psychic cat a-go-go

i revised She Can Read Your Aura, Too. i'm still not sure how I feel about it, but this is how finished it's going to be for at least tonight.


In Santa Monica

I called Mom from the payphone outside of Haley’s BBQ Pit. I was about half way there, and I still hadn’t told her I had left the house. That somewhere out there a cat was waiting for me. That I had been wishing for the last five years to be in California.

My fingers shook as I dialed the phone. It was always strange when I couldn’t remember my own phone number, but I never had to call home, since I was always there. The answering machine picked up.

“Hi, Mom. It’s Anna. I’m in California searching for the cat. Did you get my note on the fridge?” I hung up because there was nothing left to say.


It was 9pm Friday night by the time I finally got there and pulled into Danielle’s driveway. She’s the one that told me about the cat. That I just had to see it. I had never met her, but there was no reason to be scared of first times. I had been writing letters to her since I was ten years old. Twelve whole years. Some elementary school pen pal system, Meet-A-Friend, and she ended up being more of a friend than my friends there in Texas.

The street was quiet except for the low thud of music coming from her house. I didn’t tell her I was leaving, but Danielle knew that something was up. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was holding this party for me. Both sides of the street were lined with cars. Funny, how her driveway was open just for me. When I knocked on the door she opened and yelled in my face, just how I was expecting. I had grown used to her wild rants and the fast life she was leading her in Los Angeles.

“Anna! Anna! Here have these,” she said, pushing a bag of blue pills into my hand. Then she hugged me. “Trust me.” She winked and then told me to mingle. Instead, I took a handful of the pills with water from the bathroom sink, and find the first empty bed.


When I woke up, my head felt heavy, like I had been sleeping for days. I was still in my clothes, I hadn’t even bothered taking my shoes off.

“It’s about time, sleepyhead,” Danielle said, from the doorway. “You missed your own party.” There was still glitter smeared on her face from last night, and there were mascara smudges left under her eyes. “I guess you want to go see the cat.”

I nodded. I’m not sure what I thought the cat would tell me, if anything, but I figured working at the library wasn’t working out for me anymore. One day, you’d see a young child and then the next day, they’d come in wrinkled and weary. The library was just one big cycle and I didn’t want to see myself getting old with everyone else in a small town, where I still lived at home. I really needed to get away. Twenty-two years being stuck in one place was just too long.


In the car, she knew I didn’t feel like talking so we listened to the radio to block out the silence. She kept looking over and smiling, urging me on that I had done the right thing. I felt so at home with her. I kept tracing the outlines of everything around me in the car. The stripes on my skirt, the knob of the radio and the silver handle of the door. I kept flipping open the vanity mirror and touching my cheeks. I was really here.

“Anna, you are really here. Stop distracting me,” she said, breaking the lyrics of the song on the radio she was singing. I laughed.

“I know but still.”

At the next red light, she just looked at me. “It will be okay.”


It was just how I thought it would be. Harry stood on the corner and the cat was dressed in a doll’s polka dot dress sitting on an upturned milk crate. He was spoon feeding her Frisky’s from a plastic spork. The sign on the crate read: “Welcome to Harry’s Fabulous Psychic Cat. She Sees the Future for $10.” Danielle nudged me closer and pointed to the rope where the cat was tied to the crate.

“There she is.” She looked at me, eyes big and bloodshot from last night’s party. “You have to save her.”

This was my second wish. I was in California and I was saving the psychic cat. It happened so fast that I don’t remember it happening at all. Danielle punched Harry in the ear by mistake, not hard enough to knock him out, but hard enough to where he stumbled back and I picked up the cat and ran to the car. Danielle spat in Harry’s general direction before she ran after me. Now, that I had the cat there was nothing else I could think of that could make this any better. I stared at Danielle.

“What next? We’ve got the cat.” I looked at her while holding the cat tightly in my arms. She purred and this seemed to be just how I would have pictured it in my dreams.

“I don’t know. Ask the cat. She’s the psychic.” She laughed, but her laugh is loud and for a few minutes I can’t hear the music on the radio.

I figured I had nothing to lose. I looked right into the cat’s green eyes and asked the question. “What next?” She stopped purring and her eyes glazed over like she was thinking really hard. I got scared that maybe I did something wrong, but just then she meowed. It sounded like something. A name, maybe.

“Welch?” I asked. Pyschic cat purred loudly. “So, Danielle. We are supposed to find Welch. Whatever that is.” Danielle laughed again and I couldn’t help but laugh, too.


That night Danielle and I dressed in glitter, stilettos, low slung jeans and tight shirts. She said that I needed a night out. I still hadn’t called my Mom back, and Danielle knew I was worrying about home. Psychic cat purred as she watched us. We were ready to be seen. Danielle liked making a scene wherever she went, and everyone knew her, so they played along. This Welch was still on the back of my mind. Maybe it was just a hairball in the back of her throat. This was nothing. I wished I could find it.


There was no place where we were turned down. Danielle got us behind any door or beyond the silk red ropes like they were merely pieces of cotton candy floss. We bar hopped the whole night, getting rides with strangers and with acquaintances. Some of the names of the people were familiar from Danielle’s letters. Others weren’t. Danielle kept nudging me and winking at me. I kept placing loose hairs behind my ear and smiling bigger than I could ever remember, hiding my hands behind my back. The boys were too intimidated to say no or to make a first move. We weren’t there for them, and they knew it. Danielle would line boys up at the bar and they would buy her drinks, no questions asked. I sat next to her and would write poetry on cocktail napkins, keeping one eye open for Welch. I’m sure it would come, pointed out to me with a flash of bright light. Lit up like the Hollywood sign in postcards.

Danielle kept making out with different boys – ones with dark hair, ones with blonde hair, ones whose hands would go immediately to her big breasts, some would kiss her slow and others would leave their mark on her neck like they owned her. I kept one eye on her and another scanning the room. I tapped a pen on the bar, nervously, looking for it. Welch. I couldn’t focus on my writing. I looked down on my napkin, and all I had scribbled was one haiku:

It will come to you
Patience is a virtue, wait
It will all make sense

Then I feel Danielle’s arm on my shoulder, she’s whispering in my ear. “Over there, Anna. Over there. He’s your type.” Danielle pointed to a boy with blonde hair standing by the wall. There were several boys surrounding him, and I figured he would not be interested in me. “Just go say hello. Just go.” She pushed me off the stool and I could feel her eyes burning holes in my back.

He looked bored and the guy next to him was asking him question after question. He rolled his eyes, hands in his pockets. He looked how I felt – misplaced. He caught me staring at him, quickly turning his head and staring back at the floor again. Another man approached him with a cup of beer, which he took, without a smile or thank you.

“What no manners?” I asked, approaching him.

“Not for him, the asshole. I just let them buy me drinks. I don’t even know why I’m here.” He took a sip from his beer.

“Then come with us if you want, we’re leaving soon.” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth.

I could see that he was interested as he seemed to really look at me then. “Okay,” he said, following me back to Danielle.


“So, people call me Welch,” he said to us in the booth at Denny’s. I was sobering Danielle up with any amount of food I could get past her lips. She was sucking down coffee like it was her blood.

“The psychic cat, man. The psychic cat was right.” Danielle shouted, waving her arms around. “We have found Welch.”

I elbowed Danielle and smiled back at him. I noticed his blue eyes for the first time then. How they smiled when he looked at me. His hands were gripping a white mug, and I followed his fingers with my eyes all the way up to his arms finally reaching his shoulders. I avoided his face, embarrassed that I was staring. I couldn’t help but smile.

“You mean, Harry’s Fabulous Psychic Cat?” He asked, before taking a sip from his tea. “I used to dream about rescuing her and taking her home with me.”

“I wish could remember my dreams, but they always fade right before I wake up. I think it’s worse knowing that something was there, then knowing nothing was there at all,” I said, tracing my finger around the rim of my mug, stopping to pull out the tea bag.

“That’s too bad. Actually, there was always one part I could never remember about that dream. I’d wake up too fast and lose it. It was something familiar, like when you’re thinking of the name of a character in a movie and you know you know it, but it’s just out of reach.” he said, stirring a spoon in his cup.

“Yeah. You know this seems so familiar to me, like I’ve been here before.” I tugged on the bottom of my shirt, avoiding his eyes again. His hand moved across the table, and he placed a piece of my hair behind my ear.

Then we just sat there silently taking it all in. I looked at my watch, it was nearly six in the morning. Danielle and I had been out for hours. Her head rested on my shoulder.
Then not able to keep quiet any longer, Danielle interrupted. “We rescued the psychic cat. She told us to find you. She told us to find Welch.”

Welch nodded. “I know. This is what I could never remember.”
 
¶ 12:30 AM |