I was sixteen and saving every penny I could get my hands on to buy that guitar; the Yamaha dreadnought with the mother-of-pearl inlay and the tri-split back. It cost over $300, a million by broke-teenager’s standards. But I was determined to raise the money and no job was too menial, too tiring or too gross so long as it added a few more dollars to my piggy bank.
I cut out a picture of the prize from a Guitar magazine and taped it to my bedroom door as inspiration every time I felt the urge to ditch some odd job I’d promised to do. I walked dogs in the rain, scooped poop from the mud, cleaned mouse droppings from air vents, cleared spider webs the size of fishing nests that housed golfball sized spiders and endured hour upon tedious hour of helping the granny next door sort miles of yarn into neat coordinated skeins.
I was courteous and conscientious about my tasks, even while knowing the labor I was doing for a paltry $2.00 per hour would have cost my customers much more had they hired professionals. I was willing to be exploited if it meant adding another few dollars to the till. There was no house too big or messy that I would not go in and help—well, except one; number 1012 Johnson Way, the old Vicory house.
Old lady Vicory lived there by herself, but by no means alone. Everyone knew she kept cats—dozens of cats—even though we had never technically seen more than one. But we knew in that way people know without really knowing, that where there’s one old woman in an old house, there is really no such thing as only one cat. And afterall didn’t she pull in five pints of milk from her stoop every day? What did one old lady need with all that milk if not to feed an entire pride of cats? I was willing to clean anything, but the thought of thirty or more litterboxes was not one I was up for; especially for creepy old Mrs. Vicory.
After the first month, I counted my take; $75.25. It was going to take a lot longer than I thought to come up with the $300, and that guitar would not wait for me forever. The odd jobs were not coming as readily at the end of the summer and the babysitting gigs were few and far between on my street as most of the younger kids had grown old enough to stay by themselves. That was when I saw the note mom had tacked to my bulletin board. “1012 Johnson, feed Poopsy over the weekend, $250″.
I did a double take. “$250?” Mom must have meant $2.50, I was sure. And I was also fairly certain that she had gotten the rest of the message wrong, and that it should have read “clean poop pans”. Mrs. Vicory did tend to mumble, it was an understandable mistake.
But it wasn’t a mistake, mom assured me. She’d written it down exactly right. $250.00 to feed Poopsy, and only Poopsy. No, there was no mention of cleaning litter pans, and no, that was the only cat she mentioned.
I looked at the picture of my beloved dreadnought, its rosewood fingerboard gleaming in the glossy clipping on my door, then to the anemic stash of coins and dollar bills in my box. $250 would bring me over my goal and I could have that guitar by the end of the week. I sucked in my gut and picked up the phone to dial the number mom had written down.
She picked up before the first ring had even ended. “Yes?”
“Uh, Mrs. Vicory? It’s Jenny, next door . . . you need some one to feed—”
“Yes. Come now.” A click crackled and the dial tone buzzed at me.
“Rude old bat.” I hung up the phone and headed out the door.
Johnson was two blocks over, but a quick shortcut through McLane’s woods got me to Mrs. Vicory’s door in half the time. I stood on the walk looking up at the massive front door of the old Victorian, suddenly wondering why I had hurried. “Rosewood fret board, mother-of-pearl inlay, tri-split back. . . ” I reminded myself, chanting the features over and over under my breath as a motivational mantra.
The door opened partway before I could make it completely up the stone stairs. I stopped and called, “Mrs. Vicory?”
The door opened a bit wider, then stopped. I approached carefully, craning my neck through the opening, keeping my toes on the outside of the jamb. Technically I hadn’t been invited in yet. “Mrs. Vicory?”
A disembodied voice spoke my name. “Jenny.”
I jumped and spun on my heel then I saw the voice box on the door frame above the doorbell. “Jenny, is that you?” The voice repeated, crackling through the ancient speaker.
“Yes. . . Mrs. Vicory is that you?”
“Jenny?”
“Yes! I already . . . ” I noticed the button under the speaker that said ‘talk’. I pressed it. “Mrs. Vicory? Yes, it’s me. . . It’s Jenny from—”
“Come to the kitchen. Close the door behind you first. The kitchen is straight back, past the stairs, through the swinging door.” Click. The box went silent.
I closed the door, not giving thought of how or who had opened it for me. The house was dim and smelled of old furniture and wood. The only light came through the windows and transom, and from a small oil burning hurricane lamp on a small round table at the foot of the stairs. For all its age, and even in the dark, one thing was absurdly obvious to me; the place was immaculate. As huge as it was, there was not a spec of dust that I could see, no cobwebs clinging to the corners, no dust rings on the furniture, and even more startling: no cats. Not one. Not even the tell-tale scent of a used litter box.
I walked on my tip toes, suddenly fearful to make foot prints in this pristine wooden hallway. A light shown under the kitchen door, spreading a warm orange glow onto the hardwood floor. I pushed the door slowly. “Mrs. Vicory?”
But she wasn’t in the kitchen. Another oil lamp burned on a counter top, beside it an envelope perched on edge leaning against the base. Etched on the outside in old style handwriting carefully rendered in black ink pen was my name. “Jennifer O’Donnell”.
I picked up the envelope and flipped it open. My eyes nearly fell out of my head, I’d never seen so many ten and twenty dollar bills in one place. I looked about the room. “Mrs. Vicory? Where are you? Is this mine?”
No answer.
I admit I had the temptation to stash the envelope in my pocket and run out the nearest door, feeling entitled to the money just for showing up in the creepy old place at all. But I was raised to be honest, and I didn’t even feel right about putting the thing in my pocket until I had done what I had come to do; feed Poopsy.
But where was Poopsy? More to the point, what was Poopsy?
There was another door at the far end of the kitchen that I assumed would lead either to a pantry or into an adjoining dining room. My own gramma’s house was like that, and I figured all old houses were pretty much the same. Maybe she was in there waiting. I picked up the oil lamp and headed for the door but before I could push it open, I heard, “Not that way, dear.”
I startled and turned around, pushing down a ridiculous rush of guilt for no good reason. “I was just going to find . . . you?” I looked around, and still I was alone in the room. I glanced about for another speaker, and sure enough, it was there on the wall near yet another door I had not seen before. I pushed the button under the speaker. “Mrs. Vicory? Where. . . I mean . . . I’m not sure what you want me to—”
“Downstairs if you please. The door on your left..” Once again, the loud click signaling the end of the conversation.
I pushed the door open, and held the light through. Stairs. Great. Now I had to go down some creepy set of stairs to an even creepier basement where I was sure crazy old Mrs. Vicory was hiding all the cats. I shined the light and again was struck by the lack of dust. There was not even that musty basement smell that even the cleanest of houses had.
I stepped slowly down the first few steps until my eyes could adjust to the way the oil lamp illuminated. The stairs turned at a landing then ended abruptly at a large wooden door. On a shelf next to the door I found the first trace of normalcy; a bag of Little Friskies dry cat food, a scoop and a large bowl. “OK, I can. . . figure this part out.” I set the lamp down and filled the bowl from the bag. It seemed fresh enough . . . for dry food, and the bowl, like everything else, was dust free; so I felt safe in my assumption this was meant for Poopsy.
With the now full bowl in one hand, I reached for the doorknob with the other and gave it half a turn. This time I heard the click before the voice and readied myself for another disembodied encounter with Mrs. Vicory. “Is this where you want me to go?” I asked pre-emptively.
“Yes.”
I felt rather smug, I had guessed correctly and not jumped out of my skin, though I do admit to feeling the prickles run down my back.
I opened the door. It was dark as I expected, and I reached for the lamp. As I stepped through, the door slammed behind me. The lamp went black and, in my fright, the bowl and cat food went flying from my hand.
I groped for the door knob, but it wouldn’t turn. Frantic, I began pounding on the door. “Mrs. Vicory! I’m trapped! Please! Come open the . . .”
I jumped at the brush on my leg. Furry and warm, it pressed against me, from my ankle to the top of my knee. I had at last encountered Poopsy. It was warm, and moaned a bit in a deep guttural way, and in a decidedly un-feline sort of way. I felt the fleshy wet tongue lick at my bare calve and I scolded myself for wearing shorts.
“Nice . . . Poopsy . . . Nice . . . uh . . . thingy . . .”
I heard it sniffing and chewing, presumably the scattered Friskies. And then before I could react, two heavy fur covered paws came down onto my shoulder and a muzzle breathed a hot and rancid burst onto my face.
I screamed and tried to shrink down and crawl away, but in the utter blackness I had no idea where to go. I bumped into table legs and upholstered furnishing and something that felt like a book case and then finally came against something completely different. A foot.
It was dressed in a shoe with laces, and there was a stocking, and a pant leg.
It moved, and I screamed, covering my head with my arms as I felt the bulk of Poopsy once again leaning on me, its leathery tongue licking at my neck.
I screamed again, until I heard the click and saw a flash, and heard the popping of . . . flash bulbs?
“Happy birthday!” The lights came on suddenly, and I was surrounded by laughing clapping people wearing party hats and tossing confetti. Next to me, Poopsy, —the biggest Saint Bernard I have ever seen sat wagging a congenial tail. My parents then stepped aside, to reveal, perched on a gleaming stainless steel frame, the Yamaha Dreadnought, complete with rosewood fret board and mother-of-pearl inlay.
“But. . . the . . . the money?”
“For you to pay for the rest,” Mrs. Vicory said casually. “Of course, you still need to earn it.”
“Earn? Feeding Poopsy?”
She smiled at me, in such a way that was disarming in its sweetness. “No, by playing it for me.”
“We’ve been plotting for a while, Jenny,” Mom said with a sly grin. “Mabel has been watching you for months, and asked me about you. She’s impressed with your initiative, and . . . a bit dismayed that no one ever comes to visit with her.”
“But . . . the cats and all.” I felt completely stupid.
“I understand if you don’t wish to spend time with an old lady,” she said.
“I don’t mind.” I laughed, suddenly relieved at the ridiculousness of it all! What had I feared? An old lady and some cats. I had judged without knowing. And she had pulled a great prank, worthy of any teenager. Maybe she could be cool.
And she was. I did visit. Often, bringing the dreadnought with me and playing what I had learned. She taught me a few things too. Like how to pull the perfect Halloween prank on the stupid kid next door. But that’s a tale for another time. I’m late for my chores, Poopsie and I have a date with a bowl of Little Friskies.
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