FISH STORY

BOB AKER KNEW HE WAS behaving like an idiot but when his goldfish, Midas, passed on, he felt a real sense of loss. The fish was the only possession he insisted on keeping when his wife divorced him besides his clothes, laptop, kitchen utensils, culinary appliances and his collection of cookbooks. He didn’t care about anything else and gladly signed away his rights to the myriad of objects he suddenly saw as so much junk. He did insist on keeping their Greenwich Village apartment and wrote his ex a huge check for half its value. She wanted to move to the Hamptons anyhow.

When the apartment was emptied out by her storm troopers, it transformed from a cramped two-bedroom flat to huge space. Bob bought a futon, a pillow, some sheets and a blanket and a small bureau for his clothes. He also bought a wicker stand for the goldfish bowl. With what money he had left after his wife cleaned him out, he indulged himself by remodeling the kitchen. Bob’s only hobbies were cooking and eating. Good food gave him inner peace. To nosh was to meditate.

One reason for the divorce was the indisputable fact that his gourmet meditations made him fat. His wife, on the other hand, was obsessed with keeping herself lithe and trim. Half the living room, now liberated, once held her exercise machines. Since Bob quit his job as a financial analyst and became an ardent day trader, doing very well in that belly-wrenching profession, he found strength in patience and solace in the kitchen. She had complained about his expanding girth to the point where taking meals together was an abomination. She called him Cholesterol Man. She criticized every spoonful of food that vanished between his generous lips. She even attacked his goldfish, accusing Bob of overfeeding lonely Midas who had doubled in size within a few months. The fish had grown lethargic, hardly moved except to forage for its powdery rations. It floated near the bottom of its bowl like a wounded submarine. In an odd sense, Bob saw Midas as a metaphor for the stock market, animated gold, heavy with success, always threatening to implode or explode, teasing oxygen out of water, producing not much more than its own stringy shit, weirdly smug inside its glass shell.

Bob meant to put his fish on a diet and even considered shedding a few dozen pounds himself. But watching Midas watch him indulge in one of his feasts, Bob felt pangs of guilt and always went to shake a few more crumbs into the fish bowl.

Besides some casual relationships in Bob’s neighborhood, storekeepers and the like, he was virtually without friends or close family. His departed spouse got custody of the people they’d met as a couple and Bob didn’t particularly miss any of them. Midas was his only confidante and he felt obliged to share the pleasures of good eating with his loyal companion. Midas returned Bob’s largesse with fish affection. Bob felt warmth emanating from Midas’s bowl. If Bob put his face close to the glass, Midas would swim toward his nose and confront him face to face. For the moment, that was bonding enough. Midas required no walking, no trips to the vet, no sour-smelling litter box. He was the perfect pet.

When Bob found Midas drifting belly up one awful morning, he whispered a prayer and, thinking Egyptian, offered up a few grains of fish food to sustain Midas on the way to eternity. Since his pet was dead, the food drifted past its mouth and settled among the gravel at the bottom of its world. Bob faced facts and though he felt mournful and deserted, reminded of mortality, he quickly scooped up Midas’s golden remains with a ladle and slipped the rigid corpse into an empty horse radish jar. He screwed on the jar’s cap, wrapped the glass coffin in a plastic bag and took it to Washington Square Park.

There he buried his fish near the great Arch, said another farewell, and went to buy a replacement.

Bob realized that excessive grief was as unhealthy as enforced loneliness. He liked his solitude but hated eating alone. The tiny presence of a goldfish made an enormous difference in his sparse domestic environment. While Bob had qualms about finding a substitute for Midas so quickly, he decided to suspend lament and cater to his own urgent need to fill the deserted bowl with something alive and moderately responsive.

Bob walked briskly along West 4th Street, then turned south on the Avenue of the Americas to Bleeker Street. His destination was a few buildings in from the corner, an old tenement that once housed a pizza parlor on the ground floor and Berman’s Petropolis a flight upstairs. Bob anticipated a slice of hot pizza thick with cheese and mushrooms to ease his bereavement, but when he found the building he saw that the pizza joint was boarded up and that the apartments above Petropolis were empty with white crosses painted across their windows. Like so many buildings in the Village, this one was slated for demolition and gentrification.

Petropolis’s large front window was covered with sheet metal, plastered with posters for movies and off-off-Broadway shows. To Bob’s surprise, the pet store was still doing business according to a cardboard sign tacked to the wooden door that read: BERMAN’S PETROPOLIS FINAL SALE…40% OFF! HURRY! (ONE FLIGHT UP TO BIG BARGAINS)

Bob let out a long sigh. Everything was in flux. Nothing stayed in place for very long anymore. Nothing and nobody. He climbed the ancient staircase and knocked at Petropolis’s entrance. From previous dealings with Berman — he’d bought Midas there and went back twice a year for Midas’s provisions — he knew the little man was obviously paranoid. Berman’s metal door was kept locked and bolted. PROTECTED BY labels warned off thieves and thugs. A large black alarm box was riveted to the ceiling above the barred transom.

The door’s bell button dangled useless from a corroded wire as it had for years. Knocking was the only way to catch Berman’s nervous attention. Eventually he would shuffle across his loft, peer through a peephole, trip locks, slide bolts and turn the knob.

This time it took five knockings to rouse Berman, who finally appeared, shaking off webs from a nap, rubbing red eyes, coughing and yawning. “You? Long time no see,” Berman said. “Don’t stand there. That’s exactly what muggers like. They sneak up behind you and bash in your brains. For what? A few lousy bucks? The only thing cheap these days is life. And what I got on sale.”

Bob hurried inside while Berman secured the premises. He breathed in the familiar smell of Berman’s menagerie, a hot, musky mix of fur, feathers, scales, drippings and droppings. Actually, the smell wasn’t unpleasant. Not Chanel #5, but not terrible — bearable, organic, even a little exciting. The mingled odors, parakeets to kittens, monkeys to puppies, gerbils to turtles, lizards to snakes fused into a turgid wind that carried memories of chirping, growling, mewing, bubbling.

“I didn’t recognize you. You put on a few tons, heh?” Berman said. “How’s your fish?”

“Dead,” Bob said.

“They do that,” Berman said. “Sorry. How’s your missus?”

“Forget about her.”

“Again, sorry. My condolences.”

With the front window sealed, the only light came from a few fluorescent wands. Bob looked around through the eerie glow and saw that Petropolis was largely depleted of its usual population. The creatures that were left looked limp and mangy like old produce in a fruit market. There were many empty cages hanging from the ceiling and naked shelves behind vacant counters. Obviously Berman had his walking papers from a greedy landlord. Petropolis was in its sad last hours. Still, there were enough goldfish to choose from. They swam in tanks adjacent to the exotic tropicals.

Bob considered upgrading to Siamese or Angels but remembered that fancy fishes needed filters, pumps, heaters, plants, elaborate tanks, special foods. He knew from experience that their life span was inversely proportionate to their beauty. No, he’d stick with a good old dependable goldfish that could take New York tap water in stride.

“I see you’re closing shop,” Bob said.

“It’s not hard to see. Why else is everything in the store forty percent off? Because I went crazy? They’re kicking me out, the bastards. And there’s no place to go. So I got to get rid of the whole works. They’re pushing me out on the sidewalk. I got a court order. I can stay three months. But already they try to intimidate me. They disconnect my electric. They cut off my pipes. I got to shlep water from the Greek luncheonette. They ripped out my telephone lines. Hooray for the millennium.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Berman,” Bob said. “I always enjoy coming up here.”

“That’s how it goes,” Berman said. “How can I help your You want a dozen white mice? Name it. What? Everything is a steal.”

“I want another goldfish. A healthy one. Not too fat.”

“That’s it? A goldfish?. Why not take them all?”

“One is plenty.”

“A few boxes of food? For what it cost me.”

“I have enough left over.”

“I like a big spender,” Berman said. “Go over and pick a goldfish. I’ll pull it out for you.”

Bob went to the fish wall and browsed the goldfish tank. His choice was easy. One fish among the swirl looked like an especially hearty specimen. It had good color, good spirit, good prospects. “That one.”

“Just a minute. I’ll get a bag.”

“Do you happen to have a jar? I hate carrying around a fish in a bag of water.”

“One goldfish forty percent off and you want a jar? How about a champagne bottle? Maybe gift wrapping?” Berman headed for the back of the store.

Bob wandered around exploring Petropolis’s remaining inhabitants. He wondered what would become of Berman’s sorry leftovers. There were always bottom fishers who snapped up anything cheap enough. And women who couldn’t resist a runt of the litter.

Berman would probably find customers for most of the pets. Maybe some store would buy the rest of the miserable collection. He poked his finger at a cat sitting on some newspapers in a wire mesh cage. It wasn’t a kitten, it wasn’t full grown. “Definitely a hard sell,” Bob said, “but you might get lucky.” The cat rolled over and let Bob scratch its belly.

Bob continued his browsing, feeling more and more depressed. He was impatient to get out of there, get home, get his new fish settled, and either fix himself a snack, maybe an avocado stuffed with tuna, or go over to the White Horse Tavern for a cheeseburger and a beer. He caught a look at himself in a wall mirror behind a budgie cage looking pasty and pale in that thin synthetic flicker. Bob watched the one last bird, a faded blue looser with a bent beak, flap riddled wings that reminded him of World War I fighter planes after a tough skirmish. “Mr. Berman?” he yelled. “I have a busy day. Could we finish our business please? I don’t mean to rush you, but….” Bob got no answer. He figured that Berman was taking a piss or finishing off a sandwich. Who could tell with that sullen man? He was probably half senile, he might have forgotten the whole transaction.

Bob navigated past tables, boxes, and vacant cases following Berman’s path to wherever it was he kept his supplies and probably a Mosler Safe with six combination locks. Petropolis was most likely Berman’s home as well as his store. He must have gotten himself a bed and a hot plate and holed up there for half a century. “Berman? Can you hear me? I can’t just hang around.”

Bob turned an unexpected comer, went down a corridor, and found Berman’s secret nest. His suspicions were correct. There was a desk, a safe, a hot plate, a cabinet stuffed with clothes and a cot with a rusty frame. Berman was lying on the floor holding a calculator. Water spilled from a Petropolis carry bag made a puddle near Berman’s head. Bob knew immediately that Berman was dead. He felt for a pulse and tried CPR but it was no use. No more Midas, no more Berman. A very bad day. Bob found a telephone on Berman’s desk under a pile of catalogs. All it could get was a dismal buzz. He remembered what Berman said about the landlord’s campaign to evict him. Bob could have kicked himself for leaving his cellular back home. He never went anyplace without it. But coping with his dead fish upset even entrenched habits.

Bob took time to cover Berman’s body with a blanket, then went to get help. He got as far as the defended outer door. The locks and bolts were secure. He went back to find Berman’s keys, riffling through a multitude of pockets in his pants, vest, and shirt, but found nothing but a wallet and a Swiss Army knife. Bob felt the clutch of understandable anxiety. “God knows where this nut case hides his keys,” Bob said to Berman’s corpse. “You got me locked in this pig sty. No phone. No water. Sometimes no electric.” What about customers; Did Berman have any customers left?

After an hour of banging against the metal plates that closed off Petropolis’s front window, after screaming for attention at what seemed like air vents, after looking for some possible exit from his curious predicament, Bob accepted that he had a problem. Best case scenario, some loyal patron would come up the stairs and knock knock knock. But when? Worst case, no customers would come calling and Berman still had three months to clear out. Three months? Alone with a dead body and a bunch of comatose creatures dreaming of life in a fantasy forest long since leveled by chain saws. They must have quit hoping for loving masters and happy homes when they picked up Berman’s negative vibrations. Animals and birds know about things. They have their ways. “The good news is that nothing up here is big enough to eat me,” Bob said to a garden snake. “No lions or tigers. No pit bulls roaming around.” The thought reminded Bob of his own appetite. He hadn’t even had breakfast.

Bob quit his search for Berman’s key chain and went foraging for food. He found sacks of litter, a few cans of cat food, a box of Purina Dog Chow, a jar marked BLOOD WORMS, and one bag that held a single serving of organic corn flakes. Not even a can of coffee or a tea bag. At least there was water in the fish tanks. Not Evian but potable. Bob sat on the floor eating the dry corn flakes, considering his situation. Except for split-second decisions about the swing of the market, Bob had a way of taking forever to make his moves. He grinned thinking about his wife’s ballooning rage when he lingered over the tomato bin at the market, choosing his tomatoes like a diamond merchant picking gems. And here he was, facing up to his problems, weighing his options like he weighed a bunch of seedless grapes.

The lights flared and went out. Bob was sealed in a black cube. Berman said the landlord was taunting him by playing mind games with the electric. Either that or the bill was ten years past due. Listening to Berman was like listening to Alan Greenspan talk about no inflation. Fact and fiction fused to affliction.

Even though he’d quit smoking after his divorce, largely to spite his wife by adding a few years to his life, Bob still carried the Dunhill lighter he’d bought when puts and calls on e-Trade made him $32,000 in three hours. It was his talisman, his charm, a reminder of his worth. Bob reached for the lighter and flicked it on. The flame burned bright. He stood up and headed back to Berman’s quarters. There had to be candles someplace. If the plug had been pulled, Berman must have prepared for future blackouts.

Sure enough, a box of votive candles waited for emergencies on top of the safe. Soon Petropolis was illuminated with comforting beams, though the candles threw ominous shadows. Bob fell asleep on Berman’s cot. He was wakened when the fluorescents came back on. Berman had been telling the truth, the landlord was a gamesman. Bob rushed around extinguishing the candles, blowing into each glass of waxy hot soup. By then he was ravenous.

“There is no other solution,” Bob thought to himself. “None but to endure this indignity with as much grace as possible. I must live off the land like a hunter gatherer.” He went back into the body of the store and addressed his fellow captives. “I have nothing against any of you,” he said. “Like you, I’m a prisoner against my will. It isn’t my fault that fate formed my atoms into a Homo sapiens instead of a frog. Luck of the draw. And like you I must eat. But there is nothing else to eat but you guys. I will not swallow cat food or worms. Oh, I hear you. No, devouring Mr. Berman is out of the question. I believe in lines of no crossing. This isn’t the Donner Pass. I am no Jeffrey Dahmer. So don’t even think it. You’re all doomed anyhow. At least this way you can know that your protein-rich carcasses will be used to good purpose.

“I respect you all. My fish gave me solace during very hard times. I am not a malicious man. But you are potentially nutritious and delicious as they say in commercials. So let’s all agree to make the best of things. Whatever he is, Bob Aker is a helluva chef. He’ll bring out your best. And that’s a kind of immortality.” Bob’s inspired oration was met with various sounds of approval. He bowed, laughing to himself to prove he wasn’t getting as crazy as Berman.

It was time for making choices. Bob went to the bank of fish tanks and peered into liquid domains. The fish he’d selected to buy was the only one with real substance.

But that was to be Midas’s heir. He wasn’t going to broil it unless all else failed.

To die in one of Berman’s dirty pans without wine, butter and lemon for an epitaph was unthinkable. Still, the others, taken together, would only make a few mouthfuls. Bob had an epiphany. He cupped his hands and succeeded in isolating his chosen goldfish, lifted it gently from its habitat, and placed it in an otherwise empty tank. Then he poured the remaining fish into the goldfish tank. Guppies to tetras, the exotics were mixed with the generic golds. Then Bob stepped back and let nature take its course. His vision was clear. The fish would work things out among themselves. They would swallow one another until only one fish remained triumphant. It would be like those epic wars on cable television.

A single survivor would emerge, bloated in victory. A fish that would be chubby enough to make a decent meal was worth the waiting. Appetite increases with anticipation. As a respected gourmet, Bob knew very well that anticipation is the ultimate secret ingredient, the best spice of all.

For twenty hours, Bob watched an incredible show. There were no station breaks, no interruptions. The plot was basic enough, without complications or subtleties. There was suspense, horror, even a little humor and beauty. Underwater enemies, some born to kill, others forced to carnage, twisted, dived, hid behind plants that waved in the roiled water, darted suddenly, played possum, jumped, circled, pounced. The laughs came when one fish would indulge in a moment of satisfaction after chewing up a fin or tail. In that time of contentment, another fish would sense an advantage and inflict terrible punishment. Some fish bled red, others just dissolved into death. Bob was hypnotized by the spectacle and never noticed time passing.

At long last only one fish was left. Ironically, it was one of the goldfish that had hugged the tank’s glass wall and inherited bits and pieces of former associates as they drifted by its welcoming face. Its first and last joust was with another goldfish surprised when its passive kin turned to a furious cannibal. From attending countless buffet dinners, Bob knew about feeding frenzies.

Before taking the next step, Bob went to empty his bladder. But where was Berman’s facility and what good was a toilet without water to flush? Behind the office, Bob found what passed for a bathroom. A cactus plant rested on the closed toilet seat. Ingenious Berman had built himself a large litter box. Thank God, he must have cleaned it out just before Bob came to Petropolis. It looked like a sandbox. Bob had a giddy feeling using it; whirlwinds of memory brought him back to defunct playgrounds where apartment houses now stood. He zipped up and went back into the store.

Bob lifted the winning gladiator goldfish out of the wet coliseum and saw its raw mouth open and close, gasping a series of why me?s. It was a pity that goldfish wouldn’t translate into sushi. It had to be changed by fire to be marginally edible. Without butter for the pan Bob accepted that his dinner would shrivel to the size of a sardine.

He had another sensible thought. He wished his wife could see his mind work. He put dinner on hold, took the expiring fish and dropped it into the cage where the white mice lived. This time he didn’t wait around for the mouse feast. He found an old newspaper and read an article about the plot to get rid of Princess Diana. Was a tunnel under Paris another Tower of London? the author asked rhetorically and Bob found himself wondering, is every accident a conspiracy? Berman would say sure, probably.

Bob dozed again and dreamed about time. Was it night or day? His watch gave him the hour and minute but no more information. He woke without a clue to the answer.

There was no way to tell. What he did know was that he was hot and thirsty. He went to the fish tank where battle had been done, made a face, took a breath, then dipped his head into rusty brownish water that had to contain some nutrients. It didn’t taste all that bad. Then he went to check on the mice. Sure enough, the goldfish was history and the mice fatter and more playful. Bob thought about boiling up the batch of rodents, a revolting prospect. And, like the fish, even twelve mice would be the equivalent of an hors d’ oeuvre. He needed a main course, not an appetizer.

Bob wrapped the Diana newspaper around his hands, making a paper glove, then went to fetch the last snake in Petropolis. The garter gave him no trouble; it hung like a spent rubberband. But when he dropped his serpent in with the mice, the snake came alert, began to coil and uncoil, slithered around, then grabbed a mouse by a hind leg. Bob waited until the reptile jaws expanded into a version of the Paris tunnel that folded around the dark-starred princess and sucked in the struggling squeaker. It was not a pleasant sight or a quick death. But Bob could see the snake fatten with prey and calculated that, when all the mice were ingested and digested, he’d have sixteen inches in length, a half-inch in diameter of prime snake meat that could easily be grilled right on the hot plate’s coils. That is, if the electricity held out. If not, he could finish up the job using candles.

While the snake went about its serious business, Bob did some exercises. He stretched his arms and circled them, he did knee bends and made a few attempts at push-ups.

Pushing up and dropping down, he thought about his wife and who might be exercising on the mat of her muscular body at that very moment. He found himself fighting back tears. When his depression passed, Bob pulled himself off the wooden floor and did his best to feed the few citizens of Petropolis.

After a few days, Bob had second thoughts about fattening his snake. It was taking forever. But when he checked he saw fewer and fewer white mice until there were none.

And his snake had swelled magnificently. It was as corpulent as a sausage. He fired up the hot plate, readied a paper plate, filled a cardboard coffee cup with another draught from the fish tank, put on his makeshift gloves. This time the snake that had hung like a strand of overdone spaghetti was full of piss and vinegar, hissing and biting on its way to Berman’s table. Bob took Berman’s Swiss Army knife and clipped off the snake’s ugly head. He chopped the snake into inch-long tidbits, singing as he worked, as cheerful as a Texas cowboy stewing a rattler. Bob was ready for a hearty feed. He gazed at the diced snake steaks and shook his head. Mice or no mice, there wasn’t enough meat to fill a fashion model so why kid himself? Why live in denial?

Bob took his disappointment in stride. He fed part of the snake to the gerbils, a bit of poetic justice considering their rodent ancestry, tossed a few shards to the turtles and served a choice few inches to the spavined kitty/cat that had long since finished the last of the stinking cat food. The feline gobbled its ration and looked up at Bob, mewing a sorrowful plea for more. Bob went to the budgie cage. He had no fruit, lettuce or seeds for the bird which was already beyond fight or flight, so he did the merciful thing and gave it to the furball whose cries grew stronger at the prospect of a feathered dessert.

Bob played with the purring pussycat, rounded up the turtles and boiled them out of their shells. He remembered a turtle he had when he was a kid. It had MIAMI BEACH painted on its back. What was his turtle’s fate? He came home from school one day and it was gone. His mother said it must have been kidnapped and soothed Bob’s misery with a batch of fresh muffins, yes, corn muffins plump and springy. The turtle soup, even with floating bits of meat, wasn’t the meal he was waiting for. Bob let the brew cool then gave it to the gerbils. Instead of drinking, they spilled the broth onto the floor. Bob saw a roach dash out from behind a counter and head for the warm pool. He stomped the roach and fed it to a salamander, then fed salamander parts to some Easter chicks he discovered in a homemade incubator. Those chicks had definite possibilities. But they were hardly hatched. There was no satisfaction there. Bob knew himself well enough to measure the cavern of his hunger. A nibble of chicken and a few soft bones wouldn’t be enough to mobilize his gastric juices.

Bob was feeling weak. He moved a flattened pillow to the Petropolis door and camped there, praying for a knock. No wonder Berman died when he did. Business was nonexistent. Bob could hear car horns and truck motors from the street. He knew that hundreds of people must be hurrying past the building. Not one of them was in the market for a really good deal on a loving companion. Bob thought about those people, involved, focused, probably headed home carrying bags of succulents from Balducci’s or maybe the Jefferson or the A&P. They could be aimed for any one of a hundred restaurants in the area. He dwelt on those thoughts but his own mouth was too dry to salivate. He drifted in and out of sleep, mocked by twilight dreams of a Lasagna Wife or a Rack of Lamb Mistress. Sex with those amalgams took place on beds of mashed or home-fried potatoes. His orgasms produced wan spurts of gravy.

Bob knew he had to keep in motion while he waited rescue. He’d heard many tales of people stranded in lifeboats bobbing around in undrinkable seas or buried under tons of earth. They’d be found alive and reasonably well after all hope was abandoned. Always those blessed ones had stories about how they kept their spirits up by using false hope as a paddle to thwart the reaper. Compared to them, Bob was in the catbird seat. He had a food supply and reserves of body fat to get him to the day when some construction workers would come to convert Petropolis into a 4-room condo.

Bob dragged himself to the box where he’d stashed the chirpy chicks. They were still minuscule, not yet a match for a multi-vitamin pill. He worked up enough energy to twist their cute necks and feed them to the gerbils. Those gerbils were doing fine. They were the size of piglets. Seeing them finish off the chicks, Bob could taste paradise. He snapped open Berman’s Swiss Army knife and tested the blade.

Bob thrust the blade into one of the gerbil bodies. The gamble paid off. The remaining gerbil wasted no time mourning. Its needle teeth buzzed greedily through its roommate’s glossy pelt. While the gerbil chomped at a tiny wish bone, Bob went to see how his new goldfish was doing. It was doing fine, as happy as Midas had been. Bob shook some minced worms into the tank and gave it a knowing wink.

Bob felt sorry about the pussy but he’d made up his mind that the gerbil would cook more to his standards. Even a starving mewer would be worth a few more ounces of tender gerbil gut. A merger was definitely in order. Yawning, a bit woozy, he went to dispatch the expendable kitten/ cat and was amazed to see it had transformed to a full blown cat. It wasn’t cute anymore. That made things easier. But what happened to time?

“How long have I been stuck in here?” Bob yelled to the dead Berman who lay molding, polluting the otherwise breathable Petropolis’s air. “When that gerbil is done, crusty and juicy, an eat-your-heart-out-James-Beard banquet, don’t think Bob Aker is going to share with you, Berman. My former wife often accused me of being a human garbage disposal, and this time she’d be absolutely correct. That gerbil is mine nose to balls, so don’t ask for a place at the table, I’m the one destined to bear witness.”

Bob opened the cat cage. He closed his fingers around the Swiss Army knife while he gave the cat a few strokes. “Nice parting gifts,” Bob said. “Like on Wheel of Fortune.”

He jabbed with the knife but the cat nipped at his hand, then leapt through the opening. It landed on the floor with a soft thud and disappeared in the murk. “Here baby, baby,” Bob cooed. “Here pretty pussy. Come back to Uncle Bob. Hurry up. It’s time.” Bob searched for the cat without finding a trace. Sooner or later the cat would emerge looking for some digestible affection. Bob was famous for patience.

Later, when he went to feed his goldfish, he found the tank empty. “So be it,” Bob said. “Let’s be a grownup about this. Cat eats fish. Gerbil gets that much more cat to digest. Bob eats more gerbil. It’s the way of things.” Bob improvised a dance. He was dancing when the electricity quit again. He took his Dunhill and lit a few candle stubs.

Bob went to visit the tender, round gerbil. “Hang in there,” he said. “Dinner is practically on the table. The bad news is, the Supreme Court denied your appeal. The good news is that fucking cat will be your last supper.” The lights came back on after a few hours. Bob went to the office, held his nose, frowned at Berman, and clicked on the hot plate’s switch. Its coils glowed like cartoon eyes. “Here, cat,” Bob yelled, “Mr. Gerbil is famished. I can use a few calories myself. Don’t make things harder than they already are. I promise you a better world, a place where cats are emperors. It beats scrounging for goldfish. All right, then. Let’s consider a deal. How’d you like a gerbil sandwich? Sound good? It could be arranged. I’m flexible. Cat?”

A month later Petropolis’s landlord had Berman’s door smashed open. What he found gave the city its daily jolt. There were the scraps of two human bodies scattered among assorted rubble. One was the former proprietor, Mr. Berman. The second could not be identified. It was presumed that Berman died resisting a robbery, but not before he got his revenge on the intruder.

The only thing moving was the biggest cat the landlord, or the cops he called, ever saw. A cat the size of a Doberman. It was standing on a bone pile playing with a set of keys.

The story made the six o’clock news. The landlord told a reporter, “It’s my kind of cat. There was instant chemistry between us. Call it synchronicity. Call it love. Call it what you want. One thing sure, I’ll make sure it gets a good home and that’s a solemn promise. If any of your viewers out there are interested in adoption….”

Bob’s ex-wife saw the broadcast. She smiled at the landlord’s unusual display of compassion. “People like that make me proud,” she said to her lover, a man who weighed less than half of what was left of Bob Aker’s shrunken behind. “You know what? I think I just might call the station.”

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