“I’m very sorry about this,” said the neighbor. “I can usually coax her home.” Her face trembled a bit as she approached the orange tabby. “Come on now, honey.” The cat hissed and swiped at the woman’s hand, then hurried back to its spot.

“She might have rabies.”

“No!” cried the neighbor. “She’s just upset! Can’t you see how upset she is?”

He didn’t have time for this. Richard rubbed the back of his neck. He tried to think of ways to get rid of them both. The neighbor took a seat in the dirt and began softly snapping her fingers. The cat ignored her, made groaning noises, and used its claws to paw at the earth.

The cat’s empty belly swayed, nipples dragging on the ground. When he looked closer, Richard saw that its whiskers had been cut. He knew that cutting whiskers was similar to blinding; animals used them to feel where their eyes couldn’t reach. Richard glanced up at the house. The shades were closed.

He went over to where the cat was sitting and pushed at the ground with his foot. Richard’s shoe sank into the soft soil, and when it touched what had been buried there, he felt his spirits descend with his wingtip, a turning over into sadness. He thought about what was coming. There were worms, he could feel them, and tiny pebbles making their way into his socks.

Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus

miss waldron’s red colobus

Miss Waldron was an American. When she turned twelve years old, she was deposited in a New Hampshire boarding school to be raised by nuns. She watched from the window of her room as her father drove away in his forest green MG, the wheels leaving a trail of dust on the gravel road. Then Miss Waldron turned to the nun who had been cheerily unpacking her things and slapped her across the face.

This was the first picture taken by the private detectives: Miss Waldron with her hand out, a blur of hair and teeth. The sun was shining through the latticework behind her, sending a patterned shadow of bars across the curtains. The detectives were three educated men from Minnesota. They had seen tornadoes and men killed with pitchforks, but they had never seen a girl hit a nun.

Miss Waldron’s father had hired the private detectives to keep an eye on his daughter. Each week they sent a telegram detailing her life—what clothes she was wearing, what kind of cereal she ate, what hour she had hitchhiked to the nearest saloon. Sometimes they sent pictures. These messages were met with silence. The men sometimes wondered if the father read them at all.