The Cloaca by Andrew Hood Read Free Book Online Page A

kitten.
    Another knock.
    Belly will only let you play with her ears until she feels she’s being made fun of. She’ll try and twitch her ears away from you, only they’re too stubby for this to be actually evasive. A bellicose growl and a chomp at your finger if you don’t lay off.
    A rapping now.
    Something I’ve noticed about cats: this threshold they’ve got. Comfort is their primary aim. When they’ve established a cozy place, they grab on firmly with both paws. Like Belly has this way of stretching out across our bed at night so that there is no way for Kim and I to sleep comfortably.
    We skitter our hands around her like chaseable critters, trying to tempt her appetite for the hunt.
    We tug the blankets.
    Mumble, mumble, she goes, ticked but immovable.
    Bark, bark, we try, tired and desperate and getting weird.
    Jumping up and down on our bed like it was a motel bed is what it takes to get to sleep most nights.
    Pounding.
    Kim stays put, but Belly looks over at me. She says, Are you going to get that or what? Keeping in mind that cats can’t talk like they can’t cry.
    I do.
    Three of them, arms raised, gripping swollen, sweating balloons.
    The phone rings. I bet you some irate mother.
    The kids see that I’m not Kim and they lower their arms. Then off they scamper.
    Two separate from the third and unload on him. He stands betrayed for the length of a commercial before charging after his best friends in the world.
    The phone rings and I actually can’t remember what it was exactly I was doing before Kim came in.
    Are you going to get that or what? Belly asks. In her own way.
    Once you could bike out to the limits of town to gander at the mostly unbridled night. The Milky Way was a drool stain on a cerulean pillow cover. Now stadium lights illuminate broad burrows and suggestive frames. A shopping centre with a library inside is being raised in anticipation of this burgeoning community.
    Life is becoming so crowded and bright these days.
    Kim was due there for five. He set the alarm for three.
    Why does Kim get up so early?
    â€œBecause rolling out of bed and onto the job blows,” he says. “I need some allusion of having a life outside of work.”
    Kim hides the alarm on the other side of the bedroom every night so he has to bound out of bed and scrounge around the laundry like a narcotics dog to silence it every morning. After that panic he’s wide awake. And you better believe me too.
    Kim always confuses illusion with allusion. And for Kim the Pacific Ocean is Specific also.
    For summer coffee we fill the ice cube tray with cream and leave it in the freezer overnight. My idea.
    I’m brilliant.
    Staring at the ceiling fan over our bed, trying to plan my day, I give Kim a head start.
    Kneading the night kinks out of his neck, he’s hunched over his sketchbook at the kitchen table. On the counter he’s set out my mug for me, unfilled.
    Our stove clock wasn’t changed when last we leapt ahead. Instead of adjusting it, we learned to read the time wrong. When we fall back we’ll have to get used to not correcting ourselves.
    Kim squints at the page, trying to see a clear image through the bramble of other ideas. Already he’s begun sketches for the graphic novel he will make. He’ll be ready to throw himself fully into the project by the time it’s my turn to start working.
    A few incorrect minutes happen.
    I slurp my coffee, reminding him I’m here, too.
    â€œSo,” he asks perfunctorily. “What’re your plans for the day?” Patronizingly.
    Kim will never tell me that he hates that I get up with him. Hates that because he’s working for me right now he has hardly a moment to himself. And the time he does have, I occupy.
    He never says anything like Belly never says anything.
    â€œThe Bully’s at the window,” he says.
    I look behind me and, with the kitchen lights on inside, only see me in the