Cat Food

I can’t say it was an accident that I started eating cat food—I mean, it wasn’t like I woke up one morning and someone served me a bowl of kibble that I thought was Cocoa Puffs; but it wasn’t like it was a goal of mine to be eating cat food either, or that I’d read a bunch of health books and decided that the best diet for me was one high in feline cuisine. What happened was I got fired from my job, and while I was scrambling to find another one I had to make some tough decisions, like did I want to eat three meals a day or go to bed at night with a roof over my head? Now on that one I chose the roof, which meant that for a while there I was starving, and when I found out that one of my neighbors was just setting out cat food for the taking, well then, I had another tough decision to make, didn’t I?

* * *

I’d already been out of work for a couple of weeks when the cat food came to my attention. I’d just gotten off the bus after blowing another job interview—why should I have to like Pepsi just to stock the crap—and as I was walking back to my apartment the girl who lived above me drove by in her slightly-dented sedan. Her name was Reece, and what else I knew about her boiled down to about three things: she was hot, she was kind, and she had a boyfriend who came to town on the weekends so they could fuck like rabbits—not that this last detail stopped me from flirting with her whenever I had the chance, because you never know when a relationship’s gonna go south; hell, my own had just blown up after I’d asked Gwen if I could borrow a few shekels and she said she was done messing around with a loser who, and I quote, “can’t even keep a job in retail.” Anyway, I picked up my pace, hoping to cut Reece off at the entrance to our building and show her just how chivalrous I could be by holding the door for her, but by the time I made it to the parking lot she’d already loaded herself up with a bunch of groceries and was headed for the door. I slowed up, cursing my luck, when all of a sudden, just as she was walking up the stoop, one of her bags broke and spilled its contents everywhere. Here was my chance, I thought, so I picked up my pace again and got there just in time to help her gather up everything that had tumbled down the stairs. One of those things happened to be a twelve-pack of gourmet cat food, which I thought was odd, because our building has a strict no pet policy, so I decided to have some fun with her, and inquired as to whether she was experimenting with some new recipes. She laughed, a bit uneasily, though that may have been because in my other hand I was holding a box of condoms, which might also explain why her face had turned so red.
“The other day I was eating a tuna casserole on my balcony,” she explained as I was helping her put her stuff into the other bags, “when this cat leapt up from the fence and started purring at me. I gave her a few bites, and the next day she was scratching on my glass. Her owners must not be feeding her enough, so I’ve been leaving food out for her so she won’t go hungry.” See what I mean? Kind. Then she said, “That’s probably against the rules as well though, so please don’t tell the super.”
“What, you mean my best friend?” I joked, and she rewarded me with a smile. Then I held the door for her, said my goodbyes, and off we went to our separate floors—she to the first and me to the basement. And that, so I thought, was that.

* * *

Only that wasn’t that, because a few moments later I went looking for something to eat and discovered that all I had left in my apartment were two slices of bread and, well, a can of tuna. No mayo either, just straight out-of-the-can chunk light in water. And as I was eating this barely palatable mixture of wheat and fish I happened to look up at the ceiling and wish that instead of making that stupid food joke I’d have hinted to Reece that maybe I deserved a free homecooked meal for helping her out. Not that she would have taken me up on it, because like I said, she had a boyfriend, but at least I would have known for sure, whereas all I knew now was that my gag reflex was a lot stronger than I had previously thought.
It wasn’t until the next morning, however, when I heard Reece’s balcony door slide open, that I actually began thinking about the cat food. At the time I was drinking from a carton of orange juice that I’d been watering down to make it last longer, and I suddenly felt this pang of jealousy at that cat for being a cute little animal that an even cuter girl would set out food for; but when I heard the song that Reece always played right before heading off to work—“Survivor” by Destiny’s Child—turn off, I started thinking about how the cat food would just be sitting up there all by itself with no one to look over it. I rushed to the window and waited for Reece’s car to pull out of the parking lot, and then I threw some pants on and went outside.

* * *

I was only out there a few minutes when the cat appeared from around the corner of the building next door. It patted along the grass a bit, then leapt up onto the chain link fence that separated the two properties, and after doing a tight rope for several steps, leapt gracefully up through the balusters around Reece’s balcony and finally disappeared from view. By then I’d already pieced together that if I wanted the cat food for myself I was going to have to get up there in pretty much the same way, because though I could just about reach the flooring on the balcony, there was no way that I had the upper body strength to pull myself up, especially when I wasn’t fully nourished. The problem was that I could see the whole thing going horribly wrong. Like what if I banged my foot against one of the balusters instead of stepping between them? Then I’d fall and probably crack my skull against the handrail before crashing to the ground and laying there until some poor sap came along and spotted my lifeless body. And that was another thing: what if I did somehow manage to make it onto the balcony safe and sound, but while I was doing so someone saw me through their window, or pulled into one of the parking lots in their car? And what if they thought I was a burglar and called the cops on me? Was I really willing to risk going to jail just for a few nibbles of cat food? No, I didn’t think so, and so once the cat took off, its stomach now full while my own was growling, I, too, hit the road, trudging over to the nearest McDonald’s where I ordered a couple of items off the dollar menu, hoping that the kid behind the register wouldn’t get the pleasure of denying my credit card.

* * *

By pawning my Xbox I was able to make it through the week, but come Saturday I was hurting. That night, after jerking off to the moaning above me, I snuck out to the dumpster to look for anything that I could shove into my mouth. After digging around a bit, I found some French fries, a watermelon with some juice still clinging to the rind, and a half-eaten granola bar with a hair sticking to it—all pretty gross, but it was enough to keep me alive through Monday morning, when I once again heard Reece’s balcony door slide open. By then her boyfriend had already said his goodbyes, and so it was just a matter of listening for “Survivor” to finish up and then waiting by my window for her car to pull out of the parking lot. A few seconds later, I was out the door.
There was a guy over in the neighboring parking lot having a smoke, but as soon as he finished and went back inside I walked between the two buildings, climbed the fence, and lunged onto Reece’s balcony, landing a foot perfectly between two balusters and immediately latching onto the handrail. As soon as I’d climbed over onto the balcony proper, I picked up the orange plastic bowl and began scooping out the cat food with my fingers. To my surprise, it didn’t taste all that bad; in fact, it was pretty fricking delicious, and that in spite of it being chicken, which had never been my favorite, even when served on a plate. Of course, I was sure that part of the reason it tasted so good was because of how hungry I was, but that was all the more reason I scarfed it down in a matter of a minute and then licked the bowl clean with my ravenous tongue.
The cat appeared just as I was finishing up, and meowed at me like it was hoping I would share, but it was already too late for that, so I gave it a little advice instead: “Let that be a lesson to ya, Whiskers. You’re gonna have to be a lot faster than that if you want to eat at this balcony from now on.”

* * *

The rest of the week went by in pretty much the same way, except that I started bringing a spoon along so that I’d feel like I was eating a real meal. Then, on Friday, I got a call from a roofer who’d fallen behind and wanted to know if I could work the weekend so that he didn’t have to pay his regulars overtime. By the end of Saturday every muscle in my body was aching, and when we finished up on Sunday my limbs were so wobbly that I had trouble making it down the ladder. Apparently I wasn’t too bad at it though, because the guy asked me to come back on Tuesday or Wednesday, whenever I was recovered. Better yet, he paid me on the spot, in cash and off the books, so that night I was able to eat like a king—or at least at Burger King.
There was just one problem though: no matter what I put into my piehole, none of it tasted quite good as Reece’s cat food. I thought at first that it was just because I’d gotten used to the flavor, and that over time my taste buds would revert back to normal; but even after a few weeks of eating nothing but human food, I still couldn’t get the taste of that gourmet chicken out of my mouth. I even tried real chicken—a whole bird’s worth—but all that did was highlight just how much better the cat food really was.
I started to get desperate, but there was no way I was putting my ass on the line just to satisfy my taste buds, so instead of jumping back onto Reece’s balcony, the next time I went grocery shopping I drove my cart over to the pet section and started looking through the cat food. I’d remembered the brand name and what the package looked like from when I’d helped Reece with her broken bag, so I was able to get the exact same kind as she had; but when I brought it home and dumped a can into my favorite bowl, I could tell right away that something was different. It just didn’t seem as textured as what she’d set out for me—I mean, for the cat—and it also looked lighter in color. I tried a bite anyway, but I was immediately put off by it. Whereas her cat food had tasted nothing short of heaven, the crap that I’d bought tasted like, well, like crap. It occurred to me then that Reece must have been adding something to the cat food, only what? Maybe some kind of breading to help thicken it up a bit, make it seem less runny, and maybe also some kind of spice—though I had no clue which kind. For a second there, I toyed with the idea of running upstairs and asking her, but just as I was about to leave my apartment I realized how odd that might seem to just show up at her door for no other reason than wanting to know if she was adding anything to her cat food, especially when I’d never shown up at her door before—for anything. When I returned to the kitchen and saw the way I’d ripped into package of cat food, to say nothing of the fact that I’d done so before putting any of my other groceries away, including what needed to go in the fridge—that’s when I realized I had a problem, and that the only way of getting over it was to go cold turkey. To that end, I dumped the rest of my bowl into the garbage, along with the package, and then I lifted the bag out of the receptacle and hauled it straight out to the dumpster. From now on, it was only human food for me.

* * *

At least that’s what I told myself, and for a while I managed to stick to it. But the taste of Reece’s cat food never quite went away, and every time I sat down for a meal I felt like I was cheating myself. On the other hand, at least I wasn’t starving anymore, and not long after, I ran into Gwen, who agreed to start seeing me again, at least on a trial basis, which turned out to mean that we could go out on dates together but we couldn’t have sex. Still, it was better than nothing, and on the whole my life was looking up.
Then I got a call about a job at a car dealership. Granted, the base pay was less than what I was making as a roofer, but if I sold a lot of cars I could really make bank on commissions—not to mention I wouldn’t be so exhausted at the end of each day. Gwen also like the idea of me going to work in a suit and tie and not coming home smelling of tar. “You should at least go to the interview,” she said.
Which is exactly what I planned on doing, only I was so nervous about it that I barely slept the night before, and when I awoke the next morning I had no appetite for cereal or anything else in my cupboards. When I heard the balcony door above me slide open I knew immediately what I was really hungry for, and could even imagine Reece setting out the orange bowl as if it were happening right before my very eyes. Just the thought of it soothed me, though of course I knew that devouring the cat food would soothe me even more. One last time, I told myself. One last time and everything would be okay.
Except that’s not the way things went, because while I was on the balcony, savoring my first few bites, I heard a noise in Reece’s apartment. I knew it wasn’t her, because I’d been careful to watch her car leave the parking lot and had continued to keep an eye on the entrance in order to make sure that she didn’t return. But what I hadn’t done, because it was the middle of the week, was check to see about her boyfriend’s car. You’re not supposed to be here was all I could think when the curtains suddenly flung open and there before me stood a big, burly man in his underwear—which must have been roughly what he was thinking as well. With only a thick pane of glass between us, I knew I was in trouble, and even more so when his look of surprise shifted to anger, and so without further ado, I brought the bowl up to my mouth, gobbled up what was left of cat food, and then took off over the railing—by which I mean I jumped.
Needless to say, that wasn’t how I’d let myself down before. During my week of flavory bliss I’d been very careful about climbing over the railing and then crouching down before finally taking a steady leap onto the lawn. But there was no time for that now, and when I hit the ground I heard a snap and my ankle gave out. As I was lying there, writhing in pain, I looked up and saw Reece’s boyfriend staring down at me, looking like he was ready to pummel me to within an inch of my life. I’m sure you’ve heard that story about the old lady who lifted a car up in order to save her grandchild from being crushed to death—well, that was me in that moment. In fact, I had so much adrenaline pumping through me that not only was I able to get up and take off as if there was nothing wrong with me, but I managed to run so fast that I was able to slip back into the building and down my flight of stairs before he was able to put some pants on and come running down his flight of stairs—and then out the front door, presumably because he thought he was chasing after a burglar.
Later that afternoon, however, I couldn’t walk. I had hoped it was only a sprain, and I put some ice on it to mitigate the swelling, but still by five o’clock my ankle was size of a cantaloupe. In order to get around my apartment, I had to use a broom as a crutch, which was when it dawned on me that I could have also used it to slide the pet bowl over to the edge of the balcony instead of having to climb onto it. Oh well. Too late for that now.

* * *

That evening Gwen came over and when she saw my ankle she insisted on taking me to the hospital. I told her I couldn’t afford it, but she grabbed my arm anyway and forced me into her car. On the way over I confessed what had happened, including how I’d had to miss my interview, though it was the idea of eating cat food that really seemed to upset her.
“Jesus, couldn’t you have had a donut at the dealership?” she asked.
“It wasn’t about hunger,” I tried explaining to her. “It was about the taste. I just knew it would calm me down.”
“So pick up some cat food on the way over there.”
“You don’t understand. It’s her cat food that tastes so good,” and then I confessed everything, my entire week of living off of Reece’s cat food, and when I was done, she gave me the most pitiful look that anyone had ever given me before.

* * *

The doctor gave me an X-ray, which showed that I had a slight fracture. He told me I’d have to wear a boot for a while and that I needed to keep off my ankle as much as possible, which meant no work and no income, although this time, instead of kicking me to the curb, Gwen offered to take care of me. Of course, there were plenty of ground rules, like I needed to stop acting like an idiot and start behaving like an adult, and when I got back on my feet I had to look for a better job and start saving my money, but most of all, I needed to start taking our relationship seriously, seeing us as a real couple. And after this experience, I knew she was right, that I did need to get my shit together, and also that she was probably the best I was ever going to get. But even as I agreed with her, even as I was committing to the new life that she was laying out for me, deep down, all I was really thinking about was getting another taste of that damn cat food.