"Other Duties" by Josh McColough
Mrs. Nately’s (#309) first cat died after it escaped from her unit and wandered down to the garage in the basement of the building. It got struck by Mr. Salerno (#210) in his 1992 BuickRoadmaster—the largest car on the market that year. It was a mess. The retirement community’s maintenance manager, Bob, informed Mrs. Nately, who was rightfully devastated. I assisted Bob with the clean-up, as I was his assistant. My responsibilities were never clearly drawn out, but whatever Bob thought needed to be done in the building, I did it.
Mrs. Nately’s second cat died after it climbed into her stacked laundry dryer to nap. It was a Wednesday—her laundry day. Bob cleaned out the dryer, and I replaced the drum belt, exhaust duct and vacuumed out the lint trap. “I’ve never seen a fluffier cat,” Bob joked.
Mrs. Nately’s third cat died of an accidental overdose. It was an overweight, diabetic tabby that required insulin injections multiple times per day. Mrs. Nately failed to record one of the injections, and then administered what would be a fatal overdose. She greeted me at the door with an open garbage bag. She hoisted the massive tabby by the tail, I lifted its front legs. The bag stretched and puckered under the cat’s weight. I hefted it over my shoulder and took it down to the dumpster. When I swung the bag upward to get it into the dumpster, it tore open and the cat landed on Mrs. Starkey’s (#112) seldom-driven Chevy Malibu, denting the hood. I pounded out the dent that evening, and in an act of contrition vacuumed the interior and hung an air freshener on her mirror.
Mrs. Nately’s fourth cat jumped off the top of the building to its death. Toledo Fire Dept. 25, Battalion 2—a frequent guest of the building—deployed a ladder to the rooftop, and the Captain was attempting to coax the cat with tuna. When the cat was within a few feet of the Captain’s outstretched arm, it peered over the edge. Just below the cat was Mrs. McCaskey (#306) on her porch, leaning out over the railing, craning her neck upward to see what was going on. She and the cat locked eyes. The Captain pitched a chunk of tuna toward the cat but, instead, it leapt down, sailing past Mrs. McCaskey’s head, and landing on the sidewalk four feet from where Mrs. Henning (#105) was taking her afternoon stroll. I disposed of the cat and made Mrs. Henning some tea.
I killed Mrs. Nately’s fifth cat. It was a blazing summer day, and I spent much of it watering the flowerbeds and repairing two ruptured sprinkler lines. I was sun-beat and intent on a cool shower, a beer and the couch. In the same place Mr. Salerno hit Mrs. Nately’s first cat, I hit her fifth. I felt a dull thud and stopped to see if I had punctured a tire. The cat writhed on the ground underneath the passenger-side door. I found Bob. He crouched down and stroked the fur between the dying cat’s eyes and said, “I don’t think we have much of a choice here. This one is between you and me, got it?” I assisted him. We did the right thing. I think we did the right thing.
Mrs. Nately’s sixth cat died of natural causes. When she got him, he was blind, arthritic and suffered from severe kidney disease. He lived in a sunny, warm corner of her unit for nearly three weeks, in a manner that reminded Mrs. Nately of her late husband. Slept all day. Rarely ate. Didn’t make a fuss. The cat lived so quietly, so peacefully, that his passing went undetected for a few days. I double-bagged him, and Bob tossed him into the dumpster.
Mrs. Nately’s seventh cat simply vanished. Bob and I swept the building from the basement to the roof—all of the places familiar to Mrs. Nately’s previous cats. We searched every crevice of her unit.. While trimming the blue rug junipers near the entrance, I found a dead mouse, a tuft of fur and smears of blood.
“Coyote,” Bob said. “I’ve seen them out here in the mornings.”
One Friday afternoon, while delivering the residents’ uncollected junk mail, I heard scratching in the third floor hallway. I followed the sound to Mrs. Nately’s. Her eighth cat was whining and clawing at the door. I knocked. The cat mmrrrooowwed louder, but there was no reply. We had seen Mrs. Nately earlier in the day, strolling near the pool area. I knocked again. The cat reached its cinnamon-colored paw under the door. I went down to the office and told Bob. He called Mrs. Nately’s son, who called the fire department. Bob retrieved Mrs. Nately’s spare keys from the lockbox. “You can take off for the day, if you don’t want to see this,” Bob said to me. I assisted him. I met the fire department and paramedics at the entrance and led them up to Mrs. Nately’s. The third-floor residents held vigil in their doorways. Mrs. Nately’s cat darted into the hallway, and I caught it before it went into Mrs. Torres’ unit next door.
I’d never held a living cat before. It wriggled and scratched my arms while the paramedics did their work. Mrs. Nately was curled up on her bathroom floor. Her heart had given out.
“It always happens in the bathroom,” Bob said to me.
I took the cat home with me that night, intent on dumping him at a shelter the next morning. Instead, I named him Snitch. He eventually died twelve or so years later. He was my one and only cat.
Josh McColough is a writer in the suburbs of Chicago. His short fiction has appeared in Puerto del Sol, Split Lip Magazine and SPLASH!, and his nonfiction in New World Writing. Josh received his MFA from the University of Iowa’s nonfiction writing program a very long time ago.
