Charlie Jane Anders
CLOVER
The day after Anwar and Joe got married, a man showed up on their doorstep, with a cat hunched in the cradle of his arms. The man was short and thin, almost child-size, with a pale, weathered face. The cat was black, with a white streak on his stomach and a white slash on his face. The man congratulated them on their nuptials, and held out the squirming cat. “This is Berkley,” he said. “If you take him into your home, you’ll have nine years of good luck.”
Before Anwar and Joe had a chance to debate the matter of adoption, Berkley was already hiding in their apartment somewhere. They found themselves Googling the closest place to get a cat bed, a litter box, and some grain-free, low-fat organic food for an indoor cat. It was a chilly day, with scattered clouds that turned the sunset into a broken yolk.
Berkley didn’t come out of hiding for a month. Food disappeared from his bowl, and his litter box filled up, when nobody was looking. But the cat himself was a no-show. Until one night, when Anwar had a nightmare that the tanks cracked and his precious, life-giving beer sprayed everywhere. He woke to find the cat perched on the side of the bed, eyes lit up, one leg outstretched. Anwar froze for a moment, then tentatively reached out an arm and touched the cat’s back so lightly the fur lifted. Then Berkley scooted in next to Anwar and fell asleep, thrumming slightly. From then on, Berkley slept on their bed at night.
Their luck didn’t become miraculous or anything, but things did go well for them. Anwar’s microbrews grew popular, especially Nubian Nut and Butch Goddess, and he even managed to open a small brewpub, an “airy cavern” in the trendy warehouse district between NC State and downtown, not far from where there used to be that leather bar. Joe documented a couple of major atrocities without becoming a statistic himself, and wrote a white paper about genocide that he really felt might could make genocides a bit less likely. Anwar and Joe stayed together, and Joe’s hand along Anwar’s lower ribs always made him feel safe and amazed. Everyone they knew was suffering—like Marie, whose restaurant went under because she couldn’t get half the ingredients she needed due to the drought, and then she went back to Ohio to care for an uncle who’d gotten the antibiotic-resistant meningitis, and wound up getting sick herself. But Anwar and Joe kept being good to each other, and when problems came, they muddled through.
They almost didn’t notice the upcoming ninth anniversary of Berkley’s arrival. By now, the cat was the defining feature of their home, the lodestone. Berkley’s moods were their household’s moods: his pleasure, their pleasure. They went across town to get him the exact food he wanted, and kept him well supplied with toys and cat grass, not to mention an enormous climbing tree. Anwar’s most popular stout was the Black Cat’s Tail.
Nine years after Berkley’s arrival, to the day, another man showed up at their door, with another cat. A female this time, a fluffy calico with an intense glare in her wide yellow eyes. This cat did not squirm or fidget, but instead had a wary stillness.
“This is Patricia,” the big bearded lumbersexual white dude said without introducing himself. “You won’t have any extra luck if you take her in, but she’ll be a good companion for Berkley.” He deposited her on their doorstep and skipped away before Anwar or Joe had a chance to ask any questions.
They decided “Patricia” was an odd name for a cat, and named her “Clover” instead, because of the pattern of the spots on her back.
Berkley had worked for years to get Anwar and Joe’s apartment under control, and this represented both a creative enterprise and a labor of love. He had carved out cozy beds atop the laundry hamper, inside the old wicker basket that contained extra brewing supplies, and in the hutch where Joe kept his beloved death-metal concert shirts. Berkley knew exactly where the sunbeam came through the slanty front windows in the mornings, and the best hiding places for when Anwar brought out the terrifying vacuum-cleaner monster, versus when Anwar and Joe started shouting after Joe came home from one of his trips. Berkley had trained both men to sleep in exactly the right positions for him to curl up between their legs.
And now this new cat, this jag-faced maniac, sprinted around the front room, the bedroom, the kitchenette, the bathrooms—even the laundry nook! She trampled everything with her wild feet. She put her scent everywhere. She slept on the sofa, where Joe sat and stroked her shiny fur with both hands. She was just all over everything.
Berkley made no secret of his feelings on the subject of this invasion. His oratorio spanned two octaves and had an infinite number of movements. But his pleas and remonstrations went unheeded, as if his companionship were a faded, shredded old toy that had lost all its scent. Berkley should have known. This was the way of things: You get a sweet deal for a while, but just when you get comfortable, someone always comes and rips it away.
This lesson, Berkley had learned as a kitten. His first proper human had been a young girl, who had sworn to protect him, and Berkley had promised to watch over her in turn. Somehow, they had struck this deal in the language of cats, which made it much larger than the usual declarations that cats and people always make to each other. And then, she had disappeared.
Berkley never knew what had happened, only that he’d had a friend, and then she was gone. He was left alone in this giant wooden house, where every smell was a doorway. He’d searched for her over and over, his tail down and his head upcast. He had cried much too loud for his own good. There were still people in that house, but they didn’t love Berkley, or even wish him well. Their angry shouts and stomping boots echoed off the ancient walls, ever since Berkley’s friend disappeared. Every time he emerged from hiding to call out to his lost friend, he risked getting plucked off his feet by grabby hands.
He kept thinking he heard her or smelled her, but no. This always set off the wailing again.
Quick quick quick sleep.
Quick quick quick sleep.
Sometimes the grabby hands caught him, and then his hard-gotten dignity was all undone. His body bent into shapes where it didn’t want to go.
They heard Berkley cry, the angry people, and they shouted, they pounded the walls. He didn’t have a way to stop crying.
Friend didn’t mean to Berkley the same thing it would to a dog, or a human. But this girl had been the shoulder he slept on, the hand that scritched his ear, the voice that sang to him. Even the cozy old attic felt colder and darker, and the wooden house smelled like nothing but mildew.
Berkley was just letting go of the last of his kittenhood when another pair of hands had lifted him, gently, and brought him to this new house, where the scents were different (yeast, flowers, nuts) but the people were kind. Berkley forgot almost everything in life, but he never entirely forgot the girl, his original disappointment.
And just like the girl had been taken away from Berkley with zero warning or goodbye, now this new cat was going to steal all his comfort from him. Clover tried to talk to him a few times, but he was having exactly none of that. Berkley hissed at her like she was made of poison.
The thing was, Anwar really believed, deep down, in the “nine years of good luck.” He always referred to Berkley as their maneki neko, like one of those Japanese cat statues that waves a paw in the window and brings in good fortune. When the second guy showed up exactly nine years later, with another cat, and he knew so much, that clinched it.
Anwar had a sick feeling: Our luck just ran out.
Raleigh was an okay friendly city, mostly, but lately when he found himself downtown at night, he felt like he was going to get jumped any minute. Big scary dudes had followed him out to his truck from the bar once or twice, but Anwar had always gotten away. The mosque in Durham had gotten graffitied, and the gay bar off I-40, bricked. Inside his own bar, Anwar was getting more ignorant tipsy people up in his face, asking why he was brewing alcoholic drinks anyway—when, hello, the Egyptians invented beer, thank you very much. The barback, a large Hungarian named Vinnie, had needed to eject more and more abusive drunks recently. Anwar didn’t want to live in fear, so instead, he lived in the sweet spot between paranoia and rage.