The memory has faded with the passage of the years, but he still sees see her stepping off down the sidewalk, in stretch pants and a blouse tied at the waist with the breeze and the sun in her hair, and that motion in her hips that could make a man drop everything and follow. That is how he sees her in his dream: walking away, towards some unknown danger. He tries to run to catch up with her, to see her face, to warn her, but as is often the way with dreams, he can’t move; he can’t even call her name.1
*****2
The Morpheum was a nice hotel. Some people came and went, and there were some of us who had been there a long time. I had a lot of friends there. You had to go by Eva to get in or out. Her door was open in the daytime and she always sat in a stuffed chair with her feet up on a card table that I had cut the legs down for her. She was the landlady. From her chair she could see out into the hallway and she didn’t miss much in the daytime. Stuff happened at night sometimes and she didn’t see that.3
One hot day—this was a long time ago-- I was going out and I had just made it down the hallway past her apartment and was turning the doorknob when she called my name.4
“Willy.”5
From the way she said it I couldn’t tell if she had a job for me or if she wanted my back rent. My hand was on the doorknob. 6
“Willy.”7
I smelled soup. Sometimes Eva had me eat lunch with her. I went into her parlor. She was in her chair watching a soap opera on a little black and white TV with the sound off. She was wearing a bathrobe and slippers. I moved the rabbit ears on the TV.8
“Let me fix your pillow, Eva.” 9
“Don’t kiss my ass, Willy.” 10
I sat in the chair I always sat in and we both looked at the TV.11
“Have you noticed anything different about Nancy? She’s not herself lately,” she said. “And she’s lost weight.”12
“I don’t like that Roy.” 13
“She’s having problems with her door.”14
“I just put a deadbolt on last week.”15
“I know, but now the hinges are loose. When she gets back from work, could you take a look at it? Find out what’s troubling her.”16
“Yup.” I liked Nancy a lot. Lately she was sad sometimes and she didn’t used to be. We looked at the TV.17
“She has a steady day job. She pays her rent on time every week.” Eva looked at me.18
“She’s got a bank account, too,” I said, trying to get her off the subject of rent.19
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”20
“Libby said that Nancy has a thousand dollars in the bank. Benny said if Libby said it, it must be true.”21
“Nancy’s a nice young woman,” Eva said. 22
“Uhm.”23
“You’re a young man.”24
“I’m twenty-two.”25
“You could still do something with your life.”26
“I do stuff.”27
“You’ll end up an old bum like Benny, and it will be too late. You’re already worse than Benny.” 28
She didn’t give me any soup so I left.29
30
When you went in or out of the hotel in the daytime you couldn’t see anything. After my eyes got used to the sun I went and walked. I found a cigarette that was already lit. They threw donuts away too. I ate a jelly donut in back of Hirsch’s bakery and took a plain donut for Mr. Snuffy. I went back and he was sitting on top of the dumpster in back of the Morpheum.31
“Good afternoon, Mr. Snuffy.” I stuck my hand out and he was rubbing his head on it. “How is Mr. Snuffy today?” He sniffed the donut and he decided he didn’t want it. He was looking up at the fire escape, and at the window over it; that was Nancy’s window. She left it open for him, and there was a hole in the screen that he would go in and out. Eva didn’t know about Mr. Snuffy. “Nancy’s at work,” I told him. I ate the donut and we waited. After a while he jumped off the dumpster onto the fire escape and then went through the window. She was home.32
I knocked and the door opened a couple of inches, against the chain lock. She looked through the crack.33
“Hi, Willy.” She took the chain out of the slot and opened the door.34
“Hi, Nancy. I came to fix your door.” 35
I couldn’t see much wrong with it. It was loose on the hinges, because the pins and hinges were worn but mostly it was just the screws were loose, and it stuck some on the jamb. It was old and beat up, like everything else there; a heavy wood door with six panels, like lots of doors. I don’t know how many times they painted it a long time ago. It had a regular key lock below the doorknob. 36
I am pretty good at fixing things. I told Nancy I would put on new hinges and plane the edge of the door. She said she wanted to be sure that nobody would break in. Then Benny and Ruby came up the stairs.37
“Everybody better watch out. You too Benny. I’m keeping score now.”38
“There’s no need to get upset, Ruby.”39
“I’m sick of it. All the good I do for people. What do I get for it?” They were coming down the hallway now. “I’m a good person, Benny. You of all people should know that. I’m too good. Whose fault is that, I ask you?”40
“I don’t know.”41
“Hey Stupid,” Ruby said to me. “What did you break this time?”42
“I’m fixing Nancy’s door.”43
Ruby was a small wiry old woman, hard as nails. “That’s right, Honey,” she said to Nancy. “Don’t give him anything for free. I can see that Libby is teaching you good, Sweet Pea.” 44
“Ruby!” Benny said. He was a dignified man with round glasses, and he was wearing a plaid shirt with a bow tie. 45
“I just bought this book.” Ruby held up a notebook. “I got a new system. Any time anyone does me dirty, it goes in this book. I do something for someone, all the good things I do for people, they go in the book. Everything, whosoever irregardless, I’m writing it all down now, everything I give and everything I get. It all has got to come out even.” She went to her room.46
I went back to work and Benny stood and watched. I liked Benny, but him watching me just then made me feel all tight in the neck. I knew he wanted to cut in on my job. He was always broke, wanting for Eva to give him any little job for beer money. What a bum. He was such a drunk that just being around him, pretty soon I started wanting a drink. Damn that Benny. I didn’t even have any money.47
“That looks like a job for two men,” Benny said to me. I knew what he was up to.48
“Could be,” I said. “We’ve got to plane the edge of the door. “There’s a plane up on the third floor, in one of the closets. See if you can go find it. Then I’ll plane the door and you can get money from Eva and go out and buy hinges and longer screws.” The third floor rooms were all empty, there were a lot of closets, and I knew the plane was in the cellar. As soon as Benny went upstairs I went to the supply closet and found some new hinges, long drywall screws, a bag from Jacob’s hardware store and an old receipt from Jacob’s for $2.95. I put everything in the bag. I went in my room and dropped the bag out the window. Then I went downstairs and told Eva that I needed three dollars for new screws and hinges. 49
50
I went to Elm St. Market and bought a bottle of Thunderbird and a pack of cigarettes for me, and a beef stick for Mr. Snuffy; that came to $2.95. 51
It was about an hour or so and then I got back and gave Eva the old receipt and the nickel, and showed her the bag that I dropped out the window. She looked at me funny but she didn’t say anything. 52
Benny had taken the door off, and the hinges. He didn’t say anything about me beating him out of the money from Eva. I asked where Nancy was and Benny said that he had left for a few minutes and then he came back and she was gone.53
The Colonel came over on his way to the bathroom and watched. His white hair was flat on top and he had a trimmed white mustache. He was retired from the Air Force.54
Me and Benny had to use a hammer and chisel for the new hinges. Libby came out. “Pipe down! Do you have to make so much noise? What are you two bums doing, ripping up the joint? Pardon me, Colonel, I wasn’t referring to you.” 55
Libby was no spring chicken and she had let herself go to fat some, but still she looked pretty good in a babydoll nightgown, I must say. Me and the Colonel were getting an eyeful and she knew it and didn’t mind. It was wasted on Benny; his hinges swung the other way. Libby sniffed, rubbed her nose, blinked, and rubbed her arms like she was cold. “Bugs all over this place. In my bed, I swear. I sprayed but it didn’t kill them. Somebody’s gotta do something.” 56
I asked her if she had seen Nancy.57
She held one hand in the other, raised them way up over her head and stretched and yawned. 58
“Went out with Roy,” she said. “Mr. Snuffy’s in my room, ripping up the wallpaper; I shouldn’t complain; he’s the only male companionship I get lately. I don’t know where they went.” 59
Roy was a hophead. I never liked him. He didn’t have one arm, but he had the other one, and that was enough. Eva said that Roy could do more bad with one arm than anyone else could with two. Benny knew him from way back. 60
Benny hung around while I finished working on the door. He helped some, but mostly he just watched and we talked. I told Benny that I didn’t know what a nice girl like Nancy could see in a creep like Roy, and Benny said so too; he said that she was no good for him and that it wouldn’t last long.61
Then we were done and I said goodbye to Benny and went to my room.62
Author notes
This is the first part of a mystery novelette I wrote last summer. If people like it I will post the rest of it. It maybe isn't a great story, but it's pretty good. I put my heart into it and it is very much my story in more ways than one.
In a list
Comments
1 - 25 of 25
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Does In A Cat's Eye mean something isn't true. This is an interesting story although I know there will be no hero.
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No, not that I know of, but I wish it did mean that, because it would fit the story, because Willy the narrator does not always tell the truth. And there will be at least one hero; well, sort of.
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Willy,
Thank you for your comments on my story Decisions Decided. Your comments were astute, accurate and refreshing. So often commenters say a good deal of nothing. I'm guilty myself.
I seem to recall reading In A Cat's Eye elsewhere. Have you published excerpts online before?
It's too early to tell if I'm going to be hooked on the chapters yet, although I feel the hook brushing against my cheek. I can sometimes sense a good read.
One thing I have discerned is that you are a polished writer. The chapter started out a bit passive(The memory has faded with the passage of the years, but he can still see her instead of The memory faded with the passage of the years, but he still sees her) but then your confident style comes out in the rest of the chapter. You have a strong writing voice. I'll contiue to read your further excerpts and comment.
Don't get frustrated with the contests on SW. Most contests are initiated by 12 to 16 year old girls who love romantic vampires, so they don't always use good judgment on good writing like yours.
JJ
beginning: 3, language: 5, plot: 4, ending: 5, dialog: 4, characters: 5.
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I appreciate your encouraging comment.
After two years on SW I have become pretty much immune to teenaged vampires, and werewolves. Their barks are worse than their bites.
If there is anything anywhere that is anything like this story I would very much like to know about it.
I self-published the cat's eye story last summer, and I posted (briefly) some drafts of parts of it on SW and also a piece on how I came to write the story, what inspired it, my intent in writing it, and so forth, so I don't know if you may have read some of that. But there are only a few copies of the actual story that were given or emailed to family and friends in New Hampshire, and I submitted it to a couple of magazines that rejected it, and also sent a copy to the Library of Congress. I don't see how you could have read it anywhere, unless we have mutual acquaintences or something like that. I have not actually read many "locked door mysteries," but since writing cat's eye I have learned that there are many of these, that it is a subgenre of mystery fiction, and so I would not be at all surprised if other authors have employed the exact same solution to the mystery of how the killer enters and exits the room. But that is only a mechanical gimmick anyway, and I haven't posted that part yet. Beyond that I am pretty sure that everything in the story is unique.
I have changed the intro, as you suggested.
Again, I appreciate the read and comment, which, coming from a skilled and talented writer, means a lot.
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The two main things that I noticed were...
Paragraph 4: it seems a little to long with both the and's in there mabye something like "I was going out(.) I had just" might sound better.
Paragraph 32: Although it is strongly implied that Mr. Snuffy is a cat, you never describle what he looks like or anything of the sort. Mabye that was done on purpsoe, but I figured I'd comment on it anyways.
There are some other minor spelling and grammer errors that I noticed last night, but I just woke up and cant really find them now
I'll read the next one when I'm a little more awake. -
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Thanks, Tawnis. I'm not sure about paragraph 4, and I'll have to think about that. Regarding paragraph 32, I didn't want the reader to know right away that Mr. Snuffy is a cat. He is introduced as sitting on a dumpster and rubbing his head on Willy's hand, which I intended for comic effect, so the reader would think, "Who is this guy?" Then the reader should gradually realize that he is a cat. Also, Willy is kind of childlike and sort of an animal himself in some ways, so he doesn't see much difference between a cat and a human, and it's therefore natural for him (remember, he is telling the story) to describe the cat just as he would describe a human. I should perhaps provide better physical descriptions of the characters, particularly of Nancy, but I was trying to keep the length down. Perhaps I will expand the story to novel length, and provide more detailed descriptions. By the way, Mr. Snuffy is a small tiger cat.
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It's an interesting start you have here, although it does jump from place to place a little quickly if was still fairly well writen and I would like to find out what happens later.
There were a few things that I noticed going over the story, would you like me to do some editing for you?
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Yeah, I know it moves quickly, but it also moves slowly in the sense that I have to introduce all these characters and set up the story. The big problem I had writing it was how to balance all this stuff, and so I don't know. Regarding editing, I certainly welcome any comments or suggestions you might offer, regarding any changes you feel would improve the story.
Thanks for the read and comment. I will be posting Chapter VI soon.
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That was very well written. I enjoyed the main character, he seemed like a character Chuck Palahniuk would create. Nice job!
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First time I ever heard of Chuck Palahniuk, so I looked him up on Wikipedia. I gotta go read one of his books.
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awesome!!!!
i love it pms!!!beginning: 4, language: 4, plot: 4, ending: 3, characters: 4.
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“Let me fix your pillow, Eva.” 9
“Don’t kiss my ass, Willy.” 10
Oh, how I love those lines. They were beautifully constructed--and I simply found them pretty hilarious. It's a really intricate start, weaving together the characters. Me like.
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I'm glad you appreciate the humor and the way things have to be woven together in a story. Thanks for reading and commenting.
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I liked this beginning. You have a very polished writing technique and that made it very satisfying to read. One thing I did notice though was in p40 you spell benny differently to the rest of the story (I don't know if that's anything to do with accents or anything). But other than that, I didn't notice anything. I like Mr. Snuffy!
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I fixed the benny spelling. I'm glad you caught that. Mr. Snuffy will help catch the murderer later in the story. I'm glad you like the beginning, and thanks for reading and commenting.
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I like it.
I enjoyed reading this a lot. I liked how it was written, and the wording. Good work. =) -
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Thanks. I'm glad people are reading and liking the story so far.
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I enjoy the raw detail you use, something more writers should do. Very nice
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Thanks for reading and commenting. I'll be posting the next chapter tomorrow.
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Ammaaazing!
I like this very much. -
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Thanks. I'm glad you like it.
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It has a wonderful beginning
You do write very well and I will read some more. Your characters are so realistic a and I like your method of introducing them.
Trish
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Thanks for reading and commenting. I'm glad you like it so far. I'll be posting another installment, probably within a week.
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Very Good
The style of this piece reminds me so much of J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye." You captured the stream of consciousness style perfectly, moving from one subject to the next with ease. This piece flowed perfectly. No trouble at all going through it. Every participle was in place, every sentence was well structured, and I found nothing wrong with this piece.
However, one suggestion besides the technical perfection: the Colonel felt like an unnecessary character, at least for now. However, you also said that this is part of a series, so if the Colonel increases in importance later on, disregard this comment.
Other than that, great job.
Best of luck,
gocubsgo25
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 4, ending: 4, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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Thank you so much for your constructive comment. I'm glad you felt that the wording was right. It was a challenge telling the story in Willy's words, since his vocabulary and communication ability is limited. The Colonel takes a bigger role later in the story. Willy will need the Colonel's intelligence to help solve a murder, and at various points the Colonel and Willy suspect one another of being the killer. Mr. Snuffy (the victim's cat) reveals how the killer exited the room, leaving the door and windows locked from the inside.
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