17 Years Gone

I wrote the following essay about Lorri Jackson several years ago for a webpage dedicated to her memory and managed by her sister, Leann. The page hasn't been updated in ages, so before it vanishes outright, I'm migrating over to my own site, with minor edits. I've also posted the poem that I wrote at the time in a separate entry.

Tuesday is the 17th anniversary of her death. And it still doesn't seem real--or right.

"Pierced nose, combat boots, heart tattoo over left breast, white fishnets, plaid skirt, paint-stained ripped t-shirt, black hair." That was the laundry list I scribbled in my journal the first time I met Lorri Jackson.

It was 1985. We were both busting ass as students in the Creative Writing department at Columbia College. I also worked part-time as a tutor, helping Columbia students with their grammar, punctuation and spelling problems. Lorri had signed up to be tutored for a semester not because she needed help with her writing--Lord knows she didn't--but because she wanted to be a tutor herself and this would be a way for her to see what it was like. And I was to be her example of fine tutorial skill. Yikes.

We didn't get along at first. She didn't need my help and thought our sessions were a waste of time. I thought her personality came across "like ammonia" (another note from my journal), and her fiction was as dark and uncompromising as anything I'd ever read before. But as the weeks passed, we spent more and more of out time just bullshitting about anything that came to mind: music (she liked Black Flag); our childhoods (I was a life-long Chicagoan, she a self-described "army brat"); and, more than anything else, our writing. We were both poets. We both like Baudelaire. And the more we talked about what we were most passionate about, the more we got along. Still, it was usually Lorri who, 90 minutes or so into the session, who'd tap her watch and saying "C'mon, Ed. We gotta get some work done." So we'd go over her prose, I'd ask questions about why certain characters were doing what they were doing the way they were doing it, and she'd do a quick rewrite that maintained the same ti ghtness of language, but expanded the level of detail. Damn, she was good.

By the end of that semester, we were friends--not tight buds who always hung out together, but more a "happy to see you when I see you" kind of thing. We'd squat in the halls, shoot the shit, compare notes, have a laugh. Lorri became a tutor the next semester, and we wound up in our first Advanced Poetry Workshop together.

During that first Workshop together, Lorri and I both had poems published in a local arts magazine called Black & White. We had to go to the editor's apartment in Palmer Square to pick up our complimentary copies, and I was the native who knew the turf, so we hopped on the El together and made our way there. We got 15 copies apiece--presumably to be distributed to friends, family, strangers on the street, etc. Lorri swiped a few extra copies and shared her take with me once we were safely away.

In class, Lorri could be vicious with her criticism or, more often than not, would kick an impatient leather-clad foot while her eyes seared holes in the carpet yarn. If she respected a poet, though, she could be generous and constructive with her criticism. One time, I had written a poem with extremely dense language and excessively long lines. Lorri suggested making the lines shorter, giving readers a chance to rest their eyes while setting them up for the next surprise. With much shorter lines grouped in small stanzas, the poem was much stronger--Lorri was dead-on.

On another occasion, we got into a spirited discussion about the use of the word "feel" in poetry. I'd written a poem that started with the line "Some nights, I feel the need." Lorri argued that since the poem itself was an expression of feeling, actually using the word "feel" was redundant. I got the point and changed the line to "Some nights, I have the need." That alteration changed the whole tone of the poem--it was no longer just about "feeling" an emotion, but about being possessed by it.

After a few more workshops together, JB (my best friend, then and now), Lorri and I were selected by Paul Hoover to help edit the first issue of Columbia Poetry Review. We'd plunder student folders (including our own), pull work that struck our fancies and get together sporadically to narrow down our selections. We had our last "meeting" in the lobby of the Wabash campus in July of 1987, just after we three had graduated from Columbia. Lorri showed up at that last session with a blood-red eye, which she said didn't hurt--just a burst blood vessel--but it looked like hell. She'd been at a party where her then-boyfriend had punched somebody out just to get some attention. They got attention, all right--they got the piss beat out of them, and Lorri got popped in the eye by a "new-wave Frankenstein." Somehow, we go a laugh out of it.

And that's what I remember more than anything else--the laughs and smiles, even when things weren't particularly funny. I didn't know the Lorri Jackson who lived on the dark side. I knew that Lorri existed--how could you read her work and NOT know?--but I never did meet that woman. The Lorri I knew was sweet and funny and generous. I believed, in the typical arrogance of youth, that Lorri, JB and I had the talent to change the face of American poetry. Lorri, though, had the drive to make herself a presence in the poetry scene, like her or not. She did numerous readings all over the city--and, later, around the country as well--often taking the mike off the stand and prowling the stage, pausing to emphasize words or phrases, not letting the audience have the comforting option of tuning her out. I didn't stay in close contact with her after graduation, but I did see her occasionally at readings, and I followed her rising career with--guess what?--a smile.

I won't go into all that was said after she died or the anger and sadness that took hold of me. As I said, my memories of Lorri J. had a lot more to do with having respect for her as a poet and appreciation for her as a friend than they do with the reasons why she isn't here anymore.

One more memory, then, and I'll be on my way:

The last time I saw Lorri was at the reading for the second issue of Columbia Poetry Review, which neither of us edited, but we both had poems in it, so there we were. We didn't really talk, just said "Hi" and exchanged pleasant greetings. After the reading, though, there was a small reception with a nice buffet, and as I made my way up the hall toward it Lorri motored past me, humming like a cropduster with a belly full of pesticide. "C'mon, Ed," she called back over her shoulder, "I'm gonna beat ya!" And she did beat me there. In fact, she kicked my ass.

She always did. And all these years later, she still does.

sub/ject

The following poem was written shortly after Lorri Jackson's death in October 1990. It was read months later at a public memorial and was also published in Tommorrow Magazine.

This ain't intended as no fucking
ode to The Dead Junkie Society,
cool versers gone cold, clogged
with mucus, nodded on someone
else's couch with baby powder,
cellophane, tattoos permanent
shirt sleeves down arms not telling
any more war stories penned by
way too many 5 AMs, street brawls
with Nazi skinheads, days and
nights of leather and pervasive
darkness, persuasive horses, cans
of Black Label nursed in back
of Link's Hall, Tony Fitzpatrick
on stage, huge, reading lines
about Roberto Clemente gunning
balls in Wrigley Field out to
a grove of folding chairs on
hardwood, smoking; afternoons
laid out in long beige halls,
classroom doors gouged open for
semi-circle jerks; combat boots,
white fishnet kicking, intolerant
eyes combusting carpet weave,
words attitude ammonia under
noses,under nails conservative,
tapping, impatient with pierced-
nosed punkers swiping mikes from
varnished-to-dead podiums, chrome-
plated stands on barroom poet
combat zones, walking coals, toetip
prowl matching sweet streetcar
howl now flatlined, confined to
fog memory; paste-up scraps of
tripping to Palmer Square to pick up
our contributors' copies of first
published poems in Black & White
Magazine--scissored slices back
between the plasterboard walls
thin enough to pound thoughts in,
fluorescent stretching plates of
higher education escaped from.
No defecation, no deification:
Just surprising simple flicks
where you say you wanna have
kids someday, say you think
white people are scary but that
I'm not and I feel complemented,
say you don't believe I have a
Lorri Jackson "Collection" until
I drop the blue binder dripping
with mimeobooks cranked out on
the office copier, pass-around
pages, a piece for sweater torn
off in class and named "Henry,"
into your hands and you smile,
flip, sign inside: "OK Edwardian
I believe you. Lorri J." And in
October, when I hadn't seen you
since you told the audience at
Columbia about the poem about
the woman you said you terrorized
just because you walked in
on her giving your boyfriend--
"Excuse me, ex-boyfriend"--head,
I clipped your obituary from
The Louisville Courier-Journal
into the blue binder at the end
and it was the very last thing I
ever wanted to add God damn you.

Vanishing Chicago: The Nortown

A couple of Saturday mornings ago, I was in my usual neighborhood breakfast place, munching on an omelet and flipping through the Sun-Times when I ran across an article about the demolition of the Nortown Theater. It had been closed for some time, sitting on Western Avenue just south of Devon like a decaying specter of glories past. It opened in 1931. It closed 59 years later. Sometime between, I went there a few times. Not all of the times were pleasant, though.

I've told you before about my best-ever day of moviegoing. Now let me tell you about two of the worst, both involving the Nortown.

Todd was one of my best friends my freshman and sophomore years of high school, but he and his family moved out to Naperville before he started his junior year. Still, he came into town from time to time, and one of those times he suggested catching a midnight double feature at the Nortown: The World Series of Rock & Roll and Yessongs. Sounded like a good idea at the time.

It was winter. Snow had fallen (as it tends to do in winter in Chicago). The streets were a cold, damp mess. One of should have known that parking alongside the poultry processing plant at Leavitt and Grand (long since torn down and not the site of--surprise! --a condo development), with its sloping sidewalks wreathed by potholes, wasn't such a good idea. But neither of us thought a thing about any of that until we got into dark green station wagon and...went exactly nowhere. Because the station wagon was now stuck in the snow.

I got out, got behind the station wagon and pushed as hard as I could. The back wheels shot gray slush all over my jeans, but then they caught and the station wagon rolled free. Had I been even slightly sensible, I'd have gone back inside at least to change my pants, if not cancel the whole excursion. Instead, I got in the car and the trip to the Nortown got under way.

The World Series of Rock & Roll turned out to be little more than a haphazardly assembled series of music film clips, while Yessongs was a deadly dull concert film in which the members of the group barely moved onstage; I wasn't totally convinced that they were actually alive.

To sum up: I was wet, I was cold, I was aggravated, and the movies sucked. Other than that, everything went fine.

At least it wasn't the Nortown's fault (nor Todd's) that the evening turned out to be a bust. Not that time, anyway.

A few years later, another high school friend, Juan, came to town and wanted to catch a movie. After graduation, Juan had joined the navy and came back on leave. He even offered to pay. How could I refuse?

Hindsight being 20/20, we should have done something else--anything else--except go to the Nortown for a screening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

It wasn't just that I hated Temple of Doom--labored "comedy," a screeching "performance" by Kate Capshaw (which must have made quite an impression on Steven Spielberg, since he later married her), disturbing violence (a still-beating heart is ripped out someone's chest) and abundant borderline racism. (And yet, Temple of Doom has a 7.3 rating on imdb.com--go figure.) This time, it really was the theater itself.

Since that previous trip to the Nortown, its auditorium had been split into smaller theaters, as so many older, larger theaters in Chicago were in the 1980s. The Nortown now had three screens, all with brand-new seats. And that was my problem--the seats, though new and comfortable, had been placed in rows too narrow for anyone over six feet tall. I'm six-foot-three. My knees pressed hard against the back of the seat in front of me. This was a problem.

I wound up spending the length of this movie that I wasn't enjoying in the first place with my legs stuck out into the aisle at an extreme angle that made them start cramping almost immediately. Two-plus hours later, they were stiff and sore, but that didn't stop me from getting away from the wretched movie as quickly as those stiff and sore legs could carry me. I vowed to never go back to the Nortown again.

I needn't have wasted the vow. The Nortown closed in 1990. It served briefly as a church (as so many other former Chicago movie theaters have) and a community center. For the last few years, it had been empty.

The developer who now owns the property was quoted in the Sun-Times article as having been interested in rehabbing the building, but it had deteriorated too much to be saved. For once, I don't doubt the developer's word. The last time I was up there, the Nortown looked pretty rough, though I did stop to take some pictures (including the stylized comedy/tragedy faces adorning this page). I expected it to come down sooner or later. It turned out to be later.

Even though the Nortown and I didn't have the friendliest personal history, I'm still sorry to see it come down. Our city has lost so many architecturally and historically interesting and important buildings to condo developments, so it's sad to see another structure with a unique personality and rich history reduced to dust and rubble.

At least this condo development may also include a movie theater to serve the area's large Indian and Pakistani populations. Even if the Nortown itself is gone, its cinematic tradition at that location may live on.

Review: Killer of Sheep (1977)

On the long commutes to and from work, I carry a book with me to pass the time. It's not usually a novel or an in-depth nonfiction work, mostly because I read all day for a living and can't take staring at page after page for extended periods of time. (And with all the work on tracks and stations that CTA is doing these days, the periods of time are extended indeed.) Short story collections are good for such long rides, as are books that don't necessarily have to be read in sequence to be enjoyed, like Max Brooks's Zombie Survival Guide.

Lately, one of my travel companions has been The A List, a collection of essays on 100 essential films by members of the National Society of Film Critics. This is not to say that these are the 100 greatest movies ever made. In his introduction, editor Jay Carr admits "no single member agrees with this list in its entirety." How could they? Everyone has his or her own individual tastes in movies; what excites one viewer will bore another. The A List includes several of my favorite movies-- Citizen Kane, Duck Soup, Night of the Living Dead and Pandora's Box--as well as a few movies I like, but don't agree with including--Enter the Dragon (a lot of fun, but not at the top of my list), Modern Times (I'd have chosen City Lights or The Gold Rush over this) and Chinatown (probably the only film in this book that I can honestly say I outright hate).

I'm familiar with nearly every film included in The A List, either because I've seen them or at least heard of them--hell, I own copies of about half of them. But there was one title that I didn't know either by sight or reputation: Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep. I had heard of Burnett and some of his other work, like the excellent To Sleep with Anger or the documentary Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property, but Killer of Sheep was foreign to me.

There are reasons for this. Even though Killer of Sheep, originally released in 1977, was selected for the National Film Registry in 1992 (one of the first films chosen, in fact), the movie has been out of circulation for years and has never been available on video, at least partly because of music rights (an issue that has held up the release of many movies and TV shows over the years, like SCTV, WKRP in Cincinnati and Witchfinder General). Burnett didn't employ a generic instrumental score, but specific songs for specific scenes by artists like Paul Robeson, Dinah Washington and Louis Armstrong, no doubt making it expensive to reissue.

The nature of the film itself probably didn't help. Killer of Sheep was shot in black & white and doesn't have nything you could even charitably call a plot, but instead strings together vignettes displaying life (or what passes for life) in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, centering around African-American slaughterhouse worker Stan (Henry G. Sanders) and his family, friends and acquaintances; it doesn't end so much as it stops observing. In a decade that gave birth to Blaxpoitation, Killer of Sheep must have been an impossible sell.

Consequently, this movie was well on its way to becoming a lost film, a fate that usually befalls much older works (including many silent films) whose film stock degenerates to dust or gel. Fortunately, though, the UCLA Film Archive, with funding from multiple sources (including my favorite cable channel, Turner Classic Movies), restored the print and untangled the music rights so that Killer of Sheep could gets its first proper nationwide release 30 years after the fact.

In Chicago, Killer of Sheep opened in the classic Music Box Theatre, and when I went to see it there it wasn't playing in the generous main auditorium (one of the few old-school movie houses to escape being carved into smaller screens), but in the smaller, more intimate side screening room. I hadn't seen a movie in that room since an ill-fated viewing of the beautifully restored print of Metropolis several years ago. I'd just come from having drinks with my best friend and the woman I was head-over-heels (or was that head-up-ass?) for. She talked about the man she'd fallen in love with (not me); I asked my best friend for his take on the situation; he told me hard truths; I cried most of the rest of that evening, and nearly all the way through Fritz Lang's silent classic.

There were no tears in the mostly full screening room this day, though--only nods of appreciation at what Burnett was going for. He wasn't trying to tell a story, at least not in the conventional sense, but to show an oppressive way of life that sucks the will and hope out of all who have to live it. Stan comes home exhausted, can't sleep and barely has the energy to talk to, much less dance with, his wife. The neighborhood children (including Stan's son and daughter) play in the alleys and empty lots, having rock fights from behind plywood shields and leaping from one rooftop to another, risking certain death if they fall.

Burnett observes the casual cruelty children visit upon one another, like throwing stones and dirt at a little girl whose only crime is that she was hanging wash on the line at exactly the wrong time, as well as the more carefully considered (but no less wounding) cruelty of adults. He also inserts scenes from the slaughterhouse where Stan works, with the Judas goat leading the sheep to their fate and the employees (including the only whites seen in the film) operating the equipment and cleaning the meat hooks

There are also moments of humor for both the young and the old-before-their-time; some of those moments are downright surreal, like when Stan's daughter walks around the house and yard in a rubber dog mask. There would have to be such moments where you can laugh for a minute. Otherwise, Killer of Sheep would be too stinging to watch.

As it is, with its lack of conventional plot or character arcs, not everyone will watch this movie and enjoy it. To some, it may just look like somebody's home movie, with its sometimes-grainy black & white photography and unsteady frame. But therein lies Killer of Sheep's strength--it looks and feels like real life, even if we know it's "just a movie."

Therein lies its continued relevancy as well. Neighborhoods like the one seen in Killer of Sheep existed in most major American cities long before this movie was ever made in the mid-1970s, and they have persisted in the decades since. (Stretches of Chicago's west and south sides still look like this now.) The photography gives the movie a timeless appearance; only the cars in the movie betray its date of birth, and even that can't be used as an exact measure.

Killer of Sheep could have been shot 20 years earlier than it was--or it could have been shot yesterday.

Review: Once (2007)

This is a sweet movie.

I say that without the slightest hint of condescension, even though "sweet" is often critic-speak for "cute" or "inoffensive" or "blandly pleasing." Once is none of those. It's knowing and warm and embracing; you don't really want it to end, even though you know it must.

Once is also a new brand of musical, where the people bursting into song are actual musicians. Glen Hansard plays a busker on the streets of Dublin who also works part-time in his dad's vacuum cleaner repair shop. One evening, a pretty Czech girl (Marketa Irglova) listens to his music, likes it and tosses a dime in his guitar case. By coincidence, she has a vacuum cleaner that needs to be repaired; when she meets him on the street the next day, she drags the vacuum behind her like a dog on a leash. It turns out that she plays music as well, and they go to the back of a music shop where the owner lets her play the pianos for sale. They play one of his songs--tentatively at first, then with increasing confidence and, finally, perfect harmony.

The chemistry between them, both personal and artistic, is obvious, but both have been wounded by life in general and by love in particular. He still plays songs about the girl who broke his heart and moved to London; she still plays songs about the man who fathered her young daughter. Even so, they haven't given up the ability to smile at individual moments of sweetness, like when he meets her mom and daughter (and the three guys who come in to watch their TV because it's the only TV in the apartment building), or when his dad listens to a tape of his music for the first time.

Once reminded me, in the best ways possible, of David Lean's Summertime, where Katharine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi have a bittersweet romance amid the canals of Venice. As with the city in that film, Dublin becomes a character in Once, observing the developing relationship from the background. And also like Lean in Summertime, writer/director John Carney lets us watch the two leads without making any judgments on their actions or lack thereof. Sometimes his camera shakes distractingly (Once was entirely shot on digital video, sometimes giving it a documentary look it doesn't need), but more often it presents everyone in such a straightforward, honest way that we can't help falling for them, flaws and all.

There's also the music, delicate yet durable creations full of longing and hope and, yeah, sweetness. The songs are good enough to stand alone, without a movie to justify their existence. (Which makes sense: Some of the songs had already appeared on albums before, both by Hansard's group, The Frames, and on an album on which he collabotaed with Irglova; the versions in Once lean toward the immediacy of live performance rather than the polish of studio efforts.)

I saw Once in Theater One at the Davis with about half a dozen other people. On one of the adjacent screens, Rush Hour 3 was likely playing to at least ten times that many people. (Granted, Once has been out for a while and Rush Hour 3 had just opened that weekend, but it still didn't seem right.) After the end credits had finished rolling (I stayed to make sure there was a soundtrack CD out there somewhere, and there is), I wanted to sneak over to that other screen and whisper in each and every viewers' ear, "Get back in line for Once. You won't regret it." But then I thought better, as someone going to see Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker punch and kick their way through Paris would be unlikely to want to get in line for any film that can be described as "sweet."

Maybe "sweet" isn't even the right word to describe Once. Maybe "beautiful" would be more appropriate.

Or, perhaps, both words are equally apt. "Beautiful and sweet." "Sweet and beautiful."

Yeah. That sounds about right.

Middle of the Road

The middle of the season has come and gone. The All-Star Game, for those who still care about such things, is history. And the Dog Days of Summer are just about here.

By this point in the year, most Chicago sports fans are already looking ahead to Bears training camp and the preseason, and such is the case this year. Cub fans, however, have sufficient reason to delay their interest in last year's Super Bowl runners-up, if only for a few weeks.

Because the Cubs are playing good baseball. No, really.

It took a while for new manager Lou Piniella to find the right on-field combination; it seemed for some time that he tried a different lineup every day. It also took a while for his staff ace, Carlos Zambrano, to find his groove and pitch the way everyone knows he can, and for Alfonso Soriano, the team's high-priced free agent acquisition, to re-establish his home run stroke.

Once both players found their respective grooves, they complemented the efforts of younger players like Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot, and of seasoned veterans like Ted Lilly (another free agent pickup) and Aramis Ramirez (finally delivering clutch hits in games that actually matter, instead of tearing the cover off the ball only after the team was well out of contention). Even injuries to players like closer Ryan Dempster haven't slowed them much.

The turning point in the Cubs' season, strangely enough, was also their most embarrassing: An in-dugout slugout between catcher Michael Barrett and Zambrano, who took exception to Barrett's poor performance in the previous inning (when he'd allowed a passed ball and made a throwing error) and pointed to his own head as if to say, "What are you thinking?" or "Get your head in the game, man!" Barrett responded, Zambrano punched him, they were seaparated by teammates, and the fight continued in the clubhouse, where Zambrano beat Barrett badly enough to send the catcher to the hospital for stitches. Barrett's play had been erratic all season, and this incident was the final straw--he was traded to San Diego shortly afterward. That's another significant change in this Cub team from previous managerial regimes: No running interference. No coddling. No "player's manager" nonsense. Just perform up to expectations, or don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. The Cubs are lucky enough to play in the weakest division in the Major Leagues, and with the Brewers suffering the loss of their ace, Ben Sheets, and the other teams in the division well out of it, the Cubs could make a run. The race will, at least, be interesting.

The same cannot be said for the White Sox, whose World Championship in 2005 is rapidly fading into the fog of yesteryear, replaced by the bitter reality of the present: This team sucks. Hard.

Just as the current success of the Cubs cannot be attributed to one player or aspect of their game, so the current failure of the Sox cannot be attributed to one player or aspect of their game. It's been a combination of things: injuries to key players (Scott Podsednik, Darren Erstad, Joe Crede), subpar years from others (Jermaine Dye, Jose Conteras), a general lack of run production and, worst of all, a bullpen that appear to believe that the most effective way to fight a fire is to pour kerosene on it, blowing lead after lead after lead.

Manager Ozzie Guillen hasn't helped matters any with his abrasive, outspoken, If There's-A-Bus-Passing-By-You'll-Find-One-Of-My-Players-Under-It style, which was tolerated and even embraced when this team was winning, but now it just grates. Meanwhile, over at the Sun-Times, Jay Mariotti, whom Guillen called " a fag" last year (thereby achieving the near impossible feat of making Mariotti seem, by comparison, at least, to be less of an asshole), is doing a happy dance and calling for Guillen's ouster at least once a week.

It's exceedingly unlikely that general manager Kenny Williams or owner Jerry Reinsdorf will fire Guillen, at least not in the immediate future. This team's nucleus still has potential, with All-Stars like Paul Konerko, Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland and Bobby Jenks to build around. Williams may deal other players, though, like Dye, whose bat could still be of value to a team in the pennant race, or Contreras, who has been ineffective the last couple of months and may need a change of scenery to revive his career (or, at least, someplace else to end it--it won't be in Chicago).

In a town where baseball season has usually fallen before the first autumn leaves have hit the ground, it's nice to see a couple of races still going on: the Cubs competing to win their division or, at least, the wildcard playoff spot; and the White Sox competing to stay out of last place--a race we're all too familiar with in Chicago.

The Rainbow Bridge

One advantage I've found in having cats is that there's really no reason to set an alarm clock. They know when they're supposed to be fed, and they won't let you forget it either. Olivia parks beside my bed and, spying the slightest movement, begins to yowl like she hasn't been fed in weeks, months even. And Ms. Christopher? She usually hangs out on one side of my head or the other and begins to bark the moment my eyelids flicker open.

There's no use trying to ignore them or argue the point; I have to get up and go to work anyway, right? (Except for Saturday or Sunday, of course, but it's easier to pop open a tin of Friskies, throw it in the matching bowls and head back to bed.)

One morning, not long ago, I was getting ready for work, stumbling through my hallway to get some clothing, when I spotted something on the hardwood floor. I didn't have my glasses on, so I assumed it was just a lump of Ms. Christopher's fur (she leaves them everywhere, being a n enormous puffball of a cat).

Until I touched it. It was wet. And and close up, I could see that it had a tail.

It was a mouse. And it was dead.

After washing my right hand half a dozen times, I covered the mouse with tissue, got a plastic bag and picked it up. Only Olivia showed any interest in this operation, so I assume she was the one who caught and killed the little rodent.

This is new for me. I've never had a mouse in the house before--at least while living on my own. (We used to get them occasionally at Mom's house, which was pretty suicidal, given how many cats she has.)

Could have been worse. Cats love to show off their trophies. And love to bring them to you. I could have found it in a shoe. Or on my bed. So...the hallway's not so bad, really.

It turned out that this wasn't Olivia's first kill. Before I brought her to La Casa del Terror, she lived with my mother and brother for about three months. She stayed upstairs with my brother, since it seemed that she didn't get along at all with other cats and most of Mom's cats were (and are) elderly. She was allowed downstairs for short periods, though, and in one of these, she chased down and killed what must have been a mouse with an especially powerful death wish while the other cats either sat and watched or paid the rodent (and Olivia) no attention at all.

"You worthless sacks of fur!" my brother yelled at the other cats. Maybe that was unfair. Maybe they'd lost their hunting instincts after so many years of life as housecats. Whatever the case, Olivia did what they either wouldn't or couldn't then, and even without front claws (Mom had her declawed before handing her off to me), she was still able and willing to do it now.

One of those "worthless sacks of fur" was Monkey, a black-and-white tomcat whom Mom had brought in ages ago. He was the kind of cat only an owner could love. He had clumps of fur all over his body. He was snaggle-toothed. His head was enormous and his body thin, so he looked like a walking, fur-bound bobblehead. And he smelled awful. He looked like he'd been hit by a truck, and maybe he had.

The other cats couldn't stand Monkey and regularly took turns beating his ass. Mom loved him, though, and he was utterly devoted to her. Rare was the night when he wasn't curled up next to her--for protection, sure, but also for the attention she lavished on him and the affection he returned to her.

Nobody, including the vet, knew exactly how old he was. He was an older cat when Mom took him in, and she had him for about 15 years until one recent Friday night when, after having spent much of the night with Mom, he cried at her bedroom door to be let out, probably so he could get some water or use the litter pan, and didn't come back the rest of the night.

Saturday morning, a couple of the cats went up to my brother's bedroom window and began meowing. That's something they just didn't do--something was wrong downstairs. He got up and followed them downstairs. Monkey was lying perfectly motionless. My brother woke Mom up to tell her he was dead. When he returned to Monkey, though, his body had shifted position; he wasn't dead, but had the look an animal does right before its time has come, with an unsteady head and sightless stare. He passed on later that morning.

While Monkey was being laid to rest, another cat belonging to someone close to me was seriously ill as well.

Jessie had two cats named Ernie--unusual, you might think, weird even, until you know that she owned one Ernie, a large tabby, before acquiring the second, a gray-and-white tomcat, from her sister, who had to give her Ernie up because she was moving into a studio apartment and didn't have the room to keep him. So she brought him north to Chicago from Ft. Lauderdale, and here he happily lived with Jessie, her husband and Ernie the First (also known as Ernest) for several years.

Ernie always hissed at me at least once whenever I visited Jessie, probably because he could smell the Girlish Girls on my clothing, my shoes, my backpack. But he never bit me or took a swing, and he always let me pet him at least once per visit and even take his picture.

A few weeks ago, Ernie became seriously ill--his eyes looked funny (and not in a "ha ha" kind of way), he stopped eating and going to the litter pan, and he constantly cried, as if in pain. Jessie didn't know what was up; she thought he was having a relapse from the illness he suffered during the tainted pet food scare a few months back.

Then Ernie, without explanation, went blind.

Jessie took Ernie to a specialist in the suburbs to determine the source of the blindness and pain and, when she visited the day before he was scheduled to have an MRI, she brought out his favorite toys, CDs with soothing sounds and even, Ernest, who was not happy to be stuffed in the cat carrier, but was perfectly happy to spend time with his old partner in crime.

The attention seemed to soothe Ernie who, for the first time in weeks, closed his eyes and took a nap. According the vets, this should have been impossible--his eyes were paralyzed open. But sometimes, if only for a few blessed minutes, the impossible is possible again.

Unfortunately, the MRI yielded the worst possible results: Ernie had cancer of the nose (who knew there was such a thing?). It had spread to his brain. It was inoperable. There was nothing Jessie could do but ensure that her friend would not be in pain any longer. She gave the specialist the needed authorization; Ernie never woke up.

When I called Jessie that night, I didn't know what to say. The situation reminded me so much of when I had to have Lottie put to sleep--both the same age (10), both with inoperable cancer (Lottie's was in her abdomen), both owners receiving that horrible call. Even after four years, I can't talk about Lottie without breaking down. By the time I got off the phone with Jessie, I was crying, both for her loss and my own. I continued for a good while after.

When Lottie died, both my regular vet and the 24-hour facility I took her to sent me sympathy cards. In the one from my vet was a photocopy, several generations old but still legible, of the story of the Rainbow Bridge. It pretty well matches what Jessie posted on her MySpace page:

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.

The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind. They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster. You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart. Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together.

I hope that Lottie was there to greet Ernie and Monkey at the Rainbow Bridge and that she keeps them company until their "very special" persons--or hers--are there, ready to escort them to the other side.