Rhubarb

by H Allen Smith
Drawings by Leo Hershfield

 

Introduction to a Cat

On a morning in late December two years before the events about to be related in this book, a radio actress, by name Rebecca Ross, left her apartment in the community of Jackson Heights on Long Island. Miss Ross was but newly come to Jackson Heights else she would have turned left instead of right when she emerged from the building where she made her home, for she was accompanied by a dog. She would have known.

It was not a fit morning to be strolling the streets with or without a dog, for a cold and copious rain was falling straight downward, California fashion; yet neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night could ever stay Miss Rebecca Ross from the swift completion of her appointed rounds with Mitzi.

Actress and dog were attached by leash as they moved northward in the rain, and there are people in this world who might have concluded that they made a pretty picture together. They wore matching costumes. The dog had on a green dog slicker with a cowl that hooked over her ears, and each paw was encased in green rubber booties. Miss Rebecca Ross wore a green raincoat, green galoshes, a small green hat, and carried a green umbrella. Before long her face would match her costume.

Miss Ross was by no means a prominent actress. Such small reputation as she owned in radio derived from her frequently repeated role as an off-mike scream. ‘She was a large, chesty woman and she had perfected a feminine shriek of horror which created a demand for her services on radio murder programs wherein a lady is present when the victim's body is discovered. This profession furnished a small but adequate livelihood and made it possible for Miss Ross to buy matching food and clothing for herself and Mitzi.

The two females, dog and woman, were stepping along beside a hedge which bordered a six-hole golf course when the cat showed himself. He came from behind the hedge and he was walking in a peculiar sort of crouch. He was a rangy, muscular cat the color of yellow smoke.

There was no hint of alarm in Miss Rebecca Ross's voice when she first addressed the cat; her voice, in fact, was admonitory, commanding.

"Scat!" she said.

The injunction had no perceptible effect. The cat never faltered in his stalking approach and he was headed straight for Mitzi. The dog barked.

The cat continued his advance, and Miss Ross, still unable to believe that one of Nature's lesser laws was being flouted in her very face, noted a peculiar anatomical deformity at the creature's stern. The long yellow tail looked as if a door might have been slammed on it, shaping it in the manner of a sharp jog in a road. And in the area of this double bend the tail was now jerking in a mechanical sort of rhythm like a gadget in the Museum of Science and Industry.

"Scat!" cried the actress again. "Scat the hell outa here, you yella devil!"

Mitzi was not a large dog nor a courageous one, yet some atavistic impulse called for a show of bravery. She barked quite ferociously four or five times and lunged in the direction of the oncoming cat, rearing up on her hind legs as the leash tightened.

Things happened so swiftly, so unexpectedly, that Mitzi's mistress was never able thereafter to give an altogether coherent account of them. Just as Mitzi reached her defiantly rampant posture the cat appeared to take leave of its senses. A horrible, leering grimace flashed across his yellow face, and his eyes seemed to take fire. All dash and derring-do left Mitzi. She shuddered all over and closed her eyes as a yellow horror streaked through the falling rain. The cat leaped with forelegs spread wide, simultaneously emitting a spine-chilling screech, and then the fur and green rubber flew.

It is possible that people as far off as Bliss Street, Sunnyside, heard the deep-bosomed screams of Miss Rebecca Ross, not to mention the hellish noises contrived by the animals, but the cyclonic assault was over before any kind of succor could possibly reach the actress. Mitzi lay senseless and bleeding on the pavement, her lovely green tunic in shreds, three of her booties ripped from her dainty feet. Chunks of hair had been gouged from her back and neck, and the veterinarian found incisions across her face and down her barrel that looked as if they had been made by a buzz saw. The yellow cat was gone.

Her mistress . . . Well, let it be said to her credit that she did not faint during the awful assault. By the time she was able to talk she made an effort to describe events as they had actually occurred. An ordinary cat, she said, an ordinary alley cat, though bigger than most, with a big head and a crooked tail. Her story was altogether credible in Jackson Heights, but in Manhattan people simply would not believe her.

Mitzi never really got over it. For this she is not to be blamed. No dog with fair sense would ever have got over it. Few dogs ever did.

 

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