Mopping Up Evidence

Yesterday I went to the sister restaurant of my place of employ for brunch with my lovely friend Ryan. After a wonderful meal of truffled scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, washed down with several champagne mimosas, I felt a little tipsy and in the mood for a home floor scrubbing. The mundane tasks usually coupled with an apprehension and a western-style stare down with rabid dust bunnies, are now made a little more approachable with an accompaniment of my new addiction: Books on tape. Thank you Toronto Public Library! What a wonderful service! Currently I'm listening to Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. This man has loved in his life. And has had his heart severely broken. Or at least has an empath's saintly soul. Very good dialogue = believable. It's a very good listen. The plan was to clean my stinking apartment, then meet my friends Robert and Ian for a ruckus Sunday night supper.

I was greeted by a strange splotch on the cold stone floor by the front entrance. Frothy watery cat blick. Blick is the sound Chicken makes when he hurls. Frothy blick was in 12 separate locations throughout the apartment along with little reddish/ brown drying droplets.

Oh my God... Chicken

I looked everywhere for him. He was not on the bed, under the bed, in the bathtub, in a basket, on the couch, under the couch, in the linen closet, in any of the closets. I was fucking panicking.

Chicken! Chicken!
Where are you, my Sweetoo?

He was in the farthest reaches of my long closet in the bedroom. He never hangs out there. I picked him up. He was shaking as much as I was. He had lost 5 pounds in a day. He is not a big cat. He is a little guy who was now very, very sick and very, very dehydrated. His head was hot; he had a fever. He jumped out of my arms and headed alongside a wall where he painfully squatted.

In his 16 years I've seen Chicken take a crap 3-5 times. Each time I thought it was hilarious. All I wanted to do when I saw him squat this time, trying desperately to release whatever venom was inside him, was cry, wishing with everything to take away his suffering. His usual healthy, fluffy hair was greasy looking. When I looked at his backside, his hawk-like pants were matted with diarrhea. I've never seen this before.

I had to cancel my dinner plans with my friends so I could stay at home, make chicken soup for my little man, do web research on acute feline diarrhea and clean up the evidence of his illness. If he didn't see any of the matter that came flooding out of him, maybe both of us would think he was well again.

What the hell would I do without him?


As he's sleeping now, I'll write about something else. He'd want that.

Ack, the ex-husband/best friend and I had crashed a housewarming/birthday party hosted by Richard, one of Ack's old colleagues from Canada's media giant, ChumCity; specifically the interactive department which creates banner ads and the entire web presence of MuchMusic, Bravo, CityTV and all the other affiliates. Richard, after much coersion by everyone (family), including his longtime (years) co-habitating girlfriend, finally made an honest woman out of his Elana.

But fucked up.

Of all the days to go down on one knee, forever and ever, as long as they both shall live, Richard chose the day Elana had a fever of 104˚F, face a chartreuse green; hacking and hurling phlegm, bile and something resembling tahini dip.

Richard: [down on one knee] Elana...
Elana: NO RICHARD... NOT LIKE THIS!!!

She made him take it back, waiting for a more suitable moment in the near future.

Elana is one of those people who vehemently does not allow cigarette smoking in her house, but sparks spliffs like a Rastafari at a Hemp Aficionado convention. At social functions, she has a 1 out of 3 chance of becoming flagrantly drunk or high. I can't figure out her batting average because there are too many variables, but I'm sure it would be high. On one such occasion she pronounced, in front of at least 20 people: "Richard... our marriage is a sham."

I rememeber I used to feel strangely introverted at certain social functions. I was hyper aware of myself to the point of clamming up, yet simultaneously not listening; having the sensation that all of my organs were internally sweating; wanting to crawl out of my own skin; a strange sensation of a cloying desperation. And I'm considered social adept. Go figure. This happened again on Saturday night.

Ack and I arrived before the actual invitee, our mutual friend Death.

Death attained this name by a shortened version of Meredith, or Merry Death as we like to call her, but her name only receives full pronouncement when she has done something very, very bad like jump up on the counter and eaten the entire night's meal. For four.

Last summer she had access to her father's 1980's Mercedes which the 3 of us would occasionally pile into for short road trips involving ice cream or dim sum.

Death: Check the license plate!

WDOMKR

The Comrade: Widowmaker! Nice!
Ack: How come you don't see more vulgar plates out there?
Death: The Ministry of Transport doesn't allow it. Anytime you have vanity plates they ask specifically what it means.
The Comrade: Yeah, try explaining CUNT plate.

That's what Death and I call each other now. Sometimes when something extremely crude has been expressed, we call each other a stack of plates.

Both hosts of the party work in media. Nearly all of the invited guests were in the same field in some denomination: print, music, commercials, film. Walking in from the front door there was no foyer, it was direct to living room. About 20 sets of eyes hit both Ack and me in tandem. Each set of blank eyes stared at us in silence for 10 seconds, then resumed the conversations that had been cut off by our intrusion.

The Comrade: Oh, it's going to be like that. I don't want to stay.
Ack: We have to wait for Death.
The Comrade: Crap!

They all looked. Some smiled. Unless I had met them before, none engaged in any conversation. Even if I engaged them, they'd blink a couple of times, try to say something, but it came out more like a curt reply. I receded back into my shell, trying to shield my worked up boobs as much as possible.

Ack and I had gone shopping at H&M earlier that day. The difference between me and Ack is I will wear what I'd bought earlier that day. He will hang new purchases in his closet and forget they were there until I either ask him about that thing he bought 2 seasons ago, or he has no other clean item of clothing forcing him to venture further back into his darken clothes pit.

I am a prude at heart. I don't seem like one, but I am. I prefer full coverage, but on this one occasion I bought a couple of tarty little tops, one in which I decided to wear that evening. Tarty tops are fine for going to bars where dim lighting and other tarty topped women are. Where it is not fine is being part of a collection of dull media types in a new pre-fab home with cheap finishes and inhumanly small rooms where people are sandwiched so closely together (and not talking); the only place to rest a drink or a paper plate is on my rack.

Wearing Ack's sportcoat, a suitable boob shield, reaching for a broccoli spear, I caught the gaze of a young lady who had hair not unlike Sideshow Bob's. I smiled. She smiled back and then approached me.

The Comrade: So are you a friend of the bride or the groom?
I meant it to be cute, but she didn't really get cute out of it. I can't remember her response as she took a half hour explaining her life's story.

I found out she went to a rival high school of mine. My high school was mostly festooned with Ralph Lauren and Lacoste wearing white kids. Her school fell into 2 camps: Jews and Chinese.

I Can't Remember Her Name: And they're very similar, the Jews and the Chinese. Are you Chinese?
The Comrade: [sigh] Yes.
I Can't Remember Her Name: I really like Chinese people.

And other great hits like "some of my best friends are Chinese". Apparently the measure of popularity in her high school had to do with the labels worn. Tommy. Ralph. Prada. She told me she always loved going over to her Chinese friend's house on the weekends, eating moon cakes and watching Chinese action flicks. She liked going over there because they didn't care what labels she had on or didn't.

I care...

Right now I'm wearing a shirt from my favourite store on Spadina, U RIGHT! It has an illustration of a 12" little boy and twin girl. They're holding hands. On the front of the little boy is the letter "D". On the girl is a letter "O". Above their heads reads: GREEF CHILD

Together they make do.

Before what was on the collar or the breast of a shirt, I remember when character meant something.

At this party people passed by sometimes grazing, sometimes nudging. Not once did I hear an "excuse me" or "pardon me". While in conversation with someone I actually wanted to talk to, a friend of Death's new boyfriend, Paul, I was nudged by a 6'4" man.

The Comrade: [to tall boy] You know... this is the thing: A person stands here, and people pass. Sometimes they nudge or knock into people. And they just keep walking on by. No "excuse me". No "pardon me".
Tall Boy: That's incredibly rude.
The Comrade: I know!
Tall Boy: Ill mannered.

And then did it again.
Paul: And after what you'd just said.

It wasn't on purpose; he was just stupid. It was just another example of how people sometimes talked out of their asses, demonstrating zero civility.

Ack began holding his head after we had cleared passage for a young woman to come upstairs from the spliff smoky basement. She expressed no gratitude for our collective civility. It seemed it was expected.

Ack: Did you see that?
The Comrade: Oh yeah. NOW can we go?

We went to Lot 16, the anti-Drake. The Drake is a multilevel, multifarious destination spot. It's a boutique hotel, live music venue, art gallery, restaurant, snack bar, pick up joint, roof top deck bar and home of the greatest pretension in the city. The first time I went, I was accompanied by my Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary is actually Bob. Bob has been with his partner Mark for 25 years. When Bob went to visit Mark's family in New Zealand, Mark's father had introduced Bob to the local tradesman who was working on the family's kitchen.

Mark's Da: This is yer Uncle Bob.
Kiwi Tradesman: [giving Bob the up and down] Looks more like yer Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary and Uncle Mark were Ack's and my landlords in our one time treefort apartment. This beautiful apartment was once the servant's quarters for the postmaster general. It's now a heritage home. A dingy alleyway across, past heroin needles and discounted blow jobs was the most disgusting place in the city to pick a fight. People still fought, though one needed to be very, very drunk to do so. The state of being drunk was the only way to make you forget the possibility of hitting the floor, just to stumble back up invariably sporting week old vomit reconstituted with piss. This once foul place had $6 million sunk into it and has become the hipster mecca of the city.

Aunt Mary had dared me to find out about a young man who was walking around with a 3/4 length fur coat, crimson red 1970's flapping collared button down shirt and pinstriped suit.

Do not dare me anything because I will do it.

I left Aunt Mary to go up to the bar, where the young cousin to Donny Brasco was holding court over sushi. He was new in town. A commercial director. He told me his clothes were made by a tailor because "you just can't find decent clothes on a rack". He told me his name was Daddy.

The Comrade: Danny?
Daddy: Daddy.
The Comrade: I'm sorry. I'm going to have to see some identification.

He produced his credit card. I couldn't read the surname as my eyes were affixed to the embossed caps of DADDY, member since 2003.



Lot 16 is a quaint place, a spitting distance away from the Drake. It's too small, not fabulous enough, and not scummy enough to be considered chic for the dead eyed Drakeculas. Every other Saturday Lot 16 plays host to Pop Noir. Check the musical line-up. The drinks are not too bad. A round of 4 was just over $18. Every song was a winner. When Death asked if I was going to dance I said the same thing I'd said when she first told me about Blogger: "Absolutely not." And then I started blogging. And then Pulp's Disco 2000 played. The Comrade shook her racks. Absolutely not has become absolutely more than likely. I sniff a new favourite spot.


I went to bed early. 9:30pm. I was scared tired from the whole Chicken ordeal. I was emotionally appeased enough to sleep when he didn't throw up or shit uncontrollably for 3 hours straight. He refused any water, which concerned me, but he did start cleaning his hawk pants, which was a very good sign. I woke up at 4:30 this morning to his chirpy greeting as he jumped up on our bed.

Chicken!

Even though I come from obessive/compulsive handwashing stock, I didn't care that he had shit all over his legs. I gently cradled him and kissed his little head. One of the vet sites said not to feed him solid food for 24 hours, but to give him plenty of water. I brought my glass of distilled water close for him to drink from. It's his preferred vessel. He drank a lot of it. He's got some replenishing to do.

He's back on my lap now. He's purring today. Things like small happy sounds emanating from a creature I'm in love with make me grateful. Being with him now is the only place I want to be. I worry so much about when he'll leave me. Everytime I think about it I am always inspired to search the house for him, pick him up and love him more. My little man with the poopy pants whose poo stink smells just fine to a nose who finds so many scents so often foul.

I did scrub the floors yesterday, but it seems I missed a few spots under the bed. Time to turn Mystic River back on, don a couple of canary rubber gloves, and with a bucket and a sponge, remove any trace of my loved one's mortality.