THE DEADLINE CAFÉ EPISODE #22
A still, small voice way in the back of Hank’s mind told him that something powerful had him in its grip, but he had this overwhelming urge to take Sherman out for a walk on Dog Beach on Saturday.
He’d woken up early, still thinking about seeing Sherman all stretched out there on his old couch every night, a hairy mountain of pure cat-ness, opening up one eye every now and then to watch the flickering light of whatever crap Hank was watching on the tube just to take his mind off the countdown and everything else that was happening or not happening in his soon-to-be-middle-aged-life.
The cat had the good sense to close his eyes again. And when Hank hit the mute button to take Lissa’s nightly call, he heard the unmistakable purr of that fat and contented cat burbling like an old man’s snore during an afternoon nap.
That’s when the thought came to him that they’d both better get off their butts and start exercising, get into fighting shape and focus. Sometimes everything comes into focus and the next step you’ve got to take is standing right there in front of you, as if to say, “Well, where’ve you been and what are you waiting for? Huh?”
So Hank dug around and found that old dog leash and collar that he’d kept ever since his dog Buddy had died years ago, and he slipped it around Sherm’s neck. The cat looked at him as though he were being strapped into an electric chair and started to puff himself up, but Hank talked real gently and told him they were going for a walk near the lake. The cat calmed down so quickly you’d have thought he spoke fluent human.
**
Sherm shook himself off on the sandy beach and stepped gingerly at first and then boldly, like a jaguar or a puma stalking prey in the rain forest, in hunt for some dogs. It wasn’t long before a pug and a Bernese mountain dog stopped to stare at this intruder now on their beach. Naturally, it followed that their owners looked around to follow what their dogs were looking at. They were as ruffled as a bunch of Northsiders, was the way Hank told it, watching a busload of White Sox fans invade the right field bleachers at Wrigley.
Something wasn’t right. Things were out of whack on their little Dog Beach world. For here was a cat, a big one, right there on their beach. And he was coming after them with a purpose. In a minute both dogs were huddling near or between the legs of their owners, and those owners started hollering, “Hey, get that damned cat off this beach!” and then “You want me to unleash this dog?”
The final straw was when one of them taunted Hank with, “Whaddaya think this is, just a big damned cat litter box, eh?”
Hank reached down and unbuckled Sherm’s collar. The cat stood there a moment, then, sensing his freedom and intuiting his owner’s new-found sense of independence and focus, he took off in a trot toward the largest dog on the beach—for a few others had since joined the little pack of hounds. One of them looked like an anteater, an Afghan, and one looked curly-haired and a little crazy, an Italian Spinone, but Sherman went like a tank in the Battle of the Bulge straight for the German Shepherd.
He leapt on the big dog’s back. The Shepherd howled, as did his owner: “What the --?” and Sherm rode his mount like he had a saddle until the Shepherd sought solace in the frigid lake waters and Sherm, seeing the approaching bath, had the good sense to leap off first. Hank put the leash back on and they walked out, side by side. It was spring, something in the air. Madness, maybe. But they were two men on a mission. Hank could smell the coffee because he’d finally woken up. The hell with the countdown numbers, he thought, bring it on.
**
When Hank told the professor about it on Sunday morning, the old man said, “Must be the gravitational pull of that ‘Super Moon’ everyone’s been yakking about the past couple of days. You’d think it was the Second Coming.”
Jimmy Donut, who was in his civvies and had been out late Saturday doing some moon-watching with Leila, couldn’t help overhearing and chimed in, “Well, you ask anyone in law enforcement like me and they’ll tell you that business is always up around a full moon. People do a lot of stupid things at times like this.”
“That’s where they got the term, ‘lunatic’, you know?” the Whittler added.
Then Lissa leaned into the conversation and said to Hank, “And there’s ‘Cosmo’s Moon’, ‘la bella luna’ –-you remember that movie with Cher, don’t you Hank? My favorite film of all time.”