled as best he could snarl to show Delores a set of teeth that weren’t ferocious for a cat of his size. They were tobacco-stained, he admitted. He hadn’t been to the dentist in some time. But despite the lack of quality of his dental hygiene, he was very well dressed, dapper-looking, and he was playing a fiddle, which he assured Delores wasn’t a violin.

“There is no difference in the two.” Delores contested. “I have taken violin since I was four and I know this to be fact.” She sounded pompous, though it is hard to say that you have taken violin since four without sounding pompous. The peculiarity that she was speaking to a six foot cat hadn’t yet occurred to her, nor did the fact that that cat was in coat and tails yet seem strange. For it is, once you accept a talking cat, anything else is pretty easy to take. The cat was wearing a large blue flowing bowtie and his coat was velvety red with large stained buttons and cigarette burns down the lapel and sleeves. He wore no shirt and he smelled like an ashtray and a whorehouse. He wore clean black knickers and leather scuffed boots that were brown and laced up the sides. His neck was another oddity. It was long and he wore a red-and-white-striped sleeve on it, like a candy cane, and his head bobbed around at its end like a Jack-in-the-box’s with a little less leave.

“Oh, you are mistaken, girl. Very mistaken! The violin is made with cat guts, an uncivilized way of doing things, if my opinion counts for anything. Whereas, the fiddle,” he plucked a few of his strings, “has steel strings. They say a fiddler is more uncouth, but contrariwise, some boob that goes about playing with cat guts is the very definition of vulgarity to me. And that is not to mention the style in which the two instruments are played. You see—”

“I know about the differences in the styles of a fiddler and a violinist.” Delores replied irritably. The cat began again to play some awful melody. He wasn’t very good and the song he played as an inaudible series of scratchy, screeching sounds connected in no way except that they came from the same instrument and the same player, a terrible nightmarish messing, somewhere between fingernails across a chalkboard and the squealing of a tightly palmed balloon.

“If you please, cat!” the girl continued walking away. But the obstinate cat followed. He reached into his pockets with his green fingerless-gloved hands and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, unmarked, took two out, placed them in his lips and lighted them.

“Care for a smoke, girl?”

“I would never.” she replied appalled. Little things appall her randomly.

“Maybe you should.”

“And have disgusting teeth like yours? Or get cancer? My grandpapa died of cancer. No thanks, cat.” She was still walking, briskly now, and the apple trees turned to cherries with beautiful cherry blossoms in full bloom. A soft wind blew several of them down and slowly they floated to the ground, seemingly laying themselves before her as she walked. When she stopped, the wind stopped and the cherry blossoms stayed put where they were as though they were waiting for her. Curious, she thought. Their branches were arced over her head and entwined, just like the branches of the apple trees.

“Hmm. My grandpapa died in a fire. But he was a housecat.” He contemplated walking behind her. “Yet, I don’t go around doing any disservice to houses, or to fires. But,” he considered, “maybe I should.”

Delores was getting agitated. He had an irritating voice on top of his brusque flaky demeanor. “And why is that you smoke two?” She turned and looked at him bitterly. His fur was black with patches of white, which was perhaps the only ordinary thing about him. He was the kind of cat not even a mother could love.

“Because one is never enough.” He said matter-of-factly. “You see, girl, I am a carnivorous cat of excess.” She could smell the alcohol and stale pot on his breath and backed away. Her parents smoked pot in their bedroom with the windows open when they thought she was sleeping. It was what they did to have some connection to when they were lovers, young, and full of life. Before they fell out of love and were instead only bonded by a child, a dash of codependency, economic considerations, and social norms. She hated the smell of it and was confident her mother gave her asthma through cigarettes or pot.

“Carnivorous cat of excess?” She repeated critically. “Are you drunk?”

“It is hard to say I am drunk anymore,” he began, “when I don’t remember ever being sober.” His eyelids were heavy and black, either by make-up, excess, or dirt and grime. Delores wasn’t sure which, or maybe it was a bit of all three. Standing in front of Delores he reached into his pocket, pulled out, and popped two pills.

“Those are for my back, I assure you.” he calmly claimed. Then he took off his gloves and unnervingly walked toward Delores who cautiously backed up. He put his gloves in his pockets and held out two human-like hands with the backs facing Delores, palms to his face. His fingernails were blackish and jagged-long and there were patches of black fur on them. He had the hands of an eighty year-old auto mechanic. Delores fell back onto the ground tripping over a tree stump.

“Leave me alone, cat!” She warned.

“But if you please, girl! I am a romantic cat, only interested in romance. Shall I play you a tune on my violin?”

“I thought you said it was a fiddle?”

“I lied!” He laughed coughing up a quick hairball tossing the violin aside blindly into some rose bushes. “It is made with the guts of my late, Eleanor. She died tragically. She was my tenth wife and now I have only nine.” He held up his hands again and on his nasty fingers he had nine different rings, none nearly the same.

“Nine wives?” Delores said scooting back along the ground. “That is absurd! You are a promiscuous, dirty, alcoholic, nasty cat! You are bad by every definition.”

“Please call me, Jack.”

“Jack?”

“Or Joe, or John, or Carlos, or Ralph, but never ever call me Steve. Get me?”

“No I don’t get you at all.”

He pointed to his rings and explained that to each wife he was someone different. To Eleanor he was Steve. “Who are you really?” She insisted.

“Simply, Cat.” He laughed. “My mother didn’t bother to name me. And see, since Eleanor’s unfortunate bath with a toaster oven, I am in need of a tenth wife. He sadly pointed to an empty pinkie finger and wiggled it while he edged closer to her face. He smelled worse as he got closer like a dumpster of pot, booze, and fish, and his mouth began to open and his grotesque neck stretched out to her. Out of that open mouth a long narrow forked tongue appeared and flicked around like a serpent’s.

“It sounds more fitting that you keep nine!” She grunted pushing him away. With that he backed up and thought it over.

“Perhaps, you are right! I should eat you then! You see, those spiders may not eat Deloreses but I do not discriminate. I eat anyone.”

“I don’t want to be eaten!”

The cat laughed. “All women want to be eaten!”

Delores slapped him in the face as hard as she could. “You are a vile animal! So vile that I doubt you are an animal at all!  I don’t believe you are a cat, but rather some transvestite man-cat in makeup with perhaps,” she stammered, “perhaps, perhaps a hair control problem!” It was the best she could come up with.  “I bet you had all sorts of cosmetic surgeries to make yourself look the way you do because you are some, some weirdo, some cat-loving weirdo!”

“That is absurd!” He said holding his jaw gathering himself. Delores didn’t know that he was turned on by violence. He salivated at the thought of the beautiful girl. She would by far be his prettiest wife.

“Then where is your tail?” She asked angrily.

“Ha!” He retorted. “Asking to see my tail, huh? That is a clear indication that you love me!”

“Love! You think so? Well, take this!” With that she kicked the cat square in the chest with the heel of her dirty boot and he tumbled backwards doing several dramatic flips and a few more to make a point.

“I am all things bad!” he cried dramatically rising to his feet. “And since I love to gamble, let’s gamble!” He took off his coat and waved it around in front of him and after a few waves and some words he pulled it away sharply and there was a roulette table in front of him. Delores was hardly amazed for after you accept a talking cat little is amazing to you. “Come, come!” he said to her. “Come and pick a number, red or black, the probability, I assure you, is not in your favor but you get one chance to pick the right number or else I will eat you and marry your then eat you the other way when I get bored of you.” His cigarettes were out so he paused to light up two more. “Okay.” He said excitedly. “Pick!”

“But I don’t gamble.” She contested pulling herself up to the table. “So it should be you who picks the number!”

“You really want me to pick the number to your fate.” he replied. The two looked at each other across the table which was cherry wood and which made the trees cringe and recoil. He winked at her and smiled a villainous smile.

Without thinking anymore she yelled out, “Nine!”

“Nine, oh, that’s a good number!” He grinned wickedly and the sky suddenly got dark as though it were about to storm. It was, in truth, the moon hiding his eyes. “The lady has her virginity and her life on nine! Let it ride on nine!” He called loudly into the night. He put the marble ball onto the wheel and asked the confused girl, “Let it ride, girl?”

“Let it ride!” She said eagerly. She didn’t know that her chances were only 5.26% of winning. The ball spun around the wheel and passed the nine twice before slowing, slowing, slowing, and by some great fortune of luck, landing directly in the nine slot. The cat looked wickedly at the wheel and in a rage threw the table aside and went after Delores yet again who was backing up as quickly as she could. This cat was no gentleman. “I won!” She cried. “I won! You can’t disagree that I won! Get back, back, get back cat!”

“But I’m not a cat of my word!” He meowed devilishly. And just as he got closer and was ready to pounce as though she were a naïve baby rabbit fresh out of her rabbit hole, Delores found herself clutching a large butcher knife. With one swift swing the cat lost his head—after which time, she had a ten minute conversation with the head (as the body came to a rest in a rose bush); a conversation that brought her no closure and in which the cat’s lopped bloody head begged her to light him a last cigarette, nine different times before expiring.