Dewey's Nine Lives

Glenn shrugged. “That’s Rusty,” he said.

He was a loyal companion. Whenever Glenn talked—about his problems and triumphs, his gripes and rewards, the funny jokes he’d heard that day—Rusty listened. And responded. Rusty could talk through a whole meal and the dishes, too, if he was in the mood. Meow-meow-meow-meow-meow. When Glenn was down, Rusty knew it. He jumped on his lap and stared at him the way he had that first day in the Studebaker Commander: with his head cocked and those deep, intelligent eyes. Then he pushed his scent whiskers into Glenn’s beard. That’s a cat question. You okay, buddy? Glenn would respond by rubbing his beard against Rusty’s face, telling him he was fine.

Rusty also helped Glenn with his daughter Jenny. Glenn had never been able to stay close to his other children; Jenny was his last chance to be the father he always wanted. On court order, she spent every other weekend with him, and he gave her everything he could. Jenny adored her father, Glenn knew, but he worried about her drifting away like his other children had. Not with Rusty around, though. Jenny loved Rusty. Every time Glenn picked her up from her mother’s house, she asked about him. When they saw each other, they started running. Jenny would hold out her arms, and Rusty would leap into them like a puppy.

Rusty was always, um, big-boned. At five, Glenn figured, the cat weighed twenty-five pounds easy, although Rusty refused to sit on a scale. Glenn thought it was all muscle, since Rusty was a forager and inveterate climber of trees, but even he had to admit that Rusty looked like a fat Buddha when he sat on his hind legs. Eight-year-old Jenny thought Rusty was flabby, and she took it upon herself to thin him down. She held his arms out in front of him, pushing them back and forth as if he were doing the cha-cha. Then she put him on his back, grabbed his legs, and pedaled them in circles as if he were riding a bicycle. She called them Rusty’s Butterball Exercises.

“Time for your Butterball Exercises,” she called to Rusty every Saturday morning after pancakes and syrup. He’d sort of sigh, hang his head, and trudge over, because no matter what Jenny wanted, Rusty obliged. And even after all those exercises, he curled up beside Jenny every night. He loved her; it was that simple. Loved her in a way Glenn understood, because he loved her that way, too. They were both disappointed every time her mother picked her up on Sunday night.

The years passed, with days at his mechanic jobs and evenings at his mother’s house for dinner or chores. Nights he spent with Rusty or at divorced-dads meetings, where he felt more like a counselor than a survivor. He still worked on his Studebaker Commander, slowly but steadily. Fixed the steering, aligned the gear box, painted red flames on the side. He didn’t have a final plan or destination. The Commander was a lifelong project, and he looked forward to always tinkering, always working, making it better. If a band he liked was playing, he drove down on Wednesday night to the Eagles dance hall. He had a lot of friends in the music scene, and often they’d call him up on stage to play a song or two. But he never danced. Women asked, but he shrugged them off. He didn’t want to be rude; he just didn’t have the energy. He was there for the music.

When an old friend, Norman Schwartz, decided to start a dance hall in the small town of Waterbury, Nebraska—“We’re going back to the fun days,” Norm told him. “Nothing but old rock and roll and live bands”—Glenn figured he’d volunteer as muscle, helping Norm clear debris and install the wooden floor he’d bought out of the old gym at St. Michael’s Church just before they tore it down.

“I thought you were allergic to manual labor,” Norm said, clearly joking.

“I am,” Glenn assured him, “but I’ll suffer for a friend.” They cracked a beer or three and drank to old times. He was pushing sixty, and the only women he’d ever have in his life now, Glenn figured, were his mother and daughter. His best friend, other than Norm, was a cat. A man could do worse. Much worse. So Glenn decided to retire. He figured he would head home to his Studebaker Commander, his support groups, and his nightly guitar. He’d fish when he wanted, help Norm at his dance hall, hang out with Rusty and his mom. But on his last day at work at the auto repair shop, a regular customer walked in and told him point-blank: “You’re not retiring. You’re coming to work for me.”

The woman ran a job program for special-needs adults called New Perspectives. Glenn told her, “I appreciate the offer, but I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about that line of work.”

“You’ll like it,” she said. “Just come for a look.”