January 10

Slamming the truck door after parking in his garage’s lot, he dragged his long legs over snow-covered junk auto parts, weeds and various other rubble and scrap that littered every inch of yard between his shop and his house.  A dirty gray-and-yellow cat waited for him on the rundown porch.

Dane bent over and popped the lid off a dented container that held dry, stale cat food.  “Here,” he said to the cat, pouring Friskies into a grimy bowl, and as the cat jumped off the porch railing to the floor, the disgruntled mechanic banged shut the house door behind him.

Dirty Burt crunched the food, a few crumbs escaping through two broken teeth.  Like the lanky garage owner he hung around with, Burt thought being unattached from people and obligations made him rebelliously free.  He could go where he wanted without answering to anybody, and he sure wasn’t going to be stupid enough to volunteer his time to any Cat Community. 

He looked into the water dish frozen to the floor and saw it was empty.  He considered that if he yowled loudly enough, Dane might come out and give him some water, but he might also get a nasty kick for his trouble.  “Guess I’ll just go suck some snow,” Burt grumbled, unhappy at having to leave the relative dryness of the porch. 

Almost daily Dirty Burt thought about making the trek down Debny Road to Mooner Farm, but he couldn’t bring himself to “wait around begging for milk like those circus-trained furballs”.  Thinking of warm milk made his stomach pinch and rumble as he hunted through the trash for cleaner, less oily snow.

 There wasn’t any milk at Sawyer Fabrications, but the factory’s constantly running machinery kept the place warm, if dangerous.  Burt spent his time running between Dane’s garage, the Sawyer factory, and searching for friendly female felines. 

The cat looked up guardedly as the front door slammed again, followed by angry expletives followed by Dane’s stomping footsteps.  Apparently there had been another tow call.   Dane loudly announced to the freezing air that he wasn’t happy about going out again.  Neither the grubby mechanic nor the grungy cat realized that their idea of freedom brought loneliness, and what they both craved was companionship.  That’s why Dane got back in his truck this cold winter morning, and why thoughts of Mooner Farm rose like dairy cream in Burt’s mind.  Neither of them knew how to break their destructive  behavior; they’d never learned how to pay attention to anyone but themselves. They didn’t know how to change their lives, so they complained and ranted and were continually unhappy.

As the wrecker drove off, Burt stepped through the sullied snow, returning to the ramshackle porch.  The painful gnawing in his stomach had not gone away.