The Stardust Lounge

by Deborah Digges

  “I'll tell them the truth for once,” I say.

  “Don't,” says Stephen.

  “You're right,” I say. We don't explain why to each other. There's no need. The boys have been absent or late to school so often, I've surely run out of believable excuses. But to tell the truth about Mugsie and be laughed at seems disrespectful of the dead cat. In our collective sense of the present scheme of things it appears, in this case, more moral to lie.

  Recently I've written, Please excuse Stephen and Trevor for being tardy. Our dogs got loose and the boys helped me to round them up…

  Another note read, Please excuse Stephen and Trevor for being absent. Our electricity went out during the night and so our alarms didn't go off.

  And still another quite recent one said, Please excuse Stephen and Trevor for being tardy. Our cat Mugs gave birth to six kittens last night and we stayed with her until the early hours of the morning to make sure she was ok…

  Most of the excuses I write for the boys approach truth; some are absolutely correct. Others, out of necessity, do juggle time, context. We know we've gone off the maps, off the maps and beyond the margins into that region where once the ancient cartographers wrote, Out here there be dragons.

  The boys and I are still for a few minutes. Trevor's room has gone silent. Stephen hands the dead Mugs over to me, all the while petting her head. I hold her close. She is still warm, limp against my chest.

  Our huge yard is knee-deep in leaves from our sycamores, maples, beeches. Lord knows when we'll get them raked. The gardens have dried up for the year. That sea of leaves rustles at the far dark corners where Mugsie's older offspring hunt mice or voles. We will wake to those prizes in the morning, our cats carrying their kills into the kitchen or right up the stairs and onto our pillows. November is a fruitful month for the hunters. Maybe that is what drew Mugs out. Tomorrow I'll collect the kills and set them on Mugs's grave.

  Life is so big at our house, I'd like to write the attendance office. Sometimes it is very big. Do you understand.

  We line the bottom of a dresser drawer with Stephen's old baby blankets, blankets that have somehow made the move with us from California to Missouri to Iowa to England to Maryland to Brookline and then Amherst. Several are hand-crocheted, gifts of fellow air force wives so many years ago.

  The six tiny kittens curl up in one corner, a black-and-white swirl, their markings an amazing variation, as if one kitten had borrowed from the last some incidental trait, the incidental becoming all in the next, and so on.

  Bette Davis, the only female, is black except for a tiny white spot on her right cheek, giving her the appearance of a chorus girl. Mugsie II has the identical markings of his mother. He is black except for white feet, and a white mask across his face.

  The biggest at birth, whom Stephen names Einstein, is essentially white with black spots. He has a large black patch over one eye like a pirate. Then there is Ignaz, a gray-black tiger, and Badger, white with Ignaz's tiger stripes drawn beautifully, like a badger's mask, across his face.

  The kitten Vasco DaGama is identical to the cat who impregnated Mugsie. We have seen the father in the woods behind our house, and later I see his picture at the vet's on an adopt-a-pet poster.

  The vet has given the stray father a name, Rainier, as if he understands that this cat is surely the prince of Amherst, no doubt the father of much of the feral and domestic cat population in the area. He has an unforgettable face—his head is hooded in black, like an old flying ace. The rest of his face is white except for a black oval on his nose, and arched black brows.

  So named by Charles, Vasco is always climbing up over his brothers and sister, out of the drawer onto the floor. There he lifts his little quivering blind head and, mewing furiously, struggles forward. When we get up through the night to feed the kittens, we often find Vasco a good distance from the drawer. We have gated the dining room against the dogs, but we worry that Vasco might stray near the mesh and wood partition and be swooped up by Rufus the basset hound.

  After all, Rufus is a hound, by nature a hunter and a killer of small animals. From time to time he has picked up the scent of a rabbit and taken off baying, howling through the woods.

  Rufus has caught and killed rabbits, moles, mice. I've seen him stalk and catch a chipmunk, shake it, and then—as if in disdain for such an easy catch—toss its broken body into the air.

  We quote from a movie, The Long Riders, in which the outlaw Cole Younger says to Belle Starr, “You're a whore, Belle. You'll always be a whore. That's what I love about you.” We change the quote slightly for Rufus:

  “You're a hound, Ru. You'll always be a hound. That's what we love about you.”

  The bulldogs Buster and G.Q. are no threat to the kittens. Sometimes we let them through the gate to say hello and to acclimate to the new arrivals. The bulldogs sniff the kittens with passing interest and then they are content to be led out of the room.

  We've tried putting Rufus on a tight leash, but once in the room with the kittens, he pulls hard toward the drawer, his face lean and otherworldly. He looks to be on the hunt, and in a rush we drag him, protesting, back across the bare wood floor and outside the gate where he pines and howls—long and lamenting—as only a basset hound can.

  When I arrive home from the university in the evenings, Charles, Stephen, and Trevor greet me like new fathers, dish towels over their shoulders. They hold close a kitten who feeds on one of the baby bottles the vet has given us. I prepare a bottle, lift another of the kittens from the drawer, and join them.

  We sway together in the dining room, talking over the day, feeding kittens, consorting, worrying over one or the other who seems to us just now a bit listless. We plan dinner, deciding what kind of carryout sounds good.

  The November dark comes on early. It will usher in the December freeze. But our dining room is brightly lit, and warm. Our house, like a pleasure boat, throws a wide light across the leaf-strewn lawn.

  From the basement we've hauled up a humidifier and two old area heaters once so necessary to us in our cold apartment in Brookline. Now they are essential to our nursery, though the heat and humidity bring out the room's new odors of milk, urine, and feces. The kittens are so tiny that on their own they can't yet pass water or defecate.

  When each of us finishes feeding a kitten, we massage the little belly over a paper towel as we mimic as best we can a mother cat's tongue. The kittens move their bowels.

  When Charles first demonstrated the procedure the vet had shown him, Trevor and Stephen swore off this task.

  “Gross!” they chorused as, laughing, whooping, they'd backed away over the gate. Later, clearly affected by the crying as one by one the kittens waited for Charles or me to feed and massage them, the boys overcame their squeamishness.

  With their help the task of feeding the kittens goes quickly. Cleaning them up, however, takes a while. With disposable wipes, then a dry towel, we rub the kittens down.

  So far all are healthy, eating well, and growing rapidly, but they are a sight, a mound of fat-bellied wild-haired ragamuffins who, yawning, climbing over one another, mew loudly in the blankets as they settle in to sleep.

  Now the boys head upstairs to take turns in the shower. I grab my car keys and head out the door to pick up the pizza and salad.

  We're in a bit of a hurry one particular evening. As we stand eating our dinner over paper towels, Eduardo Bustamante arrives, as expected, with five or six boys in tow. Mouths full, we greet each other; Stephen and Trevor lead the crew into the basement where tonight they will broadcast a radio show from Stephen's room.

  The radio show is a recent phenomenon. Having secured an AM frequency on a local channel, Eduardo directs a freewheeling couple of hours once a week during which the boys play music and respond to questions and ideas he raises regarding school, race, girls. Or the boys themselves have topics to air.

  I'm listening tonight, but at the top of the basement steps, the kitten Bette Davis held against my ches
t. Earlier I noticed how much smaller, suddenly, she is than her brothers.

  I've called the vet, and though it's after eight already, he has agreed to meet me at his office in a few minutes to look her over, give her fluids and a shot to increase her appetite.

  The boys and Eduardo sit along the wall. They hand the mike off to one another and nod their heads to music. Most if not all the boys participating in the show consider themselves outsiders to the Amherst community. Many have been in trouble with the law. Some have dropped out of high school. One of the purposes of the broadcast is to give the boys a platform from which to air grievances and search for answers.

  The boys are certainly treated unfairly, baited, and singled out because of their school and community records, and because some are African Americans. Recently the boys were stopped by police for “a bent license plate” on their way to attend the community college in Greenfield. The police detained them long enough that all missed their classes.

  Another event involved a boy who stepped between the police and his eight-year-old brother, whom they were in the process of “searching.” The police were rough with the child. They claimed he had stolen something, though their search turned up nothing. The older brother protested the search. In the end he was cuffed and charged with assault.

  Once in the system, the boys are dealt with severely. A white boy—Stephen, for instance—might be given probation and community service hours for some offense, but the African-American boys are too often given mandatory time in a grim Massachusetts detention center.

  Such was the case with Trevor, once sentenced to a year in DYS. During that time, not only did he live among the toughest and most hardened of inmates, he fell far behind in school.

  When he returned to the community he was marked as trouble. Written off by the public school officials, Trevor was to be enrolled in Amherst's “annex school,” a sort of way station for kids to sit out the years before their sixteenth birthdays, at which time it's legal for them to quit school altogether.

  We fought successfully for his right to remain in the high school. But he'd missed and lost skills, particularly in math and science. The stigma that surrounded Trevor complicated and thwarted his academic efforts.

  As part of the radio broadcast, the boys recall for their listeners their trip to Washington where they participated in the Million Man March. They had planned to take one of the free buses chartered from Amherst to Washington, but the buses grew overcrowded. The organizers decided that certain people would have to be put off. To begin, anyone under eighteen had to step down.

  The boys returned to our house. How they'd looked forward to this, planned, taken time off from their jobs. How badly they'd wanted to be a part of this historic event in which African-American men from all over the country came together.

  I'd offered that maybe there was another way to get there. So we had checked on train schedules, other public buses departing the area, but as the boys pooled their resources, they discovered they didn't have enough money among them for each to buy a ticket.

  What about if they rented a car? Emecca and Yusef had licenses. We called the local rent-a-car but we were told that the driver must be twenty-one and that he needed a credit card.

  Well, then, did they know anyone who might lend them a car, I'd asked. And so six big boys climbed into my Honda Civic that Thursday evening and drove to Washington.

  Their descriptions of the Million Man March dovetails into a discussion about the boys’ local heroes. One is a lawyer in town named Tom Whitney. Many times he has acted on their behalf. They offer his name to their listeners in the event someone needs defending in a court of law.

  Tom knows Stephen and me. We met a few years ago when Steve began his forty-five hours of mandatory community service. Steve was assigned to work at the Amherst College planetarium. There, every Friday night, attorney at law and amateur astronomer Tom Whitney put on shows for the public.

  Steve and other boys on probation helped Tom set up the planetarium shows, select the program, and run the projector. For this they received credit toward their community service hours.

  Of an evening the subject of Tom's show might be comets and meteors, another night how the constellations are mapped and the meaning of their names.

  One night Tom assigned Stephen the constellation of Orion, and when the lights went out and the stars appeared on the ceiling, it was Stephen who explained to the handful of viewers the story of the warrior and his dog.

  Tom Whitney has helped most if not all the boys in the basement at one time or another, charging—if they can pay at all—a minimal fee, chastising them vigorously for their offenses, and defending them, he's fond of saying, as sincerely as they are sorry for whatever it is that they have done.

  One by one the boys give testimonials regarding Tom as I tuck the kitten Bette Davis in a blanket under my coat and head for the vet's.

  When I return all the kittens are stirring, revving up for the ten o'clock feeding. Charles isn't back yet from visiting friends, and the radio show drones on in the basement. I'm walking on top of a reggae beat. Outside the gate Rufus begins his low moaning.

  “What is it you want?” I ask Rufus as I set Bette Davis in among her siblings and anticipate the marathon feed alone. Rufus sits up now, glad at last to be addressed. He's lain sentinel all evening.

  “All right,” I say, picking up the choke leash and slipping it around Rufus's neck. “Let's see what you're going to do.” As usual, once in the gate Rufus tugs toward the kittens.

  But this time, instead of pulling him back in a panic I control his progression as he strains to put his head in the drawer. Rufus sniffs the kittens, apparently without guile, and moves them around a bit with his muzzle.

  “Careful,” I warn. But to my surprise, he begins licking them gently, one then another, turning them over carefully as he licks them clean, top to bottom.

  My grasp tight around the leash, I lean away from Rufus, pick up a bottle, and begin to feed Bette Davis, whose appetite is surely increased, then I set her down.

  Rufus leans to the sickling. He performs deftly a mother cat's task. As the kitten's bowels relax, Rufus cleans her up, waits a moment, then licks her down again as he nudges her over to a warm corner of the drawer and awaits the next one.

  And so, one by one, Rufus and I tend to the kittens. Still blind, they mew and lean toward his heat, work their way against his tongue, his hound's long nose and strong odors as he cleans and nuzzles and slides them over.

  To the last bars of Marley's “War,” the radio show breaks up and the boys clomp up the stairs. They linger in amazement on the other side of the gate as they watch Rufus climb into the drawer and settle carefully among the kittens.

  “Word,” they address Rufus. “Good man. Way to go, brother,” they gently praise him.

  Tired from his long watch, tired from desire and longing against our human assumptions, Rufus looks up at the boys and sighs. Then he rests his head on the edge of the drawer above his brood and falls asleep.

  Dear Mr. P,

  Having been away until two days ago, I had not received the waiver denial regarding my son Steve Digges in Ms. S‘s Anthropology class. This denial of waiver distresses me greatly. We can certainly document the reason for the eleven absences in Ms. S‘s class, and intend to do so straight away so that he may receive credit.

  There is no doubt that one of the absences recorded in Ms. S‘s class was the result of an in-house suspension which Stephen received for very poor judgment regarding riding on the hood of someone's car in the high school parking lot.

  Though Steve asked Ms. Sto confirm dates with him, she refused. According to the ARHS handbook, in-house suspension absences do not count.

  Steve's Special Ed teacher attempted to intervene and advocate for Steve with Ms. S. Nevertheless, she insisted on yet another letter regarding his absences.

  Thus, at the end of the school year, we wrote a second letter regarding a waiver for her class
, and at this time referred her to Steve's therapist's official letter that had been submitted some time earlier (see enclosed documents)——

  Dear Amy,

  Thank you for looking after things while I'm away! Now unfortunately, if these medications aren't regularly and consistently given, Buster will have an epileptic seizure and go in and out of fits for about twenty-four hours. So PLEASE make sure he gets all of his medications!

  BUSTER'S MEDICATIONS

  Before 8 A.M.: first thing when Buster gets up he needs 2 phenobarbital (white pills). You can hide them in a Pupperoni or a hot dog. Then he needs to eat Then walk. Best thing to do is to get up and do this, then go back to bed if you want!

  Sometime midmorning, between 10 and 11: Buster gets a diazepam (1 blue-green pill).

  At about 5:30 or 6 P.M. just before his dinner, he gets another 2 phenobarbital. In his dinner he gets 1.6 mg of potassium bromide.

  About 9:30 (before sleep) he gets 1 more phenobarbital.

  ABOUT ALL DOGS:

  All dogs receive a can of wet food 2 times a day. Each also gets a good handful of dry food with the wet. They eat about 7:30 A.M. and again at about 5:30 or 6:00 P.M.

  Please keep plenty of fresh water available since Buster drinks large amounts of water. Also, don't forget to offer him Gatorade at mealtime.

  Dogs should be walked about three times a day. One of those walks should be a good romp with a ball or a stick. Last walk can be about 8:30 or 9:00. Buster likes to sleep on my bed but needs help up.

  Buster is fine off the leash, but G.Q. runs at cars and Rufus will wander off. They can be off the leash in the backyard, but watch them. They're devils!

  In the event that Buster should for some reason go into seizure, just love and pet him through it, then when he comes to, give him a diazepam (extra, yes) and call Dr. Katz.

  CATS

  The cats like to come in and out the kitchen window. They always have dry food and 2 times a day split a can of wet food.