i initially wrote this for my creative writing class but had to abandon it because it had too much character voice and not enough real plotline, which was the point of the assignment. so this story languished on my to-do list, until i managed to eke it out and add a bit of spit and polish to it. still plugging away at the update to PU, and it's slow as ever.

in case some may become confused: this story is about a guy who is reincarnated (if you will) as a cat, only to be found by his brother, who he now observes. cat-man remains unnamed, so don't waste your efforts waiting for one only to be disappointed.

saturday, april 12, 2008. 8:14 pm.

--

I used to think I wanted to have the “Indian Experience.” Or, the “Indin S’pearince,” depending upon who you talked to. Even Edward, mild, studious Edward, would pronounce it the latter, a grin splitting that lean, brown face as he joined the joke.

That was our joke, delivered to us by Sherman Alexie and all his wit, and we thought we could tap that feeling, that clever ability to turn a phrase into human contribution. To take that indignant bitterness we were guilty of having second-hand fed to us, and turn it into something even a city-raised Indian could respond to.

We held those sentiments, and it most shaped who I became growing up.

Wanting an Indian Experience, to be able to look at the dusky face in the mirror and see a heredity-instilled pride nestled within the blank or angry eyes--were my eyes ever happy? Perhaps, but I never looked at myself at those moments, so I’ll never know.

Nothing was worse than hearing fuckers talk about shamans and witchdoctors, that hokey bullshit of being attuned to nature, of having people assume that the Earth called out to me simply because the blood of another skin color ran through my veins.

We weren’t raised that way; hell, I never even experienced a powwow until freshmen year of high school, and had to drag Edward along with me, the two of us staring around with wide brown eyes full of awakening empowerment.

We are Sitting Bull, Geronimo; we are Dances With Wolves.

I can still remember that day Edward came home from school and announced to me that Dances with Wolves was such a fake that all the men spoke the female Lakota language because the person they’d hired to teach them to speak it was a woman; the first of many disenchantments, and maybe I hated him for that.

I’d hated my older brother for a lot, so perhaps that’s not completely fair.

I used to hate him for the way he would stare at me with that edgy curiosity in his eyes, as if I were some animal to be watched in case of unprovoked attack. His eyes used to follow me much the way mine follow him now; sometimes, I wonder if he notices that I watch him far more intently than a common cat should. I burn holes into the back of his neck, watching him as he goes about his normal routine within his small apartment. I’ve seen him undressed, and it’s not that I wanted to watch him, it was more of a compulsion. Perhaps he senses some aspect of my knowing, because he’ll usually pause, glance over, and surreptitiously turn his back to continue changing, shoulders hunched until his pants are up and buttoned.

But I continue to watch, perhaps because I derive some pleasure in the knowledge that I make him uncomfortable; I was not a terribly nice person in life, and dying hasn’t changed that.

There’s something to be said for dying. Or, perhaps, I should state that there’s something to be said for coming back. Reincarnation, maybe. As it is, I’m not sure if this is a reward or punishment for whatever I did as a human, but any rate, it just is as it is.

And what it is, is that the older brother I once half-heartedly despised is now the person who makes sure I don’t starve to death. The person who laughs when he spots me lazing in an imperfect curl within a warm sunbeam, the person who understands just where to scratch between shoulder blades and beneath the silly black collar around my neck. Who turns the stereo to a volume just above my comfort level.

I stay to watch him dance.

The only time mischief enters the gaze of Edward, when his lips curl into a smile and the deceptive relaxation fades into planned chaotic grace, is when he dances alone in his apartment, unmindful of the burning eyes of the cat he found in the back alley of the building complex. He jams, pivots, slams out chords on imaginary instruments (he can switch from bass and back with the blink of an eye!), and becomes someone I might have appreciated more if I’d ever witnessed the act when we were still brothers and he was afraid of me and my temper.

This man, a man in a boy’s body--or, rather, the other way around--is more alive to me now than he ever was before. He’s gritty and complex, a kind yet messy soul. Gentle, so gentle, with hidden passive aggression.

And gay.

The summer I died, Edward dated a foppish idiot, who’s brain was in his wallet and his affections for my brother more in the realm of the morbidly curious. He disgusted me, but even worse was seeing my brother bear to compromise and receive nothing more tangible than a few carnal gratifications for his effort.

I’d wanted to shake Edward into clarity, to rail and rant and force him to wake up. I’d wanted him to see that he was nothing more than an oddity; Indian and gay. Because I could see it; Edward was nothing more than a future story for this man to tell his friends.

‘I once dated this Indian, and get this: he was a surfer. You know how they are; outdoorsy, and really, you should think about that before you date one, if you catch my meaning?’

I’d understood; me, some seventeen-year-old punk who’s one chance of being laid had ended with premature ejaculation and a fierce threat that if the girl ever told anyone about it, she’d be exposed for the slut she probably was. She’d laughed, promised, and never called my bluff that I was aware of.

I understood the oddity a man like Edward possessed for someone of a different color; racist, I know. Sure, there were white people who were my friends, who I liked as people, but as an entire race, my idea of them was general dislike and mistrust. I’d wanted to hate them, really--for some individual, any individual, to give me a reason to really hate them. I’d ached and pined for them to give me personal grievance, because the past was the past and didn’t affect me, and I’d wanted so very badly to have a reason.

But it’s strange now, how hate becomes so unimportant within a cat.

--

Before I knew who or what I was, during those moments where I had crawled over the furry bodies of my litter mates, I held a single memory in the fore of my mind. Always, I saw Edward’s face when he’d noticed me standing before the alcove of rocks where he’d secreted away with that fop.

It’d been the first day he’d spent at the beach that whole summer, and he hadn’t even come close enough to the water to touch wet sand. I was not the only surfer fanatic in our family.

I’d taken a reprieve from the waves to grab something to drink, only to happen upon my brother kissing a man I so despised; some of that disgust was clear upon my face, and the memory of Edward’s expression lived on long after I’d turned away and went back to the water.

I never returned to shore.

-- -- --

Edward came home from a date with a coworker reeking of sex, feminine perfumes wafting in his wake as he blankly made his way from the front door to the bathroom, the door ajar as the sounds of the shower started. As a cat, the call of a deep snooze was fairly appealing, but the Indian in me, the brother, had me abandoning my post along the back of the couch, hopping lightly to the carpet and slinking down the hall, the incessant sound of water growing louder.

I’ve become a soul divided, instincts lazing into that of the feline persuasion; luckily, cats are inherently nosy.

When I pushed inside the room, Edward was fully clothed and leaning against the outside of the tub, knees pulled up as he clung to a semblance of strength. My confident touch made him jump before he gradually relaxed, debating before scooping me up from the floor and holding me against his chest, face rubbing with my fur. Hot breath fogged into my coat, and it was good.

A rusty cadence pulled from my chest, and the arms holding me grew tight to the point of discomfort; any other time, he’d sport rakes across face and arms for such a thing, but I remained docile this once.

Bitterness came from his pores, a discomforting scent for me to bear.

When I was returned to the floor, I leapt atop the toilet seat and settled down, watching without seeing as he disrobed and entered the shower, steam mugging the air until the temperature changed, became more mild. Only then did he emerge, monotonous in the motions of soaking the water from his skin with a towel as he left the bathroom and went towards the bedroom.

I waited, and then followed, entering just as he was climbing into the bed, a huddled lump beneath the comforter he had a fondness for. Our parents gave him that spread for graduation; they’d asked me for a color decision, and I’d shrugged and suggested pink and yellow. The comforter was green, interlaced with black; pink and yellow wouldn’t matter much to me, these days.

My ascent to the bed made little stir to its only other occupant, preoccupied as he was with his own abject misery in the form of silent tears. Imagine, a twenty-something year old man crying alone in his bed with his cat.

Stupid, Edward, so stupid.

Still, I scaled his body until I settled into the concave of his side, feeling the minute tremors running through him at a fairly regular basis. Why he went through with such a debased act against his supposed nature was beyond me, but I had some feeling as to why he might try.

A forlorn voice emanated from the region of his face, sounding quieter than he probably intended, “I can’t do that again, I can’t…I’m so disgusting….”

Why must I have this conscience, these feelings foreign to my existence? To look upon him as more than my ‘human,’ as my brother; as Edward? Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned here; I’d always wanted an Indian Experience, but received a purely Human Experience only after I died.

There was something to that revelation that was better left alone, especially as his tears slackened and my eyes pulled closed, a low purring reverberating the both of us.

When he felt calm enough to reach out and ruffle my fur, I took fond pleasure in biting his fingers, and the resulting laughter was something I could live with.

--

a/n: ok, first off: don't own Sherman Alexie (read him, he's freaking the pope), and don't own Dancing with Wolves. i'm not a believer in reincarnation, and hesitate to call this such, because it doesn't really follow procedure as accepted by that faith. so don't flame me, i know.

a poignant fact that couldn't be readily presented within the piece: when the guy drowned, his body was swept out to sea and never recovered. thus, his grave is a marker above an empty coffin full of pictures and the like. i would have liked to state that, but he couldn't have known that, so couldn't say it. "duty, adelade, always duty!"

hope you enjoyed the caustic voice of yet another xanthofile creation.