There's a dead body in the freezer, but it's only temporary
BY JASON ASHLEY WRIGHT World Scene Writer
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
9/04/12 at 5:10 AM
Go to Jason Ashley Wright's BlogOriginal Print Headline: Never mind the attic; ghosts are in freezer
I have a dead body in my freezer.
Thankfully, it's not the kitchen freezer, which is merely a side-by-side and not accommodating for bodies. I do, however, have an old stand-up freezer in the garage, a space I rarely enter because I'm haunted by the ghosts of two asparagus ferns I forgot about between the first frost of fall 2010 and the blizzard of early 2011.
But I had to venture into the dank, cluttered space, nonetheless, to temporarily lie Maskeeta, Lord V's favorite cat, to rest. A few hours before I placed her between some old Hawaiian bread and chicken legs, "Skeetuh," as we called her, had been mauled to death by Lord V's neighbors' dogs, who hopped the fence and killed her while Lord V was at work.
Hopefully, the neighbors - specifically, the pregnant female who smoked while rounding up her murderous hounds after they jumped the fence again that evening - will mind their canines better. Meanwhile, Lord V constructed a makeshift trellis-like fence to keep the dogs from invading again. It's actually kind of nice, like he should grow jasmine and set some patio furniture beside it for tea. Or, perhaps, make it a burial spot for Skeetuh this week.
Enough maudlin stuff. It's the first Tuesday of the month, so let's have lagniappe (i.e., do that little somethin' somethin' extra minus rhyme, reason or point).
Alas, poor Skeetuh
Sorry, one more thing about Skeetuh. In the light of day, I can sit in my house, watch scary movies, hear noises and know beyond the shadow of a doubtful groundhog on Feb. 2 that something's not about to jump out from behind my shower curtain and kill me.
But in the dark, wee hours following Skeetuh's temporary entombment, I could've sworn I heard a cat meowing in the garage. Ali was on the bed beside me, suddenly alert to whatever sound I heard, too.
I'm being ridiculous, I thought. Dead cats don't meow. Even if they did, you probably couldn't hear them through the foot-thick, ice-covered walls of that vintage freezer. Still, I feel like I need to walk through the house burning a bunch of sage and chanting, "Go toward the light, Skeetuh!"
Anyway, I'm ready for fall - chilly mornings and cool afternoons, with sapphire-blue skies and the sound of wind rustling through dried leaves before they swirl to the ground. Of course, some of that last bit about the dry leaves has already been happening at my house. Thankfully, Hirohito, my Japanese maple, has managed to survive summer. So has Steve Jr., the sycamore my neighbors planted near the dogwood in my front yard - a memorial to Young-un, who used to have a massive sycamore in the same spot, long before I met him.
It's actually Steve III, as Steve Jr. was accidentally mowed down in June. Youngun would've found that funny, I imagine. Same goes for the cat-sicle in his freezer.
Poor Skeetuh ... Considering how often she'd spitefully use the top of Lord V's corner dining room cabinet as her litter box, she might scratch out the humor in this, too.
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