Kitty and the yum yum song

“God damn it!”

“What’s the matter?” she stirs in bed, her voice still thick with sleep.

“That god damned cat of yours!”

Her eyes blink open. It’s still dark outside. Not time to get up. “Pipe down. You’ll wake the baby.”

“I don’t care if I do!” He tosses a pillow at her. “Wake up!”

“Hey!” she’s sitting up now. “What’s all the racket for?”

“Look!” he says. “Look what she did!” he’s standing, naked except for that ratty pair of boxers. He stands there pointing at something.

She blindly feels for her glasses on the table by her side of the bed, next to the half read paperback and the jar of handcream and the ashtray. Once she can see, her eyes follow his finger to a spot on the floral sheet.

“That evil little flea bag took a shit on my side of the bed!”

“Oh that’s nonsense!” she says, but there’s no denying the perfectly formed turd, presumably feline in origin, where he was just sleeping.

“She’s had it in for me from the beginning,” he says.

“Kitty?” she laughs. “Don’t be silly. She’s just an innocent animal.”

“Innocent my ass. I tell you she did it on purpose!”

“Oh you’re crazy! Just listen to you! A grown man, for pity’s sake.”

“You always take her side,” he pouts.

“Mommy, is it morning time?” the boy is at the door, rubbing his eyes.

“No sweetie. Daddy just had a bad dream. Go back to bed.”

“I don’t want to,” he holds his doctor Doolittle doll tight to his body. “Daddy scared me awake.”

 “He scares me sometimes too, honey. Let’s go downstairs and make jiffy pop while Daddy fixes the bed.”

“Really?” His eyes are wide open now. “Can I have yoohoo?”

“Sure.” She grabs her pink robe from the back of the chair. “Let’s go downstairs”

At the stove she fiddles with the knob to adjust the flame under the popcorn.

“Is daddy mad?”

“No honey, he’s just being silly.” She hands him a paper napkin, “wipe your mouth, you have a chocolate milk mustache.”

“Remember the song you and Daddy sing when we go to Dairy Queen?”

“Why don’t you sing it for me?”

“Yummy yummy yummy I got love in my tummy,” he sings.

She doesn’t sing along like before. She stands at the stove and watches the foil begin to rise as the popcorn pops, she listens to the hard kernels bouncing against each other before they explode.

“Yummy yummy yummy,” the boy sings

From upstairs, a sudden loud crash, a thud, a series of “God dammits!”

“Uh oh”.

Daddy comes barreling into the room, a scratch on his forehead, blood streaming down his face, red droplets on his chest hair.

“What happened now?” she says.

“That damned cat!” he says. “She attacked me!” he collapses into a chair. “From out of nowhere she pounced on me!”

“You’re nuts” she said.” What happened?”

“Look!” he shows her his wound. “She must’ve been lying in wait, like a sniper.”

A sound like escaping steam comes out of her as she wets a clean dish towel under the tap. She dabs at his forehead not too gently which makes him wince. “Don’t be such a baby. Sit still! ”

“I’m telling you for the last time that cat’s got to go”

“Shush” she says “this needs some mercurochrome . Do you think you can stay out of trouble for five minutes while I go get it from the medicine cabinet?”

“I’m serious” he says “ that animal is out of here tonight.”

While she’s gone he says to his son, “I could have rabies, if I start to foam at the mouth you’re my witness!”

“Yes, daddy.”

When she returns with the familiar glass bottle of antiseptic and the box of bandaids, he’s there sipping a Naragansett. The popcorn is burnt.

Eventually he’s cleaned up and on his feet. “Now let’s go back to bed and get some sleep,” she suggests.

The whole way up the stairs he’s fuming. “I’m not going to be attacked in my own house by some feral animal!” He mutters something about “guerilla war tactics.”

“Are there monkeys going to hurt us, mommy?
“No, honey no monkeys, you’re daddy’s just being stupid.”

“I’ll show you who’s stupid!” he says, his eyes are lit up. He runs toward their bedroom.

“What now?”

“Time to even the score” he says over his shoulder.  She watches her husband, this man she married, the father of her child, from the doorway.

He’s wild, crazed, dancing furiously around the room, kicking a brown mass of fur, yelling, stomping on it. “Die stupid kitty die!”  Finally, he stops, breathless from his exertion.

'You idiot” she says. “What the hell are you doing to my good wig?”

He stands there in the middle of the room, blinking at her. His dingey underwear sags, looking forlorn. Under his bare foot the inert hairpiece is limp.

Kitty comes from wherever she was hiding, rubs up against her mistress’s legs. She’s purring. Her green eyes view the scene with a studied calm.

The cat had a smile on her face, the grin of the victor. In years to come the little boy would insist he saw it, whenever he told of the night, when his mommy stopped singing the yum yum song.