My legs itched while my aunt rubbed alcohol on them. I stood inside the screened porch of the trailer that was nestled in an orange grove in among the sandy hills near Orlando, and my aunt said, “What have you gotten into? A fire ant bed?”
“No,” I said. “They must be what Mama called no-see-ums that bit us last year at the beach.”
“We don’t have those here,” she said. “Thought I just saw a flea jump off one of the mangy cats your new uncle brought home. Son of a bitch can’t resist a stray.” She sucked on a Winston, tilted her head, and exhaled toward the ceiling.”
“I’ll show him,” she said. “Help me scoop them and put them in this grocery sack.”
One they were in the sack, she folded the sack at the top and made a handle and poked air holes on the sides. She put them in her Civic’s floorboard in the back, we got in, and she drove several miles through the groves until we passed over a bridge with a run-off creek below. She pulled to the sand shoulder and put the sack out and turned it sideways. The cats scrambled out and meowed, but when they heard the sound of trickling water, they scrambled down the hill.
“Shelter under the bridge and fresh water. They’ll be okay, the fleas will be gone, but don’t say nothing to your new uncle. I’ll just tell him they ran off.”
I nodded, and when we got back to their trailer, she vacuumed and sprayed the green outdoor flooring and then scrambled eggs and fried hotdogs. When Uncle Sam came home, he ate and asked about the cats, and my aunt said, “Ain’t seen ‘em.”
Later, when I had gone into the spare room, got on the single bed, and covered up, I heard them argue and my aunt whimper. The trailer door slammed shut, and I heard his truck drive off. The next morning, the cats were back, and my aunt said, “Some people love stray animals more than people.”
My parents picked me up on the way back from their business trip and seemed sad to see the flea scabs cover my legs. My new uncle rubbed my head and said, “It’ll help make him a man.” I never saw him again because my aunt left him and found herself another stray.
Niles Reddick is author of a novel, two story collections, and a novella. His work has been featured in over four hundred publications including The Saturday Evening Post, PIF, BlazeVox, New Reader Magazine, Citron Review, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Boston Literary Magazine. His website is here.
