For example, not long ago four of us in the writing profession sat at lunch on a Friday in the Plaza Restaurant in Sarasota and figured that between us we represented 129 years of marriage, each of us to but one spouse, and had Joe Hayes and Wyatt Blassin-game been there, also writers who reside in the area and often come to Friday lunch, we could have added another bunk of years under the same stipulation, fifty or more. And not an alcoholic or an addict in the lot. The same kind of statistic would apply to the better-known professional painters who live there.
There are so many writers and painters along the west coast of Florida, the community considers us as normal as if we were real estate brokers or insurance agents.
It makes for a restful environment, but in all the less sophisticated communities of America the mythology will not countenance such dullness. They want the heady moral indulgence of finding something of which they can disapprove.
Also, though we were managing to stay even, we were not able to accumulate any reserve. Mexico seemed a good answer. Unless we could save something, we could not start the camp at Piseco.
We rented the College Hill house to a pleasant couple who asked for and received permission to pursue their pigeon-keeping hobby in one of the three garages, and for a ridiculously small rent discount for food, they agreed to harbor our cats.
The three of us set off towing the same cargo trailer, this time behind a newer black Ford convertible, learning Spanish words all the way down by means of flash cards. Our destination, Cuernavaca, was made inevitable by our both getting hooked on that superb novel Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. It was 1948.
That previous winter was the only time we saw our cats exposed to snow, and indeed the last time they had a snowy out-of-doors to cope with.
Their reactions to dirty weather were quite different. Roger despised snow. He hated to put his feet into it. He acted as though he were being forced to walk upon some incredible nastiness. Yet he has never minded light rain. He goes out into it, drinks out of puddles, comes in matted and happy.
Geoffrey hated rain in any degree, and at Clinton he developed his rain procedure. Going to his window and finding it spattering off his cat shelf into his face, he would back away and go to a closed door and start hollering. The door had to be opened so he could look out and see that it was raining out there too. He would go to the next door and repeat the request. That house had many doors. Satisfied it was raining everywhere, he would either stay in or, under physiological compulsion, brace himself, go out his window, and race for shelter.
We both remember the time much later in Florida when, after we had told him for years that he was an idiot, he proved his point. The summer rains in Florida are often so brief and so concentrated, it can be raining on one side of the street and quite dry on the other. One day at Point Crisp, Geoff started that door-to-door nonsense, backing away from the heavy rain each time. He hollered at the back door, and Dorothy opened it for him, and it was dry and bright out there. He plodded on out with that matter-of-factness which seemed to say that he had always known it would work one day.
But snow did not bother him as it did Roger. When it was quite deep he would bound through it with as much aplomb as any rabbit, in fact leaving tracks which resembled rabbit tracks. In his youngest days at State Street he would go out onto that flat part of the roof and sit in the snow.
Seen from the rear while in normal sitting position, Geoff was a ludicrous sight. The way he sat gave him a perfect pear shape. He was a hairy schmoo, with those tufted ears on top. I treasure one memory of him out on the terrace at College Hill. I happened to glance through the glass doors and saw him out there, sitting with his back toward the doors. He was in about four inches of snow, and he had been there so long his body heat had melted him down into it.
Six
At Cuernavaca we found a small brick house behind a wall. It was at 8 Jacaranda Street, a long block east of the main highway, about five miles north of the city, and with a view of the volcanoes from our small front porch.
We acquired a part-time gardener for the small yard and garden, and a full-time maid named Esperanza. We located a private school for Johnny. Dorothy coped with the public market. Our neighbors on either side were a Mexican dentist and a Mexican colonel. Much later, when I computed our total expenses for the best part of the year we were there, I found that the total for everything — including entertainment, side trips, and typewriter ribbons — averaged out at $115 a month.
There were savage dogs in our neighborhood. One, owned by a mystery woman who lived diagonally across the street and was reputed to be the mistress of some important Mexico City politico, was so damned large and unpleasant that when we ventured outside our gates at night on foot, I carried a rock or a club.
We suspect that this dog inflicted the wound on Pancha, the bleeding, terrorized cat who came scrabbling under our closed gate one day with a deep, fresh wound in her back. We gave her care and refuge, and she responded with warmth and trust. She was a pretty and dainty little cat, and she obviously had no intention of ever going back out where the dogs were. She was so obviously hardly more than a kitten that we could not believe she was pregnant. But with an increasing obviousness, she was, beyond doubt.
As her time grew near and she began a rather absentminded investigation of dark corners and closets, Dorothy fixed her a box and introduced her to it, and she seemed content with it.
One morning I got up before dawn and drove with a friend down to Lake Tequesquitengo and fished for bass. We came back at noon, and I stopped at his place and had some Oso Negro gin with local ginger ale. John Commerford was a good fishing companion, but he made those drinks heavy.
(John’s wife, Pearl, was taking Spanish lessons, but John insisted sign language could get him anything he wanted. He went into town one day to buy a fly swatter and stopped at a likely shop on the narrow street leading to the public market. Making random, fluttering gestures with his left hand, and saying, “Zzzzzzzzz,” John held the imaginary swatter in his right hand, then struck, saying “Pow!” After about two solid minutes of this the totally blank expression of the proprietor turned to a beaming grin of comprehension. He ran into his storeroom and returned proudly with a box of ping-pong balls. John joined La Perla for the language lessons.)
I wobbled two blocks home through a garish unreality of daylight, undone by the early hours, the drive, the fishing and the gin. Dorothy had gone marketing. I stretched out on my back on the bed and fell asleep. About an hour later I was awakened by cat claws needling into my side. My right arm was outstretched, and Pancha had nestled into my armpit. She was purring very loudly and became louder when I stroked her. Every so often she would stop purring, dig her claws into me, then begin purring again. It seemed odd behavior. I had my hand on her the next time it happened, and I felt a strange rippling which seemed to start at her shoulders and go down to her back heels. I lifted my head and stared down at her and suddenly realized what was going on. My first impulse was to hustle her to her box, but then I thought that if she had that much trust, if she had selected that particular place to have her kittens, then the least I could do would be go along with it.
By the time I heard Dorothy arrive, we’d had the first kitten. Pancha was very tidy and efficient about it. She had three, and one was dead. Except during the labor pains, she purred every moment. Birthing done, she was content to be moved into the box with her damp, blind family. The kittens were a male and a female, and we named them Brujo and Bruja — he-witch and she-witch.