Why must we go out this morning, Annabelle?
It’s our patrol time. You know that.
It’s too hot, I said. The hall is like a steam room.
My public demands. Come on.
So we took our morning patrol. At 8:45, most of Annabelle’s public is too busy trying to get to work to let her pay calls, but work is a concept foreign to a self-centered Broadway star. It was also nearly 90 degrees F and the halls were like a sauna. As soon as she realized I was right, Annabelle lay down on the landing and refused to budge.
Is it always this warm in June? It was snowing only days ago. New York weather is so strange.
Time is also a concept foreign to a self-centered Broadway star. I sat on the steps and watched her try to locate a cool spot on a space becoming hotter than a griddle by the minute.
You know I love you, I said, but I’m getting really bored watching you roll around on the floor. This gets old real fast.
This heat has made me too lazy to pay calls. Let’s visit Val.
We can’t. He’s on vacation for a week. I promised him no floods until he returns.
He didn’t tell me goodbye? This is so vexing.
Come on, Missy. Let’s go back to the AC.
I opened the door to the apartment. As we walked in, I thought I saw someone wearing a blue shirt pass us and enter the bathroom.
What was that? I asked.
You saw him? Annabelle seemed surprised. I didn’t think you could see him.
The man in the blue shirt? Thatch asked. You really saw him?
You two saw him? I asked.
All the time, Annabelle said. He’s our invisible friend.
Did you see him, Daddy? Thatch asked me.
I think I did. Just now.
I was spooked. The building is full of ghosts, and many of the neighbors have stories: the ghost in 4D takes things off the shelves and racks and sets them on the bathroom floor; the old elevator used to stink up once a month or so with the putrid body odor of the retired cop on five who died around ten years ago; I occasionally hear a woman’s voice speaking in some accent, German, I think; and there is someone who haunts the area around the mail boxes. About once or twice a year, around three in the morning, I’ve been awakened by someone walking from the window overlooking 82nd Street, through my apartment past my bed to the door and into the hall. It frightened me forty years ago, and now I hardly notice it. Several times over the years, I have been startled by the loud crash of someone aggressively striking the linen closet door.
I hadn’t seen the blue shirt in years. Once, I was waiting at the elevator and from the corner of my eye I saw him cross the hall and walk through the door into my apartment. Another time I was aware of him standing over me as I sat on the bathroom floor and sorted laundry. I didn’t know he was still around.
So, Annabelle, you’ve seen him before?
Yes. He stops by all the time, Annabelle said. He’s very sad.
He used to live right below us, Thatch said.
I haven’t seen him in a long time, I said. I had no idea he was still here.
He likes to visit us, Thatch said. We sing and dance for him.
It cheers him up, Annabelle told me.
We had a party for him, Thatch told me.
Thatch! Annabelle gave him a shove.
I’m sorry, Annabelle! I wasn’t supposed to tell you.
That Amazon party order from January? I asked. Why didn’t you tell me?
We didn’t want to tell you about him, Annabelle said.
You naughty kittens, I said. Was it a nice party?
We tried to cheer him up, Thatch said.
Did he tell you why he was sad?
Something about his girlfriend, I think he said.
Did you know him, Daddy? Thatch asked me.
Slightly, I replied. He was a nice man. I went back to see my family for Christmas around 1980 or 1981, and I was up all night packing the night before I left. I had the radio on for company. When I came back after New Year’s Day, under my door there was a note from him asking me to keep the volume down after 11:00 at night..
You do like the volume loud, Annabelle said.
I know. I’m not always aware of that. So, do you want to hear the rest of my story?
I do! Thatch said.
Go on, Annabelle said. We’re waiting.
I went down to his apartment and apologized. He was really nice about it. I saw him a couple of times in the building after that, and he was always friendly. The last time I saw him was a morning in the spring or early summer at the subway, and he looked very unhappy. No, he looked preoccupied; he didn’t speak, and I didn’t want to bother him. I never saw him after that.
I didn’t tell them the rest of the story. It was too sad. A day after I saw him on the subway platform, I came home around 6:00, and the ambulance workers were carrying his body out of the elevator. He had been quarreling with his girlfriend, and they hadn’t spoken in several days. After she couldn’t reach him by phone, she came to see him. She used her key to the apartment and found him hanging in the kitchen. It was ruled a suicide. Mrs. Gonzalez, the super’s wife, identified the body. I never heard anything more about the circumstances.
Is it time for a treat? Thatch asked.
Yes, I said. I think so,
I opened the refrigerator and grabbed the parcel of turkey. Thatch danced around my feet. I unwrapped it and gave him half a slice.
Turkey, Annabelle?
No. I feel so sorry for that poor boy. He’s just . . . sad.
He died nearly forty years ago, I said. If he were alive today, he would be almost as old as I am. So would his girlfriend. He’s forever stuck in his twenties.
Maybe that’s why he’s sad.
Annabelle’s sad, too, Thatch said.
I feel sorry for him, she said. Maybe I will have a little Party Mix. Or some shrimp Temptations? That might cheer me up.
Have you seen other ghosts here, Thatch? I asked while I prepared a bowl of treats.
Yes. Some are nice.
Not the ones in the basement! Annabelle said.
Do you know the noisy ghost who keeps smacking the closet doors?
That’s a little boy, Thatch said.
He wants his mama, Annabelle added. His vocabulary is very small.
Is his mama the lady I hear talking in German?
No, she’s not his mama, Annabelle said. I think she’s Dutch. She’s not very friendly.
Maybe she doesn’t understand your language, I suggested.
Perhaps, Annabelle said, but she’s not mean or evil, like the ones in the basement. They are scary.
I think the man in the blue shirt is very lucky he has you and Thatch to visit, I said as I gave them their treats.
There’s a cat, too! Thatch said.
A cat? I asked.
Siamese, Annabelle said. Pretty girl. She says she came with you from Ohio.
Ming? I asked.
That’s her name! I had forgotten, Annabelle said. She’s happy we’re here with you.
Yes! Thatch said. She loves you. Lots.
I sat down hard. Then I burst into tears.
What did I say? Annabelle jumped into my lap.
Ming, poor little Ming, I sobbed.
The six-weeks-old seal point Siamese was a Christmas gift when I was around thirteen. My parents bought her from one of my cousin Sue Ellen’s teachers. I named the affectionate, beautiful kitten Ming-Toy. She was cream-colored with touches of brown that later darkened into traditional features with the most beautiful blue eyes. I loved her dearly, and we were inseparable for the next four years. I carted that cat around, slept with her every night, and sat with her through the delivery of three litters of kittens before she was spayed. That’s enough, my mother said.
After I left home for college, I came to regard her as my mother’s cat since she was the one who fed her and cared for her, as she did with my brothers’ dogs when they left home. Over the years Ming lived comfortably as queen of the house with their basset hounds, beagles, retrievers, and a Cockapoo. College and grad school occupied my time and I took Ming for granted. She became the house cat back home, no longer the love of my life or someone I thought about often. Still, to my parents’ dismay, when I returned home for what turned out to be seven years of trying to put my life in order, she was the one happiest to see me. She crawled into my lap when I sat, followed me about the house, and bounded into my bed every night around midnight to stay until morning.
As she aged, she became cranky and easily irritated. One day, when she was around sixteen or seventeen, she unexpectedly tore a chunk of flesh from the calf of one of my mother’s visiting sisters. Without saying anything to me, my mother took her to our vet and had her euthanized the next day. I was suffering through my own personal crises at the time, and I regret now that I was so callous and apathetic about the situation.
For years after that I had often thought that a cat brushed against my leg, touched me with a cold nose, or walked on my bed when I was trying to sleep. It never crossed my mind that it might be Ming. I hadn’t thought of her in years. Learning the depths of that cat’s affection was a painful shock, as if in one swift motion something reached down my throat and tore out my heart.
It’s time! Annabelle said. Quick! Switch channels.
I left my chair and turned the TV to the Kitty Channel. She loves to watch “Hollywood’s Hottest Cats.” She and Thatch jumped onto my bed to watch it. I set the bowl of treats between them.
I’ll be on that one day, Thatch, when I’m a big star.
I can’t wait! He told her.
Where’s my Backstage? There might be a role for me.
Annabelle, I asked, how many ghosts are there in this building?
More than you imagine.
Have you met them all?
Shh . . . Bob the Street Cat is the next guest. He’s so hot.
©2018, Larry Moore
Annabelle & Thatch 