The Cat Told Me

The book that held her breath fell open and the poem rang out true as a sea hawk call.

Windfall. She had always thought she’d win the Florida Fantasy Five lottery draw. Not millions, but a solid fifty thousand or so. But this, now, through some Internet payment. All started from a Twitter ad between the cryptocurrency and archaeological tweets. Twenty grand and the dreams it would do. Only had to let them read the night words. The night words from the little black book.

The day had heated up over eighty degrees, and then the Snow Moon of February rose over the barrier island and sparked the water of the Indian River. The moon was in Virgo, Pluto in Capricorn, and Mars in Taurus. It was a Golden Triangle and she was the gold finder. She took long strides on the rough dirt road of the boatyard. The sand was gray, gravel grit, rock littered, and rutted from the giant tires of the boat lift. Shards of old concrete mixed with the discard of nuts and bolts. The boat hulls were lined up like dreamers. The forgotten and forgiven mixed with the pride of the new loves with clean canvas and sails.

The black hull of the ketch was a pirate ship in substantive relief with the pink orb of moon haze off her bow. The bow faced the river as if the water might someday come to float the waiting hope. The boat was blocked on tripod stands and the rigging was slack. The varnished wood had glazed and peeled in the Florida sun.

She knew this boat, like so many of the others. Evening walks among them, stepping over the discarded chain, the lumber, the paint cans, wiping her own memories on the rags of others. She read her horoscope in boat names, looking for a sign. About Time, Intuition, Last Chance. Many moons ago she had been on her own boat in this land of no sea. About Time had spoken to her, next to No Regrets, behind Mama Jo. Boat names speak when you listen. Whispering family going from good times to slow rot.

Back when the moons passed easily, the black ketch man had bought a white hull named Lady Ace. She had made a story of a burlesque beauty writhing and flaunting under the name of Lady Ace and a love struck crime boss who had bought the boat for a love nest afloat. So long ago. The guy with his parrot Kong, red and yellow on his shoulder, restless when the sea hawk cried.

The guy had bought bubbly wine to toast when they launched the little treasure boat one Christmas. Her mother and her. The team of two. Pappy had been there. She never knew another name. Pappy with the precise white goatee, and his shirt neatly tucked in tight jeans. Short and slim, and telling tales of his glory days as a sport fish captain. ZZZZSSSHHHH and the line runs out BAM! ZZZZZSSSSHHH and he’s running and you gotta back down on him, but not too fast, just right. ZZSSHHHH and I can hear the plunk of his guitar when he sometimes sang leaning against the stands under the black ketch.

Mom dead. Pappy dead. Black ketch silent and no parrot answering the sea hawk.

Those were the days of rigging the boat for treasure hunting off the Coast. Mom saying the smell of weed drifting by was enough to get high on in the damp slow working mornings. The boatyard rumbling to life in muted sun rays with the workers coming in and the liveaboards dazing out of their closed cabins to greet the day.

The evening sea breeze was cooling and a black cat came out from under a draping of canvas. It stopped and stared her down. She gazed back until it lost interest. Cat paws easily placed on the mud drew a line across her path. She turned back. Full moon and no chances. The cat was black and silent as the ketch.

The moon went full golden and was rising clear of the masts and bedraggled flags. A great treasure hunter had called her pirata before he died. She flew Tibetan prayer flags from her boat. Pirata. A little black notebook from the year before fell from the shelf over her bunk. Her words had imprisoned her life in the quiet covers. There should have been a creak, a sigh, when it opened. A crackle of flames as regrets reacted with wishes.

It held the falling trend line since her mother’s death, and the rising trend line tide of her life. The seaweed on the rocks smelled of decay, and she breathed it deep, into the confusion of indecision.

The black book. The one night poem, like a one night stand, a lover forgotten. The rattle of verse song that came from watching the lights of the bridge to the south. Drinking my reflections in the night. The poem song worth twenty grand. Don’t want to cross any bridges, don’t want to burn any down - I’ll be flowing underneath with the ebb tide when I leave this town.

Writing now on the dark flybridge with a full moon and a trine of planets. Good fortune. Avoided the black cat. Twenty thousand times of regret of love and a dollar for each. The poem sliced and diced and sung out of tune. The words offered naked to a stranger’s gaze. The price a gold ring, a brass ring, a true song, a prize. Offered for twenty thousand ripples in the river current to carry her home. Twenty thousand minutes to save her soul. Twenty thousand dollars to join the world of freedom. The song would save her. Not a child, not her body, but her words for barter.

The contest. The little black book. The black cat knew and sent her home to write.