Adultery & Other Choices Read Online Free PDF Page B

It was the only basement in town, it was always wet, and there was a sump pump they could hear inside the house when it rained.
    It was raining the day Paul found the cat down there, crouched between the car and the wall at the driest side of the basement. It was white with a large brown spot on its left side, and the right forepaw was brown. Paul picked it up and stared into its eyes. When the cat tried to look away Paul held its head. He could feel the cat’s heart above his hand; it was beating as fast as his was. Then he walked with it to the pump, walking barefooted in the cool rainwater that ran down the ramp and across the floor. He squatted over the round hole of the pump. Then he thrust the cat’s head under water. The cat’s legs kicked and reached but Paul’s hands were behind its head. Then he was afraid of what he was doing and he put the cat on the floor. It ran under the car and lay watching him. Paul quickly left the basement, walked up the ramp, into the rain. He looked up into the rain at God.
    The cat was young, little more than a kitten. An older cat would have been smarter; Paul knew that. But this one stayed. Next morning it gripped the screen door with its front paws and watched the family in the kitchen eating fresh figs on cereal. Amy was eighteen and she had hated all five dogs Paul had lost to cars, age, and sudden disappearance; but she loved cats and when she heard it then saw it she left the table and went outside and picked it up. She stood with the early sunlight on her black hair and held the cat and stroked it and talked to it and it stretched against her breasts.
    â€˜I’ll give him some milk,’ she said through the door.
    â€˜Oh no,’ his mother said. ‘Don’t feed strays.’
    Barbara went on eating and reading the paper. She was fifteen and smart and plump and she wanted a boy friend and Paul knew she was seldom happy. Paul’s father was reading the sports section.
    â€˜Come eat before your cereal gets mushy,’ his mother said, and Amy came in.
    The cat was mewing at the screen again. Paul looked at it and knew if he was alone this morning he would do it, he knew he had to and he wanted to but he faintly hoped someone would stay home and he would be saved. But after his father went to work some girls came in a car and took Amy swimming, his mother went shopping, and Barbara rode her bicycle to a friend’s house. In the house alone he felt wicked and he could feel the cat down there in the yard. He went downstairs and into the kitchen. It was on the back porch, a small square of concrete with an iron railing. When the cat heard him it stood on its hind legs and clung to the screen and mewed, and Paul looked at its pink mouth and small pointed teeth.
    â€˜Hello, cat,’ he said softly.
    Then he opened the screen, fast and hard and wide, and slammed the cat against the railing. He stepped out and let the screen shut behind him. The cat was crouched in the corner made by the railing and the brick wall; it watched him; then it looked away and licked its paws. An older cat would have arched its back and prepared to fight or, with a wise and determined face, darted past him. But this one was afraid and uncertain and was now pretending that nothing had happened. When Paul leaned forward and stroked its back it quivered and looked at him. He wished the cat would fight him, would spring at him howling and hissing and clawing. He imagined him and the cat rolling off the concrete steps and onto the ground, fighting. He picked it up and carried it down the back stairs into the basement; all the time he was stroking it. He went to the dark corner where the old clothesline lay on the floor; he picked it up and climbed the stairs again, into the bright sun. He crossed the back yard and went behind the neighbor’s garage, where the sycamore tree was. While he slipped the noose over the cat’s head the cat was very still. Paul’s