Read Online The Cat Sitter's Whiskers by Blaize Clement - Free Book Online
Authors: Blaize Clement
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the block.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
This time of year, when the sun hangs just a few feet over your shoulders and the heat feels like it has weight to it, anybody with a lick of sense stays indoors in the middle of the day. If they absolutely have to go outside, itâs only for as long as it takes to walk from their air-conditioned house to their air-conditioned car, and then they park as close as possible to the front door of their air-conditioned destination. Itâs only the tourists who donât know any better.
I reminded myself of that as I pedaled through the throngs of heat-soaked vacationers wandering around the center of town: gaggles of teenagers in flip-flops and Ray-Ban sunglasses with candy-striped towels like sarongs around their waists, hand-holding gray-haired couples with blissful smiles and dabs of chalk-white sunblock on their noses and ears, parents with kids in tow all happily negotiating their melting ice-cream cones, and young lovers without kids in tow happily negotiating their four-wheeled beer coolers down to the beach to work on their tans.
It was like riding through an obstacle course, but as soon as I got down to the end of the Village, the crowds thinned out and I was able to pick up speed. By the time I got home I was drenched in sweat. Normally I would have gone right upstairs to my apartment, taken a nice long shower, and collapsed in bed for a quick nap before I was out again for my afternoon rounds, but not this time. I rolled into the carport, leaned my bike under the steps, and hopped right into my Bronco.
With the air conditioner on blast, I took Midnight Pass all the way up to Stickney Point, where I hung a right and crossed over the bridge to the mainland. Then I headed down Tamiami Trail, past the clusters of thrift shops and burger stands and streetside fruit vendors, all the way down to Old Wharf Way, which isnât easy to find because itâs often confused with New Wharf Way a mile or two farther south, but also because the road sign got knocked down in a storm almost a decade ago and no oneâs ever bothered to put it back up.
You have to know where youâre going to find Grand Pelican Commons.
Â
8
Iâm not one of those psycho lunatics who wanders around in a deranged fog of insanity, following every random impulse that pops into her head or listening to imaginary voices from God knows where. I am fully cognizant of my occasional lapses in judgment, and furthermore I know there were any number of things I should have been doing instead of driving around looking for Levi, but as I made my way down Old Wharf, I couldnât stop thinking about something that had happened almost twenty years earlier.
Back then, the school day started at 8:15, so my alarm was set to wake me up every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m. Iâd roll out of bed and stumble downstairs to find my grandfather sitting at the breakfast table in his blue-jean overalls and plaid work shirt, his reading glasses perched on his nose, Lucky Strike dangling from his lips, and a piping-hot mug of coffee at his side. My grandmother would still be rustling around upstairs, but he would already have read through more than half of the morning newspaper, including the funnies.
It always made me think of Levi, who was probably about fourteen and had been delivering the paper for a couple of years by then, and how early he must have had to get up to deliver those newspapers on time. Just the idea of it made me want to crawl back in bed and hide under the covers. At that age I couldnât imagine anything more inhumane than making a teenager rise before the sun, but here Levi was doing it every day, every week, fifty-two weeks a year.
His mother always chauffeured him around town in her old Dodge minivan, with Levi sitting in the back and pitching the papers out the open hatch like the professional baseball player we all thought heâd be one day. I remembered one morning her van
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
This time of year, when the sun hangs just a few feet over your shoulders and the heat feels like it has weight to it, anybody with a lick of sense stays indoors in the middle of the day. If they absolutely have to go outside, itâs only for as long as it takes to walk from their air-conditioned house to their air-conditioned car, and then they park as close as possible to the front door of their air-conditioned destination. Itâs only the tourists who donât know any better.
I reminded myself of that as I pedaled through the throngs of heat-soaked vacationers wandering around the center of town: gaggles of teenagers in flip-flops and Ray-Ban sunglasses with candy-striped towels like sarongs around their waists, hand-holding gray-haired couples with blissful smiles and dabs of chalk-white sunblock on their noses and ears, parents with kids in tow all happily negotiating their melting ice-cream cones, and young lovers without kids in tow happily negotiating their four-wheeled beer coolers down to the beach to work on their tans.
It was like riding through an obstacle course, but as soon as I got down to the end of the Village, the crowds thinned out and I was able to pick up speed. By the time I got home I was drenched in sweat. Normally I would have gone right upstairs to my apartment, taken a nice long shower, and collapsed in bed for a quick nap before I was out again for my afternoon rounds, but not this time. I rolled into the carport, leaned my bike under the steps, and hopped right into my Bronco.
With the air conditioner on blast, I took Midnight Pass all the way up to Stickney Point, where I hung a right and crossed over the bridge to the mainland. Then I headed down Tamiami Trail, past the clusters of thrift shops and burger stands and streetside fruit vendors, all the way down to Old Wharf Way, which isnât easy to find because itâs often confused with New Wharf Way a mile or two farther south, but also because the road sign got knocked down in a storm almost a decade ago and no oneâs ever bothered to put it back up.
You have to know where youâre going to find Grand Pelican Commons.
Â
8
Iâm not one of those psycho lunatics who wanders around in a deranged fog of insanity, following every random impulse that pops into her head or listening to imaginary voices from God knows where. I am fully cognizant of my occasional lapses in judgment, and furthermore I know there were any number of things I should have been doing instead of driving around looking for Levi, but as I made my way down Old Wharf, I couldnât stop thinking about something that had happened almost twenty years earlier.
Back then, the school day started at 8:15, so my alarm was set to wake me up every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m. Iâd roll out of bed and stumble downstairs to find my grandfather sitting at the breakfast table in his blue-jean overalls and plaid work shirt, his reading glasses perched on his nose, Lucky Strike dangling from his lips, and a piping-hot mug of coffee at his side. My grandmother would still be rustling around upstairs, but he would already have read through more than half of the morning newspaper, including the funnies.
It always made me think of Levi, who was probably about fourteen and had been delivering the paper for a couple of years by then, and how early he must have had to get up to deliver those newspapers on time. Just the idea of it made me want to crawl back in bed and hide under the covers. At that age I couldnât imagine anything more inhumane than making a teenager rise before the sun, but here Levi was doing it every day, every week, fifty-two weeks a year.
His mother always chauffeured him around town in her old Dodge minivan, with Levi sitting in the back and pitching the papers out the open hatch like the professional baseball player we all thought heâd be one day. I remembered one morning her van
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