That’s no casually chosen metaphor, by the way. I’d gotten a job in the traffic department of a big shipping outfit based in downtown Oakland. My department sold space on trans-Pacific ocean carriage. All those cranes you see lining the waterfront as you drive the bend of 880 — they’re all picking containers from gigantic ships off-loading the endless tide of shit that keeps the American economy humming. Not much goes the other way. My job was to figure how to reposition empty boxes — dead-heading, it’s called — without the company taking too big a loss in the westbound lanes. Fascinating stuff, maybe even important — but not as gratifying as creating and selling a greeting card.
I didn’t have much involvement in Laurie’s business — beyond bringing in the steady, relatively substantial paycheck and the company medical plan, which allowed her to invest so completely in the development of her dream. I was left with plenty of time to learn new things on my own — like how to be handy.
After four months of blissful residency in the Garden of Eden, our cat disappeared. This would lead directly to my initial display of handiness. But first, for two days, the loss of our beloved Cricket threatened to capsize Laurie’s unbridled determination. Did I mention empathy was one of her overwhelming traits? She could not function with Cricket gone. Thoughts of the cat injured, crying for help, killed by a predator — all too much to bear.
We were walking back from our third round of posting Missing Cat notices when Laurie heard a tiny meow overhead, from the deck of our apartment. Cricket, I surmised upon closer inspection, had strolled between the posts of the guardrail, slid down the shingled eaves, dropped into a rain gutter, and instead of clawing her way back up the shingles, had gone under them, into a tiny crawlspace beneath the deck. The hundreds of long nails that attach the shingles had been hammered right through — the poor cat couldn’t crawl out without getting impaled.
I rang our landlady’s doorbell. She came to the door wearing a silk robe and a frightened expression. It was already dark, but we couldn’t stand the thought of Cricket alone for one more night.
“It’s our cat,” I explained. “We found her but can’t get to her. She’s stuck right up there, under the deck.”
“Why you not get her?”
“I have to cut away part of the roof. The nails, there’s hundreds of ’em, all in at an angle. She can’t get past them.”
She considered this for a moment, then said, “No back up. Tire damage.”
I laughed. “Exactly.”
“You can do? You cut hole, you put back — good as new?”
“Of course. Good as new. Better.”
She knew I was a bullshitter, but didn’t seem to care. All she said was, “You do now. Must do tonight. Tomorrow, no noise.”
“Thank you so much, thank you, Phi.” It was the first time I’d called her by name. Trotting down her porch steps, I tried to figure out how I’d pull off this rescue mission.
“Hey!” she called after me. “Mr. Fix-It. You need tall ladder. One in back. I show you.”
That old saw about necessity being the mother of invention — I proved the fuck out of it. Before midnight Laurie was cradling Cricket in her arms, and Phi was shining a flashlight on the shingles I’d replaced after cutting out an escape hatch for the cat. There were seams — I wasn’t a professional yet — but Phi had to squat down and stare intently through her wire-rims to see the cuts. I’d even vacuumed the sawdust from the rain gutter.
“Everyone happy,” she said, standing up and patting my chest a few times. “You handy.” She scratched Cricket’s head and smiled up at Laurie: “He very handy.”
The following day was a Saturday and Laurie came down from the upstairs office about two p.m. I’d fixed some leftovers for lunch and we both doted goofily on Cricket, taking ridiculous pleasure in watching her sleeping in a patch of sunlight, her furry belly rising and falling peacefully. Her ears suddenly perked at a clanking noise outside, and I went to the window to check it out. A white van was out front, its side doors open and a lift-gate extended. A guy in a wheelchair was being rolled onto the platform by a uniformed orderly. Phi scurried up the driveway to meet them. I couldn’t see much of the handicapped guy; he was wrapped in a blanket, wore a lopsided baseball cap, and seemed comatose.
“What’s this about?” Laurie asked, coming up beside me.
“No idea.”
Phi clasped the orderly’s hand and slipped something into it before waving goodbye. She pushed the wheelchair and its unmoving occupant up to her house.
“Huh — so that wooden ramp is practical,” Laurie said. “I thought it was just another cool part of the landscaping.”
When the van’s doors closed, we saw the writing on the side: Veterans Administration Hospital.
Two nights later, just after two a.m., the screaming started.
Laurie and I bolted upright in bed. “Holy fuck,” she gasped. “What the hell is that?” Cricket was at the foot of the bed, her back up, wide eyes staring at us.
The sound was coming up from the floor directly below. A tortured wail, worse than anything in a horror movie. This was anguish — real, primal, and terrifying. Laurie clutched Cricket, trying to keep her calm. I paced around, muttering, “What the fuck?” under my breath each time the howling started.
“Maybe you should go down and see what’s happening,” Laurie whispered.
“No, listen,” I said, “it’s not an accident or something. It doesn’t change. He’s just... screaming.”
“It’s so painful.” Laurie began to cry.
Those forty minutes were an eternity.
It didn’t happen every night. But from then on our sleep was fitful at best. The expectation of the screaming was almost as excruciating as actually hearing it. We took to having sex in places other than the bedroom, fearful that the sudden howling might contaminate our lovemaking forever. After enduring a dozens or so fits, Laurie began working later and later in the attic office, sometimes until three a.m. I’d come up and find her crashed out, head on the desk, and she’d be irritable all the next day. Over dinner one night, peering out into the darkness, she said morosely, “It was all so perfect before.”
I can’t explain it, but I felt her disappointment was somehow my fault.
Coming home from work one day I found Phi hunkered in the garden beside the koi pond. She was rigging a cage on the rocks bordering the small pool.
“What’s that for?”
“Raccoon got fish, goddamnit!” I almost laughed at her cursing like a redneck. “Now I get raccoon.”
“Why not just put a wire cover over it?”
“Not look nice. And raccoon too smart, too strong. Lift cover.”
“But he’ll just waltz into a cage? That wouldn’t be smart.”
“I use bait. Fig Newton and fish sauce. He not able resist.”
“Really? Where’d you learn that?”
“I know many things,” she said, flashing that younger woman’s smile. “Not born yesterday.”
That got us talking, which, of course, no one ever does with a landlord. I was just looking for some clues about the screaming, and whether there was any hope it would end. But after a few minutes, I’d forgotten about the nocturnal horror shows and was listening intently — parsing through her pidgin English — as she gave me her life story, telling me things that Laurie and I would never have thought to ask.