Eyes
Written: August 15, 2002
Eyes is all about the dance that happens between lonely people. The setting, romantic and classic, is a dive bar. It's written in the female POV, mostly because a guy, walking into a bar alone with the express interest of getting picked up, would undoubtedly run up a heavy tab waiting. And then get pulled over to flunk the blow-test. This one hits at the single professional. I was there for many years. I had the cat thing going, the TV dinner thing going, the lonely desperation thing going. And this is how that state of living comes to be: You go to college right out of high school, having taken a lot of college-track courses and subsequently getting branded a nerd and never getting lucky or drunk. Then fight and battle your way through college to get a good GPA, one that will land you a good job after graduation. You get the job. Now, early to mid-20's, you have absolutely no concept how to have fun. Usually, your friends are exactly like you. So you go out in these little nerdy packs, everyone hoping to score, and are generally laughed at and mocked by the rest of the world. You take solace in your good salary, your nice apartment or condo, and cry yourself to sleep with your gaggle of cats surrounding you.
Did I just say all that out loud? Ooops.
I did get some letters after I posted this to the newsies from readers who demanded to know what happened to the cat that was referred to in the story. The way the story was originally written, the cat would seem to have been left behind. I did two things to remedy the situation. First I responded in the newsies in my smart-assed way, that the cat, Captain Beefheart (with deference to Stephen King) was obviously going to be cared for. Then I wrote it in to make sure there were no distractions.
I lost a cat, a good friend of mine, when I left him alone in my apartment to fend for himself over a weekend trip. I figured, "Cats can take care of themselves - I'll just leave food and water and clean up the litter box when I get back." Well, by buddy, Lucifer, developed a urinary infection while I was gone and never recovered, even though I was only gone three days. I was devastated and felt like I should be locked away for doing something so horrendous to my closest friend. From that point on, I never left one of my cats at home alone and took them wherever I went if by car or left them with others if I were further away.
One quick story about that: I drove from St. Louis to Rockford usually once a month to visit my family - a six hour one-way trip. I would load up the kitty box in the back of my '86 Mercury Capri and bundle in Tabitha (a big furry Maine Coon, who is now going on her 16th year) and Boobis ( a tortoise shell). I wouldn't get ten minutes out of St. Louis before the two would tag-team in the litter box and even though I cleaned the wonders of their furry asses at the first rest stop, there were many a-trip driving all the way home with the heady smell of cat-shit all about me.
Toran