“Stop it,” she says, swiping away my pudgy hand.
“I won’t stop being your father, Sylvia.”
And a scrambled cat comes out from behind the stove and meows at me and, “Look!” I say. “Look, it’s a scrambled and horrible cat…”
But Sylvia shakes her head violently and walks toward the front door with the wind picking up outside and there is a drunken dude passed out on the lawn across the street with his shotgun at his side …
“Quite a neighborhood,” she observes with judgment.
I pet the cat with my culpable hand. The scrambled cat rubs against my leg and, yes, I love this cat because it’s hopeless and the poor thing will die in here for sure with its tinges of orange and black and gold—definitely an Imperial cat, not something you’d cook for your family, although it’s as skinny as Texas is
