The Great Adventure

The Old Man lived in a small wooden house painted yellow with white trim on a forgotten back street in New Orleans. He didn’t own much. He had a few pieces of furniture, a refrigerator, a radio and an old TV. And he had rocking chair on a porch on which he sat and played his harmonica for the few neighbors that would happen by on his forgotten back street.

As you can see, the Old Man had very little in the world. And yet he also had very much. For one thing, he had his harmonica. His harmonica was important. It was important because he made a living playing it. He would play deep deep blues straight from the heart in clubs downtown and on records sold everywhere. He never made too much money and not many people knew his face, but lots of people had heard his mournful wail as well as his joyful cry. But the Old Man’s harmonica was much more than just a tool to make a living because, he often said, playing it was good for the soul and it made his heart happy. He always kept it in his shirt pocket for when he would need it.

Besides the harmonica the Old Man had two other very important things in the world. Unlike the harmonica, however, they weren’t exactly things. They were Peewee the cat and Tabitha the dog. They were his faithful and much loved companions. Sometimes Peewee would lie on his lap while he softly played and Tabitha, sitting at his feet, would cock her head when the sound she heard was new or unexpected. The Old Man was always trying out new and unexpected sounds on his harmonica. It kept him young, he said.

Peewee was Peewee because he was small, even for a cat. He was an orange tabby with very yellow eyes. He had once been an alley cat. He had been a very unhappy alley cat because what he really wanted was a nice lap to curl up in. He would cry at night because he was all alone. One afternoon, many years ago, he happened by the Old Man’s porch, wailing as he usually did, asking for a little food, and maybe hoping for a little love.

“Come here, kitty,” said the Old Man softly.

Having learned some hard lessons as an alley cat, the tabby was at first reluctant to come any closer. The Old Man went to the kitchen and brought out a saucer of milk, which the orange tabby cautiously approached, but then ravenously drank down.

“I see you have a new friend,” said Joyce as she watched from her porch. Joyce lived next door in a house that looked just like the Old Man’s but it was baby blue instead of yellow. And like the Old Man, she liked to hang out on her porch. She was a kindly old lady, only she was a bit strange, so she didn’t have many friends. But she and the Old Man got along very well. They often chatted about this and that and about gossip and about their lives. Because they lived in a poor neighborhood and the houses were very close together, they could each sit on their own porch as they talked.

“Well, I hope so,” replied the Old Man as he contemplated the cat, “Leastways I think I hope so. Mebbe I could use a lil’ ole friend to share my house with.” The Old Man was used to living alone, so he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted someone he had to care for. Still, even though he didn’t like to admit it to himself, sometimes he felt lonely at night. Maybe a softly purring pussycat was just what he needed when night was at its darkest.

The Old man went into his kitchen and brought out another saucer of milk, but this time he placed it just inside the door, and held it open.

“Let’s see if he’ll come inside,” he said to Joyce.

“Come here, pussycat, come here,” he then said soothingly to the pussycat.

The tabby slowly and ever so cautiously followed the Old Man through the door. He was still too famished not to. After polishing off his second saucer of milk the tabby looked up and meowed. He was obviously still hungry, but too scared to go any further into the house. The Old Man went to his refrigerator and brought back a large sausage. It quickly disappeared.

“My my, you’re downright starving, aren’t you? I wonder when you last had any eatin’,” wondered the Old Man to the pussycat.

The Old Man went to the refrigerator again and this time brought back some shrimp. The cat ate that too, and then he finally seemed satisfied. He purred and purred and rubbed the Old Man’s leg with his face and his body. He then decided that maybe it was safe to enter further into the house. Still fearful, the cat walked and looked around the house a bit and soon found a secure little spot under the bathtub (it was an old bathtub, one that stood on its feet) and promptly fell asleep there.

For a few days there the cat stayed, under the tub, because he was so tired and weak. The Old Man would feed him, and he put a litter box right there, next to the tub, but otherwise he mostly left the cat alone. A few times a day he would come with a chair and sit next to the tub and speak some nice things to the tabby. This was just to make him feel secure and comfortable. The cat would come out from under the tub and rub himself on the Old Man’s leg, turning around a few times as he did. He would then yawn a huge yawn. This was because he was still very very tired and could barely keep his eyes open, and so he would then go back under the tub to sleep some more.

After a few days, when he felt stronger and safer and had slept away his weariness, the cat came out from under the tub for good.

“What’ll you name him?” asked Joyce. It seemed clear that the tabby was happy to stay with the Old Man.

“I don’t know,” replied the Old Man, “He’s such a little critter. A little Peewee he is.”

“Its an Indian word for little, I think,” said Joyce.

And so Peewee stuck and it became the tabby’s name. And little Peewee became the Old Man’s very close friend.

Chapter 2