Tails of Wonder and Imagination

CATCH Ray Vukcevich

Your face, I say, is a wild animal this morning, Lucy, and I’m glad it’s caged. Her scowl is so deep I can’t imagine she’s ever been without it. Her yellow hair is a frumpy halo around her wire mask. My remark doesn’t amuse her.

I know what I did. I just don’t know why it pissed her off, and if I don’t know, insensitive bastard that I am, she certainly isn’t going to tell me.

She lifts the cat over her head and hurls it at me. Hurls it hard. I catch it and underhand it back to her. The cat is gray on top and snowy white below and mostly limp, its eyes rolled back in its head and its coated tongue hanging loose out of one side of its mouth. I know from experience that it will die soon, and its alarm collar will go off, and one of us will toss it into the ditch that runs between us. A fresh angry bundle of teeth and claws will drop from the hatch in the ceiling, and we’ll toss the new cat back and forth between us until our staggered breaks and someone takes our places. The idea is to keep the animals in motion twenty-four hours a day.

In this profession, we wear canvas shirts and gloves and wire cages over our faces. I sometimes dream we’ve lost our jobs, Lucy and me. What a nightmare. What else do we know?

My replacement comes in behind me. He takes up the straw broom and dips it into the water in the ditch that runs through the toss-box and sweeps at the smeared feces and urine staining the floor and walls. A moment later, the buzzer sounds, and he puts the broom back in the corner. I step aside, and Lucy tosses the cat to him. I slip out of the box and into the catacomb for my fifteen-minute break before moving on to the next box.

Lucy and I work an hour on and fifteen minutes off all day long. As we move from toss-box to toss-box, our paths cross and recross. I’ll be out of phase with her for half an hour, probably just long enough for her to work up a real rage.

The catacomb is a labyrinth of wide tunnels dotted with concrete boxes. There is a metal chute running from the roof to the top of each box. The boxes are evenly spaced, and there is a light bulb for every box, but not all the bulbs are alive so there are gaps in the harsh light. The boxes are small rooms, and there is a wooden door on each side so catchers can be replaced without interrupting the tossing. The concrete walls of the tunnels, like the concrete walls of the boxes, are streaked black and white and beaded with moisture. The floors are roughened concrete. Everything smells like wet rocks and dead things.

So what did I do?

While Lucy dressed for work this morning, I played with our infant daughter, Megan, tossing her into the air and catching her again, blowing bubbles into her stomach while she pulled my hair and giggled until she got the hiccups.

When Lucy came in, I tossed the baby in a high arc across the room to her. Megan tumbled in a perfect backward somersault in the air. Lucy went dead white. She snatched Megan out of the air and hugged the child to her chest.

“Nice catch,” I said.

“Don’t you ever,” Lucy said, her voice all husky and dangerous, “ever do that again, Desmond! Not ever.”

Then she stomped out, taking Megan with her.

What the hell? I’d known there was no chance whatever that Lucy would miss. She’s a professional. My trusting her to catch the love of my life, the apple of my eye, Daddy’s little girl, was, I thought, a pretty big compliment. Lucy didn’t buy it. In fact, she didn’t even let me explain at all, said instead, oh shut up, Desmond, just shut up, and off we went to work, silent, stewing, our hurt feelings like a sack of broken toys between us.

Now she’s not speaking to me. It’s going to be a long day.

The buzzer sounds, and I move into the next box. I do my duty with the broom, and when the buzzer sounds again I replace the catcher. The cat here is a howling orange monster, and I have my hands full. When the animal is this fresh, the tossing technique looks a lot like volleyball. You don’t want to be too close to the thing for very long.

By the time Lucy takes her place across from me, I’ve established a rhythm and am even able to put a little spin on the cat now and then. I have to hand it to Lucy. She catches up quickly, and soon we have the animal sailing smoothly between us.

The animals go through stages as we toss and catch them. First defiance, then resistance, followed by resignation, then despair, and finally death. This one is probably somewhere in the resistance stage, not fighting wildly, but watching for an opening to do some damage. I put one hand on the cat’s chest and the other under its bottom and send it across to Lucy in a sitting position. Not to be outdone she sends it back still sitting but upside down now. Maybe the silly positions have done the trick. Whatever. I can feel the animal slip into the resignation stage.

I toss the cat tumbling head over heels, a weak howl and a loose string of saliva trailing behind it. Is Lucy ever going to talk to me again?

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I say, giving in to the idea that I might never know exactly why I should be sorry.

I see tears come to her eyes, and she falters, nearly drops the cat. I want to go to her. I want to comfort her, but it will be some time before we’re both on a break at the same time, and I see suddenly that it will be too late by then. It simply won’t matter anymore.

My replacement comes in and sweeps up. Then the buzzer sounds. I step aside.

Lucy isn’t crying anymore.

I reach for the door.