My brother and I like to tip things over, blow things up and run away that we might sneak back to see how the pieces have landed.  But on those rare days when one of us is diminished or punished or in need of something we can’t explain, we sit on the curb and draw in the dirt with a stick.

Neither of us can draw much and our game is simple.  On this chilly Saturday morning, my brother starts by drawing a circle. “This is a ball.”  I take the stick (we always share a stick) and say, “This is not a ball.  It’s the sun.” I make spikes come out from the circle.  Then my brother says.  “No this is a wagon wheel.”  And he draws a circle connecting the ends of the spikes.

Mrs. Simon’s cat, Arlo, purr-footed and grease-jointed crosses the street looking only at us.  He is an ordinary black cat with a fling of un-centered white on his nose. We know his name because Mrs. Simon calls him all the time, “Pussy!  Sweeeeet Pussy,” she says out the back door.  It gets everyone in the neighborhood’s attention but Arlo’s.  Eventually she’ll say, “Arlo.  Ya goddamed cat.  Get the fuck in here!”  After that we don’t hear anything else and everyone goes back to what they were doing.

Arlo traces with his paw, following the end of the stick as my brother draws slowly so Arlo can keep up. At my turn I say, “The wagon wheel has run over a cat,” and I draw a curved tail emerging from the base of the circle.

My brother takes the stick and draws a triangle and a smaller line a bit above of my tail.  “No the wheel has stopped.  There’s his ear and a whisker.  The cat is only hiding until he feels like chasing something again.”

Arlo sits back.  His tail encircles his fat little feet, and we know the game is over.  We like Arlo-the-goddamned-cat.  But neither of us reaches out to pet him.  He doesn’t seem to be that kind of cat.