Dewey's Nine Lives

This time, it was Scott who finally found the cat. The throwers had been aiming for the cat lady’s house, no doubt, but they must have gotten the wrong address, because the wet and shivering kitten was buried in the snowbank across the street. Barbara remembers vividly the sight of her brother, a crazy smile on his face and a headband around his ears, walking up the driveway with the light from the garage reflecting off the snow and a tiny, shivering, coal-black kitten huddled inside his jacket.

She remembers pulling the kitten out of her brother’s jacket, snuggling him to her cheek, and saying, “He smells like Hamburger Helper.”

Then she smiled. She hadn’t been expecting any presents that Christmas, but suddenly, as if by magic rather than cruelty and indifference, one had appeared.

She named the kitten Smoky. Although the Lambert house was full of cats, some adopted quickly and some around for months, Smoky was different. When Barbara held him that night, Smoky had hugged her and rubbed against her cheek. That’s when she knew he was hers. Forever. Barbara’s mother called him Black Spaghetti because he was like a limp noodle in her presence. Smoky loved his girl so much that he would let her do anything to him. She dressed him in doll clothes; she pushed him around in a stroller; she carried him on his back in her arms like a newborn baby. When she played dress-up, she wore him over her shoulders like a shawl. He was totally relaxed in her hands. The other cats slept on the first floor of the house or, in the warmer months, in the unfinished basement. Smoky curled up with Barbara every night.

She loved the other cats, too. They had been her companions in the lonely afternoons when her friends ignored her, and her mother was at work. But Smoky was her friend and confidante. She didn’t want to burden her mother, who was already burdened enough, so she told Smoky her problems. Many times, they sat together in her room with the door closed. “I’m really sad today,” she confided in him. Or “I’m scared and lonely. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” If her mother yelled at her for spilling water on the floor while washing dishes, Smoky understood it wasn’t her fault, she was only a child, and she was trying her best. When she came back from another soul-crushing visit to her father, whom she increasingly hated, Smoky snuggled against her side and purr, purr, purred. He let her pet him on the head and play with his paws. There was nothing more comforting than pushing on Smoky’s footpads and watching his claws come out and retract, come out and retract. He just stared at her, blinking slowly in that sleepy way cats do, purring deep and strong. He never complained.

He was there when, at ten years old, Barbara’s father broke the news. He had a new girlfriend by then, and they were leading a glamorous life in an upper-class suburb of Detroit: vacations, stylish clothes, wine tastings. One weekend, he took Barbara and Scott to a movie, something their mother couldn’t afford. As they were settling into their seats, he turned to Barbara and said, “I got married.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said.

“Yes, Barbara, I did. Last month.”

Barbara sat in the dark movie theatre, crying. She didn’t know what she expected, or why she was upset. Her father was married to someone else. It was done. It had already happened. She didn’t even know why it bothered her. She had known forever that he wasn’t coming back.

She didn’t talk to Smoky about it. That night, she just held him and cried. He snuggled against her and purred.

It was hard on her mother, too. It was hard to watch her husband living a fancy life; hard to watch him occasionally (very occasionally, according to Barbara) give her children things she couldn’t afford; hard to watch him find happiness with someone else. The economy in the late 1970s was bad across the nation; in Flint, Michigan, it was abominable. Jobs were disappearing, abandoned houses were burning, and the unemployment rate was spiking above 20 percent. Whole neighborhoods collapsed as General Motors closed assembly lines, and the workers were often on strike. One day, when the family took a rare trip to the Courtland Mall, someone stole the spare tire off their car. That’s how desperate the situation was in Flint. Against this backdrop of despair, Barbara’s mother struggled through community college, while working full-time and raising three children, to earn an associate’s degree in nutrition. She wanted to be in charge of a kitchen instead of just a cook, but her dreams of getting ahead were thwarted by frequent layoffs, increased competition for even the worst jobs, and the closing of one nursing home after another.