etching/Georgia Forster I wouldn't help him get back up until he promised not to bite me. He promised, but I wish when he scares himself he'd leave me out of it. A spider tiptoed across the next step down, and the neighborhood was so quiet I could hear him. Well, I could; and the streetlight made him eight inches tall. "A man was rotting away from the insides out, and his voice was so rotten it sounded like sandpaper . . Jerome's whisper rasped low. I jumped. "Cut it out!" . . and he gurgled blood when he laughed — like this." Jerome chortled the Rotting Man's laughter, and it echoed down the silver - gray street. "You're scarin' me, Jerome." Vnd he prayed to the Devil, 'Devil, 1 want to live forever. Here I is rotting away slow by slow, and sounding like a meat grinder; but I want to live forever,' and the Devil appeared to him in his bathroom mirror, humming soft, and granted his wish. Said, 'You can live forever and ever.' " Jerome's voice trailed off. A wind came up and blew the leaves around. "But," his voice throbbed. "But, he didn't stop rotting. He just went on rotting and stinking forever. And now, when the wind whistles, that's him laughing like sandpaper on the roof." The leaves raced frantically. "I'm taking Spain back!" It wasn't fair. "I want Africa, then." "Why?" I hadn't had my heart set on Africa, but I was thinking about the blood gurgling, and I didn't feel all that generous. "In Africa, they got pythons," said Jerome, After I gave Jerome Greenland and Iceland and both North Poles, and him complaining there was coming close. I could see his eyelashes. "Once, a guy went on a wild safari into the deepest jungle nothing but penguins hanging around there, I had and one by one all his natives got captured by to give him part of Spain on Tuesdays to keep cannibal gorillas and sunk in quicksand and him quiet. It was either that or listen to his stories. And that was generous, since it was hiir finally he was all alone." "You watch too much television." My who had dropped the key down the sewer and undershirt itched; I wondered where that spider we were locked out. And all the bathroom lights on the block were out. So we were stuck sitting got to. on our steps until Pa's shift got off at five a.m. '* "No, listen. He was all alone, and when he was wasn't so bad, though, Jerome said, since w« camped by the quicksand, eating his regular pork 'n beans, this python snuck up on him and eats could wait for the cats, but I wished he wouldn't him. All in one piece. And he got out his have dropped it. It must have been at least twelve o'clock (midnight). switchblade, and cut himself right out..." "What's a python?" There was half a moon left, and shadows were He stopped. "Pythons? They're like tigers, only jungling down the sidewalks. The leaves were bigger; and they got elastic stomachs and teeth mostly gone, and the trees were ready to reach down and pinch your head off. I was considering long as roofing nails." Well, that was news to me. "Yeh? Cut hisself crying. out of his elastic stomach. Then what?" So I kept talking. To shut him up. He seemed "Nothin'. Put the python in a burlap bag and mildly interested in dividing up the world fair and went home. Only thing, his face was part square, but I knew he was half listening for the bushes to heave and Dracula to jump out digested from the python's stomach juice, but he got his pitcher in the newspaper in Africa, and whipping his black and red cape and flashing his the Salvation Army sends him shoes now." gums. I could just see Jerome hoping. Jerome I was really impressed. I figured that made up liked to scare himself to trembling. for the Dracula bat, anyway. I know he does because I have to sleep in the "Like big tigers?" I shifted my weight back, bottom bunk and I hear him trembling with and hugged my knees. It was cold. The street was Dracula through the boxspring and mattress. He woke me up screaming once, hanging by his toes, pretty empty, and the light buzzed blue. staring into my mouth upsidedown, claiming "Anything like cats? Do they got a tail and whiskers?" Dracula had bit him and changed him into a bat. a short story by Lauri Comito terrible combat. Jerome said they fought for Veruzo had been dead for a year. But the "Claws," he breathed, awesome. "Claws like you wouldn't believe. Like a rake, red and curved domination of the neighborhood, for who would cemetery of tomato stakes still stood sharp in call the shots. He said it was Veruzo's cats that rows. Hie grapes had withered in the first frost, and long." He stretched each word like a ran everything because they were ghosts, and they cracked brittle and dry on the fence. rubberband. "They use them to stuff people into watching. They were the ghosts of bad people. The wind chased a milk carton down the walk to their stomachs with." Veruzo must have been a cat then. Jerome said the back door. Jerome and I stayed in the alley, "You're crazy. Jerome, you're an awful liar. The cats'U get you for sure." I'd forgotten about they had been on Palmetto Street before Veruzo, behind Turis' blue Ford. It crouched on its rims a and they were just waiting for the people to go few feet from Veruzo's gate. Jerome said we the cats. again. They knew everything. He said they could see them and not be seen from Turis' Ford, "Yeh? That guy got in the newspaper, didn't watched people live and die in the nieghborhood. and we were ready. The cats had good eyes. he?" The moon disappeared. I switched on the The moon was low in the sky, and big. The waiting few the bad ones to die, and sat on rooftops. They walked like sandpaper sliding flashlight, but it only glowed a beam a few feet night was clear and sharp as window glass, it when someone died. He said they knew who it ahead, and I swung it into the windows of the broke. A soft high cry rose higher and higher was, and they smiled cat smiles with their eyes. old house, from attic to basement, across the down the block, across the street. Our ears shot Jerome's crazy. yard, slowly. It was very quiet now, except for up, and we looked down to Veruzo's, wide - the wind somewhere. But we talked about them in whispers anyway. eyed. We'd forgotten about the cats; we were About what color they were and how their teeth The eyes. They reflected the light like a going to wait for the cats. "What time is it," I wheezed. flashed and how they were big as cocker spaniels. thousand tiny mirrors in the dark. They stared "Just about time. Moon's nearly down." Our We would speculate how the cats would like the out knowin^y, white slits, from the windows cop who walked with his long yellow nightstick and the broken back steps. Gose, a hard black streetlight buzzed blue. "If we don't hurry, hiss. I froze. Jerome sunk his nails into my leg. there'll be no light. It's pitch in his alley." from one comer to the other, or about the President of the United States, and if they'd want either He glared back at us from the dash of Turis' "We'd be the first ones to see them." We didn't look at each other. Nobody had seen the cats of them. Ford, arched gold and bristled. I turned the that wailed under the old water tank in Veruzo's We wanted to see them. We used to pretend we flashlight on him and he was gone. would catch one, a kitten, and tame him, and "On the roof. Under the eaves, there. Along back alley. Whenever there was a moon, you then we'd take the neighborhood away from the fence." Jerome pointed. He didn't let go of could hear them, though, crying and screaming Veruzo's cats. One night, we said, we'd wake up my leg. All around us we could see them. Cats, in and yowling. Fighting each other. Often we'd and sneak out to the alley and watch them groups of threes and fours and fives, like hidden find blood spattered on the gravel, and all the faces in a puzzle drawing, blending in with the garbage strewn around. Mrs. Arvey paid us a strutting and scrapping in Veruzo's yard, and then catch one. dark. Kittens cried under the water tank a few quarter to clean it up. But we never saw the cats. They hid during the day in the old cars and feet from us. The rest were silent, waiting. They were wild cats. Belonged to old man "Come on." I think Jerome said it aloud. Veruzo before he died. They moused his junk oil drums rusting behind garages, and we basement for years and years. Whole families of were captured for bed before nine o'clock. But Slowly, we crossed the alley, and we could see cats, cousins of counsins' cousins, until there we knew, from midnight trips to the bathroom, them, half a dozen, in the light I tried to hold were thirty or forty. Veruzo was a widower, and that the cats lived during the dark wee hours of steady. Half a dozen, some black, under the tank, the morning. We heard them. on a bed of a torn green sweater. They stared at he grew peppers and grapes on his fence. His whole yard was a cemetery of tomato stakes that "The landing net's on a nail in the garage," us. stood straight and sharp in rows. Kids were afraid Jerome said. "We'll get one and we'll take over Jerome flashed the net. Hie tiger - striped to trembling of him, and threw eggs at his the neighborhood." kitten clawed my hand. I dropped the flashlight, windows on Devil's night. The kids said the "Jerome! Do you think we should? They'll and the beam clattered down the pavement, reason the peppers grew so good was Veruzo ate know.. splashing shadows. Leaves chimed frantically. I the cats with the tomatoes and buried them in "Don't be a stupidass. You believe everything sucked the blood. the yard. He made a heavy black wine with the anybody tells you? There's a flashlight under the We ran. Gravel skittered under our tennis shoes workbench, too." He stood up and wiped his as we beat if for the street. A dog barked again grapes. He had laid a little cement walk from the back steps to the alley for the trash, or to make palms on his jeans. He still didn't look at me. and again. Blood pounded in my head, and I his grizzly task easier. The rest of the yard was My mouth was dry. I licked my lips and walked heard my breath, hard and hoarse. I ran faster overgrown, so it spilled over into the next door fast around back for Pa's old fishnet. It had a than Jerome; he had the fishnet. The kitten neighbor's. Overflowing. Veruzo bought Chinese short handle, so we'd have to move fast. The slashed at him through the holes. Thin red claws wind chimes at the dimestore and hung them like ragged weave was perfect for trout; we had never like rakes; and when I turned I could see long tried it on cats. But, for as long as it hung there, scratches down his cheek the blood pouring spangles in the peppers for scarecrows, until the we had known that's what it was really meant down the front of his jacket. His face twisted and yard looked like a sequined New Year's Eve costume. Jerome said the cats never came for. I checked it for holes, holding it up to the he dropped it behind him. The kitten screamed outside, but howled at the moon through the pale light. Jerome's face was blue as a clown's sandpaper. basement window. They were prisoners down mask, and the street light buzzed. I heard the We ran faster. I could feel cats running silently there. No one ever saw them. People hardly ever cats again, restless and high - pitched. Nervous. I in the gutters along garage roofs, right and left. saw the old man, either, except early in the wasn't very sure. Near. The flashlight splashed their shadows morning. He walked, in a sagging green cardigan, 'They're choosing up sides, and picking everywhere, silently running. The wind whistled his white hair electrified, to Victor's Market for victims. They're sick of waiting around for the through the fences. I ran faster, and I could feel pasta. Then Veruzo was gone. People said he people to leave. They want all the bad ones at Jerome panting behind me until we were on our sagged off somewhere to die. The cats never went once. Now." porch. We looked back wide - eyed finally. away. The kids broke the basement window. "How'd you know animal language?" Jerome There were never any rats in the alley. was always surprising me. The wind whipped the leaves up the steps behind The kids in the neighborhood wanted to see "I'm a bat, remember." us, and the street was empty. Silent, except for them. In winter, we could follow their tracks up "Yeh?" I was still doubtful, but those cats the streetlight, buzzing. The crashing in my head and down the alley in the snow, giant tracks that were raising Cain. My eyes hurt. We didn't look slowed, and stopped; and we stood by the door at each other. and waited for five o'clock. pounded the snow hard in the frenzy of some and concerning the arts ...every Wednesday this spring will be poetry, talk, and an informal thing at 4 o'clock centering around a local poet. Todav the first of the series will be Dou^ Lawder. in the Green Room of the Union. Next ~ Wednesday. April 14. Dennis PaceJ-fc ^ and Darvl Jones will read. talk, oral W * whatever happens same time.plac^^ * ithe Creative Writing Contest. Fiction Baafe!4lfc.M»*7.s Tuesday directors / Robert Siekels, Denise McCourt Graphics / Ron Pitts, Kirby Milton, Dennis Pace