THE CAT'S MAW

CHAPTER IX

IX:  OF FOES AND FELINES    

The next morning, after another night of restless sleep, Billy’s mother insisted that he join them for breakfast downstairs.

Billy hopped down the hall, slid down the stairs on his bottom, and had his father carry him to the kitchen table. He was feeling tired and cranky, and the worries hovered around his head like a cloud of gnats that couldn’t be swatted away.

Even homemade blueberry pancakes with crispy bacon andmaple syrup couldn’t lift the boy’s spirits. He just pushed the food around the plate while his parents played a game of cribbage and drank their morning tea. When they were distracted (teasing each other over who was next to get ‘skunked’), Billy would sneak bits of bacon off the table.

The cat was an ideal accomplice – it quickly snatched the bits, gulped them down its gullet, and continued to weaving between the three sets of legs without pause or suspicion. 

“So, I have some news,” Billy’s mother said.

Historically, when she announced ‘news’, what she actually meant was ‘I have something I want you to do’.

“I spoke with Mrs. Clayton, and everything’s been sorted. You’ll be going to Tommy’s party on Saturday. Isn’t that nice?”

Billy stared at the rivers of buttery syrup on his plate. They threatened to spill off its edge and flood the wastelands of the scuffed green formica.

“Sure,” he said.

“There will be games, and a BBQ, and cake and ice cream, of course. I hear they even hired entertainment. Goodness, they certainly know how to spend, don’t they?” she said, spraying crumbs from an unflattering mouthful of toast.

“Mmhmm,” Stanley said, surveying the cards in his hand. “They even have an in-ground pool now. Should be fun.”

“Great,” Billy said.

Elizabeth furrowed her brow at her husband’s slip — their son wouldn’t be swimming anytime soon with a cast made of plaster.

“You won’t need to bring a present. Instead, we can spend the afternoon making him a card. That should more than suffice, considering last year’s misunderstanding.”

The boy remembered all too well. 

—- 

Billy had spent most of the previous year trying to join the bigger kids at recess. It was an obsession.

He lined up for tetherball and nearly won a few rounds, despite his size and a tendency to bruise. In 500-up, he almost caught a long fly heading for the back fence, had he only remembered to openhis glove before catching.      

But what the boy really wanted was to run.

Billy wanted a chance to race with the older boys on the school field. On those days, right before the recess bell, Billy ran like a wild thing. His eyes grew wide and his feet possessed, gangly arms flapping in the wind. Sometimes, he didn’t finish dead last. Sometimes, he very nearly won. Running was his chance to prove that could hold his own – that he belonged – whichwould someday make up for every mean word, and every smashed lunch, and every smooshed face in yellowed snow.    

It was on one of those days, after one of the last races of the school year, that Tommy Clayton approached him. He was inviting Billy to his birthday party.

“It’ll be the coolest,” Tommy said. He chomped on a wad of grape gum, nodding to his playground posse. “And it’ll only cost you ten bucks to get in, plus a present.” 

Billy was overjoyed.

That night, while his parents slept, he put his ceramic piggybank under a pillow. He knew his mother would never give him money and help him buy a present, so this was a necessary evil. The boy sat on it, bouncing until it broke open.

That weekend, Billy took his first bus ride into town. He went with Mrs. Thomas — under the guise of helping her carry cat litter — and popped into the dollar store. And there, with six months of allowance in hand, he bought Tommy Clayton a red, white, and blue baseball mitt with a matching plastic ball.

Billy hid it in his backpack, and snuck tape and newspaper up to his room. After three ripped and misshapen failures, he was finally able to wrap up the glove in pages from the Sunday comics.

The following Saturday, his father drove him all the way out to the Claytons' place. They pulled up the long driveway, and Billy felt a rush of excitement as he hopped out to ring the doorbell.

In his hands were the wrapped glove and an envelope. Inside the envelope was a five-dollar bill, along with five more dollars in quarters, dimes, and nickels.  

The door opened, and a thin woman welcomed him with an awkward smile. Billy remembered being dazzled by her huge teeth, the pearls hanging on the tanned skin around her neck, and a plume of stiff yellow hair.

She spoke in sing-song tones, saying something about Tommy and his friends leaving for a camping trip the night before. She patted him on the head, took the glove and the envelope, and smiled as she closed the door.

Billy was quiet. When he got home, he told his parents that he must’ve heard Tommy wrong.

‘It’s no big deal,’ he said.  

His mother insisted on getting to the bottom of things despite his protests. A week later, they were driving back to the Clayton’s house for a ‘play date’. 

 Billy’s parents sat with Tommy’s on their sprawling deck. They spoke of polite and parental things.

Tommy shook Billy’s hand and apologized in front of everyone – apparently, his realbirthday wasn’t until July. He handed Billy a crisp ten-dollar bill, and asked if he wanted to kick the soccer ball around.

“Play nice, boys,” his mother said. “We’ll be watching.”

Tommy placed his arm around Billy’s shoulders and flashed them all a huge grin. Then he led him back to the property’s edge. As they walked, Tommy’s grip began to tighten.

“It’s toast, you know,” Tommy said, tilting his mouth near Billy’s ear. “Me, Trevor, and Michael poured gas on it. Then we made a fuse out of toilet paper and lit the end. You should’a seen it pop in the air when the flame hit. BOOM!”

Tommy kept walking, hand tight on Billy’s shoulder, and moved towards a circle of raised bricks. As they got closer, Billy saw the black streaks on the bricks, and the mound of ash piled in the middle.

It was a fire pit. And, within its ashes, a charred, misshapen glob. Something that used to be red. And white. And blue.  

“That’s what happens to cheap shit,” Tommy said, fingers digging into Billy’s shoulder. “And if you tell mommy and daddy on me? That’s not all that’s gonna burn.”

For the next hour, Billy kicked the ball back and forth with Tommy without saying a word. After that, they joined their parents on the deck for cheeseburgers and potato salad. An hour later, he shook Mr. and Mrs. Clayton’s hands, thanked them for their hospitality, and left.

It was only that night, taking his Sunday bath, that Billy let himself feel it. He sank into the steaming water, beneath shifting mountains of bubbles and froth, and screamed where no one could hear.

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