Last Burrito at 10

I have been sick for most of this week. Although I am recovering, naps still seem like the most welcome and productive activity for me these days. Thus, I resort to sending you a poem I wrote recently, rather than crafting something new for you.

You may not be a cat person like me, but there is something about my current cat, Little Stevie, that seems to draw most people in: He is unrelentingly friendly. He greets everyone at the door and happily receives pats and snuggles from all. If people are chatting in a circle in our living room, he usually joins the circle — sometimes lying in the center so that everyone can admire him, and sometimes lying along the circumference so that he can be an equal conversation partner. You might be able to coax him onto your lap for a pat, but, even if he doesn’t stay there, he never objects to your trying to befriend him in that way. All of that said, he is a cat of puzzles.

Puzzle Number One: What made him so friendly, given his back story? He was a stray, living in a parking lot in Memphis, Tennessee. One day a woman stopped her car at whatever establishment Little Stevie used for his stomping ground. When the woman opened her car door, Little Stevie jumped in. Just his luck — she was the mother of the person who ran the local animal shelter. She brought him in. They neutered him, treated him for fleas, gave him his shots, and shipped him north to an animal shelter near me in Maine. That’s where I found him. But the mystery remains: What, given that story, accounts for his friendliness?

Puzzle Number Two: For a cat who likes to eat just about anything, why is Little Stevie passionate — I mean, completely obsessed with — Mexican food? One night during the pandemic, when it seemed pretty safe to get takeout food again, we ordered out from our local Mexican restaurant. When I came through the door with a bag of Mexican food, Little Stevie greeted me with a loud meow, practically climbed up my leg to get to the food, and Would. Not. Stop. fussing until I gave him some of my green enchilada and refried beans. He has never behaved that way for any other kind of food. What gives?

Puzzle Number Three: Where did he get that scar on his nose?

Over time, I have concocted a story that might explain Little Stevie’s amazing friendliness, his love of Mexican food, and the scar on his nose. Truth in reporting: So far, Little Stevie has remained silent on the subject, preferring to keep the past in the past. I’ll probably never know if my story is true or not, but, in the absence of anything better, my story will have to do.

Last Burrito at 10, by Sylvia Stocker
Inspired by Little Steve The Cat, who was rescued from a Memphis parking lot,
and who showed up in our lives with an unquenchable friendliness
and an unaccountable craving for Mexican food.

The cat couldn't have known,
that night, rain pelting the cracked macadam parking lot of the old Mexican restaurant.
He couldn't have known,
scrunched under the pickup with the giant wheels.
He couldn't have known,
licking his paws and smoothing down his fur,
whisking abhorrent water away,
and washing his face, just for pride.
He couldn't have known what would happen,
when he saw the kitchen door open and a slouching man step out, sigh, and light a cigarette.
He couldn't have known, 
but he was hungry, so, so hungry.

The dishwasher couldn't have known,
working inside the kitchen of the old Mexican restaurant that night.
He couldn't have known,
so sweaty from hustling and thrusting load after load of dishes into the steamy dishwasher --
plates scraped, washed, and dispatched again, out to the hungry crowd.
He couldn't have known 
when he stepped outside the kitchen door for a cigarette, 
standing under the roof, breathing in fresh, damp air,
watching the rain shawling in sheets off the overhang.
He couldn't have known,
as he remembered his woman thundering out of his life that very morning,
the loud clap of the door the final punctuation mark on the storm of their love affair.
He couldn't have known what would happen,
when he spotted emerald eyes staring, unblinking, from beneath that old pickup truck.
but he was lonesome, so, so lonesome.

“Hey, little guy,” he says.
“Wait there.”
And he steps into the kitchen to collect his plate,
the last burrito of the evening that Cook prepares for him each night at shift's end at 10.
His favorite: chicken with extra cheese, refried beans, guacamole, and sour cream on the side.

“Here you go,” he says, outside again, and setting his plate down on the ground.

Emerald eyes blink,
then matted black and white fur streaks through the rain.

“Pretty good, huh?” the man says,
watching the little cat eat with uncommon abandon.
Chicken, cheese, beans, sour cream all swiftly consumed.

The little cat sniffs the guacamole, then turns,
sets to tidying up, licking his paw and sending it gliding over his fur,
pausing to gently wipe across the oozing cut on his nose.

“Hey, little guy,” says the man,
“That looks nasty. A fight over some girl?”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, reaching down to pat the matted fur,
and feeling a different, thundering rumble beneath his hand.

The dishwasher straightens up, takes a drag from his cigarette,
and sends a plume of smoke into the air.
The cat shakes his body, sets his tail to periscope
and glides into the night.

They couldn't have known, man and cat,
that one last burrito, the last burrito at 10,
set on the ground, the most common table of all,
would turn a lonely night into softness and comfort.