CAT BOY

Cat Boy was always around. The day I met him was the day it was super hot in Ms. Rose’s classroom. All the yellow paint on the walls didn’t help. Her room was a fat lemon color just like she was a fat lemon of a lady. She never liked me because she really loved Richard, my older brother. He was already in high school by the time I started Ms. Rose’s 6th grade class.

Cat Boy wasn’t in class with me. That would be stupid. Cat Boy only showed up outside my window at night. All I had to do was ‘chisch’ between my teeth to get him to come. When you ‘chisch’ between your teeth, you push hard under the tongue against the bottom part of your mouth, pushing out two ‘chisch-chisch’s’ over the bottom lip. And every time I used this call, Cat Boy would come, 15 seconds later, right to my window, his big yellow eyes looking through the misty planes of glass at night.

That’s not how I met Cat Boy. I snuck out because it was a full moon and it showered the whole town in blue-white light. It was perfect luck that Mom was working late so I could escape. My sister, Sarah, never knew I was gone, but she was smart and I wasn’t scared to leave her alone, even though she was 2 years younger then me. That night Richard was sleeping over at a friend’s house. Back in the woods behind our gray house there was an old un-kept graveyard. The tombstones stuck up from the earth like ragged teeth and overgrown vines grew over the old, misplaced stones. It must have been an old graveyard because I could trace with my pinky the cut in the stone under the growth and one spelled the year 1893.

The night I met Cat Boy the tree leaves above cut the full moon light in varying pieces and shone in blue-white shoots down to the soil of the earth of the graveyard.

It was like a movie, a scary haunted, out of control movie. But it was me who was in it, not some kid from school. Not like Tommy Dobbs. Not that stupid kid. I went out to the graveyard in the white shone lights, barely seeing where I was going, just to get to the gravesites. I fell down to the ground and started banging on the graves, yelling to the tops of those trees: “Tommy Dobbs! I’ll make you haunted, you son of a bitch!”

This wasn’t the first time I’d yell and jump up and down on the graves so the dead would listen. One time I wanted Eddie, my Mom’s new boyfriend, to disappear. I was hoping he would. He kept coming around and I started to think there was no such thing as ghosts. I kept trying to get rid of him anyway. I thought if I yelled loud enough and jumped harder on the ground I could wake up the spirits to help me.

I didn’t really want Eddie to be hurt, just to go away. And I didn’t want Tommy Dobbs to be hurt either. I just wanted to punish him for pushing me down in the cafeteria. The food from my tray fell to the ground and I fell right after it. The gravy from the turkey stained my new sweater and I knew if I went home with the sweater like that Mom would beat me for ruining what she bought for me. I soaked it in the bathroom after all my classes that day. It would be wet but at least it did not stain.

All the kids laughed at me when I left the cafeteria though, they saw it, they saw me, mashed potatoes on my cheeks and gravy on my sweater. I ran out and Tommy Dodds didn’t even get in trouble for pushing me down.

I banged my fists on the graves in the off white light and that is when I first saw Cat Boy at the other end of the graveyard, staring at me with his yellows eyes dug deep in his black-purple fur. That was just his head. The rest of his body was just like me. Normal pants, normal shoes, a black and gold sweater, with small arms hanging to his side. I stopped banging and yelling. Cat Boy closed his yellow eyes slowly, his head not even moving. He opened them slowly and we could not stop staring at each other.

*

It was only once in awhile I thought about it because it was must have been a dream. I don’t think the things we dream about are real. The same patterns happened. I woke up. Mom made breakfast. My brother and sister go to school earlier, both taking different busses. I got on the third bus. Take it right to school, then to the classes. Of course, I would see Tommy Dobbs and his goddamn friends and I would have to take a different way to class.

I knew exactly what Tommy Dobbs was. He was a bully. He was a bear. Always yelling. Some big roaring kid across the field, just punching kids to the ground.

Right around then, I invented a new game to play in the forest in the daytime. I called it Tree Dodge.

Here’s what to do in Tree Dodge. Run as fast as you can through the woods. The challenge is that the thin-limbed trees act like whips when you pass them, flipping back, slashing the skin like knives. The faster I ran in Tree Dodge, the more the little slashes from the elastic trees would snap at the skin. The goal of the game was to run to the other side of the wood to the gully everyone called Old Gut without any cuts from the whipping of the trees, and make it bloodless to County Road on the other side. In Tree Dodge, the more blood you had on your arms and face, the more you lost the game.

I was playing this game by myself when I saw Tommy Dobbs crying. I had gotten so good running through the whipping trees that I was always bloodless. But when I came to the edge of Old Gut, that’s when I saw Tommy. I heard him first. I thought a deer was dying. But it was Tommy Dobbs, crying in a ball at the bottom of Old Gut, weeping on his hands. I tried to not make my presence known but I accidently kicked a rock. Tommy Dobbs heard it. He jumped out, face red like a tomato.

“What are you doing here?” he yelled.

I stopped completely.

“What are you looking at?” he yelled again.

I felt bad for him. His face was pink and the wetness of his tears made his face melt like butter, he looked frail and that’s what made me feel bad for him.

All I could say was: “I’m sorry, Tommy. I’m sorry, Tommy.” But it didn’t matter. I saw him as he was, and running off, he screamed: “Fuck you asshole!” echoing in the afternoon greyness. I forgave him for a little while because I had no idea what in the world could make Tommy Dobbs cry like a little baby. It didn’t matter anymore after he pushed me down in the cafeteria in front of everybody.

I decided to tell Cat Boy about him.

*

Cat Boy was funny. I would be watching Mom do the dishes and I would see him close the basement door with a bang.

“What was that?” Mom would say, looking over to the door. I wouldn’t say what I saw, though.

“What are you smiling at?” she would ask.

“Nothing,” I said.

My sister didn’t know about Cat Boy and I thought that was strange. One night I saw Cat Boy at the foot of my sisters’ bed. I saw Cat Boy with his big head sitting in a weird position by her feet, leaning in, but holding his head high over her body. When I past the doorway, Cat Boy looked over.

By this point, Cat Boy and I could talk without speaking. I stopped before going to the bathroom and the two round yellow eyes turned to me from the darkness of the room.

-What are you doing?- I asked.

-Making sure she’s okay.- Cat Boy said.

-You better be.- I said.

-What are you worried about?-

-We need to talk.-

-What are you talking about?-

He was lying. Cat Boy knew exactly what I was talking about. I wanted to take back what I told him to do.

-You can’t take it back.- Cat Boy said.

-I want to.- I said. -I want to take it back.-

Cat Boy smiled in the dark hallway, his eyes as yellow as ever. He knew I knew the truth.

-But you can’t.- Cat Boy said and slowly closed his eyes. -You just have to wait.-

*

Cat Boy would do nice things for me sometimes. One time Mom took my Ouija Board away from me. It made my sister cry because it started to act crazy beneath our hands, moving in strange circle patterns and repeating numbers and saying bad things. Mom took it away because it scared my sister and put it out in the trash. Cat Boy knew I loved the Ouija Board and brought it back to me that very night. Right when Mom put me in my room to go to bed, I chisch-chisch’d quietly and in fifteen seconds, Cat Boy appeared by the window. He already knew what I wanted. He lifted it up, clean and free from the garbage it was placed in, showing me the Ouija Board through the panes of glass in the window. That was one of the nice things Cat Boy did.

I always caught the bus to school and got the best seat. It was strange. There were always the kids who took the front seat. It was the best one because you, like the driver, could see everything that was coming down the road. It was like driving the bus on your own, like riding a rollercoaster. Before I met Cat Boy, I never got that seat on the bus before. But I had that seat every day on the way school.

Every night I started to ‘chisch-chisch’, the same big yellow eyes would appear past the darkened glass. I asked it for many things. When I was in the shower, letting the big droplets of water pour down my head, I made some wishes. I kept my eyes closed because I knew I was asking Cat Boy for things that were bad now. I tried to stop. But that was hard. I wanted too many things.

*

Then I saw Cat Boy again. Mom and her new man Eddie were arguing down stairs. All the loudness kept boomed in the house like thunder. Each step I took above on the creaky old floor felt like I was making the argument get worse. I ran back to bed, not wanting to make any more storms in my house. I put the covers over my head. There, under the heavy comforter, was another kid’s leg.

-Cat Boy? Is that you?-

-Yes.-

-I knew it was you.-

-Of course. Who did you expect?-

I whipped the covers off of my head. I was alone now in the bed. I could see the yellow eyes open in the shadowed corner of the room. He knew how to move very fast. Faster even than me when I played Tree Dodge. Cat Boy said nothing and slowly drew his eyes closed. They remained closed and I could see nothing else in the room until the light of morning.

*

I couldn’t stop him. Cat Boy started to scare me. He wasn’t being mean to me, nothing like that, but he started showing up at school. None of the other kids saw him. I could always tell because when I was alone walking the hallways when I skipped class I heard a bang-bang against the lockers and turn around and there would be nothing.

-Stop it!-

-Stop what?- I would hear in my head.

There was no one around. I looked down both ways of the hall. Still, Cat Boy wouldn’t show his face. But I knew he was there. When I got home from school that night, Mom was on the phone and her face was all wrinkled and she looked like she was going to cry. She kept asking the person on the other end of the phone about ‘what happened’.

“What happened? Tell me!” she said, tears starting to run down her face. I looked at my sister and asked her why Mom was crying on the phone.

My sister said, her eyes very sad: “Eddie went away.”

“Where? Where did Eddie go?”

My sister just shrugged as my Mom hung up the phone, banging it down hard onto the receiver. I knew she was going to get angry at one of us so I ran out into the backyard. The sky was very blue and the gold sun was setting behind the trees. I ran hard into the woods, trying to play Tree Dodge the fastest I ever played it before. I tore through the whipping limbs. I almost did good, but right when I made it to Old Gut one of the last of the long whipping trees swung back and lashed me across the lips. Blood came out and it tasted like metal.

I stopped deep in the gully of Old Gut and looked back up the small ravine. There in the now fading gold sun through the trees I saw Cat Boy. He was smiling at me.

-You don’t want me to go, do you? Not for real, do you?- Cat Boy said.

I smeared the rest of the blood from my lip onto my sleeve and looked up the ravine.

-No. I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay.- I said.

Cat Boy nodded and grinned.

-I thought so-.

*

Tommy Dobbs fell down. But not just fell down on the playground, he fell down when he was crossing the street. It was like he was pushed. His rubber soles had that slick surface to them, and when he walked over the painted crosswalk, he slipped on the paint and fell forward. Only one person saw it, Sally Jenkins, who always saw everything and was so good at noticing everything.

“You know what happened to Tommy Dobbs?” She said, worried, and her skin looked thin.

“What?” I said.

Then she started to describe exactly what she saw. Tommy Dobbs got off the bus and started yelling like a crazy person to some kids across the street. They yelled back and he flicked them off. He started to run across the street when his sneaker slipped on the paint of the crosswalk and he fell forward, his nose splitting on the concrete. Blood burst everywhere, spraying across the white paint of the crosswalk. A car almost ran him over but skidded out hard and stopped right before it crushed his head. I felt a creepy buzz crawl across my arms.

“He was so lucky,” Sally Jenkins said, eyes almost full of tear. “It was so scary.”

“Where is he now?”

“At the nurses office…I gotta go. It’s been a terrible morning. Everybody is freaking out.” Sally blushed and ran off to her classes.

I stood, frozen on the grass field, as if there were strange pegs keeping my feet rooted into the ground beneath me. I looked around at all the kids running around the playground, as the bells for next class echoed across the field. But I couldn’t move. I knew what happened to Tommy Dobbs. And it was my fault. All my fault.

*

My mom came in my room that night because I was crying too loud.

“What is going on in here?” She said, storming in and casting the white light of the hallway across my dark room. I was under the covers and couldn’t keep the tears inside anymore. They pushed against the insides of my eyelids until they finally burst and I couldn’t stop screaming and my face was a watery mess.

My mother threw off the covers pushing me hard against her chest. I tried to hear nothing but her heart beating under her gown. “What is it, baby, what happened?” she asked.

I kept shaking my head. I knew I couldn’t say anything. I knew Cat Boy would start doing even worst things to me if I said anything. I just kept shaking my head.

“Shhh, sweetheart, please, calm down, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” I screamed.

“Yes it is. Everything is going to be okay,” she said

I couldn’t stop imagining Tommy’s face hitting sidewalk hard, straight faced down, onto the dirty black concreter, his nose cracking, his teeth pushing through the sides of his cheeks. I know Cat boy planned it when the car was coming. I know what Cat boy really wanted. He wanted a wounded Tommy Dobbs to lift his head for a second off the bloodied concrete to be crushed by that car. Just so Tommy Dobbs would see the car before it hit him. It was just luck the driver saw Tommy and slammed on the breaks.

All the kids all day at school talked about one thing and one thing only —

that he was pushed. Tommy Dobbs, once he got out of the nurses office and taken to the hospital, told everyone around him that he distinctly felt two hands push him into the street. Everybody who saw it, even Sally Jenkins, was called into the principal’s office. They all said the same thing. Tommy Dobbs flicked the other kids off across the street and started to run at them across the street. When he came to the cross walk he fell forward and into the street. There were no kids anywhere near him. It was deemed a terrible accident.

I sat there in my mother’s arms. Past her gown and her beating heart, down the white lit hallway, I saw Cat Boy walk out from the darkness and shake his cat head slowly from side to side.

I froze, clutching onto my mother’s skin.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay,” my mothers voice whispered in my ears.

-Yeah, it’s okay.- Cat Boy said, putting a very small finger to his black lipped mouth.

*

I didn’t want to go to school that next day. I kept peering around the lockers and down the halls but I couldn’t find Cat Boy anywhere.

-We need to talk.- I kept saying to the air, but I heard nothing back. When it came time for Math class, we all took our seats and Ms. Rose asked for our homework. I looked around my bag and all the work I did yesterday was gone. I searched and searched but it was gone. Ms. Rose came up to me, already angry with me. She never liked me anyway.

“Where is your assignment?” She squawked.

“I don’t know, Ms. Rose. I swore I brought it with me.”

“We can’t keep having these ‘missing’ assignments, young man. I’m going to have to call your mother.”

This was out of control. “Listen, you can’t call her, she’s out of town.”

“Oh, really? Your brother Richard didn’t tell me anything about this. So now we’re lying? How about you take a small visit to Principal Stevenson? Hmmm, maybe that will help you figure things out.”

I stood up, “I don’t need to figure anything out, especially not from you,” I yelled.

The whole class started to laugh and Ms. Rose turned beet red. “I will not have these outbursts in this class. Go! Go to the Principal now. I’m calling him so he’ll be expecting you.” She went to the white school phone and started to dial. I didn’t even wait. I didn’t care. I wasn’t scared of the Principal.

Principal Stevenson was a doddering old fool with a wrinkled white face and barely a wisp of white hair combed over his head. His breath always smelled like onions. And he hated us kids, all of us. Never sided with us once. He looked at my file and shook his head.

“You’ve been acting up lately. Missing homework assignments, being rude to your teachers, showing up late to class.” He spoke, but I didn’t really care what he was saying. I just kept staring at the clock above his scrawny head. “What is going on with you? Something is going on,” he said. I said nothnig

“You leave me no choice. Starting today, you will have detention for three hours for the rest of the week.”

I looked at him. “Are you serious?”

His squinting eyes widened as much as they could. “Oh, I’m very serious. I just hope, young man, you finally realize its time for you to be serious about this school.”

Yeah, I’ll be serious, I said to myself. I can be very serious. Don’t you worry about that.

*

Everything got very bad. I went out to the hallway to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. After I as done I came back out and I heard some strange murmuring from my sisters room. I went over to her door and push it slightly. It opened with a creak and there was Cat Boy standing at the foot of her bed.

-What are you doing?-

Cat Boy turned very slowly.

-I told you to stay away from her.-

Cat boy nodded and blinked his yellow eyes slowly.

-I’m going to tell.- I told him.

-You know what happens if you do.-

-I don’t care. I told you to leave her alone.-

I ran to my mother’s room. I knew she was still awake because her TV was still on.

“Mom! Mom!” I screamed.

My mother leapt up from the bed. “What is it? Jesus, what are you doing up right now?”

I had the same tears I couldn’t hold back before push out through my eyes down my face. “It’s Cat Boy. He’s messing with Sarah.”

My mother’s eyes widened. “What? What are you talking about?”

My body felt like it was going to explode. All I could hear in the back of my head was the ‘chisch-chisch’ repeating over and over. I scratched at my head and clawed at my mothers robe. “Come on, please, just come to Sarah’s room. Please Mom! Please!”

“Okay, okay.”

I dragged her into Sarah room. The moment we opened the door, we saw her, lying on the floor. “Oh my God! Sarah!” My mother yelled and went to the floor, scooping Sarah up in her arms. Sarah’s eyes were plastered wide open, and hazy white. She was barely breathing. There were strange claw marks on her arms and neck.

“What happened? What is going on?” My mother screamed. “I’m calling the doctor. Hold on Sarah, baby, hold on.” We put Sarah down on the bed. Richard came running down the hall. “What happened, Mom? What’s wrong with Sarah?”

My mother gathered herself up. “You boys watch her and make sure she’s still breathing. I’m going to call a doctor.”

Richard looked at me. “What happened?”

I kept shaking my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I looked down at Sarah, who twitched and started drooling out of the sides of her mouth.

The doctor got there and we all waited to hear what was wrong. Sarah stopped drooling and started to speak in little whispers. The doctor took my mother aside downstairs and Richard and I tried to listen to what he was saying from the hallway.

“She’s going to be fine. It’s seems she had a mild seizure, but she’s going to be all right. What concerns me are the scratches. Most likely she did do it to herself and not have known it. But she should be fine.”

My mother looked a mess, her hair jumbled and her cheeks wet with tears. Richard looked at me. “I feel bad for Mom. She hasn’t been the same since Eddie left.”

“I think I know what what’s happening.”

Richard looked at me strangely. I was scared to even say his name, but I did. I told him everything about Cat Boy. I told him about beating on the graves. I told him about Tommy Dobbs, and how Eddie disappeared. I told him about the bus seats always open for me and the Ouija Board Cat Boy brought back to me. He listened and shook his head.

“It’s not real. It’s not. It’s not possible. It’s all in your imagination.”

“I’m telling you, it’s real. And know I let Cat Boy out to do bad things. He’s evil, Richard. I did this.”

“No, you didn’t. It’s not real. It’s all a coincidence. There’s no graveyard out in that woods, I’m telling you.”

“I will show you. Wait until everybody goes back to bed. Then I’ll show you,” I told him.

Luckily Richard was brave. We waited until Sarah was talking again and Mom had calmed down. They went to bed and a couple of hours later Richard knocked on my door. “I’m here. It’s me,” Richard said peeking his head in from the hallway.

We snuck out of the house into the blackness of night. We walked down the path to the old woods. The same full moon was out, shining down on us so it was easier to navigate. All the leaves and branches of the trees glowed with a dull white ember around us. “It’s right over here. It’s one of those old graveyards,” I said.

“And who is Cat Boy?” Richard asked.

“I don’t know what he is. He just appeared that night I was out here, banging on the graves.”

“Why would you do that?” He asked.

I didn’t have an answer for him. But it was okay, we were very close to the old graveyard. “It’s just past these trees.” I pushed through with Richard behind me. “Right through here…”

The clearing opened up, with the full moon shine above glowing bright. My stomach dropped. I felt some buzz up my spine. There were no gravestones, no mounds of dirt, no overgrowth. Just a plain clearing.

“This is crazy,” I whispered.

“I told you, there are no graveyards out here.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. “This is not possible. This is not possible.” I kept repeating it, running around the clearing. There was nothing here. This is where I met Cat Boy weeks ago. But there was no graveyard.

“Let’s go back,” Richard said, holding onto my shoulders. I let the tears fall down my cheeks, but I was frozen. Richard led me back through the woods. All I could hear in the back of my head past the crackling of stick under our feet was the subtle slow whisper of ‘chisch-chisch’ repeating in my head over and over again.

*

I put my face in my hands. Detention hall was empty and on the third floor of the school. There were windows on all sides of the room, and nothing on the walls except advertisements for ‘better learning’ and ‘positive attitudes’. There was one teacher, Mr. Jones, who was assigned to watch over the bad kids here in detention. Mr. Jones sat behind the desk with his feet up reading an automotive magazine. The lights shined through the closed windows, and because of the frosted surfaces of the glass, it glowed so bright you couldn’t look at the windows directly.

Mr. Jones put his magazine down. “You feeling okay?”

“I guess…” I said I couldn’t believe about what happened to my sister. That Cat Boy was not my friend anymore, and now was going to hurt my family. And making the graveyard disappear — I couldn’t figure out how he did that.

“Well, you seem like a good kid, I don’t know why you keep getting into trouble,” Mr. Jones kept on, but I ignored him. I put my hands back over my face and put my head down on the desk. Sarah seemed fine this morning. The scratches were almost gone just in morning and her eyes went back to their blue color.

“Listen, young man. I’m going to go to the bathroom. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Mr. Jones said, standing up, closing his magazine and rolling it up. “I’ll be right back.”

Mr. Jones went to the door, closed it behind him. I thought about running out but I was too tired. I couldn’t get my mind around it. Cat boy was my friend, but he was also hurting people now. I wanted people to pay for the bad things they done to me but not like that. Not what happened to Tommy Dobbs. Or Eddie. God knows what happened to him. And now Sarah got hurt. It was all my fault.

I heard some weird yelling from down in the playground. I didn’t make out what was being said, but there was a commotion. I got up from the desk and went to the open window. I saw a bunch of kids running out to the back of the school and heard even more yelling from some adults. I craned my neck so I could see the very bottom of the school doors. Some dark, black smoke poured out of the double doors and kids ran out of the school onto the grass. The fire alarm bell rang throughout the school.

“Oh no,” I whispered, running to the detention hall doors. I pulled on the door, but it was locked. I yelled, banging on the door: “Help me, Mr. Jones, open the door!” The alarm bells rang louder and the screaming from three floors down sounded like it was right in my ear. I kept pulling at the doors but they would not open. More smoke plumed outside the frosted windows. Sirens screamed through the air from the fire engines coming down Old County Road.

I screamed and tried to open the stuck window. I couldn’t get my body through the little slit. The smoke filled my lungs. I ran back to the door. The doorknob was hot. Please, help me, someone, I need out of this. I tried the door again. This time it opened. The flames were all over the floor and the alarms bells were even louder in the hallway. I ran out. I saw bodies of people on fire running through the flames, reaching out for me. I felt like I was in Tree Dodge. I twisted my body to avoid the limbs of fire reaching to clutch at me. I saw the open mouths screaming and burning, their hair in flames.

I ran down the emergency staircase. I pushed past all of the screams and strange bodies reaching out with fire hands and limbs, trying grab at me. They could not catch me. I reached the bottom floor and burst through the side door and out into the air. The whole school was evacuated and there were 3 fire engines all with their lights swirling. The fireman sprayed the school with bursts from their hoses and the teachers gathered the remaining children to the back of the playground. Someone put a blanket around me and wiped the soot from my face. People were crying and huddled together in packs.

I looked up at the detention room, which now billowed with black smoke and flames. I was trapped up on the third floor and was meant to die there in the flames. But I didn’t. I survived. The door was opened by someone. I didn’t want to guess who.

*

Mom moved us out of town a couple weeks later. She got a job in Northern Rhode Island, and we rented a new house with a tree in the middle of the driveway. Sarah didn’t have another episode, thank God. Richard was doing well too, and he even got on the football team that year. He was very good at sports.

We read about the Old County Road school fire in the news after the whole thing happened. 15 kids were severely burned in the fire. Someone said the school was going to be sued for negligence. All the emergency doors were locked from the outside, preventing the students from escaping. The fire department had to break each door down to let the students out. Two died days later from smoke inhalation. Another kid died from severe burns. Several were injured, including Mr. Jones, who was trapped in the bathroom and barely made it out of the school in time to save his life. I thought maybe he was one of the people on fire that tried to grab me.

No one talked about what happened that day. I didn’t want to say what I knew was true. I didn’t want to think about it, or talk about it ever again. I promised myself I would think about those two words, or mention them, or anything ever again. My nightmares finally stopped after awhile.

It was a new town, with new people, and a new school. So far everyone was very nice to me. That was a good thing. I don’t think I could take any more after what happened last time. That was a good thing. I never wanted bad things to happen. I told myself that sometimes bad things did happen, and happen totally by accident. It was a part of life. It was better if everything stayed good, and nobody did anything bad. It was better for everybody.

It was always better to be nice.