The Beast Upstairs

by Zinta Aistars




He drags carcasses across my ceiling much of the night, waking me from dreams and giving me nightmares. Surely that is how it seems, from the whimperings and tiny squeakings and frail and fading protests, while the unspeakable weight shifts from one end of the house to the other. Final cries for help? Unheeded. For I can do nothing. Nothing more, that is. If they aren’t quite carcasses yet, from all indications—they will be.

Too late now, but my son and I realized already last summer that we’d made a mistake. Soft-hearted idiots. After the leaky roof had been patched, a temporary stop-gap until the entire roof would have to be replaced within the coming year, we figured the invisible beast would be gone. No doubt frightened away by the hammering of the roofing crew. Shingles peeled back and tossed away, they caused enough racket up there to scare away anything sensible.

But no. The beast remained.

The next few evenings, my son and I sat below, in our living room, heads cocked to one side and listening, staring up at the unrevealing ceiling, and we distinctly heard—life. A light pattering of tiny feet.

“Oh, dear God,” I sighed. “You don’t think there’s a nest up there, do you? That we’ve trapped some hungry babies inside that attic space?”

I could feel my son’s eyes switch from ceiling to my face with a look of resignation. “You want me to open up that hole under the eave again, don’t you?”

So carefully sealed, the roofer balancing on the fifty foot ladder, hammering plywood across the gaping hole on the side of the house—we thought that would do it. Peace. At last.

I went outside to watch my son pry the plywood away again. Starving little babies, who knows what kind, breed, species, but I couldn’t bear the thought of their mother locked outside, frantically clawing at the ungiving wood where the opening to home used to be, and inside, the squealing little critters waiting for a meal that would never come.

Now, in the dark of night, I imagined no frantic mother and babes. I heard a male beast, prone to blood lust and violence, grown fat and heavy over the warm seasons, his steps clodding across my ceiling. His body was surely heavy with the accumulated layers of fat, yet no need to hibernate, for the heat of my home, below, would keep him comfortable and awake throughout even this brutally chill winter. Was he a possum, twitching the bare, pink rope of his tail? A raccoon with masked eyes? A tree-climbing rat? A monstrous squirrel? Woodchuck? Vampire?

Night after night, I would hear him drag something, some living thing, across the ceiling and it protesting all the way. My dog, Guinnez, would follow the sound from one end of the room to the other, yet not once bark. Even he seemed to fear this invisible beast. Why else such silence when every mailman and Girl Scout selling cookies were lambasted with such howls that surely they would be ripped to shreds were he released for the kill? Now, his red ruff prickled a bit as his dark eyes scanned the ceiling, but he made no move, no sound.

Some nights, the dragging, the plodding, the scittering, the squeaking, would wake me so often that I would take my son’s baseball bat and bonk its tip against the ceiling. You. Shuttup already.

And he would stall in his step, leering into the dark of the attic, eyes glinting, beastly head cocked in turn to listen to the noises of the hell fires below. Far below, the two-legged creatures in their endless scurrying, the frequent rising smells of cooked and frying flesh, the blaring of noise and voices from throats that had no language he could discern, giving him no peace. If only they would leave, and he could, at last, know peace in his home.

In the morning, blinking over his first mug of coffee, my son says, “Think we’ve let this live and let live concept go a little too far, Mom? Maybe?”

I nod. We will wait for him, her, to emerge in the spring, belly swollen with new life, for maybe there are two of them up there, then slam the gaping hole shut. Or, when it is time to replace the roof, and the roofer will peel back the skin of my house, we will all stand there, balancing ourselves against the sky, peering inside, at the detritus of alien life scattered across and over my life below—its carcasses and time-bleached skeletons, patches of torn fur, chewed up apple cores and the empty shells of nuts, nests built of gathered souvenirs of a lifetime of travels, and that gold heart pendant I lost two summers ago.

The Fire Walkers

by Zinta Aistars



Not the chest-thumping, sword-swinging, trumpet-blaring kind, but the silent sort of heroics—these are the moments of courage I so deeply admire. Not the fearless moments, but indeed those moments when one feels fear most, the full blast of it, the quicksand of it, the lava eruption when fear burns through your core and leaves you on buckling knees. Then you rise and do what you must anyway. You do what is right, not because someone else demands it, not because someone is watching, not for applause or reward, but because it is the right thing to do.

Yes, that is what I respect, even revere. We see it so rarely. This submission to the power of our fears. This acknowledgment of our demons. This letting go, just before standing up and taking control back again. It is accountability, responsibility. It is walking through fire. And over just the past few days, I have witnessed two such heroes, doing battle.

No muscle-bound Schwarzeneggers, mind you. One of my heroes is a young woman I’ve been blessed to know since she was a little girl. The other, a woman who left no name, but a lengthy comment on a book review I’d written years ago, telling me of her fight to reclaim herself. These two women humble me and they inspire me. I sense the fear in them both, even as both of them grit their teeth to rise up from their knees after they have lived their lives too long pretending to have control where there was none. Until now. It is when we at long last submit to the fact that we have none that we finally have just enough.

The young woman, a dear family friend, called me as she stood outside the door of a hospital. She was about to admit herself into a treatment program for alcohol addiction. Over the phone line, I could hear the chattering of her teeth. She was shaking with fear. She was crying. She was terrified. I asked her to tell me what it was she feared most, because I have long believed that once we name a fear, we have taken away—in that naming—a great deal of its power over us. In my mind’s eye, I could see her, far away yet right before me, staring at the door, closed but always with the potential to open.

“I’m afraid of finding out who I am, and am not, without my addiction,” she said. “I am afraid of being fully alive. With nothing in me deadened or dampened, but to be fully present to life. I’m afraid of the void that will open in me where this was and afraid I will not know how to fill it.”

In hearing her, it suddenly occurred to me that for all of people saying we fear death most, it may indeed be life we fear most. Being all. Feeling all. With open heart on sleeve, vulnerable, a vessel waiting to be filled with every possible blessing. Every sense vibrating and receiving. Every emotion vibrant and expressed. Love: unadulterated and unconditional, toward ourselves and others. Pain without anesthetic, yes, but also joy in all its depth and breadth. How terrifyingly wonderful …

Born into a broken family, this young woman had not had an easy childhood. There were other addicts in her family. There was poverty and struggle and deprivation and abandonment and abuse. Life was overwhelming, and so she had learned to deaden herself to it. Now, she tired of merely going through the motions of empty emotions. She hungered to be fully alive, even as she feared it. As surely all of us do. She tired of feeling lost, and she longed to find her way even as it terrified her. This door before her, perhaps it would open on a new path, and no doubt a very narrow one but with an ever expanding horizon. To enter that door, she had to first know hope.

I knew she could do this. I had watched her grow up, and time and again, I’d seen this young woman thrash and writhe in fear of something, then do what she must all the same. She knew how to walk through fire. I was confident she could do it again, and again if she must, and again. Each time more steely in her determination. Odd, though, how she saw herself as a coward, even while I saw her as the strongest person I’d ever known. Perhaps no hero sees herself as a hero, and that is part of the hero’s definition. It is humility that moves us to accomplish great feats.

Phone to my ear, I talked softly to her and told her about the anonymous comment left on my book review. The words were a jumble, full of typos, and the sentences at times nearly incoherent. But the overall message was clear. The book I had reviewed was The Emotionally Abused Woman: Overcoming Destructive Patterns and Reclaiming Yourself by Beverly Engel. I read the comment into the phone:

“i am a 24 year old mother of two.for years prior to me having children of my on i watch my mother get physically abused,i thought to myself why on earth would she stay.even as a 4 year old little girl i would cry with her and beg her to leave.after many more severe beatings and having to give up three out of the five of us to our dad she finally left... and even though after years she got us all back.i always told myself i would never go through that.i didn't relise that i would pick men that i could abuse.once i did relise this i started to pick men that abused me immediately i thought it must be my fault,i must be doing the samething my mother did that caused her to get beat so from 16 to 18 i stay with a boy that verbally abused me hit me and cheated until finally after giving birth to first child my daughter i found strength and left him for good something no one ever thought i would do only to go to the one man i thought would never hurt me the man i called my best friend he is five years older he had already lived with other women he said he loved me he could talk to me he acted like he respected me and what i did for a living..but two weeks after i moved in with him it began all of a sudden i'm bitches,i'm hoodrats the money that i make means nothing and when ever i feel like i have the strength to leave he pulls me back by acting like the reason we have problems is because of me i feel so traped not by him but by the retrants iv'e placed in my mind. i can't wait to go get this book i hope it can help me before its to late....”

We cannot be trapped by others. We can only be trapped by the restraints we place upon ourselves. I could hear the young woman’s breath catch over the line as she listened. The next sound I heard was the opening of a door.

Tom the Tom

By Zinta Aistars

And so he is: through and through a tom. No mistaking him for a feminine feline; he is all man. Smaller than most toms, perhaps due to his kittenhood marred by starvation, Tommy is nonetheless masculine in his form and manner. Even with a spicing of the proud machismo.
Tommy came to us in my son’s backpack. A yowling, pathetic little bundle of mussed patches of black fur and oozing eyes and spindly legs that could barely hold his meager weight. That was some fourteen years ago. My son, too, was at that spindly age of limbs growing faster than he could keep track of them. Not without an occasional yowl of his own. His mission in life was to rebel. As hard as he worked to hide the softness of his heart, however, it never failed to shine through when an animal was at stake. Both cat and boy were determinedly machismo, but not when it came to the vulnerable. Well, never mind the hapless mouse.

Markus scooped the little tuxedo (however shabby) tom out of his backpack and set him down at my feet. The tiny furball nearly toppled over. Too small to be without a mama. We lived out in the country back then, far out, and walking home from school meant passing through cornfields, circling barns, jumping ditches, and coming down dusty dirt roads until our little house appeared on a small ridge. It was a place we rented for a little over a year, on five acres and with cows for neighbors. There were more animals around than people, and we rather liked it that way. No doubt this little creature had wandered off a little too far from the rest of the litter, managed to catch whatever diseases and infections, while losing his mama’s milk and nurturing.

Couldn’t help myself, my heart was instantly tugged and twinged, and off we went to the country vet. Didn’t take him but a moment to pronounce sentence: Too sick. Put him to sleep. But who were we to decide? Even as the vet played god, the little tomcat wandered around the room, tangling between our feet, sniffing and exploring, all curiosity with no desire to be killed for it.

“What will it take to give him a chance?” I asked. The vet shrugged. Prescribed a small shopping bag of pet meds, ointments and pills, quarantine for at least a month, more for the protection of my other pets—I already had two cats at home, and a sweet golden retriever, named Holly, I was dog sitting for the summer for the man then in my life. This sick little tom added to my furry brood was, beyond argument, an inconvenience.

“Suit yourself.” The vet filled a small shopping bag with various pills and ointments, explaining what I would need to do to save the kitten.

My son instantly gave up his bedroom. Keeping his face hard and uncaring, he had connected to the little tom and was ready for the sacrifice. All the furniture came out. The room had to be bare walls and hard floors, and my son sleeping on the living room couch for the month.

Assuming the kitten would live that long. Every day the two of us traded off care: a pill cut in half and stuffed down the squirming kitten’s pink throat between those needle-sharp tiny teeth, and his throat massaged until he swallowed in spite of himself. His infected eyes were to be carefully washed with a clean cloth, dabs of ointment squeezed into the corners. We washed our hands carefully with soap after each contact, so as not to spread mange to our other animals, all of whom were snuffling around the edges of the closed bedroom door in puzzlement and wonder.
At night, when the kitten mewled with loneliness, I would soon enough find my son sleeping not on the couch, but in his room, curled up on the hardwood floor, the kitten curled inside his circle of warmth. He would talk softly to the little tomcat, calling him Tommy in soothing tones, until both boys, human and animal, slept. In the morning, human boy warmed milk in a pan and fed it with an eyedropper to the animal boy, wiping spare drops from his wobbly chin.

Tommy lived. There was no question. If perhaps his growth was a little stunted, his fur filled in and covered the bare spots, turning velvety and shining with health. His body filled out and grew, although his hunger remained ever present. Starvation in his early days had become a lifelong memory in his cellular makeup. Tommy loves deeply, as animals do, but he will steal food from you without hesitation.

Once released from quarantine and allowed to join the rest of the household, pronounced healthy by an amazed vet, he would routinely conduct food heists. When my children sometimes sat on the floor, watching television, dinner plates balanced on their laps, Tommy would align his route from a calculated distance, take off like a rocket on a trajectory, never missing a step, sink his little teeth into a pork chop on a plate in passing and keep racing, out of sight before you’d even seen him coming. A mere black and white blur, and then a growl from some hidden corner, sounding more like a small dog than feline, chomping away on the meat and then shredding even the bone.

Was it only this past spring? On St. Patrick’s Day, I had boiled a hunk of pink corned beef, sliced off two small slices with potatoes and cabbage, and foolishly left the rest in the Dutch oven on the stovetop. When I returned but a quarter of an hour later, the hunk of pink meat was gone, not even a grease spot on the floor, only a bulging tomcat, eyes wide and round, mouth open and panting. I was sure that hunk was bigger than he was, nose tip to tail end.

He’s slowing down now. I’ve had cats much older, but Tommy’s start has taken a toll. We’ve had struggles with kidneys that hold too long or won’t hold enough. There’s a notch in his ear from some night’s caterwaul, and there have been many. He’s gone from rather roly-poly to lean and even a bit ribby again, in spite of a raging appetite, still. Whatever the changes, first signs of old age he was never supposed to see, his years with our family have been memorable. Other household pets notwithstanding, and there have been many, he remains a favorite with my son, who has long outgrown the fakery of machismo to become a real man.

Tommy has always held his own in this house. Never mind the 125-pound Alaskan Malamute whose gorgeous black muzzle he’d box from left to right with his two white front paws when the great dog got too near his cat bowl. No fear of the chow and retriever mix in our family now. If the dog gets too rowdy, Tommy sinks his teeth into the muscle of the dog’s foreleg, just enough to make his point. But he loves his canine brother, rubs his cheek against the dog’s every morning in greeting. It’s just that discipline and rules must be obeyed. Everyone here knows who’s boss.

Now that my son is grown and gone, Tommy knows who scoops the tasty meal into his bowl. At night, he spins in circles on my pillow, until the spot is soft and molded to his shape, just right, then curls into and settles a paw across my neck. Just like the man he is. It is a mix of tenderness and proud possession. Or, if my own hand is up on the pillow, palm up, he tucks his paw inside.

Years have piled up, for both of us. He sleeps, below the table now, here out on the deck where I write away on my laptop in autumn waning sun. The fur he had always preened and cleaned to dandy velvet and silk is now rather dusty and matted. His white paws could use a wash. He contemplates jumping on the chair beside me, but decides the effort would cost too much. The squirrels he loved to chase waddle by in laziness, ignoring him and he them.

Life is to be lived day by day, but then, I suppose, it always was. We accept those who wander into our lives, needing help, and offer it. In payment: years of that unconditional acceptance animals offer in a way that somehow eludes humankind. No inhibitions. Gratitude on furry sleeve, alongside open heart. Perhaps we so cling to our pets because they do so well and seemingly with such natural ease what we struggle lifelong to learn: how to be, simply be, stake our corner out, grab a good meal when we can, and sleep faithfully beside the one who treats us best.

Tommy, you’re a good man.



Epilogue


It is my birthday weekend. I’d written the above remembrance of Tommy some weeks ago. Tommy is dying. A few days ago, our vet gave me the cruel list: a mass by his right kidney that appears to be cancer, kidney disease, but probably the diabetes is what will kill him first. A few weeks perhaps, but probably more like a few days. He does not seem to be in pain, only exceedingly slow and weak, ever weaker.

I had only one birthday wish—to have my little tuxedo tom with me for the day. He may be “just a cat,” but he, along with my other pets now gone, have taught me more about the meaning and true expression of love than any human. Sometimes I think when God created animals, he gave them the full blast of Love—how to feel it, how to show it, how to embrace and share it—and when he got to Man, He only had half a load left. I’ve never known a truer, more faithful love than this little tom has given me, and so freely.

There he sleeps, beside me. When I move, even slightly, his eyes open a little to keep watch. If I get up, he pulls himself up, too, his body wobbling with the effort, and follows me. To be near. To be near those we love. Everything. I scoop him up into my lap and sit for hours, moving my hand over his thin body, feeling the slight beat of his tiny but great heart. I whisper into that little silky black ear: happy birthday, Tommy. Today is for both of us. A single day of life is eternity.