(PITA Alert: One cat was mashed in the telling of this story.)

Now, I will admit, before we even begin, that I never much liked that cat.  I don’t even recall its name – “Socks” or “Whiskers” or “Frisky” or some such thing.   It was mean and sneaky and I got the feeling it never much liked me either. 

Because it was my sisters’ cat, I paid little attention to it.  I'm sure that it was cute when it was just a playful kitten, but over the years it had grown into a rather rude and surly, flea-bitten old cat.   I recall that it was white, maybe with a touch of black.  Yes, there must have been black, or brown… at least it wasn’t solid white… well maybe it was…

I don’t recall. 

It was a Saturday morning and Mom was late for something.  With five kids under the age of ten, she was always late for something.  She came bustling out the door with my two younger sisters in tow, then turned and went back in, and then came back out again…  They were fussing over this, and had forgotten that - trying to get in the car but held back by the mysterious attractive forces of forgotten things left behind in the house.

The sky was Lower Michigan grey: thick, dark and impenetrable.  (It’s the overwhelming effect of the Great Lakes that makes it that way.)  It had been raining for days, quickly melting six inches of late Spring snow and the ground was saturated.  Giant puddles resembling Lake Michigan itself covered the soggy, muddy streets.  The front lawn was spongy and the sand and gravel driveway was muddy, soft and forgiving. 

This was the scene as I played alone in the yard, climbing in the big maple out front and keeping an eye on things.  I was ten.  I noted the “helicopter” or “nose pincher” seed pods on the maple that were beginning to form.  I watched robins tugging at worms in the lawn and saw Mr. Simonson raking wet leaves next door.   Amongst other happenings, I noted without interest that the cat had crawled up under the car.  Not just under the car, but it had hopped up into the wheel well where it presumably sat next to the still-warm engine.  Why?   Who knows, it’s a cat.  It was a minor event in the interplay of the front yard, but as we’ll soon see, it turned out to be a major player in how the day was ultimately remembered. 

Mom and my sisters finally tumbled out of the house and into the car, spilling armfuls of hair brushes and Barbie dolls and warm jackets as they went.  I jumped from the tree to say good-bye and stood about ten feet from the car, prepared to wave sincerely.  I always loved it when Mom took my sisters somewhere.  Anywhere.   It meant that the women were all gone and that my Dad and brother and I had the place to ourselves.  Peace and quiet.  Manly moments.  Yes!

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No doubt, from the cat’s point of view,

this was a really bad day.

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Mom was now in a frantic hurry.  She checked to see that all of her daughters were in the car, started up the engine and quickly threw it into gear. The blue Ford station wagon lurched backwards towards the street, splashing water from puddles as it went.  Vaguely, in the back of my mind, I remembered the cat.  What goes in, must come out…   I glanced down just in time to see the flea-bitten cat leaping from the wheel well.  At the moment of its leap the car hit a puddle and bounced downwards, pulling the frame away from beneath the cat’s feet.  This altered the cat’s trajectory so as to align its landing spot exactly with where the backing tire would very soon be.  Very soon. 

“MOM!” I yelled, “the ca…”

As the cat’s paws touched the ground, the front tires of the car rolled directly over the cat’s head, eliciting a sickening “yyoowwllll!” which was subsequently muffled as the full force of the Ford Motor Company bore down upon and crushed its skull.  When the tire passed on it revealed the bloodied, flattened head of the cat completely stuck to the tire track in the soft mud while the rest of the body flopped reflexively and spasmodically back and forth through the air. 

It was absolutely terrifying. 

I glanced at Mom who was now backing out and trying to get out into the road as quickly as possible.  She had heard my scream and knew exactly what happened.  She was trying to prevent my sisters from seeing the flopping cat but their noses were already pressed to the window in horror.  I saw them pointing and heard them screaming and crying as the car pulled quickly away.  

The car pulled off down the street and all was again quiet.  I looked back at the cat which by now had stopped flopping and only laid there twitching and flinching.  The head was completely flattened, driven into the mud like a piling.  The eyes had been pushed from their sockets and hung there passively looking in two different directions, offering the cat’s fading brain a unique perspective.  No doubt, from the cat’s point of view, this was a really bad day. 

And there we sat, just me and the dead cat.  I looked around.  The birds still tugged at worms, a few maple helicopters fluttered to the ground and Mr. Simonson continued to rake his leaves, oblivious to the drama next door.  (He had long ago learned to ignore us.)

I was just a kid, a ten year-old kid, and when you’re a ten year-old kid there’s really only one thing to be done at a time like this.  This was a job for a higher power.

“DAAAAAAAAAAD!”  I screamed excitedly as I sprinted for the backyard,

“ …wow, you should’a seen it…”

“… Mom just ran over the cat!”