Rubbing Elbows All About Town

Louis poured himself another cup of coffee. He tried not to think of the doughnuts his wife Shelia had bought that morning for the twins, who were still in bed by that time, and distracted himself with the Sunday newspaper. Louis’ decision to avoid sweets arose from his shameful dispatch of three doughnuts on the previous Sunday, which installed a goading itch in his belly for the rest of the week. This sensation came to feel like a hunger, and was, in fact, to some degree, though it was mostly a familiar guilt, a mongrelized descendant of the contrition Louis experienced in his church service childhood that had spread like buckshot into the current worries of his adult life. Louis began reading from the back of the local news page. He attempted to read a particular article about a high school student who had founded a charity for congenital muscular dystrophy, but nearly a quarter of the way through he began thinking about the cooling and hardening glaze of the untouched doughnuts and read the same line of text three or four times consecutively. He exited the kitchen and went to look out the window of the den with his mug of coffee.

“Honey, did you check the trap yet?” Shelia said from another room.

“Oh, no. I haven’t,” Louis replied. A mangy, black cat had taken residence underneath the back deck of the house. Louis didn’t mind its presence, but the large animal bullied Shelia’s cocker spaniel and often ate its food. Both Louis and Shelia ran the cat off when they spotted it, but it always returned at night, scratching its way over the fence and back under the house where it lurked until the frost of dawn left and it could resume its neighborhood exploration. It was Shelia who suggested a humane trap, which surprised Louis because he considered himself the more humane one, and also because his wife protected her old dog with an earnestness that Louis had never felt for anything, except for his children perhaps.

The backyard swelled out from the deck and became wilder and less manicured as it neared the back fence. There were several trees that obstructed Louis’ view of his neighbor’s property where he suspected the cat migrated from when it was ready to retire. The slice of land was mostly forest and Louis had drafted plans to convert the scanty lawn into a swimming pool, though the twins loved the thin streak of woods and the hiding places it afforded. Louis figured they would be happier with a pool as they grew older and it would give him and Shelia an excuse to spend more time outside.

Louis was nervous about the trap; it would be the seventh unsuccessful attempt if there was no captive. He tensely untied the cords of his waistband and then re-tightened them as he paced towards the small cage at the side of the house. There was no black cat, again, but there was a small cottontail rabbit. It was slightly bleeding on its backside near its tail where the trap had forcibly snapped. Louis felt remorseful. He studied the rabbit for a moment, wearing a glazed look of grateful pity. The rabbit focused on escape. Louis looked up at the sun burning gold at the edges of a gray scarf of cloud and then glanced back at the rabbit again. Suddenly the voices of men from his past emerged from the unlit corners of his memory and he began to think of eternity, our earthly prisons, the Gates of Heaven, and other words of interest from the Sundays of his life. He realized that he was envious of the rabbit, envious of its forthcoming relief from disgrace. It was as clear to him as a wrong note in a scale. He felt silly.

Louis took the trap to the driveway and opened it. The rabbit scurried to the lawn across the road and into a narrow scrub that ran behind the subdivision toward the freeway. He returned through the backdoor and into the kitchen where he walked straight to the box of doughnuts and ate one in only five bites.

“Did you catch the cat?” asked Shelia, entering the kitchen.

“No, trapped a rabbit, though,” said Louis.

“A bunny? Hm. Is it still out there?”

“No, I let it go.”

“Why didn’t you wait until the kids could see it? They love rabbits.”

“I don’t know. It was hurt. I didn’t want to upset them.”

“Well, they’ll be upset that they didn’t get to see it at all.”

“Just don’t tell them. There’s no need for them to worry. They’ll grow up happier.”

Shelia snickered at Louis’ reasoning. He smiled and reached for another doughnut.

That night, Louis and Shelia made love. It was tenderly intended and agreeable to both parties, though Louis was surprised by his invitation and even more so by his wife’s acceptance. It wasn’t a Sunday night occurrence in their house and Louis still approached the subject with a clumsy formality. He noticed the soft sheets of their bed for the first time and wanted to compliment Shelia on her selection. He didn’t care about the black cat any longer. It could live there, eating the old dog’s food and sleeping warmly under the house. He would keep the trap out there to appease Shelia, of course. He wished he could give the twins their pool tomorrow and wondered about the cost of swimming lessons. He wondered about the rabbit. Was it healing? Was it at all thankful to him, if a rabbit could be such a thing? Was it resting safely under one of the dark and gnarled hiding places of the world, waiting calmly until daybreak to dart splendidly along the grassy fringe of the interstate and beyond?