Here we have a story from Suzanne E Morse. Friday’s Cat explores some gluttony, a little fallen pride, and an element of compassion too. I’m not sure what Boots would do if he didn’t know where the next cuppa was coming from…but then again, he’d probably just go and boil the kettle and make it himself.

*****

It is Friday. I know this because the garbage bins behind the huge apartment complex are full. Friday is feast day for me. The garbage bins contain unimaginable treats – cat food cans with just a bit of the tasty meat, half-eaten burgers wrapped snugly in those throw-away papers, bits of cheese, French fries and meat scattered about the bin. So I stride triumphantly on all of my four paws, my white furry tail held high, strutting straight for those bins. I leap up on the edge of the bin, look around me. No other felines are here to contest the findings either. There had been two others in the past, but I wasn’t about to share. I fought them, dug my claws into their scraggly fur, until they ran and never returned. So this feast is all mine today. I lean into the bin, and begin scrounging amongst the fast-food wrappers, nibbling at left-over burgers and fries.
I’m a lucky cat. I just so happened to be born into one of those suburban homes. I got regular meals and a bowl of milk. There was the tabby who lived next door, and a big black cat that had owned the neighborhood. We’d chase each other, scrap in each other’s back yards. I got to lie in a flower bed and sit patiently in the grass until the kid came home from school. I even got to sleep in one of those cushioned beds. I knew I was just better than all those other cats out there, hiding in the allies, dirty, scruffy, scrounging for food.
But then things changed. Days would go by where I skipped a meal or two. There was no more milk. Then, one day, my bed was gone. Things disappeared from the house, a little at a time. Strangers came every day, trampling through our house. Some big sign got stuck in the grass and then it happened. My family just left and there I was — one of THOSE cats. You know. An abandoned one.
So I drifted over to the nearby apartments with the big trash bins where tons of people seem to hang out. There are delectibles you don’t see in alley trash bins deeper into the city. So I’m still better than those other cats. I eat from a full bin and beg from the people. I got lots of kids here that will stop and play with me, sometimes chasing me past the different apartments until I climb to the top floor just to get away. And I can sit for hours perched on the third level, looking down on my world.
One guy in Apartment 32 puts out a bowl of milk on Fridays. He wears a t-shirt and jeans and some glasses. So after my feast in the trash bin, I can pounce up the flight of stairs to the second floor and drink to my heart’s content. He will emerge from the apartment and we’ll stare at one another, if for a moment, until he disappears into the door again.
As I gorge on an abandoned chicken leg, a shadow approaches the bin. I stop and look up, ready to pounce, willing to fight for the scraps, not willing to share. But it is a person, not a cat. And I am not sure what to do.
The man shuffles through the pickings, quickly grabbing the left-over burgers. I just sit and wait. There will be more dumplings below and I can jump in, unlike him, so I wait. I wait long enough, he’ll go away. And I’ll be alone again. And as I sit, I look at him. It takes a second but I realize that I know him. It’s the guy from Apartment 32 that gives me milk on Fridays, looking a lot dirtier, with a stubbled beard and unbrushed hair. I have an epiphany. He’s now one of those guys. You know. An abandoned one.
He scrounges and wanders off, eating the scraps. The patience paid off. I eat the remainder of the chilcken leg uninterrupted. After polishing off some fries, I jump back to the ground, knowing there will be no milk today. As I prance my four paws down the back alley, I see him hunched against the wall. I walk over to him and sit down. We look at each other, comrades, abandoned survivors, brought together by circumstance.