e and sneers, "You're not sixteen.
We don't have a children's section in this theater." She doesn't even ask.
She just says it. It's a great world. I go home. There's no one there but
Cat, so I turn the record player up full blast.

Pop comes home in one of his unexpected fits of generosity that night and
takes us to the movies. Cat behaves himself and stays around home and our
cellar for a while, so I stop worrying. But it doesn't last long.

As soon as his claw heals, he starts sashaying off again. One night I hear
cats yowling out back and I go out with a bucket of water and douse them
and bring Cat in. There's a pretty little tiger cat, hardly more than a
kitten, sitting on the fence licking herself, dry and unconcerned. Cat
doesn't speak to me for a couple of days.

One morning Butch, the janitor, comes up and knocks on our door. "You
better come down and look at your cat. He got himself mighty chewed up.
Most near dead."

I hurry down, and there is Cat sprawled in a corner on the cool cement
floor. His mouth is half open, and his breath comes in wheezes, like he
has asthma. I don't know whether to pick him up or not.

Butch says, "Best let him lie."

I sit down beside him. After a bit his breath comes easier and he puts his
head down. Then I see he's got a long, deep claw gouge going from his
shoulder down one leg. It's half an inch open, and anyone can see it won't
heal by itself.

Butch shakes his head. "You gotta take him to the veteran, sure. That's
the cat doctor."

"Yeah," I say, not correcting him. It's not just the gash that's worrying
me. I remember what Aunt Kate said, and it gives me a cold feeling in the
stomach: In the back-alley jungle he'd last a year, maybe two.

Looking at Cat, right now, I know she's right. But Cat's such a--well, such
a _cat_. How can I take him to be whittled down?

I tell Butch I'll be back down in a few minutes, and I go upstairs. Mom's
humming and cleaning in the kitchen. I wander around and stare out the
window awhile. Finally I go in the kitchen and stare into the icebox, and
then I tell Mom about the gash in Cat's leg.

She asks if I know a vet to take him to.

"Yeah, there's Speyer. It's a big, new hospital--good enough for people,
even--with a view of the East River. The thing is, Mom, Cat keeps going off
and fighting and getting hurt, and people tell me I ought to get him
altered."

Mom wets the sponge and squeezes it out and polishes at the sink, and I