Kenton K. Yee
Not a party but a mixer my employer threw for a coworker's departure in a financial district bar; not employer but some personal assistant taking it upon himself; not threw as we had to buy our own drinks; not coworker—we worked for different silos; and not departure either—more like expulsion. Truth be told, in twelve years I had interacted with this lady only in the elevator bank and cafeteria line, probably about weather or lunch deals, but office events are opportunities to be seen and heard, show team spirit, lick up and leapfrog the org chart.
I held out my hand. "So you're serious about this? Congrats."
"At some point," she said, "you just have to do something for yourself. I'm going back to school."
"In what?" I said, trying to look interested.
"Oil painting. I'm gonna be an artist."
"Pollock's the cat's pajamas," I said.
"What's Pollock?"
I hear the unproductive tend to drop dead before long. Must be the boredom or guilt. On my last visit to my father's nursing home, I saw my future wasted, hopeless, bored and lonely. They were cutting the cake of a woman who died overnight. 'H P P Y B D Y A L L Y' was squiggled in red, green, and yellow. When I was a kid, my father bought us misspelled birthday cakes at deep discount. Now he was barely breathing. He needed a haircut and a dentist. I forced myself to eat Y B and, then, D. Today, he's sporting a mortuary cut under Colma.
A couple of years later, my sixteen-year-old developed a lump on his shoulder. Rather than lay out for pricey diagnostics, I took him in the day after Thanksgiving. When the vet's hand scooped up the 5.5 pounds left of him, O, how his owl eyes yowled at me. Don't I get a party first? The joint didn't even have a water fountain or complimentary meow mix, I mean, mixed nuts. Fear of an undesirable reincarnation keeps us alert. We fear, therefore we live. I didn't know it yet, but one year and two days later, my employer would put me out. No party either. Thus, this. I miss those cats.