I can at last write a little. After the five day heat wave we had a storm that brought down trees and cut power lines (with the attending flash of sparks), and then the temperature plunged to 84 fahrenheit (only faggots and communists use the other scale but for you I think that's, like, /9%&2 degrees—still very, very hot, either way). I have to hurry and write, though, because the temperature is creeping up again and they're talking hell for the next five days. Anyhoo...
July 1st, up here, is not only the national holiday (celebrating what?, I don't really remember or care), but it is also moving day. Thousands of people move from places they thought they didn't like to places they think they'll like ('til next year's moving day). Then there are thousands more who move because they no longer can afford the rent 'cause he lost his job or she forgot something and got knocked up. But on June 30th and July 1st, virtually every street in the city is impassible because of moving trucks (real and rented) and people hauling fridges and couches up stairs and through windows. Everything in a neighbourhood changes. Sure there are the diehards who will never move (like Skeeter and Boo-Boo, Babs and the other regular characters on our street), but then there are the dozens of apartments that get filled up with new people and their pets.
In the block across the alley from our back balcony there is a lot of change. New is the fat guy who apparently stinks so bad, he has to air his clothes and shoes on his own balcony—the stink of dirt, sweat and strange but unpleasant spices comes all the way over to my little, but sensitive, nose.
Up from him there is a new gay couple and Skeeter is particularly happy about them, especially with the heat wave we've been having. They do everything in their skivvies...tight, white, skivvies. And they're amorous. Because of the heat their windows and door are always open and almost directly across from us. I was lying next to Skeet one morning when he woke up and said, "Am I in heaven?" He was staring out the window of his bedroom at one of the tall young men who was standing on a chair, hanging something over his door, underwear glued to his body (ie: parts) from the heat. (The followup to all this is that the young couple couldn't take the heat either and, like us, finally installed an a.c. and now have their doors and curtains closed at all times, much to Skeet's chagrin.)
Things are different at street level too and I knew this because suddenly their are fewer birds singing and far fewer squirrels in our backyard. Cats have been turned out all over the place—because of moving day—and they're eating all that wild life to stay alive. One of those cats, though, is not Cordelia.
I ran into Cleo, after moving day, and we got to chatting and she mentioned that Cordelia had simply disappeared. She might have been adopted, we speculated, but didn't speak the probable truth out loud and that was that Cordelia had probably been hit by a car and gone into some quiet corner to die; adoption, we both knew, was highly unlikely as she was quite, quite mad now.
Then Cleo said something utterly goofy: "I want you to be friends with Slicer." I snerfed a laugh but she said, "I'm serious. I want my friends to be friends."
"Come on, Cleo!" I said, "Everyone from the birds and squirrels up to these monkeys in pants and cats and dogs knows Slicer is a head case!"
That's when Slicer came out of a bush where he was hiding. Oopsie.
"Head case," he said. Then he let out a wailing, howling screech that wasn't cat, or human or any animal I know and that made Skeeter, standing off to the side gasp, "Oh my God!"
"It's not funny, Slicer!" Cleo said. Oh kee-rist! That was laughter? I shivered a little imagining what noise he made when he was mad. There was a little silence after Slicer stopped "laughing" and without shaking hands or hugging he and I accepted we had entered into a peace accord, if only for Cleo's sake.
"Who's he," Slicer growled, turning his eyes to Skeeter.
"My owner," I said.
"He's creepy," said Slicer.
"I think he's a nice man," said Cleo.
"He's gay," I said, à propos of absolutely nothing but because Slicer's silences made me feel more nervous than the sound he made when he talked (or, God help us!, laughed).
"Oh," Slicer said like Skeeter's creepiness had now been explained. Skeeter, a little off, holding my leash, smiled weirdly at us all and I had to admit he did look a little creepy...and gay.
"Well, we have to go!" I said, though we didn't, but I wanted to. Cleo gave me a little peck and Slicer, unable to stop himself, gurgled in disapproval.
When we were back in the apartment, well out of earshot, Skeet said, "That is the scariest animal I've ever seen. Do you understand me? He's not just scary as a cat...he's scary, period."
I snerfed in false-mockery; I was only trying to cover up the fact that Slicer's laugh was still running up and down my spine.
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