Socks (6 page)

Nana frowned at Socks in spite of all his charm.

“Socks!” said Mrs. Bricker accusingly. “Did you get into Nana's—hair?”

Attention at last! Socks stood on his hind legs with his front paws braced against Mrs. Bricker and increased the volume of his purr.

“Oh, you bad cat!” Mrs. Bricker unhooked his claws from her housecoat. Charles William drooled and wept. The water on the stove began to bubble and splash over the edge of the pan, hissing as it hit the burners. “Now see what you made me do! The bottle is too hot and it takes forever to cool.” She removed the pan from the stove and replaced the boiling water with cold water. Socks did not care for the treatment that he was getting. These people were wasting too much time. They neither fed
him nor attended to the baby.

“Nana, I'm terribly sorry,” said Mrs. Bricker. “I was sure Socks was shut in the laundry. I guess we didn't give the door that little extra shove. If you don't give it that—”

“Now Marilyn, don't worry about a thing,” said Nana, determined not to cause trouble. “I'll have my wig washed and set at a beauty shop, and everything will be all right. Now what can I do to help?”

“In a minute you can give Charles William his cereal.” Mrs. Bricker tripped over Socks on her way to the cupboard for a custard cup. “Everything is so hectic because we forgot to set the alarm—”

Socks had endured too much delay from these chattering people. Charm had not worked. His patience was at an end. He nipped at Mrs. Bricker's ankle to remind her that he wanted his breakfast and he wanted it now. Two tiny drops of blood
appeared on her bare leg.

“Marilyn! That cat bit you!” Nana was shocked. “You're bleeding!”

“Socks!” Mr. Bricker shouted in such a terrible voice that Socks was stunned. Never had his master spoken to him that way. He cringed against a cupboard and looked up at Mr. Bricker with wide, frightened eyes.

A fussy, teething baby, a husband in a hurry to leave for his classes and his job in the university library, the strain of a mother-in-law in a house too small for guests, papers waiting to be typed, and a nipping cat were all too much for Mrs. Bricker. “Bill, get that cat out of here,” she said with tears in her voice. “
Please
get that cat out of here before I go out of my mind.”

To his astonishment, Socks, who had not meant to hurt Mrs. Bricker, found himself lifted and dumped out the back door without so much as a kind word or a bite of
breakfast. He stood lashing his tail in anger, and in a few minutes when he began to understand that no one was going to let him in, he jumped to the sill of the dining room window where he could see Nana holding Charles William and spooning cereal into his mouth. Mrs. Bricker, with a Band-Aid on her ankle, was dropping bread into a toaster, and Mr. Bricker was pouring cereal from a box. Socks meowed peevishly to let his owners know he was cross, hungry, and unfairly treated.

“Beat it, you cat,” said Mr. Bricker, as he reached for a carton of half-and-half. “We can't have a cat that bites in
this
house.”

“Oy-doy-doy!” shouted Charles William, happy to be eating breakfast at last and secure in the love of his family.

D
on't you like Socks anymore?” Tiffy asked Mr. Bricker, who was trying to spade a section of the backyard while Socks rolled in the dirt at his feet. The Brickers planned to make a vegetable garden, so Charles William could have nice fresh vegetables to eat.

“Sure we like him, Tiffy,” said Mr. Bricker.

“Then how come he sleeps in the
garage?” persisted Tiffy.

“We can't have a cat that bites in the house with a baby,” Mr. Bricker explained.

“He doesn't bite me. He could sleep at my home if he wanted.” Tiffy looked wistfully at Socks squirming in the dirt. He would have to spend the rest of the afternoon grooming himself, a small price to pay for a good roll that satisfied all the places he wanted scratched and made his skin tingle. He missed the sort of brushing Mrs. Risley had given him, but the sitter never came again. The young couple could not afford her.

Tiffy squatted beside Socks. “Do you want to come and live at my house?” she asked.

Socks, who had finished rolling in the dirt, sat up and, after considering Tiffy a moment, allowed her to pet him. Since he had become an outdoor cat, he was grateful
for attention from anyone, even Tiffy, and the two had formed a cautious friendship.

“See!” said Tiffy to Mr. Bricker. “Socks likes me. He wants to live at my house.” She made the mistake of patting his head, and Socks moved away. Petting and patting were not the same. He was disappointed in her.

“A cat's heart is where his dish is,” said Mr. Bricker.

Mr. Bricker was wrong. Socks's dish and water bowl had been moved to the back step, and his bed had been moved to the garage, where a window was left open so he could come and go. Still, his heart remained in the house with his family. Loneliness and curiosity drove Socks to spend more and more time sitting on the windowsill watching all that went on inside. He watched Mr. Bricker shadowbox in front of the playpen and listened to Charles William laugh. He watched Charles William grab Brown Bear by one leg and beat him against the playpen pad, and he heard him shout, “Id-did-did!” He was curious for a closer look at the plastic ball filled with water and sloshing plastic fish. He saw Charles William support himself on his hands and knees and crawl across the pen. He watched him grab the bars and pull himself unsteadily to his feet.

“See the kitty,” said Mrs. Bricker many times a day, as she looked up from her typewriter. “The kitty is looking at you.” Charles William paused in throwing his toys outside his playpen or pounding on a pie tin to stare at Socks. Sometimes he watched Socks without his mother telling him to.

Loneliness was not the only trouble in Socks's new life. Jays scattered his dry food and swooped at him whenever they came to steal. He felt threatened on Tuesday mornings when the garbage men came, and he was afraid of the milkman. But his biggest
worry was Old Taylor, the black cat with the torn ear and bulging jowls, who lived across the back fence and belonged to a family named Taylor.

Although the fence was the property of the house rented by the Brickers and should have been part of Socks's territory, Old Taylor made it his own by sleeping on it whenever the sun was out. This habit annoyed Socks, who sometimes wanted to sit on the fence out of Tiffy's reach when he grew bored with her attention. However, the two cats had come to an understanding. Old Taylor would beat up Socks if Socks tried to sit on the fence while Old Taylor was using it.

One morning Socks, who had fallen asleep on the warm hood of the old station wagon, was awakened by the sound of a late spring rain driving against the garage. The car hood had grown cold and hard. After a
bow, a stretch, and a brief wash, Socks sprang to the windowsill, where he saw that the neighborhood was still dark. There was no hope of breakfast, but he might find dry food left in his dish from the night before. The grass was cold and wet to his paws as he ran through the downpour in the direction of the back step.

In the dim light Socks saw a sinister black shape crouched at his dish in the dry spot below the eaves. Old Taylor! Through the sound of rainwater gurgling in the drainpipe, Socks heard the crunch of teeth crushing dry cat food. This intrusion would not do at all. Old Taylor had his side of the fence, and Socks had his. Socks would not quibble about the fence itself, but his food was a different matter. He crouched, flattened his ears and hissed, hoping to frighten the other cat, but prepared to defend his dish if he must.

Old Taylor merely glanced in his direction and went on gnashing and crunching. Socks's honor as a cat could not excuse such rudeness. He advanced, still hissing, through the rain. Old Taylor stopped gnawing and grinding. He flattened his ears and hissed back from the dry spot on the step.

By now Socks was not only angry, he was soaking wet. He ignored the rain and continued to crouch, changing his hiss to a light singsong wail intended to warn Old Taylor that he meant what he said. His tune did not frighten Old Taylor. The black cat returned the sound louder and meaner. No young upstart was going to tell him anything. The fur of the two cats rose along their spines. They wailed and howled and caterwauled, and all during the eerie duet they were moving closer to one another with their fangs bared and their ears laid back.

Nose to nose, Socks found Old Taylor a terrifying sight with his ear torn and his fur standing out on his great black jowls. But Socks did not back down. Finally, with a terrible scream, the cats were on one another, a growling, snarling, yowling tangle. They clawed and bit and tumbled down the steps into a puddle. They rolled across the soaking grass and into freshly spaded earth. They floundered and wallowed in the mud. Old Taylor was on his back, thrashing at Socks with punishing blows of his strong hind feet. Socks felt claws and teeth through his
fur. He hurt, he was bleeding, and Old Taylor had sprayed him. The black cat was too much for him.

Socks no longer cared about his dry food. Let the old tomcat have it. Socks wanted to get away, to untangle himself from the snarling, biting mass of muddy black fur. Somehow he did get away and ran for the garage while Old Taylor sent singsong warnings after him through the downpour. When Socks tried to leap to the windowsill, the weight of the mud on his fur made him fall. When he tried to lick his bleeding forepaw, the rasps on his tongue scraped up a mouthful of mud. Cold, wet, stiff with mud and in pain, Socks needed help.

Lights were coming on in the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens of the neighborhood. Old Taylor had disappeared. Slowly and painfully Socks made his way through
the rain, through the scattered cat food, now soggy and unappetizing, to his own back door where he cried a small, desperate meow for help.

Mrs. Bricker, who was in the kitchen, heard and must have understood, for she immediately opened the back door. “Socks!” she cried, shocked.

Socks looked up at her with sad, defeated eyes.

“Oh, poor Socks!” Mrs. Bricker opened the door wider, and Socks stepped painfully into the laundry. “Bill! Come and look at Socks. He's been in a fight!”

Mr. Bricker came down the hall with his bathrobe flying. “Why you poor old fellow,” he said, when he saw his cat.

Socks waited helplessly.

“And he's
bleeding
!” cried Mrs. Bricker. “What'll we do? He can't lick all that mud.”

Mr. Bricker agreed. “And if we tried to give him a bath, he'd climb the wall.”

“We can't let the mud dry,” said Mrs. Bricker. “Adobe bricks are made out of mud like this. If it dries, he'll turn into an adobe cat.”

“Try wet bath towels.” Mr. Bricker snatched a clean towel from the tangle on top of the dryer and dampened it under the kitchen faucet. Mrs. Bricker did the same. They knelt and began to rub Socks. How good the warm towels and gentle hands felt. Charles William awoke and fussed in his crib, but this time Socks got the attention, which made him feel better.

“Poor Socks,” grieved Mrs. Bricker, as she swabbed with a second towel and then a third. “It's all our fault for shutting you out.” She dropped the towel into the washing machine and reached for a clean diaper.

“Socks should learn to roll over on his
back and kick with his hind feet when he gets in a fight,” said Mr. Bricker, who was interested in all sports. “His strength is in his hind legs. He should hang on with his front paws and give Old Taylor everything he's got with his hind legs.”

“Bill, you can't coach a cat.” Mrs. Bricker laughed affectionately as she held another diaper under the kitchen faucet.

Charles William increased the volume of his fussing and began to rock his crib.

“Socks needs us,” his mother called to him. “You'll have to wait.” Then she said to her husband, “Bill, can't we let Socks live in the house again? I know he didn't mean to bite so hard that time, and I always watch him when he's in the room with Charles William.”

“I don't see why not,” said Mr. Bricker, scrubbing the matted fur with a clean diaper. “He's older and wiser now, but we'll
still have to keep an eye on him.”

Charles William began to bump his crib against the wall.

“I'm coming, I'm coming.” Mrs. Bricker rinsed her hands in the kitchen and, without bothering to change him, carried Charles William to his high chair, which she turned so that he could watch from the kitchen. She handed him a spoon to bang and went back to swabbing Socks.

Charles William enthusiastically whacked the spoon on the tray of his high chair until Socks caught his interest. He stopped whacking to stare. He had never seen a mud-covered cat before, and he had to give the matter some thought. “Ticky?” he said at last. “Ticky?”

Socks understood that Charles Williams was talking to him, and beneath his misery he felt the beginning of a new interest in the baby.

Both parents stopped scrubbing the cat to look at their son and then at one another. “Did you hear that?” cried the mother. “He's talking! He's trying to say
kitty
!”

“Smart boy!” said the proud father.

Socks was forgotten. Charles William had spoken a word—well, almost. Ticky! Imagine that. Charles William had called Socks Ticky. His mother would write his first word in his baby book. His father would write the news to Nana, maybe even phone collect. Charles William, overwhelmed with his own cleverness, heaved the spoon across the kitchen.

Then the Brickers noticed the clock. If they did not hurry, Mr. Bricker would be late for class. He rushed off to dress while Mrs. Bricker dashed about the kitchen, trying to prepare one breakfast for the parents and another for the baby.

“Ticky?” said Charles William, pleased with himself and eager to rekindle the excitement that he had caused.

“That's right,” answered his proud mother. “We can't forget Ticky.” She
returned to the laundry, where Socks was licking his wound, and offered him a piece of meat with her fingers. He was sorry that he had no appetite.

Mrs. Bricker turned on the clothes dryer to warm the laundry and closed the door. This time Socks did not object to being shut in. He crouched on aching joints and, allowing for the weight of mud on his fur, leaped to the top of the dryer, where he settled himself to lick his bleeding leg in the tangle of clean diapers waiting to be folded.