“Send over another slice of angelfood, would you,
Mavis?”
“As long as you watch the crumbs this time, Fred,”
passing the plate. “Kidding, of course.”
“No, you’re right,” said Fred, “and it actually
attends to our—let’s see—third agenda item under ‘old business’.”
“Well, then,” suggested Evelyn, who was set to take
the minutes, “why not start there. The first items are really not too
pressing.”
“Is that a motion?” Fred asked.
“We haven’t called the meeting to order yet.”
“That’s true. It’s just past 7pm, so,” Fred knocked
the oak table top with his big knuckle, “March 5th, Sun Valley
Community Church council convening; members present include myself as chair,
Karen as vice-chair, Pete as treasurer, Evelyn as secretary, Mavis, Blanche, Royce;
Pastor Meyers is on holiday and we haven’t heard anything from Herman lately, correct?
Then, there’s a motion to jump straight into old business and the mice problem,
is that right Evelyn?”
“If that suits everybody.”
“Seconded?”
“Seconded,” said Royce.
“In favor,” a chorus of drones, “opposed? No one.
So, let’s to it.”
“Minutes from last month updated our mouse problem
and the fact that traps weren’t working—not killing the critical mass and
instead snapping Billy Parker’s experimenting shoe.”
“Could have been his finger,” Blanche underscored
with a gesture.
“Could easily have,” continued Evelyn. “And so, we
had approved a consultation from Git’em
Exterminators which happened, let’s see, on the 23rd, and Mr
Git’em (forgot his name), basically said we’d have to really do a total
overhaul of the building, basement-to-roof.”
“Didn’t he set some rat poison around and some
child-proof traps?”
Peter took that question: “Yeah, he did—even
gratis, as a way to lure us into his overhaul quote.”
“Which was?”
Peter smiled and sniffed as he checked his notes.
“$550,000.”
“What the hell?” Royce let out, “’scuze my
language.”
“That’s exactly what we said, at least after he left. I mean, we’d get some benefits
from restructuring here and there—not just eradication of rodents—”
“This building is a hundred and twenty-six years
old,” observed Blanche, “maybe the mice are forcing our hand.”
“But we got so little in savings,” Fred reminded,
“and last parish fund-raiser for the stair chairlifts brought in just barely
enough at $13,000.”
“And we had
to do that one, by city code. I don’t know—are the mice that much of a
problem?”
“Could be more so,” Karen asserted. “City health
inspectors could threaten to condemn.”
“What if we brought in some cats?” Mavis thought
out loud, to a ripple of muffled quips, and the meeting went on from there.
***
By the third Sunday of March, the idea was introduced
to the parish at large by a self-consciously tanned Pastor Meyers, who
clarified the rumor during the announcements at the end of the worship hour.
“We’re going to give this a try,” he presented with his hands connected by
corresponding fingertips. “The council is discussing a long-term solution and
is certainly open to all input, but in the short-term we have to attend to
our—how shall we put it—our unwelcome stowaways, the Stuart Littles in the
church walls.”
Typically, announcements didn’t entail other
voices, especially any that were unrehearsed, but on this topic a debate ensued:
‘are they unwelcome?’… ‘sooner the
better, lest they turn into rats’… ‘but aint cats rodents, too?’ … ‘ok, so
they’re not, but don’t they cause allergies?’ … ‘true, may get more kids to
come to Sunday School’ … ‘back to the mice, though—they’re not doing so much
harm’ … ‘yeah—aren’t they, like spiders, a sign of a healthy home?’ … ‘vermin! Bubonic Plague sort of stuff!’
“Well, maybe that’s overstated,” wrapped up Pastor
Meyers, “but it seems we have more things to think about and if we—as our
charter has always affirmed—can allow for the community to go forward in grace,
I think a few cats here and there may fit the bill.”
To prove it,
and choreographed by dumb luck, Billy Parker hustled to his house down the
block and brought back three kittens that hadn’t been sold or given away. His
father, by the end of coffee hour, had also zipped home and back with the
litter box they had been training in, a carpeted cat tree and a bagful of
pellets. Probably not enough for the upcoming week, unless a mouse or two or
three could be caught…
***
Royce figured, by the June council meeting, the
casualty count of mice had tallied into the dozens, and on the high end at
that. The Parker’s donation of three cats had inspired others to chip in: a
tabby whose owner had to part with before entering into a nursing home, a pair
of munchkins outlasted from under the Christmas tree, a couple of rescues the
council took pains to investigate. An outright transfer from Royce himself,
sleeping some nights on a cot to ensure his calico would fit in.
Some strays seemed to pick up on the trend. Mavis
was on that detail, cataloging all that she knew and what the veterinarian
would more-or-less recommend. Mavis and Royce hadn’t known this about each
other, but, as things go, their interest in cats and the very reason they
attended this musty old church was to cope with the increasing sprawl of their
valley. “I moved out here for the small town feel,” she mused, and he lamented
that some of the sunniness was now “shadowed with corporate enterprise.”
“Do you think we’re wrong, fostering all these
creatures?” she asked him after the meeting, over ice-cream at the nearby café.
“Do you?” he badmintoned back.
“I don’t know. I haven’t donated my own Manx to the
campaign, if it is one.”
“I didn’t know you had a cat.”
“Why would you? It’s nothing I ever talk about….”
Royce let that settle, thinking in kind. “The
things we value most are often what we take for granted.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your cat—your Manx, which still isn’t even the
name you call it, him or her—”
“Spayed, but still she is my ‘Rikki’… as in ‘Rikki
don’t lose that number’…”
Royce wagged his head, “yeah, I’ve heard that song,
but… for a cat?”
“Why not? It was 1974 when that song came out, and
I was a new college graduate, free to worry about the rest of my life.”
“Good to be free, at least. I was in year six of a
terrible marriage.”
“Here in Sun Valley?”
“No, in Boston. But soonafter I pioneered here.”
“Do you miss the Celtics?”
“Probably not more the Red Sox, but why?”
“I’m a Minnesota girl, and, even several states
away I pay attention: Ricky Rubio is the point guard of the Timberwolves, and,
now that Kevin Love’s been traded to Cleveland, we don’t want to lose another
star. Some folks there remember the Minneapolis Lakers before they moved to
L.A. They had this phenomenal center named George Mikan who had wire-rim
glasses—”
“While he played?”
“Yep. And won us four championships—when I was a
baby, mind you!”
“So, how come you didn’t name your cat ‘George’?”
“That was the name of my first Manx.” Mavis tallied
on the table. “Can’t use it twice.”
“Of course. And Ricki?”
“Is my third. After Pooh.”
“Winnie?”
“No, Pooh Richardson. Another point guard.”
“That’s really organized. Wish I could say I had
such a story behind Patches.”
“Oh, but she’s sweet. The queen of our cats, it’s
safe to assume.”
“Do you think she’s clued in to our parish needs?
Killing mice and all?”
Mavis swirled the last goop of ice-cream in her
dish. Royce, who had finished his, still looked down as if his question needed
better phrasing. The council member most invested in this plan, he was
self-conscious to a fault. She smiled at that as she framed an answer: “Patches
is like any good pet. Grounded in the day-to-day, transcendent in the things
we’re trying to figure out.”
And while Royce would have followed with ‘figuring
out what, exactly?’, he nodded at the reflection of point-guard felines and the
elusive centers that fade away.
***
As usual, summer months diminished church activity,
going from two services to one, fewer youth activities, no AA meetings or
Quilters or choir practices, generally less reason to stop by. Royce was the
exception, spending all the time he would have on the golf course to caring for
the cats and tabulating their purpose. He still saw evidence of mice—their
droppings and the holes they chewed in packages of communion wafers; every so
often one would scamper down a corridor causing Royce to roar: “Patches! Leo!
c’mon, you cats, git on the job!” But Patches, Leo and seventeen others would
not respond, choosing to catch their prey on terms unannounced.
Mavis still wasn’t able to give up Ricki for the
cause, but she kept Royce company for about an hour every other day, on her way
home from work. Some other council members also lent support—after all, this
was saving the church a cool half-million.
Some parishioners were nonetheless opposed to this
whole plan. ‘Throw spaghetti at a wall,
and you know what you get?’ Indeed, the cats were not the cleanest solution
and drove some purists out the door. On the other hand, they made some stoic
members smile. Colonel Westerfield, who fought in World War II, allowed a cat
to purr upon his lap, and for the first time in anybody’s memory, sang the
hymns distinctly:
As each creature builds a nest
and labors without end,
God provides a welcome rest
and visits as a friend.
Eagles’ wings embrace the air
in faith they will not fall;
Angels strain for every prayer
to breathe grace into all.
Sure, there’d be a cat fight at an inconvenient
time, and coffee hour meant stumbling on beggars and shooing them away. Litter
boxes were not foolproof, and cat trees mostly not the furniture most scratched
up. Kittens were being born without permission, sometimes in the very lurks of
where mice had been.
The tacit hope was tangible: that no health
inspectors would stop by soon. “We aren’t in Istanbul,” someone cautioned the
pastor, who tacitly hoped he could vacation there someday.
***
Indian Summer came in mid-October, and Royce wedged
the church doors open for the nostalgic breeze. The cats were accustomed to
exiting and entering the church via windows, so they didn’t interfere with the
people flow of traffic through those doors. And there were plenty in
attendance, new and old alike. Some families abandoned the parish registry,
citing allergies and whatnot, but others came in light of creatures coexisting
with them once or twice a week, little harmless lions lying with the lambs.
What no one would imagine during the middle of
Pastor Meyer’s sermon was a random Rottweiler bursting in, chasing an
exponential array of cats, this way and that. Colonel Westerfield bravely stood
to stare the situation down, but the rogue dog charged the central aisle and
threw him to the floor. Blanche screamed as the pastor plead for everyone to
calm down—“sitting still would be the
best defense!” Billy’s dad ignored that advice and tried to tackle the
mongrel, suffering a drive-by gash on his arm.
Fred, an advocate of ‘open carry’, yelled his
stipulation to his fellow gathered: “heads down, everyone! There could be
ricochets!” He straddled the tops of two pews and pulled the trigger when the
monster emerged from behind the baptismal font. Though the bullet didn’t
squarely hit the mark, the Rottweiler yelped and looked with shock upon the
parish, indignant as if altogether innocent. Fred verbalized another blam! that backed the intruder out the
door and away from the shaken church.
It took an autumn minute for everyone to realize
that Colonel Westerfield was not to be revived.
***
The November council meeting was winding down.
Peter had committed to research the purchase of a gravestone, as no one had
secured one during the pull-together funeral of their oldest parish member.
There was some debate whether Ephesians 6:11 would be the most fitting
inscription, and ultimately Pastor Meyers convinced everyone that John 12:24
was perhaps the better choice. Peter took note and stuffed the memo into his
breast pocket.
Karen voiced her wholehearted hope that a city
inspection would not have to account for the Rottweiler, random as he had been.
As vice-chair she was well aware of the stipulation to report things beyond a
wish-list for the parish or a tick-list for the town. Fred commended her
purview of all things ‘Venn’, a term
that half the council understood and half accepted in context. Evelyn took
pains to record what the ‘know’ and ‘less-to-know’ meant in terms of council
business, revising clauses that she figured she wouldn’t have to revisit later
on.
Blanche joked that Herman had been conspicuously
absent through all the drama: “It’s gotta be convenient that ‘when the cat’s
away’—”
“—the mice will make us pay,” Peter deadpanned.
“But from everything I’ve gathered,” Herman
replied, “old adages don’t really fit our journey at Sun Valley Community.”
“Say more on that,” Royce invited.
“Well, you’ll forgive me for being not so
involved,” Herman started.
“Don’t apologize—you’ve been on vacation,” Pastor
Meyers allowed.
“Extended!” Blanche teased a little more.
“Yes, all too true—” he was embarrassed, “and I’m
not here to…”
“When Royce encouraged you,” said Mavis, “he wasn’t
trying to pin you to the details of our recent realities. Quite the contrary,
I’d say, as everyone already knows what has transpired, including the chaos
around Tom Westerfield’s death. In the few years I’ve served on this council,
though, I believe you have a deeper way of framing things…”
Herman hesitated yet pursed some appreciation.
“You’re right—I’m kind of an inside outsider to this situation. Having known
the Colonel all these years, I wish I could have had one last conversation with
him, on any kind of topic whatsoever.”
“Hear, hear,” uttered Fred, under his breath.
“I’m a reader of parables, and Franz Kafka has an
important one entitled, ‘The Leopards in the Temple’; what happens—and it’s only a couple lines
long—is that leopards, of course, stray from wherever they’d naturally be and
go into the midst of where they shouldn’t be, namely, the temple,” pausing,
“i.e., us, if we want to imagine that.”
“I think we do,” concentrated Mavis.
“—and they, let me recall, ‘drink to the dregs’ the
ceremonial liquor, which,” Herman hung at the thought of that swallow, “is
maybe not what I wanted to bring up.”
Evelyn was no longer taking minutes. “You’re on a
good track, Herman, and we’re with ya…”
“Okay,” he continued, “the ‘dregs’ being the
remnant of whatever the ceremony required…. Pardon my ramble—this is really
beyond our business—”
“Keep going, dammit,” Royce gibed.
Herman looked around and saw acceptance: “the
leopards do this again and again, ceremonially or not, and—if you’ll forgive
it, Pastor Meyers—”
“I think I know the result,” Meyers mouthed.
“the ceremony accommodates for the cats, at large…”
“…and leaves us at their mercy—” Mavis helped him
find the terms.
“I regret I was not with you that fateful Sunday
morning,” Herman ended.
“It was only fateful for Colonel Westerfield,”
Royce let in. “In his honor, as he’d have it, we may become more fortified…”
“And that’s where we should leave things,
probably,” Evelyn suggested, to bring the meeting to a close.
“Cats or mice or otherwise, we’ve only just begun
to realize our fuller needs for stewardship,” Pastor Meyers offered, instead of
closing things in prayer.
“One more item, if I may.”
“Old? New?” Evelyn pawed the top of the council
binder. “Business office closing, Royce.”
“Good, because it isn’t business. I’d like to propose,
here and now,” Royce decided, come-what-may, “marriage to the woman I have come
to love,” adding, “I apologize, dear Mavis, if this seems out of line.”
Silence and all eyes were on her, like a sudden
safari find. She blushed, of course, and stammered, “Did…you know…I thought
every hour of the…progress we made?”
“Churchwise, or?—”
Heavens, the beautiful doubt. “Way more than
churchwise, we’ve made it our home.”
“I hope that’s a ‘yes’,” Blanche spoke for Royce.
Mavis relished these dregs, “I’ll have to ask
Ricki’s permission. Or both of us can, together—and bring Patches.”
Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2017)
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