Advice from a Manx Cat
Gene J. Grey

March, 1953

I paused for a moment before dropping the other nickel in the slot. What has come over me in the past months? Has it been to the good or the bad? Good and evil. I feel myself becoming some crustacean or hard shelled animal, walking the streets like a leaden soldier, listening to people's conversations, perceiving, analyzing every word like some chemical apparatus, but feeling little in my heart, only some fanatic desire of self preservation.

I let the other coin drop, and then dialed the number. I looked at my watch, two o'clock in the morning. Even if I do get them up, at least I'll be courteous enough to explain why I wasn't there. Someone answered, and immediately I knew from the loud sounds at the other end that a few people were still there.

"Hello, Annette, this is Gene, I'm sorry but . . . . . . Is it all right if . . . . . . yes, I'm in the neighborhood . . . . . . yes, I can find the place."

The basement door opened, and framed within its proscenium I could see the last remnants of what from experience could have not been too successful of a party. Annette stood before me, dressed in long, black ballet tights, a sweater, ballet shoes and long strings of little beads, framing her small breasts. She stared at me with large, moist eyes, which reminded me of my prize glass marbles with which I used to play Chinese checkers. Finally her face broke into a toothy smile and she spoke. What she said I don't recall, for by that time my eyes were scanning the small room, trying to discern some recognizable face in the darkness, looking for some outstretched branch to which I could leap as a starting off place.

Our Negro brothers were there, of course, trying like mad to feel part of the whole thing. In fact everyone was trying like mad, trying so goddamned hard to show that they were as good as anyone else. The nice girls were trying too hard to look and feel like sluts, the artists were trying to feel like young publicity agents, and the bookkeepers were trying to throw off their inhibitions. One light skinned young man had given up trying and was curled up in the corner of the room in the arms of Morpheus. The whole gathering reminded me of a group of high school players, all in costume, standing around in the wings, waiting for their cues. Each one, still not convinced that he had thoroughly memorized his lines.

At length, I spotted Ronnie, stretched out on the couch, underneath some flabby broad bottomed blond, and I walked over to join him.

As I walked out onto the street I asked myself: Is it possible that I have come to a point in my life where I can walk out of door, leaving no regrets, or unanswered questions behind. Of course the path ahead still is obscure and hazy, in fact I hope there always will be a little haze to navigate through, but at least the road behind has been well covered. Regrets, mistakes, humiliations, sure, plenty. Much garbage has been destroyed, not without much not without much forethought and pondering on my part, however. I’m not an extravagant person, and I believe that many by-products for the benefit of mankind can be manufactured out of the waste material.

I sit here now, in my Ivory Tower, thinking over last night, and I come to the conclusion that appearing in that play was a final performance for now I see that enjoyment and happiness is only a by-product of life, that one can only enjoy the fruits without guilt when he knows the earth has been tilled and cultivated to the best of his ability and self sacrifice. This glow of self satisfaction is an evil of allowed to linger too long. One must realize in life what are the danger signs of the ego and self esteem. It can be a malignant disease, eroding and devouring the tissues to complete destruction.

As I passed by a deserted alley at the intersection of Bedford and Barrow Streets, I noticed a gray and black speckled Manx cat perched on top of an overturned empty carton of Kotex. Staring at me with a copper eye, he said:

“Love and Beauty are sacrifice

“Love and beauty are outward, not inward

“For outward is the universe, the sun

“Inward is the ego.”