At the bottom, though, he was waiting, and he’d be there a little while yet. Already I should have known, from the fire inside Clay’s eyes; they were each both suddenly smiling, as his finger pointed downwards:
ONE STUBBORN BUT FRENDLY MULE
NEVER BUCKS, NEVER BRAYS
***
$200 (negotiable)
YOU WON’T BE SORRY
Call Malcolm
I said, “Don’t show Tommy, whatever you do,” but Clay wasn’t close to caring. He’d gently thrown a finger again, at the mistake on the very first line.
“Stubborn,” he said, “but frendly.”
* * *
—
We settled for one of the cats—a family moving overseas. Too expensive to carry the tabby. They told us his name was Stripey, but we knew for a fact we would change it. He was a big and purring heap of a thing—black lips and tarmac paws—and a tail like a shaggy sword.
We drove to the place in Wetherill, two suburbs west, and the cat came home in Clay’s lap; he never moved an inch, he just purred with the engine, in tune. He happy-pawed him with his claws.
God, you should have seen Tommy.
I wish you could have seen him.
At home, we hit the porch.
“Hey, Tommy!” I called, and he came, and his eyes were young and permanent. He nearly cried when he brought the cat close, the stripes against his chest. He patted him, he stroked him, he spoke to him without speaking.
When Rory and Henry both came out, they were both of them gorgeously right; they complained with jinx-like timing.
“Hey—how come Tommy gets a bloody cat?”
Clay looked away. I answered.
“Because we like him.”
“And you don’t like us?”
Soon we heard Tommy’s announcement, and Clay’s instantly blunt response:
“I’m gonna call him Achilles.”
Abruptly, “No, not this one.”
Immediately, I looked at him.
I was stubborn and certainly unfrendly:
No, Clay, Goddamn it, I said, if only with my eyes—but who did I think I was kidding? After all, Tommy held the cat like a newborn.
“Okay then,” he said, “Agamemnon,” and now it was Rory who stopped him.
“How about a name we can fucking pronounce?”