Fred and Me: How my cat helped me survive divorce
(excerpt)The first time Ann and I made love was in my room at residence. My roommate, Phil, had gone away for the weekend to a Billy Graham crusade. (Later in the weekend Ann would find polaroid pictures in Phil’s desk drawer of someone’s hand jerking off someone’s cock. We couldn’t agree on whether it was a man or a woman’s hand. There was no such argument over the penis.) My room was in the rear of a house near the Detroit River, behind the kitchen. From my window you could sometimes watch the water rats frolicking in the backyard like kittens. I snuck Ann in the back door. We weren’t supposed to have female guests in our rooms. We undressed each other and lay down on my bed. I hadn’t brought condoms. Ann used her hand. When I went off, my cock fired a shot that struck Ann on the forehead. I guess this means war, she laughed. You just fired a shot across my brow.
“Dave,” Fred said in a soft voice. I did not respond.
Fred stepped over to me and rubbed his back against my arm.
“Dave!” Fred cried.
“Yes!” I cried, jerked out of my thoughts. Something sticky ran off my forehead into my eyes.
“Do you think that God laughs?” Fred asked.
“What?” I asked, though I had heard very well what Fred had said. Fred repeated his question and added, “After all, a sense of humor is a sign of higher intelligence.”
“I guess He does.”
“A real belly laugh?”
I poured myself some more scotch. I could feel a buzz running through my veins. I wondered if I was beyond climbing up the hill to the cottage and sleep. I no longer cared.
“You think God is a sadist, don’t you Fred?”
“What other conclusion can one come to, Dave? We’re ready to slap Hitler and his little tin Nazis down, but we forgive God everything. He is the biggest criminal of all time. The Big Fella is probably looking down at you now and breaking up with laughter, while somewhere on this planet, at this very moment, some poor creature is going through hell. How can He know this and still laugh? Or does he have a case of gallows humor?”
I looked over at Fred. It was difficult to keep him in focus especially with the cloud of smoke that was laying siege to his head. I saw my father wandering through the woods. He is whistling. Maybe he doesn’t want to be shot. Who shoots someone who is whistling? Maybe he is afraid he will hear someone else. Someone else. Not Germans. Not the allies. Maybe he is afraid he will meet someone else wandering through the woods, someone else who is lost.
“Once there was a German Prince,” I began.
Fred groaned. “No moral fables, Dave.”
I disregarded Fred’s complaints and continued. “This Prince was miserable, because he felt that God was responsible for all the misery of the world. The buck had to stop somewhere. God was evil; the world was hell. The Prince published his views. They were met with indifference from the academic community, which did not surprise the Prince who felt that they were all on the Big Fella’s payroll. God would not allow the truth to come out.”
“Government cover-up,” Fred added.
I continued. “Though his views did not advance his career, the Prince would not abandon them. No one is greater than the Truth, not even God. Year followed year. The Prince grew older, lost his hair and his posture, became poorer. But still he would not abandon his viewpoint. Then suddenly, in his old age, the Prince’s views became fashionable. He became famous, and rich, and much sought after as a head table speaker at hockey banquets. Beautiful women were attracted to him. Power is a wonderful aphrodisiac and what is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Princesses and Lords showered him with honors and gifts. He appeared on all the talk shows. The Emperor invited the Prince to join his court. Such courage, the Emperor nodded approvingly, to challenge the Almighty. The Emperor was having some problems with the Papal Powers and thus felt a great deal of empathy for the Prince.”
“Didn’t that make the Prince happy?” Fred asked.
“That was the problem, Fred. The Prince was finally receiving the rewards of his labor and against his own wishes he felt happy, perhaps for the first time in his life. But you see, Fred, the Prince couldn’t admit to anyone that he was happy. Misery was the only garment he could wear without contradicting his own beliefs. He had become a prisoner of his own ideas. Do you see what I’m getting at, Fred?”
“The Big Fella split a gut laughing over that one?” Fred smirked.
I dropped my head in despair, defeated by a higher intelligence. I poured myself another scotch. Fred rolled some more catnip.
I was getting drunker, slipping in and out of my thoughts.
Ann appeared before me, a cup of coffee in her hand. I’m afraid of you, David. Afraid of your world. Too many possibilities. The past has not tied you down, has not burdened you with the terrible pain of failures. While others tremble, you can look into the void and leap. You are always rescued. There is always a net beneath you. There is always an angel guiding your flight. The darkness always blooms with color, with experiences, with madness. Your naivete, your innocence does not allow for death. With bogey-men, with monsters, with horrors and wonder, but never with death. Not the edge of the world and the terrible nothingness. Your imagination is a riot of commotion. It does not allow for stillness. I am slipping into the black water. Sinking. Sinking through blackness into the abyss. Darkness. That is what the future is for me, David. Darkness. The darkness no one survives. A darkness no one can bear. Death is a Black Hole in the core of my soul. My life is being sucked out of my heart, into the center of my soul. You avoid the horror, David, by being mad.
Fred and I must have dosed off. One minute I was thinking of Ann and the next I was fighting for my life in the water, my arms and legs punching and grabbing, flaying the water with desperation, trying to hold onto something. All around me I could hear voices screaming. There was an orchestra playing a waltz. I sank. On the river bottom there were fish swimming in schools, looking up at me sink, smiling. My lips reached the surface and sucked in sky. I sank then rose again. Finally I managed to get a grip on the edge of the dock and pull myself out. God, it was cold. Fred cried out. I looked around. Luckily there was a full moon. I spotted Fred a few feet from the dock. Leaning over, I grabbed him by the scuff of the neck and pulled him out.
“I can’t stop shaking,” Fred cried as he sprayed water from his coat all over the dock.
Hurriedly we made our way, stumbling up to the cottage where the embers of the fire, I had made earlier, were still alive. I stoked the fire, threw a towel over Fred, got out of my own clothes, and wrapped myself in a blanket. I fed the fire more wood. It ate it up greedily, snapping and spitting sparks all over the room.
“Bastard!” Fred said, his teeth chattering. “It’s bad enough that He’s a sadist, now we find out He’s a practical joker as well.”
“What are you talking about, Fred?” I shivered.
“We both ended up in the river.”
“So?”
“There was only the two of us down on the dock. So tell me, Dave, who pushed us? Who pushed us?”
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