I ran over an orange cat while driving to work today. I did not stop. Animals had always avoided me while on the road, and thirty minutes before while showering, I had not anticipated this break in the rigid routine of my life. Nor did I imagine an incident like this would cause me to feel so much guilt. I simultaneously felt a bump and heard an awful scream that rang in my ears for the rest of the day. When I arrived in downtown Chicago, I pulled into the parking garage near the Hancock building, and guided my Explorer to its daily home, spot # 257. I quickly stepped out to survey the damage, kicked the tires with my black wingtips and found tufts of hair in the silver hubcap and spatterings of red blood underneath the white fender.

"Jesus Christ," I said under my breath, disgusted with entire incident, knowing I now had to go to a car wash this evening before going to my son Jeff’s first basketball game in the fifth grade, and recognizing that something that had roamed wild and free hours ago was now left dead, courtesy of my Goodyear tire. I certainly did not plan on sharing the story with either of my children, especially my 4-year old daughter Maggie.

"Daddy, did the cat go to heaven?," I pictured her saying. I did not want to answer that question either. Fuck, I didn’t know where it went. Most of it seemed enjambed in my tire and, frankly, if God offers nothing better than a Goodyear, I want no part of his afterlife. But all day, these thoughts about afterlife made my mind constantly drift away from the stack of papers lying on my desk to the desk where I sat at Saint Rita’s in the third grade. Sister Monica taught us every subject and I remembered her religion class when she told us about heaven, and hell. We had a shiny blue paperback textbook called "This is our Faith" but Sister Monica apparently had a different faith or had moral objections to using religion textbooks because we never opened it. We never questioned her authority either. I mean, she was a nun, in full costume, even wearing a habit. We saw only the square of her wrinkled face and always tried to guess the color of her hair.

"Sister Monica," I remember Jason Parker asking, "will my dog go to heaven with me?"

Everyone laughed, but Jason always elicited laughs. His white dress code shirt always untucked itself during the day. He had wet his pants while sitting in his chair during math in the first grade, and none of us ever forgot. No one ever took him seriously. This time, even though everyone laughed, they listened because each of them secretly wanted to know if their dogs would be there.

"Jason," she said with condescension and smugness, "in the future, ask serious questions. Now class, be quiet."

If I ever saw a teacher dismiss any of my kids like that I might become violent even though I am not a man prone to doing so. God, now that I think about it, she bitched all the time about anything she could. She deserved a spot on a Goodyear tire for her eternal salvation, if even that. I know my Mom and Dad had no idea that I spent my day in a classroom run similar to third world military regime. Then I felt even more guilty because I had never met Ms. Wrumple, Jeff’s homeroom teacher. What the hell was she doing to my son right now?

That Goddamn cat, I thought while trying to reorganize my thoughts on work. But before I could organize myself, Joan, my boss’ secretary walked into my office. She wore a blue and green floral print dress that other meaner persons might call a muu-muu. Tufts of uncombed hair protruded from her head like antlers on a deer. She began, of course, with the regular daily schmooze of ‘how are you,’ ‘this weather is wonderful’ and the ever-popular ‘what are you doing this week-end?’ Had I not hit the cat this morning, I first would have agreed with her statements about the weather (does anyone ever disagree?) and then told her about Jeff’s first basketball game tonight.

"You’ll never believe what happened," I quipped, "I hit a cat on my way to work this morning."

I was almost proud now that I had something worthwhile to share that she could take to the next office and say "Jack hit a cat on his way to work.."

"Oh," she said forming the most pained look possible, "that’s awful."

She then began to explain the time her father hit a deer when, at the age of seven, she sat in the very back seat of their station wagon facing the back of the car. Apparently, on the way to her grandparent’s house in Grand Rapids, MI . . . At this point I began tuning her out because I simply did not care. Joan lives in a world that the rest of us enter at our own risk. I had ventured past the safety topics and as a punishment, received a diatribe about her childhood.

"Oh God," I said, now feigning interest, "that probably ruined the trip."

She assured me that it did, and before dropping another stack of papers on my desk, told me to have a productive day and ‘to give her a holler if I needed help.’ We all played this game with Joan because we knew that asking a favor of her meant eternal indebtedness. My boss, who I otherwise admire, never had the courage to fire Joan, although he too hated working with her. Recently, I had seen him staying after hours creating mundane filing systems for his own desk drawers. I did not say anything because it obviously embarrassed him as he quickly put the folders into his drawer when I walked into his office. I imagine commanding respect from his peons is a little difficult when he is afraid to fire a second-rate secretary too lazy for anything but a position at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Information Desk at the library, or any other of a plethora of positions whose main task it seems is to delay those waiting in line as long as they possibly can. I imagine these people have awards ceremonies too, giving achievement awards for those service people who adeptly create the longest lines. The lifetime achievement award is given to everyone who actually has someone die while waiting in their line. I know Joan could excel in that type of environment.

I sighed thinking about all of this before pulling a piece of Wrigley’s Big Red gum from my top left desk drawer. The top drawer had finally started to smell like something other than cigarette smoke. Doug Majeske, who retired last year had sat at this desk for thirty years. Made of real oak, it dated back to an era when all secretaries were women, all offices had typewriters, and the word mimeograph had not been replaced by Xerox. The wood, it seems, became saturated through the years with the smell of cigarettes. Often mistaken for a smoker, my pants always smelled filthy like a bar. Doug maintained a three pack-a-day habit while at the office up to his last day, despite the 20 or so corporate, city and state ordinances which forbid him from doing so. I wanted the desk because I am a sentimentalist and sometimes I felt the polished oak under my fingers, like the new baseball bat I got for my birthday in the fifth grade. The desk felt dignified, and except for the few burnt spots on the surface from dropped smoldering cigarettes of yesteryear, it looked gorgeous. I took special care to strategically place pictures, papers and my clock to cover the burnt marks.

The Big Red had begun helping the smell, at least in that drawer. The only reason I began chewing Big Red was because my wife Susan hates the taste of Big Red when we kissed. Because she always insisted upon having the last word in our fights, I kept a huge supply of Big Red readily available. If especially mad with her, I chewed three or four pieces, and when finished, threw it away in a highly visible place. I preferred the little blue trashcan in our bathroom that sat adjacent to the toilet. In such a case, I spit out the wad of gum into a white kleenex with as much saliva as possible, and without folding it, placed it gently on top of the other trash. Hah -- the last word belongs to me. I remain embarrassed by my need to regress to these actions in order to save my wounded pride. We never truly grow up, rather we simply hide our immaturities better as we age. In the process of chewing all of this Big Red, I became addicted and found myself on a three pack-a-day habit while at work. Now I usually chewed a pack of Juicy Fruit while driving home to mask the Big Red. I do love my wife, and I anxiously waited for her to call so that I could tell her about the cat. She worked at the Evanston Public library, less than a mile from our home. We live two blocks west from Northwestern University on Noyes Street and occasionally find beer cans strewn about our lawn. Last May, Maggie lumbered around the lawn while I planted geraniums near the birdbath in our front lawn, under the walnut tree. When she came to me holding a green-tinted bottle of Rolling Rock, I did not know whether to scold her or to laugh. When she tried to give it to me, I did not drink for a month because I feared she associated me with a bottle of beer.

The occasional bottles provided the hint of dysfunctionality that I knew Jeff and Maggie required in order to have normal childhoods. I also rationalized that I worked all the time because spending too much time with them created an abnormal childhood. How could they possibly empathize with their college friends complaining about fathers who never saw them if the same thing had not happened to them? Besides, my Dad always worked and I grew up normal. That dated back to an era when society did not admonish fathers for working, but instead accepted this neglect as part of the fatherhood role. I suspect Dad felt a little guilty sometimes because one September afternoon when I was in the fifth grade, we returned home from St. Rita’s to find him sitting on the mustard yellow vinyl couch in he family room holding a Beagle puppy in his lap.

"Oh Dad," we all cried in unison, incredibly excited. In the fifth grade, it becomes hard to act excited about things that happen in your own family. On that day though, even I got excited. We named him Droopy and thought of ourselves as the most clever and original family in the nation. During the first weeks we loved the dog so much that we happily fed and cleaned up after him, until he became a commonplace member of the household. When this happened, Mom assigned the chore to me and every day I had to feed and care for the dog. He hated me and loved my younger siblings, and I never forgave him for this. When Susie and I married, I refused to buy a dog because I still believe they are a hassle, although I promised if any of our children wanted one, I would concede and end my vendetta against canines. Every Christmas I hold my breath hoping that Jeff does not ask for a dog. I remember my daily grief taking care of Droopy and I remembered how hard I cried when I found out that I had left the gate unlatched before leaving for St. Rita’s one Tuesday morning. We diligently made signs with yellow construction paper and posted them throughout the neighborhood. Every afternoon, immediately after returning from school we asked Mom if Droopy had come home. After three weeks, we gave up hope. I guess he was hit by a car.

Goddamn … that cat belonged to someone. They probably named it Tiger. They probably gave it to their daughter as a birthday present. She probably left the door open for thirty seconds. Right now she is in class. After school, she will come home looking for Tiger and won’t be able to find him. Oh … she will cry so hard.

The ring of the phone pierced my trance.

"Jack DeChaney speaking," I answered.

"Hi Hon," Susie said.

"Ohhh … how are you," I asked, in a tone that hinted the trauma of my day.

"What’s wrong?"

She had picked up on the tone. If I wanted to tease her a little more, I would respond that ‘nothing was wrong,’ in a tone asking her to beg the answer out of me. Sometimes, however, she obstinately refused to play along and would start talking about her day, thus far.

"The worst thing happened on the way to work this morning."

I had decided not to risk it this morning. When I left only three hours ago, she did not seem in the mood to play games. I had overstated the trauma. I would get less sympathy now.

"What?"

Yep. There was alarm in her voice. She feared the worst … something like a car accident.

"I ran over a cat today on Sheridan."

"Oh," she said with relief. "I’m sorry."

"It ran in front of me. I couldn’t do anything about it. The screech is haunting me."

"I remember when my cousins Mallory and Denise had their dog hit. The three of us watched from the swings in the yard. Ooohuuh … I still remember that screeching yelp as the car flew past. Mallory and Denise cried all afternoon. You just can’t forget that sound."

From the one source I expected true sympathy, I got only another story. Everyone, it seemed, knew someone who had a dog or a cat hit.

Then I sat through an exasperatingly long story about a first grade field trip that had gone through the Evanston library that morning.

"Well … maybe I will look for a book about people who hit cats," she snickered.

I breathed a long sigh of disapproval.

"Oh, Jack, you’re not the only one who’s ever hit a cat. You’ll be fine."

She was right. She usually was right. I swat flies all the time because they’re a nuisance. The cat had caused everyone to swerve on Sheridan. It did not belong there. Cats don’t belong in the street.

"All right," I said before hanging up, "I’ll see you at the basketball game."

If the cat belonged to someone, it remained their fault for letting the cat loose. They now had to live with their mistakes. If a stray cat, then I did society a favor. Right? I lived with my mistakes. Years after wrecking their new ’78 Caprice Classic during my junior year of high school, my parents still did not let me drive their vehicles. I had a three year dry spell before they gave me the keys, and my mom did so saying: "Now don’t wreck it this time." God. Jeff would be driving before I knew it. Will he get my car or Susie’s? Will we buy him a new car? Only the rich kids in my high school got new cars. I didn’t know my kid would be one of those people. What kind of car would Jeff want to drive? Jesus Christ, insurance for a 16-year old on a new car cost more in a 6-month period than the Pinto used to own. What will Mom and Dad think if Jeff gets a new car? Dad will make some comment about how I obviously have money to throw around.

"Ah, you’re makin’ bigger bucks than your ol’ dad," I could hear him saying.

"You know it Dad. We have so much we just throw it away."

My Dad counted each penny like a beggar. When I drive with him, I purposely stop at the more expensive gas station on the corner. Even a penny difference will drive him insane as he sits in the passenger sit trying not to say anything. When I get back into the car, I open a new topic of conversation. Twenty minutes later he remarks:

"Ya know, that Shell across the street there was two cents cheaper than the Amoco we stopped at."

Aw Christ. Completion of work under these conditions is impossible. I stood up, put all files for the Marriott case in their folder, tightened my tie, grabbed my coat and began walking out of my office.

"Joan," I said, passing by her desk, "I’m taking an early lunch."

She watched me leave like she had never seen me before. Sister Monica would not approve of my disdain for Joan. There remained no doubt in my mind that Sister Monica thought I had a one way ticket to hell before I ever ran over a cat. I got a C+ in religion that year. She sentenced Jason Parker to spend another year with her, and when we left the third grade, we left him behind. Mom told me that he now attended Catholic seminary with aspirations of becoming a priest. No doubt Sister Monica would love him now. We always wondered about the relationships between priests and nuns. There must be some hanky-panky there.

The elevator doors opened and I took it to street level. After stopping at White Hen pantry a few blocks away, I sat in the small park across from the original Water Tower and the behemoth shopping center that now bears the same name. I hated myself for buying Cheetos, as I now had nowhere to wipe my hands except for on the crumpled and used pink kleenex in my right suitcoat pocket. I don’t remember where I got the pink kleenex, Susie always bought white with aloe. I would be happy with toilet paper.

Of all things, surely Sister Monica would think that I was a good father. She would know that I loved my kids, even if I ran over cats without stopping. She would know that I loved Susie, even if we seemingly argued constantly. Right? Even if she did not, what made her the authority on these issues? Her nunly holiness did not signify infallibility. People holier than her had seen the good in me. Susie sees it. Does Jeff see it? Does Jeff think about me when at school? How does he describe me to his friends? I don’t even know what fifth graders talk about anymore. Would this basketball thing pan out for him?

Maybe he will earn a full ride playing for Duke. No. He should go somewhere Susie and I can use as an excuse for a vacation. Perhaps UCLA, or Berkley. If he lived in California though, he would not come home often. I mean, not that I want him home all the time. Well, would he want to come home? What if he stayed in California, even for Christmas? I wonder if Jim Sidor still lives in California. Jim never responded to any of the letters I wrote him. College friends drift so far away. Jeff already had good friends. I liked his friends right now. Except for Eddie Tyler. He never said ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’

Dirt particles rested on my shoes. I had been mindlessly kicking tufts of grass near the bench. I swizzled the rest of my Coke and tossed the plastic bottle in a trash can and pulled out a dollar for the street musician that had been playing his guitar while I sat on the bench. Street musicians lived a good life. They play when they want to play. I wonder where they live. I love street musicians.

Crossing Michigan Avenue, I made my way back to the Hancock building passing through the throngs of tourists walking through the lobby to get the observation deck. So many people visited Chicago. I stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button for the 17^th floor. Jeff and Maggie hardly know me. Jeff spends so many weekends at other friend’s houses, and sometimes I spend them at work. Maggie thought I was an alcoholic and I never planted a garden with them last year. I needed to be a better father.

"Joan," I said, stepping off of the elevator. "when you get the chance, do you think you can get me the number for the Humane Society? I might be leaving early today."

Brain Candy E-Zine has no rights to this story.  The rights belong to the author.

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