Alley Cat

Todd and I lounge on the balcony of some fancy condo on the outskirts of Manhattan. It’s been a few days since the werewolf incident and none of us have talked about it since. Todd and I sit poised on the balcony railing and look down at the world below. It must be a cat thing. I feel so powerful standing at great heights. I love how it makes everything look so small.

Orange leaves tumble down the street down below, carried away by an invisible gust. They produce a satisfying crunch when the condo-owner runs over them with his bike, reducing them to brittle pieces which gets carried away by another gust of wind like nature’s funeral procession. It’s autumn. I feel the change in the air. A chilly breeze blows my black fur into a puff, and I shiver. It’ll be winter soon before I know it. And winter, if you’ve ever been in New York, is a reckoning force that sweeps through the region with relentless brutality. Every inferior being will be wiped out. And unfortunately, that includes me.

It’s okay, Hel. Todd says as I mention the threat. You’ll just shoot fire out of your fingers and make us a cozy bonfire. Problem solved.

I look down at my paws and remember how just a few days ago, I burned Shirisha’s hair off with my bare hands. The memory is a blur, clouded by hurt and rage. Ever since the incident occured, I’ve been trying to recreate the phenomenon in both cat and human form, but the fire hasn’t come back. My power is stubborn and independent of my will. A part of me still can’t believe that I really did it.

“Or we’ll just freeze to death when winter comes.”

Is there an option three? Todd jokes.

“I usually turn myself over to the nearest animal shelter and break myself out in Spring.”

Todd jerks his head over to me to check if I’m serious and sees that I am. Helene, why can’t you just live like a normal human being? It’s so much easier than being a cat. There’s conviction in his voice, and I can’t help but feel like he’s blaming me for neglecting a privilege that I don’t have. What privilege? I can’t help but scoff at his ignorance.

“Todd, I’m stuck as a sixteen year old girl. I’m a minor. You know what they’ll do to girls like me?” When he doesn’t answer back, I tell him, “They’ll put me in foster care where they’ll just ship me off from house to house like I’m some worthless UPS package. And now that I think about it, there might be some rapey old creep that’ll try to touch me. And worst of all, they’ll make me go to school! I’ve lived nine times, Todd. Nine! If they make me re-learn how to do the pythagorean theorem one more time, I swear––”

Todd’s ears deafen from my complaints, causing him to howl in agony. I think I just discovered a new superpower. Okay! I get it! Being human sucks too. Then Todd says in a voice low enough for me to barely hear it. At least you get food.

I sigh and feel a tinge of guilt. Todd’s life is hard too. I forget about that. It’s not easy living as a cat either. If I close my eyes, I could imagine Todd living lavishly as some rich guy’s house cat. Every day he’ll be fed fancy raw food, the kind that costs half a paycheck at the petstore. And then he’ll have his own bed to sleep on. He’ll get high off of catnip at least once a week. It all sounds like a distant dream.

“C’mon Todd. I think we passed by a food bank on the way here. Let’s go see if they have anything good.” With a new sense of compassion, I invite Todd to jump down from the balcony. We both land gracefully on all fours.

It was supposed to be a tranquil walk, the kind that soothes the soul as you breathe in the smells of nature and feel the sun on your back. Who am I kidding? Todd and I held our breaths in alternating intervals for each trash bag lying at the side of the road. One bag smelled so putrid, I cried.

As if our walk couldn’t get any worse, Shirsha zips by with blurring speed, holding bags of groceries in her hand. The first place I look at is her head. A high quality blond wig hugs her scalp, softening the harsh angles of her face with its loose curls. I bet she beat up a lady to get it too.

“Good morning my pretty kitties. I brought some snacks.”

Todd salivates at the thought of free food, but I hold him back with a paw against his chest. “I brought a fresh change of clothes for you too, Helene. I hope you like plaid skirts and turtlenecks ’cus that’s what you’re gonna be wearing.”

Gee, Shirisha! That’s really generous of you.

When Shirisha sees that I’m still holding Todd back, she rolls her eyes and says. “Hel, none of the food is poisoned.”

I stare at her with a grave look.

“Or stolen.”

“Impossible.”

Shirisha places the bag of clothes at my feet as an offering. “This is from Goodwill. They actually have really cute clothes there, you know. And the food?” She places the bags of cat food before Todd. I peek inside and see a toy bird made of feathers and a wad of catnip. “There’s a charity event going on at a nearby school. You really gotta learn how to take advantage of these opportunities, Hel!”

“What’s with the new change of heart?” My suspicions, once aroused, are almost impossible to alleviate until I get a confirmed answer. I’ve known Shirisha for too long. Even when we were friends, she lived selfishly. She never did anything unless she had something to gain. Even when she decided to save my life all those years ago, her main intention was to save her own ass from witch hunters. I refuse to believe that Shirisha could miraculously change overnight, let alone over five centuries.

Shirisha’s expression softens at me. All the worries she’s concealed within gain weight, dragging her closer to the ground. She leans forward like someone’s pushing her down. “You’re a lot easier to talk to in this form.”

I don’t want to do Shirisha any favors, so I go ahead and revert back to human form. I go through all the changes as usual and change into my new clothes which Shirsha provided me. I feel self-conscious when my bare knees touch the air and the turtle neck feels tight against skin. “You were saying?” I bend down to pull up my new uggs.

My voice snaps Shirisha back to attention. She must have been staring at my hairy legs or something. I expect a sassy remark about how my leg hair resembled a jungle, but she makes no remark of that kind. “I came here today to tell you about my plan.”

“What plan?”

“The plan to save New York from savage werewolves,” she says this like she’s proposing a simple dinner date.

“No way. No! I told you, it’s not our business.”

“You saw what happened to Luis!” I’m surprised Shirisha even remembered his name. Usually, she only remembers people if they happened to be extraordinarily cute or because they were wearing an atrociously outdated outfit.

“Why do you care?” I glare at Shirisha with scrutiny while Todd munches on a bag of cat food behind me. “You never care about anyone. And it’s not really like you to play the selfless hero.”

Shirisha takes a step back, and I see that her eyes have welled up with tears. “Wow. Am I really that horrible of a person?”

I could go on and on about her list of faults. I remember a lot of the things she’s done, all the things she’s convinced me to do under the guise of self-contrived justification. This is the girl who led a Nazi youth camp, spread the plague, accidentally assisted in the assasination of Martin Luther King… I want to tell her exactly what I think of her, but I quickly realize that I don’t need to. Shirisha’s no mathematician, but she’s certainly not stupid. She knows what I think of her, and I realize right there and then that no matter what she says or how she says it that she cares. She’s always cared. She just cared in her own messed up way. She had good intentions; she just messed up when acting upon them.

Without having to say it, Shirisha picks up on my final conclusion and smiles. “I knew you couldn’t stay mad at me.”

Shirisha aims for a hug, but I shove her hand to the side. “Touch me again and next time it won’t just be your hair that burns off.”

“Yes Ma’am. So here’s the plan,” Shirisha says, ignoring my adamant stance on the issue. “We’re going to warn the lynx clan about the problem. We’re just going to talk. Where’s the harm in that?”

Seems harmless to me, Todd says as he crunches through what must have been half of the food in the bag. He lets out a loud burp before continuing to go back for seconds. It’s like his stomach is an endless void.

“You’re forgetting that we broke protocol. How do you think they’ll react when we tell them that we left Luis to turn?”

“For sure, they’re gonna be pissed. But it’s not like killing us is going to change the fact that there’s rogue werewolves running loose in New York. Besides, you underestimate my charming abilities.”

I almost gag at her mention of ‘charming’.

“Remember,” Shirisha says, wagging her finger at me like I’m some disobedient pet. “You loved me once.”

“And it was the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”

Shirisha leans in closer and it takes all my willpower not to smack her as she purrs in my ear. “I think you still like me.”

“In your dreams,” I say with a smirk. Shirisha returns the gesture with a lip biting grin.

“Well in that case, I hope I never wake up. Where to?”

“Skate Park. The only lynx we have a chance at talking to is Raphael. He’s pretty reasonable, but we’re not exactly on the best terms at the moment.”

“Don’t worry, babe.” Shirisha says as she sets herself into a sprinting position. “I’m sure I’ll be able to change his mind.” She winks and speeds away in a blur. I roll my eyes before picking up Todd in my arms. He’s heavy from all the food he’s eaten.

“Did you really have to eat all the cat food?”

Todd’s blue eyes widen from my accusation. Don’t put the blame on me. You’re the one flirting with your ex! For shame, Hel!

I feel my face turn hot. “Flirting? I wasn’t––Forget about it.” I shake my head free from the thought of it and run.

Shirisha and I take a break halfway from our destination. We’re both breathless and spend the next few minutes cooling down. Now that we’re back within city limits, it’s louder than it was on the outskirts. I have traffic and rushing pedestrians to distract me from Shirisha’s new shade of red lipstick and her faint scent of perfume. She smells like mangos when they’re at their ripest, fat and heavy and weighing down the thin branches that suspend them from their tree. It’s intoxicatingly sweet, and I wonder why I hadn’t smelled it on her before.

“So what’s this Raphael guy like anyway?” Shirisha says as she stretches on a bench. She pulls herself into a scorpion position, supporting her whole body weight on her two forearms as the rest of her curls over her head. Because of all the ridiculous things that come out of her mouth, I forget how accomplished she is. This is the same girl who trained with Tibetan monks, earned a blackbelt in taekwondo, and can pickpocket a man blind.

I snap back to attention and scratch my head in thought. “He’s like fifteen or sixteen, dark skin, kinda tall, toned arms...”

“Uh, huh…” Shirisha begins doing push ups on the bench.

“He’s a decent kid. Really level headed. I like messing with him every once in a while.”

“Helene!” Shirisha perks up right away. “You bad, bad girl!”

“Not like that!” My face heats up again and I realize that I’ve fallen back into Shirisha’s trap once again. She always knows how to make a girl fluster. “Uh, he’s got a lot of hair, the kind that’s springy and sticks up. It’s always poking out of his helmet.”

Shirisha gets distracted by something down the sidewalk and slowly rises to her feet. “Hel, what does he look like in cat form?”

“Oh, he’s kind of big for a lynx. He’s gray with black spots and white whiskers.”

Shirisha squints her eyes, narrowing her focus. “Does he have black pointed tuffs at his ears?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Did he recently get beat up too?”

Shirisha points out a large lynx cat stumbling in its path towards us. Long claw marks mark his flesh, causing blood to ooze out and stain his stone gray fur red. He’s badly injured as far as I can tell. He walks towards us with half closed eyes that roll to the back of his head as he collapses. The three of us run to him and crowd around him in a circle to shield him against any bystanders. The last thing we want is a bunch of New Yorkers screaming about a wild lynx on the street.

“Raph?” I shake the cat and hear him groan softly. Golden specks of light shimmer at the base of his striped tail, alarming me of his impending transformation.

“Shirisha, we have to hide him. He’s gonna turn.”

Shirisha looks around and spots a descending staircase to our left. “The subways.”

I pick up the glowing lynx cat in my hands, and run. We’re lucky that the subway station is dimly lit. Blinking fluorescent lights help to conceal our supernatural presence and an incoming train adds to our luck. It shields us from pedestrians waiting on the opposite side, blocking them from Raphael’s blinding transformation. We look away as his body shines brightly and his form elongates into a human shape with firm arms and broad shoulders. His hair, soft and springy like wool, presses against my lap. I’m astonished by the weight of his head and the clarity of his eyes when he wakes up. He looks at me.

“Helene.”

Shirisha shrugs off her windbreaker and drapes it over Raphael to cover all the important bits. She clears her throat, drawing Raphael’s gaze towards her. “You’re welcome, by the way,” Shirisha says with an air of superiority.

I sigh and help Raphael up to a sitting position. He struggles at first but manages to hold up his own weight. I quickly introduce him to my small circle of...I can’t even call them ‘friends’. “Raphael, this is Shirisha. Shirisha, Raphael. Raphael, this is Todd...my cat.”

Nice meetin’ ya.

Raphael blinks back at Todd before reluctantly greeting him back. “Um...hi.”

“You mind telling us about your recent cat fight?”

There’s confusion reflected in his eyes. Different kinds of emotions overwhelm him, fighting for dominance, but he chooses to recoil from me out of indecisiveness. “I...I ain’t alpha no more.”

“You got overthrown?”

“Yeah. ’Cus of you.” Raphael stops to rub his face, wiping away dry tears. Shirisha and Todd look at me in awe, both waiting for an explanation of what I have to say. If only they knew that I was as confused as they were. “You made a fool of me, Helene. Ever since your last visit, my clan accused me of being weak. They were tired of me letting you humiliate them.”

For someone who loved to trash talk, I found myself out of words. Raphael’s voice shook with accusation and pain, both from his wounded pride and his physical injuries. Dried blood clung to his nostrils as he spoke. “They gave me an ultimatum, either I kill you to earn back their respect or I get challenged by one of my own. As you can see,” Raphael says as he turns his face to show off his swollen cheek, “I lost.”

I want to tell him that I’m sorry, but I’ve learned long ago that apologies never fix anything. An ‘I’m sorry’ can’t bring back the dead or fix a broken nose. What’s done is done. I bow my head in shame and race through my thoughts about what I should say or if I should continue to say nothing at all. To my surprise, Raphael rises to his feet and smooths down Shirisha’s windbreaker. He’s lucky that it’s oversized and falls down to his lower thighs. Asides from that, his luck has run out.

“I appreciate your attempt to shelter me though. I’ll return the windbreaker as soon as I can.”

“Raph!”

Raphael turns to face me. “Yeah?”

The dreadful words escape from my lips. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” Raphael cups his ear and leans in. “I didn’t catch that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Raphael stands there, waiting for more. I feel uncomfortable and awkward. My skin itches and I find myself kicking at the ground with my uggs. “I had no idea I would cost you your position. I’ll never bother you again.”

“Well it’s not like I have a clan to care about. Do whatever you want, Helene.”

Before I could allow him to turn around and leave, I stop him one more time. “I know you’re mad at me but please stay. We were actually on our way to visit you, but you just happened to find us.”

Shirisha and I take turns telling Raphael about the dire werewolf situation and saw Raphael’s expression change from suspicion, to shock, and finally to grave thoughtfulness. We walk throughout the subway station and do well to keep our voices low. It’s kinda hard when the station is full of screeches from trains breaking and shuffling feet.

“This is bad,” Raphael says as we pass by the hundredth metro card machine. “It won’t be long before more people get bit. Humans will risk getting turnt and every cat knows that werewolf bites are fatal.”

“Not to mention that you’ll lose your territory. Wolves are pack animals so the first thing they’ll do is wipe out your clan. And then before you know it, Manhattan will be overrun by wolves.”

Shirisha interjects. “It’s not gonna happen if you warn your clan and act fast. There’s power in numbers. It’ll be easier if your clan kills off the rogue wolves while their numbers are still small.”

“The question is if they’ll believe me, though. The first thing they’ll think is that I’m lyin’. The only way they’ll believe me is if they get attacked by wolves themselves.”

Shirisha’s eyes brighten upon conceiving a brilliant idea, but I intervene before she could propose it. “No, Shirisha. We’re not going to bring the werewolves to them.”

“See! You were thinking of it too!” Shirisha hooks her arm with mine and runs her fingers through my hair. “Great minds think alike.”

I unhook our arms and distance myself away from Shirisha to think. Now that I have more time to think about it, I realize that Shirisha’s idea could actually work. “Raphael, do you know any werewolves in Manhattan?”

Raphael tilts his head to the side. After some thorough rummaging through his memories, he shakes his head. “No. I know a wolf in The Bronx, though. What are you thinking?”

“I was hoping we could ask for some advice. Wouldn’t a werewolf know a thing or two about bringing down another werewolf?”

Todd speaks as he trots beside my ankles. But why would a werewolf help us kill one of their own?

Raphael sighs and folds his arms across his chest. “At this point, we don’t have many options. I’ll go talk to the wolf and report back. In the meantime, you guys try to stay safe.”

We all nod in agreement and ascend up the stairs, returning back to the busy streets of New York. Raphael writes down his number on Shirisha’s arm before he leaves, and we’re left to ourselves. Shirisha and I stand by the rails while the people behind us pass by, each with their own ordinary human lives. I envy them. Humans don’t appreciate the joy in all things mundane.

Shirisha and I engage in small talk for a while. She tells me about all the places she’s been since we last met, and we both end up telling each other things we already know. Even though we haven’t seen each other for five centuries, we found ways to keep tabs on each other. Shirisha’s kind of famous; it’s hard not to hear about her or see her in some kind of form or another. I hear about her in rumors. Sometimes I see her on a ‘Wanted’ poster with her face on it. She started modeling for a while for Playboy magazine in the 80s and got arrested for protesting for women’s suffrage in the 40s.

As for me? I haven’t exactly done a great job at keeping low. Shirisha tells me that she saw me in a black and white photo during India’s Independence movement where I was standing a few feet away from Mahatma Gandhi. She also heard that I got into journalism during the AIDS epidemic in the 90s and became one of the first women to test the world’s first oral contraceptives in Puerto Rico. We have both lived eventful lives over the years, seeing the world change for better and for worse. Eventually, we exhaust our stories and go back to the present.

“What’s the deal with Raphael?”

“What do you mean?” I say, staring at a woman arguing with her taxi driver. In the back of my mind, I wonder what they could possibly be arguing about.

“What’s his story?”

I press my lips tight until they turn white. Eventually, I relax and turn to her. “How about you make use of your ‘charming’ abilities and ask him yourself?”

Shirisha sighs before walking away from the rails. “I wish you would just admit that you’re not perfect, Helene.”

“I never said I was perfect.”

“But you look at me like I’m so much worse. I can feel you judging me,” Shirisha says, putting her hand over her heart. As if she has one.

“You’re stupid if you think we can go back to how it was before.” I lean in closer and see Shirisha tense up like I’m going to hit her.

“Okay, then I’m stupid.” Shirisha’s eyes swell; they drip tears in abundant quantities. It’s enough to sink a ship but nothing compared to the sea. I try to convince myself that they’re crocodile tears. I tell myself that she’s getting exactly what she deserves. The pain she feels right now doesn’t even compare to what I felt when she abandoned me.

“What do you want, Shirisha? What’s the real reason why you came to New York? You didn’t come here to sightsee or eat obnoxiously overpriced food, now did you?”

Shirisha bursts into tears and sobs violently with her shoulders quaking like the whole world’s fallen apart. “A few months ago, I got drunk and woke up in Mexico with almost all my organs gone and it really got me thinking. I’m on my final life, Helene. I’m on my final life and I feel like I haven’t even done anything. I’m tired of making stupid decisions and losing people and I realized...I missed you! You’re the only person that saw any good in me. You used to look up to me like I was some superstar, some hero, someone worth learning something from. I want to be that person again.”

I shake my head and tear at my hair, hoping that I’ll just wake up from a terrible dream but I don’t. I refuse to believe it. I can’t believe it. I spent so many lifetimes hating this girl and now she’s back with the intentions of being good. And selfishly, I realize that if she becomes good, I won’t have any reason to hate her. I’ll have no one to blame for my bitterness, for all my terrible mistakes in love. If I have no one else to blame, that will leave me. I will have to blame myself, and I’m just not ready for that yet.

“You can’t do this to me. You made me believe that no one could love me. You taught me to hate people! You ruined my life and now you want me back? You’re unbelievable, Shirisha.”

I run and leave her in my dust. Todd tags along at my heels, but my vision is too blurred from my tears to see him. I run to the nearest place that can distract me from my pain. I no longer have my pride to stop me. I run to Russo’s.