Garden Spirits

   





Garden Spirits

By Noel Laflin

August 7, 2001

We had been scavenging firewood and medium-sized rocks from the on-going construction site for weeks before the large boulder was unearthed by a backhoe one day.  Tom was the first to spot it that night, flashlight in hand, as the two of us made our nocturnal rounds.  We searched for simple treasures to either burn in the fireplace or haul through our new condo, lug down the stairs and place in the back yard.  All of my money had gone into the down payment of this first home.  Scrap wood supplied cheap heat.  Free rocks were becoming a staple of the new garden design.  We knew the meaning of frugality. 

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary!  Will you look at the size of that guy,” Tom sighed, after spotting the rough-hewn monster.  “Shine your light over here, please.”  Doing as requested, I too stood in awe.   This was one mother-of-a-rock, compared to the dozens we had carted by wheel barrel or boxes for days prior.  The ground crew that had come across this one must have regretted their unearthing.  It had to have been a bitch to lift from the trench.

“Oh, yes, this is it,” Tom chanted to himself, as he brushed dirt away from his great find.  “I’m naming you, ‘Spirit Rock’. We’re going to need the dolly for this move.”

“Are you nuts, Tommy?  This has got to weigh a several hundred pounds.  How the hell are we getting it on the dolly, let alone get it through the house and down the freakin’ stairs?” I reasoned.

Tom wasn’t listening.  “We’ll need to secure this well,” he continued.  “Rope and bungee cords ought to hold it all right.”  He was already devising a makeshift fulcrum from a two-by-four and header board. 

“Hello?  Did you hear me, sweetie?  This is going to be a mess,” I insisted.  “We’ll break our backs.  And just why the hell do you want this particular rock anyway?  It’s too damn big!” I argued.

Tom finally seemed to hear me.  He stopped fidgeting with the lifting device and turned to me. “It’s calling to me,” he said softly.  “This rock needs a home.  The garden needs this rock.  Help me on this, OK?”  He patted the dusty giant lovingly and began to clean more dirt away. 

All of my arguments faded.  I knew the determination in his voice.  When something called to Tom, it meant business.  He would not be deterred.  I might as well help get this over with, or watch him struggle to do it on his own and break his butt trying.  Experience had taught me that Tom did not let up on issues of plants or rocks that called to him.  If this one already had a name, it was going to have a home, in Tom’s eyes.  I sauntered off across the street toward our garage to look for tie-downs and the dolly.

Spirit Rock lay like a jewel-in-the-rough amid the construction rubble of our new neighborhood still in the making.  It was in close proximity to what would soon take shape as a swimming pool, part of phase two of the overall project.  We lived in the first phase, with a handful of other recent buyers.  There weren’t many neighbors, as yet, to be witness to our boulder move.  As Tom and I wrestled with the heavy stone, trying in vain several times to find a proper fit on our undersized hand truck, a barn owl swooped by, close overhead, taking refuge in a half-framed home.  It was dark and cool.  Despite the December night, we were drenched in sweat beneath our coats from our efforts.

Once the rock was securely in place, crisscrossed with rope and cords, we each took an end of the dolly and gave a heave-ho.  I pulled while Tom pushed.  It was slow going.  Debris blocking our route had to be removed and a curb negotiated before we hit the firm asphalt street.  I am sure we looked ridiculous.  Although meant to handle small-to-medium appliances, etc., our beat up little dolly did not really know how to handle such a rough-cut chunk of earth.  But the tie-downs held.  With no neighbors in sight, we slowly crossed the short street and strained with the upward slant of the driveway.  Now the first challenge truly presented itself, pulling our load up the short step of the porch and through the front door over the threshold frame.

Clunk!  We cleared the first obstacle.   Pushing, pulling and lifting we managed to again clunk our way into the house.  We edged our way to the top of the stairs and surveyed the proposed descent like river guides charting their final entry and ultimate execution of a Class V rapid.  Once we started down, we felt there would be no going back.  The pull of gravity, like the pull of a river would not be forgiving.

 I had always referred to our home as being upside- down.  When we first toured the model a few short months before, I had stood, with a hand on the stair rail and looked at my surroundings. I noted the high ceiling of the living room, the connected dinning area and kitchen, had seen a bathroom and knew there was an attached garage before I finally asked Tom, with some bafflement, just where the hell the bedrooms were.

“Look down, luv,” Tom suggested.

“Oh!” My hand seemed to jump off the railing.  “The rooms are downstairs; now I get it,” I confessed.  Tradition had always dictated that bedrooms should be above, or so I thought.  I had to think a bit differently here.  Downstairs led us to a small hall off of which was another bathroom, small bedroom as well as the master bedroom.  We spotted the back yard.  Both rooms had a view of it, but the master bedroom had entry to the yard through a sliding glass door.  Our fenced-in space was perhaps twenty-five by twenty-five feet.  The rooms were much cooler down here.  It was at least twelve to fifteen degrees hotter upstairs. The temperature factor, along with affordability, uniqueness of design and layout - as well as having some yard space (not bad for a condo) all added up to our decision to buy this unit on the spot.  Escrow closed within twenty-six days.  We moved plants first.  The garden took priority.  Furniture may have been placed without much forethought, but the garden had a plan, thanks to Tom.

“We’d better get Zane out of the way,” I suggested, as we lowered the dolly to the carpet.  The small gray kitty was just under two months old.  I’d found him in a pet supply store near my work and bought him for five dollars.  He was an early Christmas gift for Tom.  We named him Zane Gray.  The cat was located before he could escape out the front door and locked in the bathroom for safe- keeping.  The last thing I needed was a playful kitten making a game of the rocky move down the stairs.

We maneuvered the rock and dolly to the edge of the top stair and peered down once more.  The hundred-gallon aquarium at the bottom of the hallway suddenly captured my attention. 

“You know,” I said slowly, “if this sucker gets loose on any one of these steps, there’s going to be one hell of a small flood down there, not to mention unhappy fish and shards of glass blown everywhere.”  Tom was already in the garage rummaging for something.  He came back with fifty feet of three-quarter- inch rope. 

“OK, here’s my idea,” he started.  “We tie this through both handles of the dolly and then wrap the rest of the rope around the top of the banister.  You get on your butt, straddling the dolly between your legs and use your feet as brakes on each step.  I’ll play out just enough rope for each step lowering.  We’ll take it slow and safe.  It will always be tied off up here.  What do you think?”

I still thought he was a little nuts and just a bit over-optimistic in the new plan.  However, I lacked other alternatives and knew the rock would never look right here in the living room as a permanent fixture.  Reluctantly I agreed to the insane idea.  I got on my ass and readied myself for the ultimate toboggan  ride, should the rope come loose.

The rock-laden dolly teetered on the top step as I inched my way forward.  Tom let out a little rope.  The strain on my arms, legs and back was tremendous.  Fresh sweat formed under my armpits.  Thunk!  The wheels landed on the first step.  The rope held.  “Thank you, Jesus!” I cried.  One down, twelve more thunks to go.  We made our way precariously down each stair.  The aquarium loomed ever closer.  It stayed intact.  Somehow we made it to the safety of the hallway slab below.  A fresh trail of dirt lay on each successive step; a small price to pay, I thought.  That’s what vacuums are for. 

We angled our way through the hall and bedroom and over the sliding glass door jam.  We were in the garden at last.  Hallelujah!  Now, all Tom had to decide was where to place the beast.   He already had an area in mind.  We moved our heavy load the last ten feet and loosened the tie-downs.  With great effort we lifted the dolly and rolled Spirit Rock into its new resting spot.  Tom said that he was satisfied with the placement.  “That’s good,” I quipped, “because I’m not moving the son-of-a-bitch any more tonight.”  It was now ten-thirty. 

I went in to vacuum our dusty trail and to see if wheel imprints in new carpeting were only temporary.  It looked like a covered wagon had rumbled through the house and trampled the stairs.  One ticked off kitten was then finally freed from the bathroom.  A hot shower, pain relievers and bed were the plan.                

Tom played in the garden till midnight, moving plants and small rocks by flashlight and feel.  I could hear him talking to things, apologizing to a plant or stone for having to move it.   I heard him humming to himself.  He was never happier.

The garden has been a work in progress ever since.  Ponds were built over the years, new trees planted, fruit harvested and branches trimmed with the seasons.  Stepping stones and pathways were constantly being rearranged as new plant varieties were added to the yard.  Everything that the garden required came through the house, down the stairs and out the bedroom sliding glass door.  I have worn out several vacuums over the course of nearly two decades.  Throughout the years Spirit Rock always stayed in place.  Tom did not.  I became the guardian of plants and stones after his departure.  Eventually I learned how to care for the goldfish and koi as well as repair and build new ponds.  I experimented with different plants and designed new layouts.  Now I move stones about  (apologizing as I do so) as pathways change or a new fancy takes hold of me.  The really big rock has never been moved, however.  I work around it, as needed.  It has settled into place quite nicely after almost eighteen years.

I kneel proudly by the newest addition to the yard, a fourth pond.  It only took a few hours to install a few Saturdays back.  I like the sound of falling water in stereo.  I constantly rearrange plants and rocks to entice its look and give it character.  Little treasures find their way around the edges of the pond; an angel with a missing wing, broken shards of a favorite clay pot, rocks brought back from far off visits.  The edge of this new pond just misses the biggest rock in the yard. 

My old gray cat saunters by, a bit stiff with arthritis these past few years, but still here despite his age.  He’ll be eighteen come Halloween.  He walks over to the big rock looking for a patch of sunlight.  Eating and sleeping are his primary concerns now.  I pet him as he slowly goes by.  His eyes are getting a little glassy with age.  Tom never took Zane with him when he left so long ago.  His care, as well as the care of the garden fell to me.  And that’s OK.  I have learned how to maintain and improve its look over time.  Tom even paid me that great compliment when last he visited nearly ten years ago.  He had not been to the house in years.  But time and shared health concerns had healed the old wounds between us.  It was good to have his company once again.  But he wasn’t quite the same boy anymore.  He was now far too thin and moved much slower then a young man of thirty-four should move.  Tom was ill.

When we got to the garden, upon that day of his last visit, he told me I had done well.  I asked him if he would paint a wall mural over the large pond closest to the house.  He was excited with the challenge.  I fronted him fifty bucks to get the supplies.  He never had time to start the painting.  The final stages of AIDS took him out of our midst forever four months later.  He hung around till Christmas Eve and then gave up the ghost.  Two months later six of us scattered his ashes beneath a giant oak tree in Ojai. We held back some of his ashes to place in three other locations of which we felt Tom would approve.  They were all in beautiful gardens.

 

I pat the large rock once more as Zane makes himself comfortable in the warm afternoon sun.  I remember how I dug a hole by hand one February night beneath this giant and placed a handful of ashes deep within the earth.  Spirit Rock welcomed an old, lost friend that evening.  

Now I talk to the garden all the time. Should I ever leave, however, that big old stone is going to stay.  It’s one son-of-a-bitch to move. 

                  

                                      

Pretty Places

 Pretty Places

By Noel Laflin

May 17, 2010

           

     “This is the tree,” Tom said, as we stopped our walk one warm August afternoon and stood beneath a majestic old oak.  “I want my ashes here, right here.”

     I glanced down at the ground and noticed that there was not much barren earth beneath this behemoth.  As it stood in the middle of this quaint old park, the oak had become a focal point of the grounds and concrete terracing now boxed in the massive roots, surrounding the tree on all four sides.  It looked to be a fine resting spot for dewy-eyed lovers, old folks wanting to take a load off or maybe for children at play. The terracing was meant to sit, jump or stretch out upon. It did not look conducive for scattering ashes, however.

     “We’ve got a lot of cement here, Tommy,” I said.  “Where exactly do we put you … between the cracks?”  I continued, “You know, this place is full of magnificent old trees; how about one a little more off the beaten path; one with some decent soil beneath it?”  I gestured in several directions to beautiful canopies all about us.

     Tom scanned the park and then placed his left hand on the trunk of his chosen shade.  “No,” he replied.  “This is the spot. I have been here many times and the feeling is always the same. This tree is calling me.  Will you make it happen?”

     I moved over to stand next to my young friend placing one hand on the tree and with the other pulled Tom close.  “Yes,” I said quietly.  “We’ll do it here … I promise.”

     Tom died four months later on Christmas Eve.  He was thirty-five years old.

     Six of us gathered outside the park on an unusually warm Saturday morning in February of the following year.  Tom’s brother, Bob, and mother, Joyce, had brought the ashes.  I had made the long drive up to Ojai with my good friend, Larry.  Two other friends of Tom had also joined us.  I had never met them before but they had gotten to know him during the last year of his life, when he had started an AIDS advocacy group in Camarillo, the first of its kind for the conservative area.  They both looked upon Tom as their fallen friend and leader and wanted to pay homage today.  After introductions and hugs all around, brother Bob reached into his car and withdrew a small brown cardboard box. 

     “Lead on,” he said.

     I steered our small contingency across the park to the appointed oak.  Our party gathered in close.

     “This is the tree,” I whispered aloud.

     The others stopped to look up and admire the gnarled old lady.  It looked like it had just been pulled from a Tolkien novel, something straight out of Rivendell perhaps, and placed here in Ojai.  I half expected to see elves sitting in the branches above.  We all took in its height and breadth of trunk. We followed the immense base to where it disappeared into the flat of cement surrounding it.  We then looked around at the numerous folks strolling about the park on this beautiful sunny morning. 

     “Are you sure this is the right tree?” someone inquired.  “This looks to be a pretty popular spot … for an illegal burial.”

     “Just where are we supposed to spread the ashes?” someone else asked in a hushed tone smiling at a couple strolling past us arm-in-arm.  “There’s no dirt around the damn thing,” they whispered.   “What’s up with all this cement anyway?”

     “Look,” I said, “I did not choose the place.  You know Tom; he said this tree called to him.  Although I did suggest otherwise, he was quite adamant about wanting to be here … right here, he said.  I gave him my word that I would honor that request.”

     We were suddenly a grim group.

     “Well,” Joyce said, “if that’s what my boy wanted then that’s what he gets.  Let’s start digging.”  And with that, we scurried about for twigs and small branches …anything that might scrape some dirt from between the cracks of the cement.  I dug out a small pocket knife, casually sat myself down on the edge of the concrete and got to work.  It was slow going. 

     The six of us must have looked a bit strange to passersby as we scattered about the old oak scratching dirt out of the cracks of the terracing.  We tried to be nonchalant but I have my doubts as to how that really must have looked.  But, no one stopped to stare, let alone inquire as to what we were doing.  Thus, we labored away.

     By the end of twenty minutes, we gathered to discuss our progress.

     “At this rate,” brother Bob said, “we’ll be here till Tuesday.” 

     “I’m getting a blister,” chimed in one of Tom’s two other pals.

     “You know,” someone said, “even if we get the ashes into these cracks, they are going to stick out like a sore thumb; the color difference and all.  We just can’t dig deep enough to properly bury them.  And if we just sweep them around this cement there is no place for them to go really.”

     We all had been thinking similar thoughts.

     “I’m getting pretty thirsty,” Joyce lamented. 

     “Let’s take a break,” I suggested.  “There’s a coffee place across the street.  We’ll get something to drink and enjoy it back here while we figure out plan B.”  So, off we traipsed in search of sustenance; hot and iced coffees, tea, lemonade and latte.

     By the time we returned with beverages in hand, a plan had surfaced. 

     We would all take small fistfuls of Tom’s remains from the brown box, go back to our tiny trenches and dissolve each handful with the help of our drinks being poured sparingly down each narrow crack.  We would then cover the muddy ash with the thin soil we had dislodged in the first place.  Brilliant! 

     And so we started round two, casually strolling over to brother Bob and the box, reaching in and returning with bits of Tom. When no park goers were nearby we once again took up various locations beneath the tree and let free from our hands small amounts of granululated ash and bone into the crevices.   We must have then looked quite mad as we proceeded to pour small amounts of coffee, tea, lemonade and latte into those narrow lanes.   We then followed that with the brushing of any convenient dirt or handy leaf over the muddy evidence.  Within thirty minutes we had parted with only about a quarter of Tom.

     Brother Bob hefted the box in one hand. 

     “We still have a ways to go,” he said.

     We dusted our hands against our trousers as we pondered our situation.

     “I think Tom would be happy with what we have accomplished so far,” I said.  “And we have kept our promise that he would rest under this tree,” I continued.  “But you know, Tommy had other favorite haunts in this world too.  I think he might be pleased if we left him in some other pretty places; say the Arboretum or the Huntington or even in my garden, a place he originally designed.  These are all beautiful locations and were dear to him.”  I let the thought linger there.

     Larry was the first to comment:  “I will take him to the first two.  I don’t live that far from either one.  I will find someplace nice to let him rest.”

     “And I will put my portion of Tom beneath the big rock in my yard.  Tom and I spent an entire evening moving it there ten years ago.  He always referred to it as Spirit Rock.  He said it ‘called to him’, much as this tree did apparently.   What do you guys say?”

     “Well, I’m all for it,” said Joyce. 

     “I think he’d take the deal if he were here,” concluded brother Bob.

     The two newest friends nodded in agreement.

     And with that, we carefully divided the remaining contents of the small brown cardboard box into three equal portions. 

     “I say we refresh our drinks and actually consume them this time,” Joyce proposed.  We nonchalantly gave one last glace about, making sure we had concealed our doings properly, picked up our empty cups along with the remains of the day and strolled across the park once more.  We toasted Tom one last time before we drove our separate ways.

     Much later that evening, as the sun was quickly setting, I dug my hand beneath the giant rock in my garden and pulled forth rich dark soil.  I took the plastic bag from my coat pocket and gently poured the few handfuls of ash into my hand and placed it far into the tunnel I had dug under the boulder.  The old cat, Zane, whom I had given to Tom one Christmas when the grey feline was but a kitten, bore witness to my labor of love.  I patted the soil back into place and gave Zane a scratch to the ear.  He lowered his head and purred his approval.

     Some weeks later, Larry called to inform me that he had seen to his end of the bargain also.   He had taken his two toddlers and wandered the grounds of two very lovely locations.  At one beautiful garden, beneath a smiling stone Buddha, he quietly took out a small plastic bag and shook the contents about the base of the statue and into the foliage.  He then moved on to another of Tom’s favorite hangouts and did likewise with the shaking of another small plastic bag.  This final resting spot was flanked by a beautiful waterfall.  Larry then strolled about the grounds, with kids in tow, taking in the beauty of the flowers, trees and rocks along with the recent memory of some other very pretty places.

                                                                           

Tom Pistulka - circa early 60's

Still In The Garden

“STILL IN THE GARDEN”

By Noel Laflin

3-03-02

          I was the second person to inherit the old cat.

         My call to Ruby, one warm October day, was meant to be one of pleasantries as well as an offer of assistance with her upcoming relocation.  Ruby was finally giving up the old house in Long Beach and determined that it was time to move into a retirement community.  My father had done much of the legwork, by way of careful research, and recommended Bixby Towers as his choice, if it were he that sought such a place.  Ruby had been relying on the judgment of both my mother and father for more than twenty years.  She agreed with his choice and arrangements were made.  An apartment in the Towers was selected and the old house Ruby had inherited from her sister, Opal, was put on the market and sold very quickly.  Ruby may have been old and operating off of one feeble lung only, but she was fast on the move with her packing, sorting, tossing and giving away of things.  When I happened to call, it seems that one of the things she was in desperate need of giving away was Targa, Opal’s old cat.  The cat had come with the home, after the sister’s passing.

           “I just don’t know what I am going to do with Targa,”
Ruby gasped.  Sixty years of cigarettes and one lung removal later, on top of severe emphysema, lent a wheeze  to every sentence she spoke.  “They won’t let me take Targa to the new place,” she cried.  “There is a ‘no pet’ rule,” she panted, “although I hear fish are allowed.  Just not big ones, I suppose,” she reasoned, laboring for air. I am not sure what got into me at that moment, but as I paused to let her catch her breath, I thought, 'why not?'

    “Ruby, I’ll take Targa for you.  I will give her a good home in the garden.  You know how pleasant it is there; she can nap in  the warm sun to her heart’s content.  Zane won’t mind, I’m sure.”  The youngster, Zane, my gray tomcat was always on the prowl anyway and probably wouldn’t even notice the old, brown, long haired feline that would soon share his space. At least, I hoped        he wouldn’t mind. Zane would be three on Halloween.  Targa’s  age was uncertain.  She was at least twelve years old, most likely older.  She was in her golden cat years, that was for sure.

Ruby began to cry and wheeze simultaneously. “Oh, that would be so wonderful,” she sniffed.  “Targa is all I have left of Opal, the last of my family, I guess.  Thank you.” 

This former neighbor and friend of two decades had literally watched me grow from boy to teen to adult and had been most kind to me during all of that time.  She still referred to me as her ‘gardener’, as I had kept her lawns trimmed, back in the old neighborhood in Anaheim, for ten years or more.  She had always paid me most handsomely.  She never forgot a birthday or graduation of any sort either.

But over the years, as she battled alcoholism, loneliness, loss of husbands and health, as well as the last of her kin, she somehow became a member of our family. We, in return, viewed Ruby like any eccentric aunt or older cousin.  She was family, short and sweet, which pretty much-described Ruby’s physical description, too.  Well, she was at least short.  Once she beat the bottle, she also became sweet. 

She no longer showed up on New Year’s Eve, for example, wearing nothing more than a raincoat, as she did during one memorable changing of the year celebration.

“I’m naked as a jaybird,” she slurred, flashing my mother in the kitchen. She had also forgotten to put in her teeth.  Or perhaps she had left them out intentionally as the new set of dentures were not fitting as well as the old ones that her dog, Fluffy, had gotten hold of one Saturday afternoon and chewed into unrecognizable pieces. Despite all this, mom somehow bundled her up before she had a chance to scare the rest of the guests and got her back home, next door, and into bed.

      In pre-sober days she was liable to stumble over to our house at any given time, drunk as a skunk, railing on about one injustice or another.  Or, perhaps she would tell us for the two-hundredth time how she had met one of the husbands (Frank, as I recall) and remind us of what a looker she was back in the bad old days of Chicago.  And a looker, she was.  I have a small black and white photo of her standing in a doorway, somewhere in Chicago, most likely, taken during the late thirties or early forties, and looking quite stunning.

         But, as the years went on and she lost her youth, as well as husbands, that little woman found solace only in her highballs. Ruby could go through a fifth of bourbon every night.  My dad and I knew, as we carried her trash out to the curb each week and heard the clinking of bottles rattling about in the dinged up metal trashcans.  But come early the next morning, there was Ruby, made up and dressed quite eloquently, driving off to her secretarial job, looking none the worse for wear.  I really don’t know how she did it. 

Over time, the bottom fell out, however, and Ruby was hospitalized after a bad seizure.  It was my dad who found her and got help.  She went through terrible withdrawals while bedridden, seeing snakes and all.  She eventually emerged from the ordeal, sober.  She remained that way for the rest of her days.  Again, I don’t really know how she did that as rapidly and as gracefully as she did.  She was one resilient woman, all four foot, eleven inches of her.

Many of those old remembrances, along with dozens of others, fast-forwarded themselves through my head as I drove home with Targa.  It was late October.  Ruby would be moving into her new apartment the first week in November    She had said her goodbyes to the cat, cried one last time and then sent me packing with at least fifty cans of cat food.

       It was while I was unloading all of the cat food that I lost Targa.  The drive back to my place had been uneventful.  I had also gotten the cat into the house without trouble.  But somewhere along the way, apparently, I left the front door open, while going back for more food still in the truck and in so doing forgot about the cat.  By the time I figured it out, she was not to be found.  Perhaps she had made a dash for daylight.  Damn, what was I going to tell Ruby?

I searched the place high and low, checked the garage, as well as both back and front yard.  Still no cat.  If Ruby called, I decided that I would just have to lie and tell her that all was well, that the cat was in the garden, doing just fine, resting peacefully.  I would stall for time, hoping I would find her.  I even combed the neighborhood by flashlight that night, to no avail.  I went to bed dreading the worst. 

The next morning, October thirty-first, I stumbled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.  I sleepily reached into the shower and turned on the water, full blast, warming it up.  

“YEOWWWWW,” screamed, Targa, water hitting her dead on.  It was one pissed and startled cat, which went flying out of the shower, leaping over my head and darting into the darkness of the bedroom.

“Happy Halloween, to you too, you little hairball!  Great trick!” I yelled, feeling my heart wanting to tear out of my chest. “Jesus, you scared me, cat!”

       I’d checked everywhere but the shower, the night before, apparently.   After pulling one slightly wet feline out from under the bed, I let her out into the garden, where she eventually calmed down and dried off.  Now I could make the call to Ruby and tell her just how well Targa had adjusted, without lying, too much.  She was still in the garden, after all, when I did make that call later in the day. 

“Yes, she’s doing fine, Ruby, exploring the garden, doing fine in the garden.” 

Within time, this old cat and I grew on one another.  Even Zane gave the old lady the dignity she deserved.  Maybe it was the sharing of canned food that won him over.  Up until then he’d only experienced the dry stuff.  Whatever it was, Targa became a fixture in the garden, sitting atop a Koi pond, dreamily watching the fish swim round and round, or finding a warm patch of sun up on the fence and sleeping the day away.

At every family gathering Ruby would ask the inevitable: “And how’s Targa?”

To which I always answered: “Fine, Ruby, just fine.  Targa’s still in the garden.  Sleeping peacefully, no doubt, as we speak. I always returned from the gatherings with more cans of cat food.

The next two years were rough on both Ruby and her former cat.  Both were growing a little weaker each day, slowing down considerably.  Even Ruby’s asking about the cat began to slacken off, as her own health deteriorated.  But my ready answer to her, when now occasionally asked, was pretty much the same each time: “Targa’s fine, Ruby, still in the garden, resting easy.”  Ruby would be satisfied and more cat food would find its way to my house eventually.

So it happened one early September morning, nearly two years after acquiring Targa that I was brought out of a sound sleep, by the sound of a strange gasp or cry.  To this day, it is hard to explain the noise I heard, but it was similar to a muffled, “Oomph!” The night had been warm and the sliding door to my bedroom was wide open.  I heard that expulsion of air quite distinctly, over the splash of water falling in the ponds, coming from the garden. 

Groggily I went out to investigate, flashlight in hand.  The scanning beam caught Targa, lying on the ground, gasping for breath.  It appeared that she had jumped from the top of the old wooden fence to the garden floor, as was her custom, and had the wind knocked out of her old frail body, upon the hard fall.  I bent down to stroke her and noticed that she was not responding to my touch.  I grew concerned and gently lifted the old gal and set her on my lap.  She wheezed, laboring for breath. It was not unlike the sound Ruby frequently made when exhausted by words or extended movement.  The similarities were uncanny. 

As I stroked her head, scratched behind the ears and gently tried to reassure Targa that all would be well, she suddenly breathed her last and went limp across my knee.  The cat was dead.  This last jump and consequent hard landing had done in her old heart, I guess.  Her bony body was now quite still as I continued to scratch behind the ears, weeping as I spoke to her. Warm tears baptized the soft pelt.

It was four in the morning. The air was still, warm and dark. A thirty-six year old man sat cross-legged in his garden, cradling a dead cat and carrying on like a heart-broken child.  He remained in that position until the first rays of light broke over the horizon.  As night gave way to day, he stiffly rose and carried his light burden into the house.  Moments later he emerged, now wearing tennis shoes and an old sweat shirt while carefully cradling something loosely wrapped in an old faded sheet.  He set his parcel down and located a shove.  He began to dig a hole, not far from where he’d sat before.  The hole grew deeper, as dirt and rocks were separated and piled beside it.  Eventually satisfied with its depth, he picked up the shrouded small bundle and gently placed it at the bottom of the hole he’d dug.  After a last touch to the sheet, and a few whispered words, he began to slowly refill the hole with dirt.  A large stone was found and placed atop the packed down earth.  Smaller rocks were placed around the rough, gray centerpiece, in tribute.  Rose petals were sprinkled about.   Finished, the man slowly went into the house and called in sick to work.  He had not felt this tired or this sad in quite some time.  He just needed the day alone.  The man unplugged the phone, shut off his pager, and then crawled back into the rumpled bed he’d jumped out of some hours earlier and cried himself to sleep.  “All this, over a cat,” he thought, drifting off. “ Jesus.” 

Fourteen months later Ruby had a fall of her own and died the next day. She was eighty years old.  My father and mother made all of the arrangements for her burial and estate settlement, as were expected of them.  

I had never told Ruby about Targa’s  passing.  Interestingly enough, she never asked how the cat was doing during all that time. I was prepared but never had to use the standby reassurance line of mine.  Maybe, Ruby just knew instinctively that Targa was still, in the garden.

             

          

     

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Cats & Jam

“Cats ‘n Jam”

By Noel Laflin







                                                                                                                                    

August 31, 2001
Friday Afternoon
Orange, Ca.

This has been a summer of missing cats and plentiful plums.  I am reminded of my own absent feline friend each time I’m in the garden picking the bountiful fruit harvest.  Bo has been AWOL for a fortnight now.
 

My garden has always been an animal sanctuary of sorts.  Opossums, raccoons and shrews come to feed and drink once the sun goes down.  The raccoons are a nuisance, as they love to fish in the koi ponds.  More than once, over the years, they have had one hell of a dinner.  They are carnivores and thieves by nature.  Not long ago I was awakened around two AM by loud splashing.  I flipped on the patio light.  A huge raccoon had my prize koi in his paws, as he bent over the pond closest to the house.   I dashed out into the back yard, stark naked, grabbing blindly for any handy rock to throw.  I nailed the son-of-a bitch in the head.  Whether he was simply stunned by the blow to his skull or by the sight of this crazed and naked middle-aged man, scrambling for more rocks and screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs, I will never know.  All I do remember is that he dropped the fish back into the water and made a beeline for the fence.  I got him one more time with a second throw.  He has not returned.  I am sure he has put the word out to his clan to stay away from my little oasis, no matter how attractive the smell of easy fish may be.  Although scarred and no doubt scared by the large claws, the fish survived.

The opossums and shrews are tolerated in the yard, as they are not meat eaters.  They can be loud, however, as they sit by the cat bowl munching away on Friskies.  My cats don’t seem to mind them.  Many times I have shined the flashlight into the yard to see a young opossum and the old cat, Zane Gray, sitting side-by-side taking turns at the food.  The opossums and shrews will also eat most of the plums that have to the ground, thus helping me with the cleanup of rotten fruit.  These guys are okay.
       

Shade from the large trees, including the three plums, help keep my small yard cool during the day’s summer heat.  Normally, the cats (mine and neighbors’) can be found lounging about the mini jungle fortress, saving energy for nocturnal prowling.  But Bo’s latest nighttime prowl is now going on two weeks

As I climb higher into the largest tree, laden with deep-purple Satsumas, I scan the fence line and beyond, hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of the tardy tabby.  “Where the hell are you, Bo?” I mumble for the umpteenth time.  “Damn!”  No cat in sight.  I continue filling another bag with fruit.

The Santa Rosas were the first to go plum crazy this year.  So much so, that David and I put up sixty-three half-pints of jam from these two trees alone.  All of this started on July Fourth, as I went out to gather some of the beauties for our breakfast.  A few plump ones soon led to a full bag as I realized that the whole damn tree was bursting at the branches.  The younger tree had its own harvest to consider and I had not even gotten to that one as yet.  If the limbs should break, not even an entire army of opossums and shrews would be able to cope with the potential downfall.  Two more plastic shopping bags were soon filled.  “What to do, what to do?” I wondered.   I approached David with a question:  “Have you ever made jam before?”

Recalling past instructions from my mother, we headed off to the store in search of Mason Jars, Pectin and sugar.  Large pots were dug out of kitchen cabinets for the sterilization of jars and lids.  Plums were rinsed, pitted and chopped.  Soon the cooking began and the entire house took on an aroma that took me back forty years in time.  I pictured my mom at the stove, stirring the fruit, adjusting the heat, lining up steaming, hot jars for the filling of the dark purple liquid.  My mother’s jam was renowned throughout the neighborhood.  I would be happy if this batch just set up all right.  We were pleasantly rewarded.  Not only did it gel properly, it tasted divine.  My mom would have been proud.  Small firecrackers, in honor of the day, bordered the labels on the jars.  It was, and continues to be, a hit with friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Bo was around during this time - although in the past he frequently was one for taking off for a day or two.  Hell, once he set an all-time record, at sixteen days away, before he sauntered back into the garden one morning, rubbing against my leg and purring as if nothing were wrong.  He had taken his leave of absence a day or two before Halloween, as I recall.  By mid November, I had nearly lost hope of his return.  I was convinced he had been catnapped for some gruesome, sick sacrifice, the likes of which one reads or hears about during All Hallows Eve celebrations.  I was in a sad state of mind already as his disappearance had followed the death of my mother just two months prior over Labor Day weekend      

So it was that I had just about given up on the lad when he came home.  No explanation, at all.  He did not look the worse for wear.  If anything, he looked well fed and cared for.  Did Bo have a new family somewhere about the neighborhood?  I have often wondered about that and asked him that too.  But he refuses to answer.  All I’ve gotten in reply is a rub to my leg and a push of his head against my hand. Of course he’s always hungry upon his return.  I have bribed him with canned food, hoping to keep him at this home for a while.  It’s worked in the past  . . . for a while.

Since that legendary Houdini disappearing act four years back, I have paid little attention to his wanderings, as he always makes it back to the garden and into the house for a long nap.  If he weren’t fixed, I’d swear he was just whoring it up somewhere.  But he’s approaching the old record, to be measured in weeks now.  Labor Day is nearly upon us.  I am concerned. Old fears begin to taunt.  A deep sadness over the loss of mom four years ago and the death of a beloved puppy twenty years ago this coming holiday also haunts me.  “Not now, Bo, not this weekend, please,” I whisper to the garden spirits above.

Peaches came our way between the harvesting of the two plum varieties and Bo’s most recent disappearance.   A  friend's tree went wild this summer also.  Twenty-seven half-pints of the golden-cast liquid amber were put up in our kitchen during the heat of August. “Tastes just like peach pie,” my good friend, Seritha, noted.  She was right.  When spread on a warm English muffin or any kind of toast or hot biscuit, the distinct taste of peach pie smacked the taste buds.  Whereas the plum jam was tart and tangy, this was an out-and-out assault of sweetness.  Oh, mom, you would be so proud!  There was more praise from neighbors, friends and co-workers.

And so I found myself measuring summer days by picking fruit and putting it to the boil.  The Satsumas were too good for jamming, however, and were eaten fresh.  I could have sold the suckers, judging once more, by the reaction of friends, neighbors and co-workers (fellow salesmen, in particular).  Damn, they were good.  That’s what took me to the top of the tree again, the final day of August, (the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death) reaching for the last of the plums while scanning for a missing cat.  Noting the melancholy date and sudden lack of Bo once again put me in a wistful mood.

I recall that Bo wasn’t the only cat to have disappeared this past summer.  My neighbor, Gail, lost one of her cats in late spring.  Homemade fliers giving a description of the lost guy were distributed throughout the neighborhood.  He was never found.  Then Krysten's cat, Pepper, abruptly vanished six weeks ago too.  More fliers and signs were posted.  The calico never made it back home.  Some of us believe that coyotes may have done them both in.  They are about as high on my list as raccoons.  They have moved boldly into our neighborhood.  Water and small prey are plentiful.  These scavengers are thriving on the pet world.  Can’t blame ‘em.  They are hungry, after all.  Intellectually, I understand.  Emotionally, I am pissed off, especially when it’s our pets that are in danger.

I left the tree with the last of the plums and a heavy heart.  There was no cat in sight.

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September 3, 2001
Labor Day
Orange, Ca.

Without a word of an apology, Bo returned to the garden this morning.  He looked none the worse for wear.  I brought him into the room and gave him the third degree.  It did not faze him.  He only pushed against my hand, suggesting that the ear scratching should continue.  I stopped the petting only long enough to open a can of good food and lay before him.  The bribe ought to work for a while  . . . maybe.  Meanwhile, we humans had toast and jam for breakfast.