The Good Luck of Right Now(24)

And so, heeding your spiritual leader’s advice, I said to Max, “I’d like to hear about your cat. Alice. I really would.”

He examined my face for a second or two, probably trying to decide if I meant it, and then said, “Alice was the best f*cking cat that ever lived.”

I began pretending again, and you, Richard Gere, in my imagination you whispered in my ear and said, Look how his muscles are relaxing. Note the slope of his shoulders. Relaxed. He needs to talk. Listen. Ease his suffering. Be compassionate. And compassion will come back to you. Heed the words of the Dalai Lama.

Max went on to talk about his cat for more than a half hour straight. He told me that he found her in a Dumpster in Worcester, Massachusetts, behind the movie theater where he used to work before he moved to Philadelphia to live with his sister. He was taking out the nightly trash when he heard a kitten crying. He had to tear open “a million f*cking bags” before he found it. There were six other kittens inside but all of those were dead. “I wanted to kill the f*cking scumbag who put kittens in a trash bag. What the f*ck, hey? Who does that?” He was very worried that someone would find him standing next to the dead cats “with f*cking trash and dead kittens all around my f*cking feet” and accuse him of killing the cats, so he stuck the alive kitten into his coat and headed to the nearest convenience store so he could get some “f*cking milk.” It was late at night and the woman working the convenience store behind “thick f*cking plastic glass” saw the kitten and excitedly exited her glass box to pet it. She made such a big deal over the kitten and was so nice to Max, showing him where the cat food was and letting him feed the kitten in her store, that Max decided to name the kitten after that convenience store worker. “What the f*ck, hey? I thought,” Max said. “So I asked what her f*cking name was and she f*cking said Alice. So that’s what I f*cking named my cat.” Max went on to explain how—using a feather on a string and catnip—he trained his cat to meow on command and also run through an obstacle course full of hoops and mini-jumps “like what f*cking horses jump, but smaller for baby cats.” And he said that as Alice became an adult cat, he taught her how to speak to him.

“Really speak to you?” Arnie said. “Or were you only pretending Alice could speak with you? Like most people do when they talk to their pets.”

“Yeah, like f*cking that, hey. Pretending,” Max said.

I became very interested in Max at this point.

He talked a lot more about Alice, listing what types of food she liked—“Canned f*cking tuna was her favorite!”—and how she liked to chase red dots of light that he projected onto the wall with “a f*cking laser pointer” and how Alice “jumped and ran and pounced for f*cking hours,” how they both enjoyed watching the library’s box-set DVDs of the original Doctor Who and how he thought about Alice whenever he was working, ripping “the f*ck out of tickets” at the “f*cking movies,” because that was “his f*cking job”—being a “f*cking ticket f*cking taker” at the “f*cking movies,” and it was “really f*cking boring, hey!”

I told him that working at the movies seemed like an interesting job, especially since you could see movies for free, and Max said, “Going to the movies? Fuck that! You have to sit with f*cking * strangers and you never know which one has a f*cking cold or what f*ck is going to bring a f*cking crying baby. And working at the f*cking movies f*cking sucks. You end up watching parts of every f*cking movie and then never seeing the rest. Fifteen minutes of this f*cking film, fifteen minutes of that f*cker. All the f*cking parts get mixed up and make a never-f*cking-ending Frankenstein film. You never get to see the whole thing start to f*cking finish. Not f*cking once. And you know what’s the worst f*cking part?”

“What?” I said.

“No cats allowed. What the f*ck, hey? Alice loved movies! Why can’t you bring your cat? What the f*ck? That’s why I always preferred watching f*cking movies at home.”

“Do you enjoy Richard Gere movies?” I asked.

“Richard Gere? Richard f*cking Gere?” Max said. “Fuck Richard Gere! What the f*ck, hey?”

“He’s actually my favorite actor,” I said, sticking up for you, even though you technically were one of Mom’s favorite actors. “And a brave humanitarian.”

“Oh, I like Richard Gere,” said Arnie, who had been listening to Max and me talk with a satisfied look on his face. “He was great in Chicago.”

“Fuck Richard Gere,” Max said once more. “Fuck going to the f*cking movies. I miss Alice. I really f*cking miss Alice. Fuck!”

There was a long silence here.

Max looked like he was melting.

You were compassionate, you, Richard Gere, whispered into my ear. You let go of the self.

Arnie looked at his watch, and then he said, “I’m afraid our time is almost up, gentlemen. Bartholomew, you’ll be given more time to speak next week.”

I nodded.

“Max, thanks for sharing all that you did tonight.”

“What the f*ck, hey?” he said and then shrugged, like sharing was no big deal.

“Can I ask a question?” I said.

“Certainly,” Arnie said.

“Why is everything yellow in here?”

“Psychological research proves that the color yellow—bright yellow, that is—can make people feel more confident and optimistic. This, of course, helps with the grieving process. Ironically, pale yellow can have the opposite effect. So I go with bright yellow. It’s all rather scientific. I am a doctor, you know,” Arnie said and then winked at me.