The Marmalade Cat

Posted On December 2, 2019

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When I was a young boy growing up, we moved quite a lot. By my count, 9 times in 9 years. Sometimes we moved two times in one year. I’d been through 5 different schools by the time I was ten. The Mayflower Moving Guy had become my best friend. Him, and our cats.

So when I later grew up, & Robin and I married, the first thing we did in our South Massey Street apartment was purchase two kittens.

We kept them in the house mostly, but our place had a big yard. So when we were home in the evenings, we let them run. That proved a mistake- they got fleas, and learned to scoot through a hole and hide under the porch.

I crawled under to get them,no avail. So we put food out to coax them, which we did. Along with the friend they had found- a stray marmalade male.

He quickly adopted Robin & I. We named him “Tom”.

When I first got out of the Army, shortly after Robin & I married, I did some writing. This story is an amalgamation of all that. One of my first pieces.

In Memory of Moving in Mayflower Vans

And of Tom

Our High Stepping Yellow Eyed Marmalade Cat

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     Carlisle Mulrooney was three years old.  He sat by the living room window with his chin on the sill, sniffling the musty old window pane glass while he stared at the tree in his strange new yard.  There weren’t any curtains in the window just yet.  Raindrops splattered against the glass, and dripped from the roof with a rhythmic plop.

     Carlisle got up from the window and moped towards his room, past brown cardboard boxes marked with black magic marker, stacked not too neatly all over the house.

     Carlisle’s new bedroom was on the top floor at the end of the hall.  He jumped up the stairs one by one, swinging his arms and stomping his feet.  He’d asked his mom where the elevator was.  Their apartment in the city had been on the third floor.  He’d push the buttons ‘til they all lit up, riding the elevator right to the top.  His mother had laughed and given him a hug, explaining that he was a big boy now, and big boys climbed stairs to get to their room.

     The upstairs hallway was yellow and empty.  Carlisle tested the echo with lungs full of air “til his mother’s face appeared through the door and she asked him to hush and play in his room.  His sneakers squeaked on the shiny wood floor when he scuffed his feet, so he scuffed his way down to the end of the hall.

     His bedroom was crowded with boxes and things.  He’d searched the boxes already for toys, but found mostly clothes and books and shoes.  The room was purple like grape lollipops.  Carlisle jumped on his bed and rolled back and forth ‘til he felt slightly dizzy and had to sit up.

     He got up and inspected the edge of the room, studying the space between the floor and the wall.  He found dustballs, and dirt and a dried ladybug.  In the corner, a penny was caught in the crack, and back by the closet was a cap to a pen.

     Carlisle put the penny in his pocket and the pen cap in his mouth, sucking out the air ‘til the cap stuck on his tongue.  When his mother checked again, he stuck out his tongue and she spanked his behind.  The pen cap disappeared.  He showed his mother the penny he’d found, and she promised that if he was good they could go buy some gum.

     Carlisle’s mother went back downstairs to work in the kitchen, scouring cupboards and mopping the floor.  By noon she had put all the dishes away.  It was cool outside and continued to rain.

     Carlisle came back down the stairs for lunch, completely bored, and feeling blue.  He sat on a box and ate peanut butter sandwiches, shaped into triangles with the crust cut off.  He’d wanted fruit punch, but had to drink water because his mother couldn’t remember which box the sugar was in.  His mother looked tired and a little bit grumpy, so Carlisle drank water without too much fuss.  He finished his sandwich and went back upstairs.

     His bedroom window looked out over the lawn.  He could sit on his bed with his feet hanging down and see past the fence to the neighbor’s back yard.  He missed his friend from downstairs in the city, and wished he were there.

     It was raining too hard to go outside.  On days like this, he and his friend used to play games, while their mothers drank coffee and did mother things.

     Carlisle stood up and pressed his nose to the glass, looking straight down all the way to the ground.  The rain had made puddles as big as a lake.  Carlisle couldn’t wait for the sun to come out so he could find a big stick to make into a boat, or maybe he’d fish for a polka-dot shark.

     He fell asleep dreaming of fishing and boats, and polka dot sharks that ate hot dogs with relish for lunch. 

     The rain outside still sprinkled a bit.  The clouds wrung out with a splash and a drip.  The sky lightened up and a breeze blew in, shaking the rain from the tree in the yard.

     In the dark shadowed coolness of the musty old shed, watching the rain from a perch on a shelf, another small creature fell slowly asleep, tired from watching nothing all day, and certainly not going out in the rain.

     Now Tom was just that – a high stepping, yellow eyed, marmalade cat.  He’d wandered uptown from a bad neighborhood to claim the old shed as his bachelor’s pad.  He wasn’t too pleased when the Mulrooney’s moved in.  He’d stayed out of sight inside the old shed, watching the movers unload their big van.

     He wandered the fences and back yards at night, dining in garbage cans with lids not shut tight.  He socialized with the respectable cats, but they had a curfew and were lazy and fat.

     He slept in the shed for the whole afternoon.  By evening, the rain shower had come to an end.  The cat awoke with a lazy yawn, arching his back in a cat sort of stretch.  He peered through the window and saw a light in the kitchen across the yard.  He sneaked out the door and around the bend.  It was fish fry night at the neighbor’s again.

     By Sunday afternoon, the Mulrooneys had finally unpacked all their boxes and set up house.  Carlisle was playing out in the yard, which was yellow with dandelions after the rain.  He still felt lonely and not quite at home, but he’d found his toys and was glad about that.

     Carlisle couldn’t see over the fence from the yard.  He’d tried his hardest to climb the tree, but the branches were too high for the boy to reach.

     His mother was a little happier now.  She sat on the step drinking cold iced tea.  His father was tinkering out by the car, when Carlisle saw something dart through a hole in the fence, near the back of the yard.  Carlisle’s mother hadn’t noticed at all.  She’d finished her tea and gone back inside.

     Carlisle ran out to the back of the yard and found the hole hidden down in the grass.  It was really a tunnel dug under the fence, a widened out spot where the rainwater ran.  Carlisle got down on his belly to see.  He scrunched his face right up to the hole, his head tilted sideways with one eye shut.

     Staring back from the opposite side was the big yellow eye of a marmalade cat.  Carlisle saw Tom, but Tom turned away.  The cat strutted off with his tail held high.  The last thing he needed was a tail pulling brat.

     Carlisle knew quite a bit about cats.  His dad read him stories about a cat in a hat, and he’d seen them on TV and places like that.

     He lay on his belly with his eye to the hole, hoping the cat would come back to the yard.  After awhile his face got tired from peeking through the hole with one eye shut.  He wandered back over by the tree to play, glancing quite often out towards the fence.

     Carlisle asked about cats at dinner that night.  Where did they sleep?  What did they eat?  His mother explained that they slept in cat beds, and chased mice and birds and other small things.

     Carlisle decided not to tell on the cat.  He kept it a secret and finished his stew.

     Tom was careful how he came and went.  He’d wait until every light in the house was dark, then sneak through the hole in the back of the fence.  He’d come in each morning at quarter past three, to sleep in the shed on a pile of rags.

     This went on for several more days.  Carlisle would look out his bedroom window at night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cat.  He sat by the hole for awhile each day, but nothing came through, except ants on parade.

     Sometimes Tom would peek through the window from his perch on the shelf, watching the boy and chuckling to himself.

     The Mulrooneys had lived in the house for a week when Carlisle’s father backed into the yard with a boat on a trailer attached to the car.  He backed the boat up into the shed and unhitched the trailer from the back of the car.  He drove the car away from the shed and pulled the door shut “til it closed with a thump, while Tom watched anxiously from under the rags, hiding from the man in his bachelor’s pad.

     That night the cat got no dinner to eat.  He clawed at the door with the paws on his feet until he got tired and fell fast asleep.  He awoke in the morning with a growl in his tummy.  He was in a bad mood despite his long nap, and needed a plan to get out of this trap.

     Tom knew if he waited he’d surely be found, and carted away to the stray cat pound.  He’d seen other cats being carried away, and put in a cage with no room to play.  Tom was afraid of cages you see – he was a bachelor cat who liked to be free.

     He leaped to the window and sat on the shelf, staring sadly out into the yard.  There, still trying to climb the tree, was the boy who’d seen him run under the fence.  Tom sat proudly for awhile and watched.  He could climb trees much better than that.

     He didn’t need help from a tail pulling brat, but his tummy was growling and he needed a snack.  Tom stood in the window and arc h up his back, letting loose with a great big MEOW!!!  He meowed several times from the dusty old shed, trying to make the boy hear what he said.

     Carlisle got tired of climbing the tree.  He sat I the grass making dandelion piles, wondering if it was lunch time yet.  He thought of the boy in the city again, and wished he could play in his yard with a friend.

     Suddenly he heard from inside the shed, a strange sort of noise that sounded quite loud.  He went to the shed and climbed on some logs, to see what was making the noise that he heard.  There, in the window, looking into the yard, sat the marmalade cat that he’d seen through the fence.

     The cat was meowing, that’s what he’d heard.  Tom looked at Carlisle with big yellow eyes, deciding the boy just might not be a brat. 

“Just open the door,” Tom wanted to say, “and I’ll be your friend for the rest of the day.”

     Carlisle was curious about the cat.  He wanted to help, so he went to the door and gave it a tug.  He groaned and tugged and pulled very hard, while Tom sat inside the shed and meowed away.  Finally, just when he was about to give up, Carlisle felt the doorway creak just a crack.  He managed to pull just a little bit more, and Tom scooted out from behind the door.

     Carlisle tried grabbing the cat by the tail, but Tom darted off across the yard.  Carlisle’s mother called him for lunch.  The boy went inside and ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank red fruit punch.  He was a little bit sad that the cat had run.  He wanted a friend who would play and have fun.

     He went back outside and sat by the tree, watching the hole by the back of the fence.  He didn’t see anything but ants on parade, and was bored with the dandelion pile he’d made.  He stood up and tried to climb the tree – when right there above him, stretched out on a limb, twitching its whiskers and purring a bit, was the marmalade cat, just taking a nap.

     The cat looked down and opened one eye.  The boy couldn’t reach him in his perch on the limb.  He was glad Carlisle had let him out of the shed, so he could fill his belly on tuna and bread.

     Carlisle looked up with a grin on his face.  He’d found a friend to play in the yard.  He was the only one who knew the cat’s hiding place.

     Now Tom was still a bachelor cat, but sometimes when the day was hot, he’d sit in the tree stretched out on a limb, watching Carlisle play in the grass.

     The boy and the cat became good friends.  Tom never got shut in the shed again.  Carlisle would check the shed door each day, to make sure it stayed creaked open a crack.  He’d look out his window every night before bed, out past the tree by the back of the yard.  

     Sometimes when the moon was quite bright, Carlisle would see the high stepping marmalade tomcat strut by, with his tail in the air and a gleam in his eye, heading for a dinner of garbage can pie.

     Carlisle would fall asleep dreaming of marmalade cats, who ate peanut butter sandwiches, and drank fruit punch by the batch.  

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

Sleep well

Eat Lots Of Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Dream of Marmalade Cats

ADKO