Free Driver's Education by Grant Ginder

impossible.”
    â€œYou’re calling me a liar?”
    â€œNo. Or, maybe? No, I’m not. It’s just—”
    â€œLighten up, kid, I’m kidding. But yes, a cat that’s fifty. No one can figure it out. No vet, no medicine man. She just—she just won’t die . She can’t breathe to save her life, and in ninety-two her front leg got chopped off in a ground beef portioner. But still.”
    Randal eyes her, suspiciously. He’s always hated cats—psychotically, almost. As in, I completely understand the age-old delineation between cat and dog people, but he’s expanded the dichotomy to a point that’s either frightening or impressive or both. With cutting accuracy, he’ll detail certain cats’ physical similarities to serial killers, to genocidal murderers. A Russian blue as Slobodan Milosevic. A Maine coon as Charles Manson. And now this one—this one who just won’t die.
    Mrs. Dalloway’s tail twitches and Randal holds his breath.
    I hack again from the unfiltered smoke. I say, “Yeah, I mean. That’s nuts.” And then, because I have nothing else to add, about immortal cats or otherwise: “Yip, my granddad mentioned you know him?”
    He stubs his cigarette out on the desk, next to a row of burned circles. “Alistair McPhee,” he says. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve known that man.” Then, more somberly: “I’m sorry to hear he’s sick.”
    â€œOh, I don’t think he’s sick. I just think—”
    But he continues: “He called me about a week ago, you know. Had to repeat his name three times for me to understand him through the coughing. Finally, when I figured out it was Alistair, that old sonofabitch, I said, ‘Whoa, bub, keep both your lungs, eh?’ But listening to him—I got sad. Ended up crying, as a matter of fact.” He lights another cigarette. “You wouldn’t believe that, would you? A guy like me, crying?” Smoke sits as a swamp between his lip and nose. “Don’t be fooled. I may look tough, but I’m a sentimentalist when it comes down to it. Anyway,I stopped crying about as soon as I started. When I cry it tastes like blood—they don’t tell you that about working at a butcher. You’re around this much blood, everything starts tasting like it—even your tears.”
    I take a deeper drag on the cigarette, and then Randal asks him to explain how he knows my grandfather.
    He ashes his smoke into a jade ashtray.
    â€œBefore working at the George Meat Market International I was working at Franky’s Automotive Repair Shop on Delancey Street. I was putting cars together and now I’m taking animals apart. Franky, he was an asshole. I’m talking grade-A, award-winning, sphincter-clenching asshole. He’d charge a guy two hundred dollars for a tune-up and all he’d do is loosen a few screws so the poor bastard would have to come back a week later. Sonofabitch eventually fired me because he found out I was tightening too many screws.” He drags slowly on his cigarette again.
    â€œAnyway. Before I got canned your ye ye —your granddad—he comes in with his car. God, I can still remember it. It was Saturday, in winter, and before I left for the shop my wife starts screeching, Aiiiiii-ya, Yip, don’t forget fish for Chu Xi! Every year it’s the same thing—don’t forget the fish for Chu Xi.
    â€œSo there I am, and all I can think is: For the love of all that is holy do not forget the fish for Chu Xi. My wife, you’ve got to understand—she’s terrifying. Huge hands and a back stronger than an ox’s. One year, I forgot the fish for Chu Xi, and she went and broke my nose. Look.” He points to his nose. “So, right, I know my place. I go and promise her that I won’t forget the fish and I leave before she can throw anything at me, and I figure,