Animal Party, by Trinie Dalton
ANIMAL PARTY
I used to play a lot of Burgertime, because I was lonely living by myself far out in the desert where my cat had just been eaten by coyotes in the sandy backyard. Burgertime is a Nintendo game in which the player becomes Chef Pepper, best burger maker in the world. Chef Pepper sets up buns, so lettuce, tomatoes, and yellow cheese can fall down from outer space onto them. Since the game design is primitive, the ingredients are chunky and squared; it's not like the lettuce waves through the air or has the multiple shades of green a leaf would have as it curls and ruffles around itself. The buns are brown, and their rounded edges look zigzaggy as if they're cross-stitched. Since Burgertime is my favorite video game, I occasionally remind myself that I should embroider a Chef Pepper quilt, covered with hamburgers and the villains: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. Quilts are another useful weapon in the fight against loneliness.
At first, it didn't seem like I'd be lonely in the desert, with so many critters around. The day I moved in, I walked on the patio barefoot and got stung by red ants. The ants were the color of my burgundy toenail polish. If I stood still long enough, they circled my feet and prepared to ascend my ankles. Their colony was so extensive, I felt like I should've asked their queen permission to move in.
Then, a fruit bat moved in; he flew in the window one night while I sat on my couch in the dark watching thunderstorms in the distance. The lightning cracked, made neon hairline-fractures in the sky, only to reassemble in clouds that glowed brightly on and off as a light bulb with an old filament would. The bat flew up to my ceiling, perched upside-down, and when I turned the light on to see its reflective nocturnal eyes, it looked at me in a gentle way that I interpreted as it being happy to see me. The bat lived with me for two weeks; it had plenty of insects to eat in the rafters.
At one point, I had a praying mantis that hid inside curtain folds. It started out tan, an inch long, and grew three inches while changing to bright green. It would crawl out of the curtain to perch in front of me when I stood at the sink to wash dishes. It seemed like my mantis loved me, or at least was curious. In desolate regions animals and humans have to band together for company and social interaction.
The bat didn't eat the mantis.
* * *
I moved to the desert to escape the noise and crap in Los Angeles. The air felt gunky on my skin; just walking outside I'd acquire greasy, gray layers of dirt--I washed my face three or four times a day to keep it clean. Ghetto birds (a.k.a. helicopters) flew over my house all night. Four hounds next door started barking at dawn every morning, which was worse than the roosters at my old house. I hated driving the grids; it made me feel stupid, like a termite: all the daily plugging away in the car, on the phone, on the computer, in the kitchen, shopping, getting dressed, talking, thinking, behaving, and controlling, amounted to nothing more than survival, something that a termite does so easily, with no financial security or high intellect.
It wasn't fair, all the responsibilities, all these years of moral preparation and schooling for no more accomplishment (rented house, decent meals) than that of an insect. It's true, you think humans are superior, but they're really not--think of all the amazing feats termites can pull that we can't: chewing and digesting wood, carrying things hundreds of times their weight, building massive muddy towers and secure tunnel systems, communicating telepathically without a need for language. Intact instincts make everything we've sacrificed in the name of progress look like an absurd waste of time. Being human is a gyp.
So when my cat was fatally hit by a car, I decided to move somewhere animals lived more naturally, where the species intermingled, where I could feel more like an animal. Even at night, when I was most alive, the city felt claustrophobic and dingy. I couldn't see stars, so I'd sit at my desk spying through binoculars into other people's houses. Worst of all, I only saw t.v.'s flickering, no naked woman dancing, no dude getting high. Everyone was so boring.
* * *
The only official party I hosted in the desert was a Burgertime Party; about eight friends drove out from the city to spend the night. They were old friends I hadn't seen in months, and they'd been offended when I moved away, as if I were snubbing them for being dull. At the time, I was. But by now, after a year of solitudinous living, I was tired of hosting animal parties, the kind during which I downed a couple bottles of wine while searching every room and porch for other living things--kangaroo rats, moths, lizards, scorpions. Here's a typical animal party:
1. Snoop through the vegetable bin in the refrigerator for leafy greens. Tear half a leaf off something.
2. Hunt the pantry for seeds, sunflower or sesame, for instance, and put some in a cup.
3. Look for something to feed the snacks to. If nothing reveals itself, go visit the black widow in her web on the back porch, leaving a small food pile beneath her. Do not hand feed.
Nights became so non-verbal.
So at the video game event, we sat in a tendril-like arc around the t.v. screen, with cords connecting us to the electronics. The middle-eastern inflected Burgertime theme song made us feel like we were surrounded by belly dancers in some exotic, smoky night club. I was trying to remember how to make conversation.
"Put the cheese down before you sprinkle pepper on the egg, that's the only way you'll have time to finish the level," I said to my friend Belinda.
"I'm so bad at these games!" she yelled, as she threw down the controller.
Jordan, a more serious video game player, said to me, "You must've mastered this thing by now, with so much time to play. God, you must get so insanely bored out here! Have you won the game yet?"
"No," I said back, "I'm pathetic. Even if I played 24-hours a day I couldn't win. The pickle kicks my ass every time." This confession made me somber again, since I thought about the irony of hosting a party featuring a game I sucked at. It was like hosting a pie party, with burnt up pie to offer. Or a hat party, while wearing a stained and faded baseball cap.
"What do you do all day, then?" another girl asked.
"Not much. I look around a lot, listen to sounds. Watch the sun rise and set." It sounded histrionic but I was just summarizing.
That was the end of talking. No one had much to say on those topics. Before, I thought they were all boring, but now I was boring. I wished I were at an animal party.
Towards the end of the night, my neighbor, Mildred, called. She was 93 and survived on a respirator. She'd lived her whole life in the desert as a waitress at the local diner. Sometimes she'd call over if her oxygen cords were tangled around the leg of a table, or if she needed a hand moving the boxy air machine. But this time she called to warn me:
"Is your cat in?" she asked.
"I don't have a cat anymore, remember?" I answered sadly.
"Well, the bobcat's making its way up the street, and it's headed for your yard. That same one came around here about five years ago, and got Hal's cat. Just stay inside and lock the door, you'll be all right," she said protectively.
I thanked her for calling and hung up. I'd always wanted to see a wildcat close up. We stopped playing Burgertime and killed the lights. This was enough action to impress my city friends, and we rolled another joint. Once we were settled and stoned, the cat wandered up casually onto the patio, and stared in. It had pointy fuzz on its ear tips and it was three times as big as a house cat. Orangish-brown coat with slight stripes. Everyone had a peek, then went back to talking. Their chattering annoyed me.
I kept peering out, until the bobcat and I finally made eye contact; I tried not to blink. The intensity of relating to a wildcat gave me mystical dreams for weeks. I dreamed about being half-human, half-animal--mixed genera. When I spoke, meows came out; not even my parents understood me.
In one dream, I lived with woodrats under a boulder. I sat there shivering while I watched them nestle into their rough bed, huddled together in a furry, warm mass. They winked at me, one by one, with their long black eyelashes looking glamorous in the breeze that was freezing me, naked beside them. In my dream, I couldn't sleep.
* * *
When your cat dies, sleeping feels so empty, that same empty you get when everything's predictable, planned, the running errands empty, the not-enough-time-in-the-day empty; you can't bury your hand in the cat's belly or pull its whiskers out to inspect its tiny fangs. Interaction with pets helps me sleep more soundly.
I got my first cat, the one who was slaughtered by a speeding car, because she was free, and cute. I lived alone, worked at a deli. In the evenings, I'd make her cat-sized sandwiches with cheese, fish, kibble, cantaloupe, pork bits, peas, and other favorites. We ate out of the same dishes. She had a triple-row turquoise and pink rhinestone collar that accentuated her blue eyes. We were both single and horny, but neither of us wanted to give it up for just anyone.
When you're female and single, a female, single cat is a surrogate sister. Two innocent creatures, not virgins, just sweet. I hated my job, and was so broke I didn't even open bills--just tossed them, sealed envelopes, into the dumpster on the way in. Cats serve as pillows, they pull weeds with you out in the garden, eat roaches and other bugs you hate to squash, and perform countless other duties, not all the duties that a man might do (like fix broken light fixtures or caulk the shower tiles) but enough. I don't need to convince everyone of how great cats are.
Lacking a cat combined with living in utter silence, in the desert where there are no night sounds, made me an insomniac; video games are a treatment for that. That's how Burgertime saved me.
Playing Burgertime gives you this false sense of staying busy, as if you are responsible for delivering meat to mankind. Staving off starvation of the masses is an overwhelming task that requires total dedication. Catching the stuff on the bun takes on religious significance, as if it's Manna floating down from heaven. Don't fuck up positioning the lettuce straight on the burger or else it will drift off the cliff beside you. As you read this, you think, Who cares about Burgertime? But at 3am when you're awake because it's too quiet and there's no cat to wiggle your foot on, your deluded brain mistakes the Chef's duties for your own. You'll be making burgers all night sometime--just watch.
* * *
I live in the city again, with my new cat, an orange tabby. Last month, a friend and I went to the desert to camp and to watch shooting stars. Driving in night wilderness with the high beams on, we saw an animal scurry across the road. As I thought we were going to hit it, I yelled, Go kitty go!, thinking it was a cat. But a domestic cat wouldn't be in the middle of the desert; my mind automatically went into cat mode.
When you go into cat mode, everything relates to your pet cat. Whether it be an aromatic shrub you walk past, my cat would love that smell, or you wake up from a dream with a physical craving to touch cat hair. Going into cat mode is usually fine and entertaining, nothing too psychological. Death and nighttime complicate cat mode.
I think of my cats when I see the moon, not sentimentally, but proudly, since cats throughout history have represented the moon in its various feminine forms. The goddess Diana transformed herself into a cat when Typhon forced the gods to adopt animal shapes in order to flee to Egypt. Diana traveled using moonlight to hide herself, thus associating the image of a sneaky cat crawling across the night with witchcraft. In the ancient Eastern world in which cats were worshipped, a coiled cat reminded people of the moon cycle, and of the divine darkness of nature.
When I dream about the bobcat, its eyes turn gold and its fur turns black since it sits in shadow, silhouetted by cold light. Is it the Black Cat, the cat that symbolizes that which is uncreated, the vast deep unknown, the limitless, formless, and inexpressible? I think back to the bobcat, and wonder if it was a witch, shape-shifted to illustrate some mystery.
A bit of witch trivia-- Isobel Gowdie, known as the Queen of Scottish witches, was condemned to death in 1662 after confessing her spell that changed women into cats:
I shall goe intill ane catt,
With sorrow, and sych, and a blak shott;
And I shall goe in the Divellis nam,
Ay quhill I com hom againe.
* * *
Now that I live in Los Angeles again, I never feel lonely although I do frequently feel bored. This reminds me of an old friend who was so bored he got hooked on swimming with alligators; he was in Louisiana, in waterways where he could see the beasts surfacing and plunging down, disappearing. After he'd see one, he'd take a swig of whiskey and jump on in. This was his cure for boredom. Will I one day be tying slabs of smoked salmon onto myself, sitting in alleys downtown waiting for feral dogs to gnaw me?
If I feel lonely, I have my cat, and I have friends. If humans don't work, and one cat is not enough (as is often the case) I can still throw animal parties, with skunks, raccoons, hawks, and possums. I miss my black widow.
My tabby loves skunks. She's a mini-bobcat. I've observed her in staring contests, tried to translate her hisses during late-night showdowns; her eyes get slitted, turn iridescent gold, and her fur magically gets more auburn. The bristling of it displays her mean undercoat. I like to think of her slinking up tree-trunks, pawing through grass, and catching baby snakes. But I also like it when she curls up, like a cinnamon bun, in my lap while I sit inside playing Burgertime.
* * *
TRINIE DALTON's books include Wide Eyed, Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Is, Mythtym, and Sweet Tomb.
Baby Geisha, a story collection, is newly released for 2012.
She currently teaches fiction and art critical writing at USC, Art Center College of Design, SVA and Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Learn more about here at SweetTomb, and join us in May for Small Doggies Reading Series PDX020 when Trinie will be a visiting author on our stage.